Booking & Access
Where to Stay for the Open Championship at St Andrews 2027
St Andrews has fewer than 3,000 hotel beds. The Open Championship draws 230,000 spectators. A practical guide to accommodation for Open week — what exists, what it costs, and when you needed to book it.
St Andrews has a permanent population of around 17,000 people and a hotel and B&B bed stock to match. The Open Championship at St Andrews draws approximately 230,000 spectators across seven days of the event, plus practice rounds. These two numbers are not compatible without a significant accommodation overflow into the surrounding area — and that overflow stretches further than most first-time visitors expect.
For the 150th Open at St Andrews in 2022, accommodation within 15 miles of the town was fully booked 14 months before the championship. Some properties reported enquiries two years in advance. The 2027 return will follow the same pattern. If you are reading this more than 12 months before the tournament and have not yet booked, you are in a workable position. If it is six months out, read this guide with urgency.
The honest accommodation picture for St Andrews
The town has no large hotel district. Accommodation is spread across a small number of hotels, a larger number of B&Bs, some university residence rooms released to visitors in summer, and a limited supply of self-catering flats. In normal weeks, this supply is adequate for a golf tourism town. During Open week, the entire supply is absorbed within hours of availability opening — and the prices at that point reflect the imbalance.
The useful mental model: think of your accommodation search not as "where to stay in St Andrews" but as "how far from St Andrews am I prepared to commute." The answer to that question opens up a much larger inventory.
In St Andrews itself
The Old Course Hotel
The most prominent option — it sits directly on the 17th fairway of the Old Course, visible from the tee. During a normal summer, rooms run from around £400/night. For the 2022 Open, rooms at the Old Course Hotel were quoted at over £1,000/night for championship week by the time the booking window opened, and were gone within days. For 2027, the hotel will open its championship-week availability at a date to be confirmed, and it will sell out quickly.
If the Old Course Hotel is your plan, register with the hotel now and set a reminder to check their 2027 Open availability as soon as it is announced. This is not a hotel you will find on a general booking search during Open week — any availability will be marketed directly to previous guests and waitlist registrants first.
The Fairmont St Andrews
Two miles south of the town on the cliff above the sea, the Fairmont operates two courses of its own (Torrance and Kittocks) and sits at the premium end of the St Andrews accommodation market. It is slightly less exposed to the full Open-week pricing premium than the Old Course Hotel, because it is not on the course itself. Rooms in the £250–£500/night range are realistic for peak championship dates. The Fairmont's remote location from the town centre means you will need a car or the hotel shuttle for Open week access.
Macdonald Rusacks Hotel
On The Scores, directly overlooking the 18th fairway. The Rusacks has had a significant renovation in recent years and is the most central premium option after the Old Course Hotel. Championship week availability is extremely limited.
Rufflets Country House Hotel
A mile from the town centre on the Strathkinness road — a Victorian country house hotel with around 25 rooms, a good restaurant, and a garden that makes it a better place to recover from a long day at the tournament than most options within walking distance of the town. Rooms typically run £180–£280/night in peak season. Not as immediately booked-out as the Old Course Hotel because it doesn't appear in every guidebook, but still fills fast for Open week.
B&Bs on The Scores and Murray Park
The concentration of B&Bs along The Scores and in the streets immediately behind it represents the town's mid-range accommodation layer. Individual properties vary significantly in quality; those that appear consistently in visitor reviews for golf tourism weeks (Lorimer House, Aslar Guest House, and a handful of others) book out for Open week within weeks of availability opening. In 2022 several B&B owners reported fully booked lists for 2027 beginning the week after the 2022 championship ended.
East Neuk self-catering (the practical option for groups)
For groups of four or more, a self-catering cottage in the East Neuk is the most cost-effective and logistically sensible option. The villages of Crail, Anstruther, Pittenweem, St Monans and Elie are between 9 and 20 miles south of St Andrews on the A917, and all have a supply of holiday cottages that open to weekly bookings. During Open week the drive to St Andrews is manageable — under 30 minutes in ordinary traffic, longer on competition days when road management is in place.
A four-bedroom cottage in the East Neuk runs approximately £2,000–£4,000/week in peak summer, depending on the property and exact location. For a group of eight splitting the cost, that is £250–£500/person for the week — substantially less than the per-night cost of any hotel in St Andrews during the championship, and with the advantage of an equipped kitchen, a living space, and access to some of the best coastal walking and eating in Scotland outside the tournament bubble.
Booking approach: Sykes Cottages and Cottages.com carry the largest inventory of East Neuk self-catering. Airbnb also lists many properties. Search for availability on the championship weeks at least 12 months in advance; any cottage within 20 miles of St Andrews will be under consideration from visitors planning around the Open.
Dundee (14 miles north)
Dundee is the underappreciated option for Open week. The city has a significant hotel inventory — Premier Inn, Holiday Inn, Malmaison, Apex City Quay, Marriott — none of which carries the championship-week premium of anything with "St Andrews" in the postcode. A room in Dundee during Open week in 2022 was available at normal rates of £80–£150/night at properties that would be fully booked in St Andrews at three to five times that price.
The transport link is straightforward: Dundee to Leuchars by ScotRail takes 20 minutes, and Leuchars to St Andrews is a 12-minute bus or taxi. Door to door from a central Dundee hotel to the Old Course is under 45 minutes without a car, slightly less than the equivalent journey from parts of St Andrews itself during heavy championship traffic.
The V&A Dundee — opened 2018, the first design museum in Scotland — gives a non-golfing companion a serious and worthwhile alternative to a day at the tournament.
Best Dundee options for golf visitors: Apex City Quay (waterfront, car parking, above-average breakfast), Malmaison Dundee (characterful building, good restaurant), Sleeperz Hotel (budget, directly adjacent to the railway station — the optimal location for anyone commuting to Leuchars).
Edinburgh (55 miles west)
Edinburgh as a base for a one or two-day trip to the Open makes practical sense. The train from Edinburgh Waverley to Leuchars runs throughout the day, takes approximately 60 minutes, and ScotRail typically adds capacity during championship weeks. Door to door from a central Edinburgh hotel to the Old Course is under 90 minutes.
The city's hotel inventory runs to 8,000+ rooms at every price point, and none of it will be championship-week priced. The practical choices for golf visitors are the hotels around Waverley station (easy morning departure, simple navigation) or those in the New Town (ten-minute walk to Waverley, quieter neighbourhood, better restaurant access for evening meals).
Edinburgh also gives a non-golfing partner a genuine city's worth of alternatives during days when the golfer is at the tournament: National Museum of Scotland, the Royal Mile, Arthur's Seat, the Scottish National Gallery. For a week that includes golf at St Andrews, spectating at the Open, and time in Edinburgh, the city-as-base model works well and costs significantly less than anything equivalent in St Andrews itself.
St Andrews University residences
The University releases student accommodation for summer visitors when the academic year ends. During Open week this inventory has historically been offered through the University's visitor accommodation service — basic but functional rooms in town-centre locations, at prices well below the hotel market. The supply is limited and competition from students, conference delegates and golf visitors is real.
Watch the University's accommodation pages (standrews.ac.uk) from approximately January 2027 for summer 2027 availability.
Timing summary
| Option | Book by |
|---|---|
| Old Course Hotel | As soon as 2027 availability opens (watch hotel website) |
| Any St Andrews hotel | 12–14 months before championship |
| East Neuk self-catering (group) | 12 months before; 18 months for best properties |
| St Andrews B&Bs | 10–12 months before |
| Dundee hotels | 6–8 months before; earlier for championship week specifically |
| Edinburgh hotels | 3–6 months before |
| University residences | January–March 2027 |
What to watch for on pricing
Open Championship week accommodation pricing is subject to surge behaviour that is unusual even in Scotland's generally demand-driven tourist market. Properties within 15 miles of St Andrews will apply significant premiums from the moment championship dates are confirmed — typically 2–3x normal rates for hotels, and 50–100% premiums even on self-catering cottages.
The practical implication: book before the championship dates are confirmed, when you can, at properties that offer flexible cancellation. Once the official dates are announced and the first wave of booking activity hits, availability in St Andrews and within 10 miles will be extremely limited within 48–72 hours.
Prices and availability above are based on patterns from the 2022 and 2019 Opens and are estimates pending 2027 confirmation. Verify current pricing directly with properties before booking.
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