Photo courtesy and © Destination Kohler

It's not a links, but the Duke's Course is a great one to play on a Scotland Golf Vacation.

The Duke's Course is one of the best you can play on a St. Andrews, Scotland golf vacation, but it's not a links course, and we mean that in two ways.

For one thing, it's a parkland-style course located about two miles inland. For another, it's not part of the St. Andrews Links Trust, which oversees the famous Old Course and its six siblings (Balgove, Castle, Eden, Jubilee, New and Strathtyrum).

Rather, the Duke's Course is part of the Old Course Hotel, purchased in 2004 by Herb Kohler, owner of Wisconsin's American Club and its Whistling Straits and Blackwolf Run courses. As such, the hotel can guarantee its guests tee times on a championship-style golf course, something it can't do with respect to the Links Trust courses.

The layout was designed by five-time British Open champion Peter Thompson in 1995, but recently revised by Pete Dye's former associate, Tim Liddy. In short, the Duke's Course is big golf — 7,512 yards from the championship tees (there are now four other sets of tees), broad fairways, large greens, sweeping vistas of town and sea.

Thomson's revetted pot bunkers, akin to those on the Old Course, have been replaced by open and more natural-looking raged-edged affairs. Also, a good deal of earth was moved on the 4th and 5th holes to improve sight lines.

The most obvious Liddy change was the creation of four new holes, 15 through 18, all quite good, two of them taking the place of Thomson holes which proved too steep for most people on a Scotland golf vacation.

The Duke's is a genuinely superior parkland course, testing and beautiful from start to finish. And, for those taking a Scotland golf vacation during the busy summer months, it can prove to be the best thing of all: a guaranteed tee time.

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