St Andrews ready for Open Championship

The new paint has finally dried on a multitude of shop fronts, bars, restaurants and railings. The greens have been trimmed to perfection and the elegant silver Claret Jug is gleaming in the clubhouse of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club. St Andrews is ready, braced for the onslaught of up to 50,000 people a day as The Open Championship makes its regular stop in the old city on the Fife shore.

St Andrews has a resident population of some 16,500 and, during term time at the ancient university, that figure jumps by another 8,000. The numbers may be more impressive today, but in reality the small city has been dealing with a constant stream of visitors for more than 1,000 years. As the religious capital of Scotland, the one-time resting place of relics of St Andrew, it became a focal point for pilgrims throughout medieval times.

Today's pilgrims are more interested in earthly pursuits, particularly the pursuit of golf balls around the links that have been home to the game for more than 600 years.

The town has 42 hotels and guest houses ranging from the 209-room Fairmont and the 144-room Old Course Hotel to smaller establishments with five to eight rooms. On top of that are a number of bed and breakfast places, their numbers swelled by many private homes that are brought into service during The Open. And many locals move out altogether, leaving their houses and flats to be let as the demand for accommodation reaches its peak.

Getting a drink in St Andrews has never been a problem and there is a full 18-hole round of pubs and bars, many more if hotel watering holes are taken into account, but sitting down to a meal can be a different matter.

Some restaurants are fully booked weeks in advance. Others serve only on a first-come-first-serve basis. During the last Open, two Australian golf writers finally discovered an enticingly open door, no queue and two empty tables. Sitting down with a sigh of relief they were approached by a waiter who confessed: "We've run out of food." But few will go hungry.

The incentives to house and feed huge numbers of spectators are enormous. The 2005 Championship brought over £32 million of new money into Scotland, £23 million into the local Fife economy, and generated £40 million of worldwide television exposure.