St Andrews Parkway

St Andrews Parkway is located at the Links in Bell Block and, like almost all the other roads in the development, it has a golfing connection.

Known as the ‘Home of Golf’, the St Andrews Links is one of the oldest courses in the world. The club is immensely proud of its long history and traces golf on the links back to the 15^th century. In 1552 Archbishop John Hamilton signed an official charter granting the right for the people of St Andrews to play golf – known back then as goiff, gowfe or golve – on the Links.

The club is now home to seven different courses, the most famous of which is simply called the Old Course. One of golf’s four majors is The Open Championship and the Old Course has hosted it thirty times since 1873, most recently in 2022 when Australian player Cameron Smith won.

Arguably New Zealand’s most famous golfer, Sir Bob Charles, won The Open in 1963 at Royal Lytham & St Annes. However, New Zealand golfer Simon Owen came within a whisker of winning the 1978 Open at St Andrews. A third round 67 rocketed Owen up the leaderboard into second equal place alongside the legendary Jack Nicklaus. A closing round 69 saw Nicklaus win his third Open, while Owen’s 71 saw him finish in joint second place.

In October 2022, Kiwi golfer Ryan Fox had a career-defining win at St Andrews, taking home $1.43m for his victory in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.

While St Andrews Parkway sits alongside many other golf-themed streets at the Links, it is the only one that carries the word ‘Parkway’. This unusual term is more commonly associated with American roads and is used to describe a landscaped thoroughfare. In this case, St Andrews Parkway features a median strip complete with decorative stones and native plants.  

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.