Kingsbarns: How Two Americans Turned a Field Full of Landmines Into One of the Most Profitable Golf Courses in the World

The first new Scottish links course in 70 years has no members, closes for winter, and charges more per round than the Old Course at St Andrews. This is the story of how it happened.

This is a story of how a group of men turned a flat piece of farmland into the first new Scottish links course in 70 years — one that has since become one of the most profitable and successful golf clubs in the world, rivalling Pebble Beach.

Kingsbarns

Before we get into the story, let me give you the numbers.

Kingsbarns Golf Links, which opened in the year 2000:

• Sells between 27,000–28,000 rounds of golf per year

• Has an average green fee of £420 per round — £70 more than the Old Course at St Andrews

• Has no members

• Closes for winter

• Is one of the most profitable and operationally efficient golf courses in the world

The vast majority of people who play Kingsbarns don’t know the story of how it was built.

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Landmines and Barley

In 1939, at the outbreak of World War 2, the British army wanted to defend its shores against a potential German invasion. The army put up defences along certain areas of the coastline that they believed were exposed to a German attack.

One such area was a 2 mile stretch of land just south of St.Andrews near the village of Kingsbarns. A series of landmines and defensive structures were put up to defend this wee part of Scotland should the Germans ever decide to invade.

After the war, the land was converted back to farmland for potato and barley to be used for the production of whisky.

Golf, as you know, began in St.Andrews but it was really only in the 50 or so years after the war where travel became more accessible and the average golfer was able to make the voyage to the home of golf.

Throughout the 90’s more and more golfers were making their way over to this special part of Scotland for a once in a lifetime experience in golfing heaven.

By the mid 90’s, demand for tee times at St.Andres was growing with about 116,000 rounds of golf played across the St.Andrews courses each year and the R&A identified that figure was rising by 16% YoY.

For context, as of 2026 The Old Course currently hosts around 50,000 rounds of golf each year and over 280,000 rounds are played across the 7 St.Andrews courses.

It was clear that soon there would be an overflow of keen golfers looking for tee times in the area. It may seem obvious now to build a new links course in the area but for context there hadn’t been a new links course built in Scotland for 70 years.

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Two Americans With a Vision

Art Dunkley and Mark Parsinen had both made the pilgrimage to St Andrews and fallen in love with what they found.