The TRAVELER'S JOURNAL: May thirty-first, putting in auld grey St. Andrews.

A stately, smokey-grey stone structure stands alone on a peninsula of sandy ridges and grassy hollows 30 miles northeast of Edinburgh, Scotland, across the wind-whipped Firth of Forth. For anyone who's ever picked up a putter, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews is mecca, the place where the game is most revered, where it's been played for more than 500 years.

The seaside links of its venerable Old Course offer undulating fairways of sandy sod that snake between the gorse bush and dunes. Add a constant swirl of weather off the North Sea, and the result is an endless, ever-changing supply of golfing challenges. A round at St. Andrews is different than anywhere else. As Arnold Palmer has observed, "You don't even have to play well to love it here."

If golf at St. Andrews is special, so is the auld grey toon itself, which grew up around a great cathedral built in the 12th century. It now has lots of shops and dozens of places to stay, from quaint guest houses to grand hotels. St. Andrews University, founded in 1410, is Scotland's oldest, with a worldwide reputation for excellence.

The Old Course is open to all golfers who have a handicap certificate or letter of introduction from a home club. The 60 to 80 golfers whose names are drawn at a ballot held each afternoon get starting times to play the following day. But the Old Course is only one of five in Saint Andrews. Even unlucky duffers will find challenge and charm aplenty on the area's other 72 holes of golf.

FMI For more information on St. Andrews, call the British Tourist Authority at 212-986-2200 or www.travelbritain.org. For information about St Andrews Old Course tee times call 1-888-390-1811.

For information about packaged golfing tours:

Irish Links Travel 800-824-6538 www.irish-links.com

Jerry Quinlan's Celtic golf 800-535-6148 or www.jqcelticgolf.com

Wide World of Golf 800-214-4653 www.wideworldofgolf.com

Destination Destination Ireland 800-832-1848 or www.digbtravel.com

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