The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship is the only regular DP World Tour event where one leaderboard mixes scores from three different courses. For three days, every player plays one round at Carnoustie, one at Kingsbarns and one on the Old Course at St Andrews, in an order set by the draw. A 68 on Thursday can mean something very different from the same 68 a day later, on another course.
To measure those differences, we matched every round of the 2026 edition with the course and day on which it was played, using the official leaderboard and the official draw. That gives 502 completed rounds over the first three days, from 168 professionals; Jorge Campillo withdrew after his opening round.
Kingsbarns gave, Carnoustie took
Over the first three days, Kingsbarns played as the easiest course by a clear margin, and Carnoustie as the hardest.
| Course | Field average (par 72) | Rounds under 70 | Rounds of 75 or more |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kingsbarns | 69.56 (−2.44) | 51% | 8 |
| Old Course | 70.73 (−1.27) | 32% | 10 |
| Carnoustie | 71.26 (−0.74) | 22% | 22 |
More than half the rounds at Kingsbarns were under 70, against barely one in five at Carnoustie, where 22 players signed for 75 or worse.
Raw averages have a limit: stronger players might simply have played one course on a kinder day. The Dunhill format offers a cleaner test, because every player played all three courses, so each can be compared with himself. Once each player’s overall level and the day of play are accounted for, the gap holds: for the same golfer, Kingsbarns was worth about 1.7 shots more than Carnoustie, and the Old Course about half a shot more.
Session by session
| Thursday | Friday | Saturday | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carnoustie | −0.75 | −1.76 | +0.29 |
| Kingsbarns | −1.62 | −3.20 | −2.49 |
| Old Course | −0.95 | −1.43 | −1.45 |
These figures need one caution. Each session was played by a different third of the field, so the gaps between sessions mix the conditions with the level of the group that happened to be playing. Three conclusions survive that caution. Kingsbarns was the easiest course on every day of the week. Carnoustie on Saturday was the toughest session of the week, and the only one in which the field averaged over par. And Friday was the most generous day: comparing the same players, it was worth roughly a shot more than Thursday.
Then came Sunday at St Andrews
The 70 players who made the cut averaged 71.60 on the Old Course in the final round. The same players had averaged 69.29 on the same course earlier in the week.
Part of that 2.3-shot gap is a statistical effect: the cut selects players who scored well, and some of those good scores do not repeat. The rest is consistent with the gusty conditions reported on the final day. The numbers do not prove how much the wind cost, but they show how much the same course could change within one championship.
The trap we chose not to fall into
The draw split the field into three groups of 56 players, each playing the courses in a different order. The group that started at Kingsbarns and finished its rotation at Carnoustie on Saturday sent only 17 players to Sunday, against 29 for the group that started at Carnoustie.
It is tempting to conclude that the draw decided the cut. The data cannot support that. The Carnoustie-first group also included Tommy Fleetwood, Matt and Alex Fitzpatrick, Justin Rose, Tyrrell Hatton, Robert MacIntyre, Brooks Koepka and Sepp Straka. With one week of scores, stronger players and a kinder sequence cannot be separated.
What the leaderboard hides
The more revealing exercise is to compare each round with the average of the players on the same course on the same day.
- Josele Ballester‘s three consecutive 68s were not worth the same. His Carnoustie 68 was 3.2 shots better than the field that day, his Kingsbarns 68 only 0.8 better, his Old Course 68 2.6 better. Identical numbers, three different performances.
- David Ravetto‘s best round of the week, relative to the field, was his Saturday 68 at Carnoustie: about four shots better than the average in the week’s toughest session.
- Jeremy Paul‘s 72 at Carnoustie looks like the weak link between his 69, 68 and closing 68. It actually matched the session average. His Sunday 68 was 3.6 shots better than the final-round field.
- Thomas Detry signed one of the outstanding rounds of the week: a Saturday 65 on the Old Course, 5.6 shots better than the field. His Sunday 72 on the same course was almost exactly average. Not a collapse, but an exceptional round followed by an ordinary one.
- Michael Stewart‘s opening 65 at Carnoustie, 6.2 shots better than the field, was one of the four best rounds of the first three days relative to conditions.
- Adrian Meronk‘s 63 came at Kingsbarns, the easiest course, and was still 6.5 shots better than the players around him that day.
- Tommy Fleetwood‘s closing 64 was 7.6 shots better than the Sunday average: the best round of the entire championship by this measure.
Why it matters beyond the Dunhill
The lesson applies to any golfer. A score only means something against the course and the conditions it was played in. A 72 on a hard course in a strong wind can be a better round than a 68 on an easy one in calm weather. The card records the number of strokes, not what those strokes were worth that day.
Club golfers do not need a statistical model to apply this. The simplest comparison is usually enough: how did the rest of the field score that day? It changes nothing on the card or in the handicap, but it can change how a round is judged. With three courses, the same players and one leaderboard, the Dunhill is an almost perfect laboratory for showing why a 68 is not always a 68.
Method: official round scores for all 168 professionals, matched to the official draw to identify the course played each day. Session averages include every player who completed the round. Because each session was played by one of the three draw groups, differences between sessions also reflect the level of the group playing. Course effects “for the same player” come from a model that accounts for each player’s overall level and for the day of play.
Sources
- Alfred Dunhill Links Championship – official professional leaderboard, 2026
- Alfred Dunhill Links Championship – official draw, rounds 1–4, 2026
- Golf-Live.de – final-round report (wind conditions on Sunday)