American Express and St Andrews Links Trust announced a partnership on 18 August 2026 naming Amex the Official Payments Partner of St Andrews, adding the venue to a sports portfolio that already includes the NFL, Formula 1, Wimbledon, the US Open and title sponsorship of a PGA Tour event in California, according to City A.M.’s reporting.
The mechanism is specific and cardmember-facing rather than a branding campaign. Eligible Platinum and Centurion cardholders get an exclusive application window to enter a drawing for 2027 golf packages at select St Andrews courses, including the more than 600-year-old Old Course, which hosts the 155th Open Championship that year. Selected members play with one guest, and receive complimentary pull trolleys and customised photography commemorating the round, per the official announcement. The Centurion window opens 26 August 2026 at 10am BST, the Platinum window opens 2 September 2026 at 10am BST, and applications close 9 September 2026 at 11:59pm BST. The benefit extends to travel: access to 20 premium Scottish hotel properties through Amex’s Fine Hotels + Resorts and The Hotel Collection programmes.
St Andrews Links Trust was explicit that the deal is additive rather than exclusionary: “The number of tee times available for St Andrews local golfers and all other traditional access routes are not impacted by this partnership, while St Andrews Links will also continue to offer its affordable golf initiatives,” the Trust said, per Golf Business News. Amex’s Shiz Suzuki framed the partnership around access specifically: “We’re proud of this first-of-its-kind partnership with St Andrews Links Trust to provide the meaningful access American Express is known for.” St Andrews Links Trust’s James Ralley said the deal “will open up a new channel to help us raise awareness of our brand and existing visitor golf opportunities.”
Neither party disclosed the financial terms of the partnership.
The SmartGolfHub view
Most golf sponsorship is still priced and sold like broadcast media: a logo, a hospitality tent, an impressions count. This deal is priced around something completely different — the fact that an Old Course tee time in an Open Championship year is one of the genuinely scarce assets in golf, and Amex is selling its cardholders a real, credentialed shot at it rather than a discount or a point multiplier. That’s a materially higher-value proposition to a premium cardholder than almost anything Amex could do with the same sponsorship budget spent on conventional exposure, because scarcity is the one thing money alone can’t easily buy elsewhere. The model generalises well below St Andrews’ scale. Any golf course, resort or event with a genuinely hard-to-get asset — a members-only tee time, a rare hospitality package, a limited-capacity clinic with a touring pro — has the same commercial lever available: partner with a card network, a bank, or a premium brand and sell access rather than logo space. The constraint isn’t finding a sponsor willing to pay for exposure; most operators already have that conversation. It’s having an asset scarce enough to be worth gating in the first place, and being disciplined enough, as St Andrews was here, to protect existing access for the people the asset actually belongs to while doing it.