Postcards from St Andrews: Winston Margaritis
A scholar, a writer, and a year in the Home of Golf
As the University of St Andrews’ Saints Golf Programme builds towards The Open Championship’s return to the Old Course in 2027, the first in a new Postcards from St Andrews series introduces a postgraduate golfer with an unusual dissertation topic, and an even more unusual sense of what he came here for.
Winston Margaritis did not come to St Andrews to turn professional. He is quick to say so himself.
The 27-year-old, originally from Tennessee and an undergraduate golfer at Florida State University, arrived in St Andrews last year as one of a small group of postgraduate players in the University’s Saints Golf Programme, students who have already completed a US college career and come to Scotland for a further year of elite, eligibility-free competitive golf, coached within one of the world’s great universities.
It is, by his own account, a largely undiscovered route. “I would never have known about this had I not had two friends from the US that did it,” he says. Both had studied at St Andrews before him and urged him to apply. He did and has spent the past year playing home matches on the Links courses, competing across Scotland, England, Sweden, Ireland, Spain and Portugal, and, in his words, trying to get to know “every stone in the town”.
That last phrase is telling. Winston writes about his experience on his own Substack, and much of it is about restraint as much as achievement, choosing team potlucks and evenings on the practice ground over weekend trips to Europe’s more famous courses. “There are other times in my life when I can go do those trips,” he says. “I just wanted to be with my teammates and play golf with them and go to the pub and work out and hang out.”
He is also finishing a Masters dissertation in the University of St Andrews Business School on brand authenticity in commercialised sport, using the Masters Tournament and the life of Bobby Jones as his central case study, how an institution founded on one man’s personal values has maintained its identity while the modern game has globalised around it. It is an academic pursuit that shares a great deal, he suggests, with why he chose St Andrews in the first place: some things, a trophy, a town, a tradition, simply cannot be manufactured.
Winston is the first subject of Postcards from St Andrews, a new content series from the University’s Saints Golf programme profiling the individuals who make up one of Britain’s most distinctive student sports programmes, one that pairs elite competitive golf with a university education, embedded in the town regarded as the game’s spiritual home. The series will run through the 2026–27 season, building towards The Open Championship’s return to the Old Course in July 2027.
Asked to sum up his year, Winston reaches for a much older word than ‘career’ or ‘opportunity’.
“I think that if I had to sum up my St Andrews experience… it’s because I love the game of golf. It’s not more complicated than that.”
Postcards from St Andrews is produced by the University of St Andrews Saints Golf Programme. To find out more or to support the programme, contact Elaine McBride, Golf Partnership Officer, at [email protected], or visit the Saints Golf web page.
Winston will graduate with an MLitt in International Business in December 2026 and is currently writing for Golf Channel.