Dunhill Links: Hollywood stars to join world-class golfers at St Andrews

And the field could hardly be more impressive for the $5m four-day event, also being played at Carnoustie and Kingsbarns and running until Sunday, as it features an array of the world’s best golfers in addition to celebrities forming half of the team competition’s partnerships alongside their pros.

Golfing royalty on show includes defending champion Matt Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton, Billy Horschel, Brooks Koepka, Shane Lowry, Robert MacIntyre, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm, plus Fife pair Connor Syme and Calum Hill.

They are teeing up with Hollywood stars Michael Douglas, Andy Garcia, Bill Murray and Kathryn Newton.

Douglas, 80, star of blockbuster films such as Romancing the Stone, Wall Street, Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction, Disclosure, the War of the Roses and Traffic, is making his sixth appearance in the championship.

Over his movie career, he has won three Golden Globes and two Oscars, first as producer of 1975's best picture, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and then as best actor in 1987 for his role as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. More recently, he has appeared in the Ant-Man trilogy from 2015 to 2023 and 2013’s Behind the Candelabra.

Douglas has stated that the greatest moment in his golfing career was when he played with winner Colin Montgomerie on the final day on the Old Course in the 2005 Alfred Dunhill Links.

Also playing are rock stars past and present.

Keane’s Tom Chaplin, Linkin Park’s Dave Farrell and Mike Rutherford of Genesis and Mike and the Mechanics are sharing the fairways with US rock legends Huey Lewis and Bon Jovi’s Tico Torres.

It’s Chaplin’s seventh Alfred Dunhill Links appearance and the 45-year-old said: “Playing St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns is the greatest honour any amateur golfer can have, three very different tests at stunning and historic venues.”

In the field too is broadcaster and journalist Piers Morgan, a former writer and editor for several British newspapers and currently host of the news and opinion show Piers Morgan Uncensored on YouTube.

Peter Jones, best known as a panellist on UK TV series Dragons’ Den and US TV show American Inventor, is playi ng as well.