Tiger Woods set to open sports bar in St. Andrews

Tiger Woods and St. Andrews form a dynamic duo. It’s the Home of Golf alongside an 82-time PGA TOUR winner, who won the 2000 and 2005 Open Championships at The Old Course at St. Andrews.

The pairing will now be permanent. T-Squared Social, the sports bar and entertainment center co-founded by Woods and Justin Timberlake, will open its second location in St. Andrews. The Fife Council has green-lighted the project, the BBC reported Tuesday, which will convert the pre-existing New Picture House cinema in St. Andrews into a T-Squared Social venue.

Plans for the St. Andrews location include sports simulators, duckpin bowling and darts, while retaining two cinema screens, per the BBC. The simulators will offer golf, football, soccer, rugby, cricket and lacrosse. The cinema’s ownership supported the T-Squared Social proposal, added the BBC, as the nearly century-old venue would likely have ceased operations otherwise. Under the project’s terms of approval, work must begin within the next three years.

Woods and Timberlake brainstormed T-Squared Social after a round at Albany in the Bahamas, longtime venue for the Woods-hosted Hero World Challenge. The first location opened last fall in the Manhattan borough of New York City.

Many of the cinema’s key features will be retained in the change, per the BBC, including the ceiling, walls and stage. The New Picture House first opened in 1930 and is located less than a half-mile from The Old Course at St. Andrews.

Woods debuted at The Open in 1995 at St. Andrews, making the cut as an amateur and finishing T68. He then won his next two Open starts at St. Andrews, by eight strokes in 2000 (as part of the “Tiger Slam” of four straight major wins) and by five strokes in 2005. He finished T23 in 2010, and he missed the cut in 2015 and 2022. Woods grew emotional upon crossing the Swilcan Bridge on his final hole of the 2022 Open, recognizing it might have been his last chance to compete at St. Andrews at a high level. The next Open date at The Old Course is yet to be announced, although it is expected to return to St. Andrews in the next few years.

Whether or not Woods competes, his mark will be felt – both at The Old Course and in the adjacent village at T-Squared Social.