A Swiss luxury watchmaker IWC Schaffhausen returned to St Andrews for the 25th Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, held in October 2026, with a new olive-green Pilot’s Chronograph arriving with impeccable timing.
The scorecard is merely the alibi. What the true golf devotee watches at St Andrews is the theatre around it: autumn light spilling over Fife like a final pour of whisky, salt-scoured linksland that looks conjured by a melancholy Romantic painter, and the faintly absurd spectacle of Hollywood royalty duffing chips into a North Sea wind alongside men who make their living from precision.
The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, which marked its 25th edition from 1–4 October 2026, is that rare sporting event that understands something most tournaments forget: restraint is the ultimate flex. Played across three of the world’s most storied courses – the Old Course at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns – the Championship is the only event on the DP World Tour to run two competitions simultaneously: an individual professional tournament with a $5 million prize fund and a Team Championship pairing professionals with celebrated amateurs. It is, in other words, a tournament that takes golf seriously without taking itself too seriously. A distinction that the modern luxury world would do well to study.
For the sixth consecutive year, IWC Schaffhausen served as Official Timing Partner. The partnership is not merely a branding exercise – though the Schaffhausen manufacture has never been shy about the commercial logic of precision. It is, rather, a quiet assertion of a shared philosophy: that craftsmanship, whether in a chronograph movement or a golf swing, is a form of discipline that reveals itself only over time.
Among the professionals competing in the 2026 edition was longstanding IWC Brand Ambassador Pablo Larrazábal, who wore the new Pilot’s Watch Chronograph (Ref. IW378008) on the fairways. The Spaniard, whose association with IWC has become a familiar sight on the DP World Tour, is the kind of ambassador who makes sense for a brand that trades on technical credibility rather than flash. He is also, one suspects, the sort of player who understands that a watch worn on a golf course must survive more than the occasional exuberant fist pump.
The new reference is a 43-millimetre stainless-steel chronograph with an olive-green dial – a shade that feels less like a colour choice and more like a mood. Complemented by white printing, gold-plated hands filled with Super-LumiNova® and IWC’s manufacture calibre 69385 with its 46-hour power reserve, it is a watch that manages to be both sporty and understated. The kind of thing that pairs equally well with a cashmere hoodie on the Kingsbarns dunes and a blazer at the Old Course Hotel bar afterwards.
What makes the package genuinely compelling, though, is its versatility. The chronograph comes with both a five-link stainless-steel bracelet and a matching olive-green rubber strap, each equipped with IWC’s EasX-CHANGE® system – a tool-free mechanism that allows the wearer to swap between them in seconds. It is a small detail, but a telling one: a recognition that modern luxury is less about accumulation and more about adaptability.
The Championship’s three-course format is a quiet act of genius. The Old Course at St Andrews – the sport’s spiritual home, where golf has been played for more than 600 years – offers history and strategic cunning. Carnoustie, with its famously demanding Championship Course, is the examination that separates the merely talented from the genuinely resilient. Kingsbarns, which opened in 2000, brings a modern coastal drama that feels almost cinematic in its staging. Together, they form a kind of triptych of the sport: the ancient, the exacting and the elegant. And the event’s pro-am format – which has attracted amateur players including Michael Douglas, Samuel L. Jackson, Hugh Grant and Morgan Freeman over the years – ensures that the atmosphere remains convivial rather than corporate.
It is also worth noting, given the current cultural preoccupation with ‘quiet luxury’, that the Dunhill Links has been practising the aesthetic for decades. There are no gilded grandstands here, no artificial fanfare. Just the wind off the North Sea, the clink of a putter finding the cup and the particular silence that falls over a gallery when a professional and an amateur share a moment of genuine sporting connection. Alfred Dunhill’s support for golf at St Andrews dates back to 1985, when the Alfred Dunhill Cup was first held. The Links Championship itself began in 2001, and many millions have been raised for charity over the years. The Championship is set to continue through 2030, following the recent extension of the agreement with the DP World Tour.
For cosmopolitan readers across the Gulf – particularly the Gen Z and millennial audiences who have made Dubai and Abu Dhabi the gravitational centres of the region’s luxury conversation – the Dunhill Links offers something more than a pleasant autumnal diversion. The UAE’s relationship with golf is evolving. A development agreement valued at more than Dh1 billion, signed by AKCEL Holding and XRange Golf Entertainment, will bring a network of next-generation golf entertainment venues to the Emirates, combining interactive driving ranges with digital gaming, hospitality and dining. The investment signals that golf is no longer the preserve of a particular demographic. It is becoming part of the broader experiential leisure landscape that defines how younger affluent consumers spend their time and their dirhams.
IWC’s olive-green Pilot’s Chronograph speaks directly to this sensibility. It is a watch that refuses to shout. The colour is earthy, the detailing is precise, and the dual-strap system acknowledges a reality that many luxury brands still resist: today’s collector wants an object that moves effortlessly between contexts. Steel bracelet for the boardroom, rubber for the weekend. A single timepiece, two lives. This is the same logic that underpins the appeal of quieter luxury experiences, where thoughtful details and considered service matter more than grand theatrics. It is a market that has learned to distinguish between spectacle and substance – and to prefer the latter.
The 2026 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship concluded on the Old Course at St Andrews on 4 October. Poland’s Adrian Meronk claimed the individual title with a closing four-under-par 68, finishing two strokes ahead of Casey Jarvis and Niklas Nørgaard. Meronk and musician Tom Chaplin also won the Team Championship. Beyond the trophies and the prize money, however, the event left a quieter narrative: that precision and restraint are not opposing forces but complementary ones. A watch that measures time with exacting accuracy. A tournament that measures character over four days of Scottish weather. A brand that understands that the most persuasive form of luxury is the kind that does not need to announce itself. IWC Schaffhausen has now served as the Championship’s timekeeper for six consecutive years. The partnership has found its rhythm. And in an age of noise, that is perhaps the most luxurious thing of all.
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