History of golf, Scotland
A GREAT SCOTTISH
GAME
Pic: Muirfield club house
As
The Open Golf Championship comes home again Dr David Malcolm charts
the history of the sport and its centuries-old links with Scotland.
Golf has been played in Scotland for
over 600 years. No one knows how it began or what it was that inspired
medieval Scots to knock a ball some distances along the ground and
into a little hole.
But the earliest records show that, in one form or another 'gowf'
was played in churchyards and on common ground from the borderlands
of Dumfries to the links lands of Sutherland.
It was in St Andrews that golf, if not born was certainly nurtured
and developed to evolve into Scotland's great game. St Andrews bequeathed
golf to the world. The Old Course on the links of St Andrews remains
the game's spiritual home and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of
St Andrews continues to be the sport's rule-making and governing
body.
Through the manufacture of golf clubs and balls, the construction
and maintenance of courses, together with the ancillaries of clothing
and the wining and dining that is as much a part of the game as
the venue, golf is one of the world's main industries. Love it or
loath it, golf is by far the biggest earner in the leisure marketplace
with more devotees worldwide than any other sport.
For the same reasons that Scotland spawned the game, it remains
the place of choice to play it. Throughout the year it is neither
too hot nor too cold to play in comfort. What wind that blows from
a mere zephyr to a gale, adds to the experience: any adherent will
explain that it never rains on a golf course.
But it is the ambience of golf in Scotland that sets it apart on
its world pedestal. The traditional links land settings by the sea
are, of course, very special, but few small townships are without
a golf course and each conveys its own special character.
For over a hundred years each course has evolved, changing with
the whims of the times with each generation determined to make its
mark on posterity. There is great joy to be had on each and every
one of the hundreds of Scottish courses for both novice and aficionado.
Every golfing traveller discovers his own favourite place whether
because of the course or its setting, its vistas, turf or simply
the local wags in the clubhouse bar. Everyone takes away their own
special memory of Scottish golf.
Scottish courses vary from the simply rustic to the pampered pristine.
In terms of difficulty, there is the whole spectrum from the 'wee
pap wi' an iron cleek' to the mighty monsters that host the Open
Golf Championship. It was always so.
From earliest times courses were made to fit the land available.
Some of the old Highland courses had not only to fit the landform
but were also required to accommodate sheep. On the links lands
bordering the sea, the rocky outcrops and wind-blown sand dunes
that were merely incorporated into play have become today's special
features.
Time more than design gives the Scottish courses their special character.
But the spirit of the game owes more to the men who early shaped
it. Scots golf is devoid of class distinction. Since earliest times
the noble and the artisan have mixed freely on the links. Both contributed
equally, but it was from the ranks of the caddies, the men who carried
the gentlemens' clubs and frequently partnered them in wager matches,
that the great players came.
Pic:The Old Course
From
Musselburgh some great players emerged to make their marks on the
game. Willie Park won the inaugural Open Championship in 1860 and
Bob Ferguson followed him a decade later. However, it was from St
Andrews that the Morris family came and it was they, Tom Morris
and his son, the brilliant Young Tommy, who contributed most to
the emergence and popularisation of the game.
Old Tom took the game to the West when he built the course and served
the new-founded Prestwick Golf Club. He was the first true golf
professional and a model of decorum and taste, but it was Young
Tommy with his flair and style in his absolute dominance of the
game that infected the public imagination and started the boom in
play that continues to this day.
Golf spread quickly throughout England, but even after the tragic
death of Young Tommy in his early twenties the Scots born continued
to dominate the game. Vardon and Taylor changed all that at the
close of the 19th century but James Braid from Elie continued to
keep Scotland to the fore as the migration began in response to
demands for the game abroad.
The game was first taken abroad by the Scots gentry to their seasonal
watering holes like Biarritz and the Garve de Pau in the South of
France in the early 19th century. It was not long before such places
started to produce players of excellence and the Scots hand that
fed it was badly bitten when Arnaud Massey emerged from the continent
to win the Open Championship in 1911. But Massey's effect on the
game was as nothing compared to what was about to come from the
New World.
Scots merchants engaged in the slave trade, to their eternal shame,
established playing places at each corner of their triangular trade
in Africa and America. By the late 19th century the game was commonplace
all along the eastern seaboard of the United States. Many Scots
caddies and crack artisan players migrated to fill professional
appointments in the proliferating Golf and Country Clubs by the
century's close.
As the American game burgeoned, players of hitherto unimagined talent
started to emerge. St Andrews born Jock Hutchison was the harbinger
of change when he returned from Glenview in the USA to take the
Open title on his native links in 1921.
In the following year US born Walter Hagen had his name engraved
on the Claret Jug, the Open Championship trophy. Jim Barns followed
and, more momentous, so too did Bobby Jones, the amateur player
from Atlanta and the greatest player that the game has ever seen.
With Armour, Sarazen and Shute, these Americans dominated pre-war
golf.
There was no change in 1946 when Sam Snead conquered the Old Course
to win the first Open after its wartime lapse. Sam never returned
but Ben Hogan came over in 1953 to win at Carnoustie and after him
the floodgates opened with Arnold Palmer in the 1960s. Tony Lema,
the indomitable Jack Nicklaus and many others followed Palmer. The
line continues to this day with Tiger Woods determinedly stamping
his authority on the old links courses.
The Open Golf Championship was the progenitor of tournament golf.
Administered by the Royal and Ancient Club it remains the world's
premier event and the only open event played on the great old links
golf courses. It is the challenge of these courses that continues
to attract the best players in the world, that and the immortality
of having one's name engraved on the list of the great champions
of the past on the Claret Jug.
Like the great champions, mere mortals return again and again to
golf in Scotland. The Old Course at St Andrews has become a place
of pilgrimage for devotees. On their way they discover the marvels
of Kingsbarns and Carnoustie, Royal Aberdeen, Murcar and Cruden
Bay, the Highland gems of Gleneagles, Loch Lomond, Nairn and Dornoch
and, in the West, the splendours of Troon, Prestwick and Turnberry.
They discover other things too, the intangibles of consideration,
courtesy, character and care; the things that Scotland instilled
in golf and made and identified it world wide as the Great Scottish
Game.
(04/07/02)
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