The History of Golf

The length of the early golf courses varied enormously and there was a great difference between churchyard courses and the links courses. It was a time when attendance at church was compulsory on Sundays and churchgoing was combined with archery practice. People met and played games and when golf was banned on the links, courses were set up within the churchyards. Each hole measured 50-100 yards (45-90m) and the ball was hit at a target with one club.

This practice was, initially, condoned by the church authorities except at the time of the sermon, but as religious attitudes of the church hardened towards the end of the six­teenth century, the playing of golf was prohibited on Sundays. There is a record at the Kirk Session of North Leith that on 11th February, 1608, "John Henrie, Pat. Bogie, James Kid, George Robertsoune and James Watsoune, being accusit for playing of the gowff everie Sabboth the tyme of the sermonnes, notwith­standing oft admonitioun past befoir, were convict[ed] ilk ane of them, and ordainit to be wardet [put in prison] until the same were payit."

Links courses were of varying lengths and numbers of holes. The original course at Leith had five holes measuring 414,461,426,495 and 435 yards (378, 420,389,452 and 398m), which must have taken a considerable number of strokes with long-nosed clubs and feathery balls: Blackheath originally had seven holes, while St Andrews had 22, 11 holes out and 11 back. In 1764 William St Clair played the 22 holes in 121 strokes, and as a result the first four holes were reduced to two to make the average scoring higher. As the same holes were played out and back, the course then became 18 holes and subsequently this became the standard number for all courses. Generally, the courses marched out in a straight line and then back with the same holes being played in both directions.

However, as courses became more crowded the fairways were expanded although this is the origin of the famous double greens seen on the Old Course at St Andrews in Scotland to this day.

As golf became more popular it also became more exclusive. From 1735 onwards groups of friends started to form clubs. The Royal Burgess Society of Edinburgh was the first in that year, followed by the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers in 1744 and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews in 1754. In the same year as the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers was founded, they petitioned the Edinburgh City Council to present a prize for which they would compete. The prize was a silver golf club and the first-ever official golf competition was won by a famous Edinburgh surgeon, John Rattray. Rattray had attended the wounded after the Battle of Prestonpans in the 1745 rebellion and was later captured at the Battle of Culloden.

Rules were drawn up for the competition and the Leith Code with 13 rules was adopted the following year by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews. The majority of these are unchanged and even today they are the most important rules of golf, which now extend to over 40 pages. The main rules were: VII, which directed the player to play for the hole and not his opponent's ball when holing oUt on the green; V, which said that balls could be lifted from any hazard and played, allowing a one stroke penalty; IX, which prohibited the player from marking the way to the hole when on the green; and XII, which instructed the player furthest from the hole to play first. All these rules still apply.

From these beginnings golf evolved over the next hundred years. There was a period, however, at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century when the game fell into disrepute, membership declined and many of the original clubs in Scotland ceased to exist. Even St Andrews had to take a legal dispute to the House of Lords to establish their right to play golf on the Old Course which was, at that time, threatened by a rabbit-breeding business. It is difficult to say exactly why this happened: possibly the influence of the French Revolution made people alive to the difference between rich and poor as never before. Golf as a game previously played by all classes was becoming the preserve of the gentry, which made it unpopular. The disastrous rebellion of 1745-6 in Scotland may have had an effect as many of the aristocracy either went into exile or moved to London and the south in its aftermath. Generally, the Napoleonic Wars were a period of high inflation, there was increased demand for food, courses were ploughed up for wheat or built over as people were drawn into towns in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Inflation hit the finances of many courses. Whatever the cause, this hiccup was only temporary. By 1850 golf was reestablished, it had regained its place in Scottish society as the premier national pastime and from there it spread to England and Europe and overseas as the Scots emigrated all over the globe.