History - Scottish Golf
It is known that golf was played at St.
Andrews before the founding of the University there in 1411, and there
is sufficient evidence to make a safe assumption that it was being
played there in one form or another maybe even a century before that.
Golf stands alone in that the object of
the exercise is to propel a ball across a course liberally littered with
obstacles designed to prevent that accomplishment, from a starting point
where the ball is balanced in mid-air to another point at which it
finishes below ground.
The hole is the vital factor in
separating golf from the other club and ball games, and it was the Scots
who introduced it.
As such, it was national pastime more than 400 years before Bonnie
Prince Charlie fled in defeat from Culloden in 1746 and long, too,
before another ignominious Scots' defeat at the hands of the English in
1513, when they lost their king and the flower of their noble families
at the Battle of Flodden Field.
Indeed, it is not difficult to make a
case that golf was a contributing factor in the latter of these two
merciless reverses.
At Flodden, the Scots were no match for
the English archers in the first assault and were eventually routed. It
was only a matter of 50 years earlier that King James II of Scotland had
been so concerned that golf was adversely interfering with archery
practice that he banned the game in the Scottish Act of Parliament of
1457 - the first documented reference to today's game. Golf was also
banned by James III in 1471.
There is every evidence the Scots took
no notice whatsoever of the ban and that archery practice continued to
decline. Subsequent bans were introduce only to be just as widely
ignored. And on Flodden Field the ability to hit the long running draw
was simply no substitute for prowesss with bow and arrow. The nation's
collective ability to play golf had clearly grown in equal proportion to
the decline in its ability as marksmen.
How golf actually originated will remain
a mystery. It is a subject which has taxed the brains and research of
eminent and learned men, but no irrefutable evidence has been found. One
theory, and it is as good as any other so far put forward, is that
fishermen on the east coast of Scotland invented the game to amuse
themselves as they returned home from their boats.
What would be more natural than for a
young fisherman, making his way across the rolling stretches of fine
turf among the sand dunes, to pick up a crooked stick of driftwood and
aim a blow at a pebble? If he knocked the pebble forward, the
competitive instinct in man would demand that he hit it again to see if
he could send it further.
If the pebble rolled into a sandy hollow
where sheep had huddled for shelter against the icy blast, he would have
been playing from the first bunker. It then requires no great leap of
the imagination to develop that scene into a game between competing
fishermen played across the links from boat to village, finishing at the
same point each time, perhaps close to the local hostelry. If the pebble
when last struck fell into a rabbit hole, then the game of golf would
certainly have been "invented" and the forerunner of the 19th hole along
with it.
As to where the game was first played in
Scotland, there can only be conjecture. Much of the early evidence of
golf in Scotland is found in Kirk Session (church court) records in the
16th and 17th centuries. In many parts of Scotland's east coast,
parishioners were being punished for playing golf "at the time of the
preaching of the Sermon". At St. Andrews in 1599, miscreants were fined
small sums for the first two offenses before the use of "the repentance
pillar". After that the culprits were "deprived of office" -
excommunicated!
During the 16th century the game became
firmly established on the east coast of Scotland and began to spread
further afield. By this time the game had gained respectability among
the highest levels of society in the land and was certainly played by
James VI of Scotland before he acceded to the English throne as James I
in 1603.
But royal interest in the game goes back
further even than that. Golf was played as far north as Montrose and had
moved inland to Perth by the beginning of the 16th century, probably
taken there by King James IV, grandson of the Scottish King who had
tried to ban the game.
James IV, in his turn, tried to stop the
Scots playing golf, but eventually he was converted to the game. By 1501
his treasurer had paid 14 shilling to a bowmaker in Perth to supply
clubs. From then onwards there was a series of bills paid from the royal
coffers for golf balls, and even for his lost bets. There is one account
of the royal treasurer having to pay the Earl of Bothwell 14 shillings
the King had lost in a wager on golfing combat somewhere out on the
links.
It was the royal influence that helped
the spread of the game throughout the country and, ultimately, to its
export further afield. The earliest centres of golf all had associations
with royalty or, in the case of St. Andrews, the two other influential
pillars of Scots society - education and the Chruch. St. Andrews is
Scotland's oldest seat of learning and it was also a powerful Church
stronghold.
Scotland's capital, Edinburgh, was the
headquarters of the court and golf blossomed around the city aided by
royal patronage. There were roayl palaces also at Dunfermline and Perth
and they, too, developed strong golf connections.
The Bishop of Galloway is credited with
the spread of the game to the south-west of the country, probably
through court connections. The Marquis of Montrose was another keen
player, which may well account for the town having its early links with
golf.
By the start of the 17th century, golf
was actively pursued from the south-east of the country to as far north
as the remote and windswept Orkney Islands.
Despites its popularity, it was another
150 years before efforts were made to bring organisation to the game of
golf. The first stirring of this desire for a formal structure was seen
during the 17th century when the development of a universally accepted
set of rules were formed.
The earliest club for which there
documented proof is the Gentlemen Golfers of Leith, later to become the
Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, instituted in 1744, when the
first ball was attached to a silver club donated by the Edinburgh City
Council. The first winner, John Rattray, was declared Captain of the
Golf and it became tradition for the winner of the silver club to be
Captain the next year.
That is why today the Captain of the
Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, who is now elected by a
committee of former captains, has to "play himself in" at the start of
the club's autumn medal competition in September. To preserve the
tradition of the winner being captain for the year, he is the only
competitor in the event and once he has struck his first stroke he
automatically becomes the winner. A cannon sounds to mark the start of
the medal and with it the Captain's victory, and the caddie who
retrieves the captain's ball after his drive is presented with a gold
sovereign.
The R & A purchased its silver club in
1754 as the Society of St. Andrews Golfers but was granted the title
Royal and Ancient by King William IV in 1834.
The latter part of the 19th century saw
the major development of the game in Scotland, with the construction of
many new courses. The development of the rail network, was a
contributing factor, but it was the arrival of the gutta percha ball,
around 1880, that was the single major factor in the explosion of the
popularity of the game both in Scotland and further afield.
From:
http://www.worldgolf.com/wglibrary/history/history.html
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