Our Golfing History
Fife: Home of Golf
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Fife - home of the world’s oldest golf course, many of the world’s oldest golf clubs, several legendary golfers and the world’s greatest golf championship, The Open.
Golf has been played in Fife for over 600 years. In fact, ‘gowff’ was already a popular pastime in St Andrews when the university was established in 1413.
However, golf’s first official mention doesn’t appear until 1457, when King James II of Scotland signed an edict banning the game as he was convinced putting practice was distracting his subjects from improving their archery skills! Thankfully, in 1502, King James IV bought a set of golf clubs, promptly lifted the Royal ban and began playing in the countryside around the Royal Palaces, including Dunfermline and Falkland.
View of St Andrews from the Old Course Credit: Artist Unknown, 1740. Reproduced by kind permission of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews
The World’s Oldest Golf Course
In 1552, Archbishop Hamilton granted the people of St Andrews the right to play golf on the town’s links, a right upheld to this day by St Andrews Links Trust, custodians of the Old Course.
Initially, the world’s oldest golf course had 12 holes – ten of which were played twice. However, in 1764, four new holes were added to the very popular public course on St Andrews Links and 18 holes soon became the standard for all golf courses. In 1863, Old Tom Morris remodelled the course into the layout played today and, when the New Course opened in St Andrews in 1895, the ‘golfing grounds of St Andrews’ were renamed the Old Course.
View of St Andrews from the Old Course Credit: Artist Unknown, 1740. Reproduced by kind permission of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews
The Royal and Ancient
Golf Club of St Andrews
Minute Book 1 of the Society of St Andrews Golfers, 1754, Articles and Laws in Playing the Golf Credit: Reproduced by kind permission of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews
Established on May 14, 1754 by 22 ‘noblemen and gentlemen’, The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews is one of the world’s oldest golf clubs.
In 1891, the members of the Royal and Ancient wrote ‘The Rules of Golf’, which, among other guidelines, set the size of golf holes at 4½ inches - a size dictated by the hole cutter used by the club’s greenkeepers. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club then formed the Rules of Golf Committee in 1897 and became responsible for updating the guidelines. Today, The R&A and USGA jointly publish The Rules of Golf and Rules of Amateur Status every four years.
The Royal and Ancient has continued its tradition as a members’ golf club with over 2,400 members and an iconic Clubhouse situated behind the 1st tee of the Old Course. In addition, The Royal and Ancient’s collection of historic golfing artefacts has expanded over the years from a cabinet in the Clubhouse to become the basis of the highly-acclaimed R&A World Golf Museum.
Tom Morris — Golf’s First
Global Superstar
Born in St Andrews in 1821, Old Tom Morris was the son of a weaver who devoted his spare time to playing golf or caddying for gentlemen golfers on St Andrews Links. From a young age, Tom followed the family tradition and, by the time he was 20, he was considered one of the best golfers and most knowledgeable caddies in St Andrews.
Tom was offered an apprenticeship by the game’s first golf professional – Allan Robertson, who was a feather ball maker. Tom and Allan soon formed a lucrative golfing partnership, playing exhibition matches all over Scotland which could earn them the equivalent of four-year’s salary! However, after falling out over Tom playing with new-fangled golf balls made from gutta-percha gum rather than Allan’s traditional featheries, Tom moved to a job at Prestwick Golf Course.
In 1864, Tom returned to St Andrews as Keeper of the Links. By this time, as well as gaining a reputation as an excellent course designer and expert greenkeeper, he’d also won the 1861 and 1862 Opens – and proceeded to win the 1864 and 1867 Opens.
Old Tom Morris, as he was fondly known, continued playing and designing until he died in 1908, leaving behind a legacy of golf courses - and a reputation as one of the greatest golfers of all time.
“ I began to play when I was six or seven, maybe younger. A’ St Andrews bairns are born wi’ web feet an’ wi’ a gowf club in their hands. ”
Old Tom Morris
Old Tom Morris, 1903 Credit: Sir George Reid. Reproduced by kind permission of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews
The Baird Legacy
The Triumvirate. Clement Flower 1913. Reproduced by kind permission of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews
Fife-born James Braid is widely regarded as one of the world’s most successful golfers and one of the game’s best course architects.
James Braid was born in 1870 in a tiny farmhand’s cottage in the Fife village of Earlsferry. From an early age, James played golf on Elie & Earlsferry Links, the third oldest golf course in the world, and, by the age of 16, the ploughman’s son was a scratch player. After a brief period as a joiner, James moved to London for a job as a clubmaker before becoming a golf professional and, very quickly, a multiple championship-winning golfer.
With five Open wins to his name (the first player to achieve this feat), James was a member of the Great Triumvirate, three golfers who dominated golf between 1894 and 1914. In addition, James designed or contributed to over 400 golf courses all over the UK, including several courses in his home county - Fife.
Fife’s Fabulous Females
The Ladies’ Club, St Andrews, 1886 Credit: Reproduced by kind permission of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews
The first ladies golf club in the world is situated right next to the Old Course - St Andrews Ladies’ Putting Club.
Founded in 1867 to bring an end to the daughters of the members of The Royal and Ancient playing golf on the caddies’ putting course, St Andrews Ladies’ Putting Club was originally a 9 Hole course laid out by none other than Old Tom Morris, who was a great advocate of women golfers.
Golf has been played in Fife for over 600 years. In fact, ‘gowff’ was already a popular pastime in St Andrews when the university was established in 1413.
However, golf’s first official mention doesn’t appear until 1457, when King James II of Scotland signed an edict banning the game as he was convinced putting practice was distracting his subjects from improving their archery skills! Thankfully, in 1502, King James IV bought a set of golf clubs, promptly lifted the Royal ban and began playing in the countryside around the Royal Palaces, including Dunfermline and Falkland.
The Champions
Glass Plate Negative image of the leading early professionals in St Andrews, 1850s. (left-right) James Wilson, Bob Andrew, Willie Dunn, Willie Park, Allan Robertson, David Anderson, Tom Morris and Bob Kirk. Credit: Photographer (likely) Thomas Rodger. Courtesy of R&A World Golf Museum
Fife’s first Open Champion was Old Tom Morris, who won the 1861, 1862, 1864 and 1867 Opens (fellow St Andrews golfer Andrew Strath sneaked in and won the 1865 Open).
At 46 years old, Old Tom Morris had become the oldest golfer ever to win The Open when he won the 1867 Championship, a record that stands to this day. Then, in 1868, Old Tom Morris’ son, 17-year-old Young Tom Morris, became the youngest ever Open Champion.
Young Tom also won the next three Opens – and was the first Open winner to have his name engraved on the Claret Jug thanks to his 1872 win. Three years later, Young Tom had just won a match in North Berwick with his father when word came that his wife had died in childbirth along with their new baby. Three months later, the broken-hearted Championship winner died at the age of 24.
St Andrews didn’t host The Open until 1873, when it was won by Tom Kidd, a St Andrews caddie who was almost as well known for his flamboyant golfing gear as his golfing skills! Other Open winners born in St Andrews include Bob Martin (1876); Jamie Anderson (77,78, 79), who died penniless in a Fife poorhouse; Jack Burns (1888); Hugh Kirkaldy (1891); and Willie Auchterlonie, who returned to making and selling clubs with his brother after winning the 1893 Open – today, Auchterlonies is one of the oldest golf shops in St Andrews.
St Andrews wasn’t the only Fife town to produce Open Champions. Jack Simpson, who won the 1884 Open, and James Braid, five-times winner of The Open, were both members of Elie and Earlsferry Links.
After the First World War, the fierce grip Scottish golfers had on the Claret Jug began to diminish. However, many of the top international competitors, such as America’s Bobby Jones, had learnt their golfing skills from the many Scottish golf professionals who left their homeland for jobs at prestigious new golf clubs on the other side of the world.
Winner of the 1927 Open at St Andrews, Bobby Jones was the most successful amateur golfer of all time – and he loved the Old Course and the ’Auld Grey Toun’. When he was made an honorary citizen of St Andrews in 1958, he proudly said: “Now you have given me the right to feel as much at home here officially as I have presumed to feel unofficially for years.”
18-times Major Winner Jack Nicklaus won The Open at St Andrews in 1970 and 1978. “St Andrews in the week of the Open Championship is always beautiful,” said Jack, who played his final round of professional golf at the 2005 Open Championship at St Andrews. “I’d imagine anyone who makes a pilgrimage here feels the same way.”
Severiano Ballesteros captured the hearts of the people of St Andrews – and the world – when he punched the air after he birdied the 18th at the Old Course to win the 1984 Open. “The happiest moment of my whole sporting life,” Seve announced.
In 2007, Lorena Ochoa won the 2007 AIG Women’s Open - the first professional women’s tournament on St Andrews Old Course. “All week I saw myself lifting the trophy on the 18th green – and I did it,” said Lorena. “It was my time.” Old Tom Morris, who was a great supporter of the ladies of St Andrews playing golf, would have been delighted to finally see women golfers competing over the Old Course.
Champion Golfer of The Year, 1984, Seve Ballesteros at the R&A Championships Credit: Getty Images
Golf’s Disciples
Golfers Harry Holbrook, A. Kinnan, John B. Upham and John Reid at the St Andrew’s Golf Club in Yonkers, founded by Reid in 1888. This is believed to be the first photo taken of golf in America. Credit: R&A World Golf Museum
Fife’s golfers have taken golf all over the world.
From the Fife-born champions who featured in newspaper sports reports in days gone by to the thrilling radio and television coverage of golfing battles between top professionals over Fife’s Championship and Open Qualifying Courses. From Fife’s legendary golf architects who designed courses in every corner of the globe to the St Andrews’ golf ball manufacturers and clubmakers to the Fife golf professionals who headed to the States, Canada, Australia and beyond.
Dunfermline’s John Reid and Robert Lockhart missed their regular games of golf so much when they emigrated to America in the late 19th century, they founded The Saint Andrew’s Golf Club in New York, the first golf club in the USA. And Reid, who is known as The Grandfather of American Golf, brought with him the tradition of the 19th hole when he persuaded his golfing companions to toast their first round with a drink or two.
