Golf: A Royal and Ancient Game

Edited by Robert Clark FRSE, FSA Scotland

(1875, reprinted 1893 Macmillan and 1975 by EP Publishing)

(322 pages A5)

Robert Clark was a book publisher and well known golfer of his day.  He collected what was known about golf history in 1875, when golf was gaining popularity.  First editions are valuable and even the 1975 reprint of the 1893 edition changes hands for several pounds. Clark was meticulous and reprinted much original documentation on 'the golf' in 43 chapters. The most interesting parts are the extracts of the minutes of the first hundred years of the five oldest Scottish golf clubs

·        Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers

·        Royal Burgess Golfing Society

·        Royal & Ancient Golfing Club of St Andrews

·        Bruntsfield Links Golfing Society

·        Royal Musselburgh Golfing Club

The book also contains the 1743 heroi-comical poem ‘The Goff’ featuring famous golfers of Leith.  There is also an historical account of golf and a large collection of golf related articles from contemporary magazines of the late 19^th Century.

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A Swing Through Time Golf in Scotland 1457–1743

by Olive M Geddes

(HMSO 1992)

(58 pages A4)

1.      Golf: An Unprofitable Sport 1457-91

2.      The Royal Game 1502-1682

3.      James Melville: St Andrews Student 1574

4.      A Schoolboy’s Grammar: Aberdeen 1636

5.      ‘Poor Master Gall’: Perth 1638

6.      An Edinburgh Sportsman: Sir John Foulis of Ravelston 1686

7.      Thomas Kinaid: Diary of an Edinburgh Medical Student 1687-8

8.      St Andrews: ‘The Metropolis of Golfing’ 1691-1716

9.      ‘Glotta’: An Eye Witness Account, Glasgow 1721

10.  ‘The Goff’: Edinburgh, 1743

Olive Geddes is a curator of the National Library of Scotland and she has collected and reviewed many of the key documents on golf history in Scotland 1457 to 1743.  The book begins with the first mention in Acts of Parliament, which banned it, and finishes at the beginning of the era when the first golf clubs were founded. Careful attention to detail and over fifty colour illustrations.

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by Roger Kidd

Published yearly by Roger Kidd’s Golf Guides

(Printed annually)

(144 pages pocket size)

The book is the most compact and easiest to use guide to visitor booking details of the 538 odd courses in Scotland.  It is organised into 17 areas with detailed map at the end of each.  There are photographs of the main courses and outline details of each course for

§         Name, address and contact telephone and fax numbers

§         Green fees bands and visitor days

§         Number of holes, length, SSS and course designer if known

§         Short comment on each course

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by Malcolm Campbell with photography by Glyn Slatterley

(2001 Lomond Books)

(266 pages 238 pictures BW and colour A4 plus size hardback with cover)

This book is probably the golf book of the moment. The first chapter covers the orthodox history of the origins of golf, golf societies and influential people involved in it.  The second covers the players of the 19^th and 20^th Centuries, but is the middle chapters on the golf courses with the historical narrative and pictures that makes the book a ‘must have’.  They cover   

It is nitpicking to point out that Montrose, Bruntsfield and Perth should be in the list of historic courses.  The book ends with chapters on Scotland’s most fearsome holes and memorable moments from golf matches and the (British) Open.  It also contains a six column Chronology of Golf from 1457 to 2001, which is undoubtedly the source of many timelines all over the Web.

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Golf Scotland’s Game

by David Hamilton

(1998 The Patrick Press)

(269 pages A4 plus size paperback)

This is the most in-depth 'history of the golf' to date.  David Hamilton has reviewed previous histories to produce a detailed account of golf history from the early medieval origins to the middle of the twentieth century - all from a Scottish perspective.  Seven chapters cover, in chronological order, the

§         characteristics of links and early golfers

§         origins of golf and comparisons with continental stick games

§         religious persecution of golf and emergence of modern links game

§         beginnings of golf clubs, rules and competitions in 18th century

§         decline and resurgence of golf in the 19th century

§         professionals, caddies, women golfers and early golf abroad

§         modern times to after the second world war

Hamilton looks at every aspect of the game including the development of the golf balls through wooden, feathery, gutta percha and modern balls as well as the progression of golf clubs from wooden affairs to iron and metal ones.  Though some of the topics are patchy in places, such the role of Prestwick and the early Open competitions, the depth of the research can be gauged by the fact that there are over 7 pages of further reading; 15 small font pages of detailed footnotes; and the index runs to 6 pages.

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Scotland's Golf Courses

by Robert Price

(Mercat Press 2002)

(225 pages A5 Softcopy)

Robert Price is a geographer and geologist who is a leading golfing consultant. Scotland's Golf Courses is already in its second edition which is a tribute to how clearly Mr Price lays out some very detailed research. The book covers

§         where early golf was played and how and why it developed across Scotland in two chapters

§         an analysis of the golf course geology including links, parkland and how these were created

§         classifications and details of present golf courses including a general summary of facts and figures and detailed explanation of the courses divided up into four different regions of Scotland in five chapters

The appendix contains lists of every Scottish course by region  with details of their length, date of construction, green fee band, management type, landform and vegetation. There are more than 60 figures and tables and 60 photographs with diagrams illustrating all the different types of golf courses and their terrains as well as many maps showing where they are located across Scotland.

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The Golf Course Guide (Britain & Ireland)  

(annually AA Lifestyle Guides)

(528 pages A5 hardback and paperwork)

The most detailed and well researched guide to golf course in Britain and Ireland.  It also contains details of AA approved hotels in the vicinity of the courses.

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