In 1744, a committee of the Gentlemen Golfers of Edinburgh drafted the first 13 rules of golf to compete for a silver golf club, presented by the City of Edinburgh, over Leith Links.  John Rattray, a physician and champion, was the first winner and was declared ‘Captain of the Golf’ and thus winner of the first recorded open golf championship on 2nd April 1744.

The event is commemorated in a plaque on the cairn on Leith Links shown in pictures on the history of Leith Links. This was the first golfing activity of any golf club in the world.

The gift of a silver club as the prize appears to derive from fact the City of Edinburgh gifted a silver arrow to the Royal Company of Archers in 1709 for one of their competitions.

THE PLAYERS OF THE FIRST GOLF COMPETITION

Duncan Forbes, President of the Court of Session, apparently put his name down for the competition, but did not play. The players were important and well-known people in Edinburgh, and several had been mentioned in a mock-heroic poem called The Goff, written in 1743 by Thomas Mathison about the golfers at Leith, reproduced in Robert Clark’s book.

The first competition was over a five hole course, depicted below.

Leith Links Golf Course 1744

For the first twenty years the Leith competition was ‘open’ to all golfers, but from 1764, with the formal agreement of the City of Edinburgh, it was limited to members of the Leith club. In the same year, the Gentlemen Golfers appointed the first golf Chaplain, Dr John Dun, whose first act as Chaplain was to say grace after dinner.

The Gentlemen Golfers built a clubhouse at Leith in 1768, the first purpose built clubhouse in the world. Until then they usually met in a tavern called Luckie Clephan's. There is a minute on 2nd July 1768 recording the foundation ceremony for the ‘Golf House’, as it was called. Sadly, it was sold and demolished and is now under the building on Duke Street constructed in 1931 for the Leith Academy, and now part of Queen Margaret College.

Known by various names, the Gentlemen Golfers became ‘The Honourable the Edinburgh Company of Golfers’ in 1800 when they needed to adopt a standard name for legal reasons. Subsequently, this was streamlined to the present Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers.

At the beginning of the 19th Century, with the Napoleonic Wars raging, Leith Links had become overcrowded with people and golf was declining in popularity, or at least, being a member of a golf club was. Many golf clubs disappeared. In 1831, The Honourable Company fell into particular financial difficulties through heavy mortgaging, misappropriation of funds and third party guarantees for others’ debts, eventually owing several hundred pounds. An ‘administrator’ was appointed, and in 1833 the club’s early treasures were sold off for £106 but failed to clear the debts, so the clubhouse at Leith was also sold raising £1,130. That is how the ‘Golf House’ was lost and why one of the club’s best known pictures, the portrait of William St Clair of Roslin, (Captain in 1761, 1766 and 1770-1771), came to be owned by the Royal Company of Archers, who paradoxically were also heavily in debt at this time. No competitions were held from 1831-1835.

The Honourable Company reformed in 1836 at Musselburgh, then an eight-hole golf course inside the racetrack. They also played the West Links at North Berwick during the summer months, as they shared Musselburgh with several other clubs.

The practice of declaring the winner of the Silver Club captain for the next year ceased after 1837 and election became the norm. The members possibly felt that the best golf player did not necessarily make the most suitable chairman of the club’s financial affairs.

In 1865 they built a new clubhouse in Links Place at Musselburgh, now a children's nursery at 6 Balcarres Road, shown above.

In 1872, the Honourable Company contributed to the Claret Jug for the ‘Open Championship’ along with Prestwick Golf Club and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews. They continued to be involved in the Open until 1919, when the running of the event was handed over to the Royal & Ancient entirely.

Later, overcrowding at Musselburgh forced Honourable Company to move again, settling on another racecourse, further down the coast, the site of the East Lothian horse races on the Hundred Acres Park owned by the Rt Hon Nisbet Hamilton. This became the Muirfield course. It was designed by Old Tom Morris and the first 16 holes, built by ‘hand and horse’, were opened on 3rd May 1891, with the final two holes added in December of the same year.

The club has no professional shop , but can buy Muirfield memorabilia at the professional shop of Gullane Golf Club nearby, which has three courses to match all levels of golfing ability.

More details of bookings now on Honourable Company's website.

More details of early golf at Leith Links

More details of early golf at Musselburgh

Accommodation in Edinburgh

More details of Rules of Golf

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