GOLF HISTORY

Early Golf (1300-1700 AD)

Golf History (and more specifically origin) is still a disputed topic today, but we can begin with the Dutch derivation by means of paintings, prints and photographs.  The game was played and represented with a variety of conditions and costumes.  For example, it was played in church yards, on the streets and roads, on the fields during harvest and even on the ice in the winter!

Who brought it to Scotland? It may have been soldiers or sailors. There were many Scottish mercenary soldiers in Holland and dozens of marriages with Dutch girls are recorded.  Scotland’s main export was wool and if the wind was unfavorable Scottish sailors would be forced to stay in Holland for days or weeks.  Two kilted players with clubs can be seen in a 1668 Van der Velde painting.

The flowerings of Dutch landscape paintings coincided with the popularity of the game in most outdoor scenes with at least one figure carrying a club.  In 1700 the game disappeared and was succeeded by an indoor variation.

GOLF ORIGINS IN SCOTLAND

The spread to Scotland from Holland looks likely when the early Scottish links are marked on a map.  They are all near the east coast parts of Dunbar, North Berwick, Aberlady, Musselburgh, Leith, Elie, St. Andrews, and so on up the coast to Dornoch. The earliest inland golf was at Bruntsfield Links, just south of Edinburgh Castle.

Rabbits and grass vied for existence in these rolling links.  Smooth areas nibbled short and marked by rabbit “scrapes” (the 1st hole?) alternated with rough grass.  The “greens” were connected by sheep paths of varying widths. Rabbits and sheep were therefore the first golf course architects.

FeatherIE GOLF Balls

The featherie (“feather”) golf ball was used until around 1850 . It was a leather stitched case stuffed with a top hat full of boiled chicken or goose feathers. It was a skilled and arduous job to make a feather ball and a skilled tradesman could only complete two or three in a day. This made them as expensive as a club and controlled, to some extent, the popularity of golf making it very difficult for all but the rich to afford.  Because the featherie was easily damaged by iron clubs, irons were only used in sand or in a rut’.  

The player carried nearly all wooden clubs and there was a great variation of loft and length. The first club makers were bow makers who fashioned beautiful delicate woods and carpenters who made heavier clumsier clubs. There were no “sets” of clubs as the player chose or ordered them to his or her preference, and no two clubs made before 1890 were exactly the same. The heads were long, narrow and shallow with a concave or “hooked” face. They were made of beech, apple, pear or thorn. The shafts were ash or hazel until about 1830 when hickory was found to make much better shafts.

Woods & IRONS

A long diagonal splice or “scare” known as “scared head” clubs’ attached the wood heads to the shaft.  Lead was poured into the back and a strip of horn was fitted into the leading edge of the sole.  Interestingly, very early clubs had no grips as the shafts were thick enough to grip. Sheepskin was used as a grip from about 1800. Leather become popular much later, about 1880.  Blacksmiths made early irons which were heavy and cumbersome. They were only used “in extremis” for fear of damaging the leather cover of the feather ball. The hosel was thick and the shaft fit into the socket’ which was “knurled” to help grip the wood shaft. The cruder the “nicks” – the earlier the iron.

During the featherie era there were two main irons, the sand iron with a large concave face and the rut iron with a very small head to play out of the tracks formed as carts brought back sand from the beach.