Golf in , the critical years, c. 1880-1914

Gerardo Rebanal Martínez

Introduction

The two terms, ‘’ and ‘St Andrews’, have usually gone hand in hand as there is a close subconscious association between the two, whilst many people are familiar with St Andrews thanks to its central role in golf history.1 Such an association is based on truth, and golf protagonists or pioneers had usually stressed or included a chapter about the ‘St Andrews golfing way’ in their seminal golf books.2 This would have remained a minor question if this sport had not enjoyed from 1870 onwards, what has been labelled as ‘the greatest boom in any game’.3 This boom exported the game firstly from to the rest of the British Isles and subsequently broadened its scope to the whole world, in a movement which enhanced the development of St Andrews as a town, thereby allowing it to experience a welcome revival.4 As was expressed in a contemporary directory, St Andrews was probably the most populous urban centre in Scotland prior to the Reformation, housing the oldest (1413) Scottish University, but was later perceived as being increasingly run down.5 Around 1850, as could be seen on a map,6 St Andrews amounted to a trident of streets (North, Market and South), converging to the east at the ruins of the cathedral -which overlooks the port- and stretching westward for one kilometre or so in direction of the newly built railway station, which was in fact the terminus. Adjoining the town and station the streets eventually blended into fields, The and the shore. The cited Directory listed 135 localities in Fifeshire (the county which incorporates St Andrews). The town, with a population of 7.882, occupied the fifth position, the first being held by Dunfermline with 23.123 inhabitants.7

At the height of the golf boom, the town, along with other Scottish golfing destinations, played a key role. As was expressed by one of these early golf authors, ‘Of the late years the influx of English families for the summer in Scotland has been steadily on the increase, and Golf in consequence numbers many keen votaries among the Southerns. Links, we believed, have been staked out in various parts of England’.8 What has been labelled as a golf stream which flooded Scotland9 may have been seen as more of a two-way stream: people going north of the border to established Scottish golfing centres, taking up golf and adding momentum to the development of these resorts, and the same ones supported by Scottish natives returning south of the border to establish the game elsewhere. Such venues of newly established golfing activity in their turn gave birth to new players, also wishing to know for themselves the fatherland of their new sport. There seems to be no ready explanation for such a migratory process. The identification of Scotland as a sporting land,10 and the lure of St Andrews as an historic venue abounding in cultural attractions, outstripping the category of a run of the mill summer resort with adjoining , clearly weighed heavily. Another reason could be the freedom to play golf for free at such a great and famous venue like St Andrews.

From the outset this article intends to investigate social aspects of this freedom to play at St Andrews, in an attempt to counteract an everlasting stigma, namely the elitism which has traditionally been associated with this sport. Golf historians, such as David Hamilton perceived that in Scotland ‘play on the major links was open to all’, a category in which St Andrews excelled, an openness which was enhanced with the presence on the golf courses of ‘a variety of private clubs playing’.11 In contrast, new less friendly suburban golf clubs began to appear in the bigger towns.12 This state of happy conviviality on the Scottish resorts between untethered golf and activities has been largely denied by John Lowerson, who stressed that Scotland was not and is not all embracing golfing paradise.13 A way of extricating ourselves from this omnipresent spectre of elitism is to differentiate precisely what characterises the lives of the golf clubs from what golf represents as a sport in general. Such disengagement has been attempted in the article14. In its infancy it was the sport, not the club. The club was founded to cater for the necessities of people who practised one or more sports. It wasn’t just a case of the sport being created to invigorate the membership with something attractive to do. The quest to identify simple players and ascertain their social background led to the search for archive documents, such as the records of applicants to the daily ballot to play the Old St Andrews’ Course, a system which has been in use since the end of the nineteenth century. Regrettably, however such documents don’t seem to have survived.15 The daily ballot system will be discussed in a later chapter of this article, as a part of the 1880-1914 story of golf at St Andrews.

The aim of this article is, to paraphrase Peter Lewis’ title, to address a question, as to why there is at St Andrews a complex of seven public golf courses.16 Public means a place to play golf on a pay per play basis. Is there not a great and ancient golf club, the R&A? Can I play golf at the Old Course of St Andrews, a venue as important to golf as Wembley is to football, without being a member? The answer is yes, and that is so because the St Andrews Town Council made great efforts to acquire the ownership of the land and succeeded in doing so. Henceforth, all the parties implicated, the most relevant being the R&A, jointly took care of the venue and tried to adapt its requirements not only to members, but for the general good. It has been mentioned, in connection with the spread of golf, that a main boost to continental golf was the role of local resort entrepreneurs, offering the avid sport tourist new experiences, and that ‘the spread of golf in some resorts may be perceived as a sign of the general transition from spontaneous to induced tourism. It can also be seen as tourism breaking the closed structure of golf clubs and opening them to errant players and new ways of life’.17 It could not be said that in the chosen years, c. 1880–1914, the R&A -until then tacitly using and maintaining the golf course without being owners (the land remained in private hands from 1797)18- had not been totally immune, but was undoubtedly affected by the changes. Reading the R&A minutes of the time has proved to be invaluable in making such an assertion. The golf controversies arising at St Andrews, with the participation of the whole population and its institutions, involved not only sport, but also economic, social, policy and good neighbourhood issues. It seemed that the whole identity of the place was under threat. If St Andrews in the first half of the nineteenth century was a sleepy town, languishing in its past glories, the transition to the next century was about to whip up a veritable hornet’s nest. Nevertheless, this secluded sanctuary -which many people consider the headquarters of their beloved sport- would maintain the spirit of a free sporting arena throughout it all.

The free golfing Links of St Andrews

It is no uncommon thing for golfers thus allied in friendship to indulge in what is called a golfing tour […] Would you start with the old and venerable city, St. Andrews, in Fifeshire. There you will find the best links in all Britain, open and available to all comers, so long as the prescribed rules of the game are observed. And such are your privileges wherever you can find an open golf-course, of which there are now many.19

This text of W. T. Linskill (1855-1929) who presented himself on the cover of his book as honorary secretary and late captain of the Cambridge University Golf Club, offered an optimistic and almost idyllic point of view, of a sport which was for him ‘the most sociable of all games’. A modern version of the same process was offered by John Lowerson, who in his 1994 text attempted to demythologise ‘democratic’ , trying to unmask what was hidden behind the assumption that golf was open to all there.20 This article is focused on a Scottish golfing resort, St Andrews -a case study which even Lowerson admitted ‘has long stood against the trend to selfishness’-21 and the changes in the ownership of its golfing Links, a key aspect, here and elsewhere to ascertain the restrictions or openness of access to golf venues.22

There is some confusion about golf as sport and golf as part of an established structure, such as a golf club. There are those who believe that Club and course are intrinsically linked. However, this can only be said of those clubs who own their own premises. There are also public places to play golf (like St Andrews), some with no club at all, others with one club in charge, or with many clubs using the course with equal rights. This confusion permeated Lowerson’s text, when he compared the characters playing at St Andrews’ Links around 1850, as portrayed in Charles Lees’ ‘Grand Match’, as opposed to the ‘pan-class Englishness’ reflected in Frith’s ‘Derby Day’ painting.23 The complete title of Lees portrait of golf players and spectators is ‘The Golfers: A Grand Match played over the Links of St Andrews on the day of the Annual Meeting of the R&A, 1847’. Lowerson saw that there were ‘one and a servant girl -the rest is all gentry’, but the reality was that ‘the painting contains 53 named people, of whom 44 were R&A members’.24 This portrait did not reflect the social cross-section of players on a common day on the Links, only a limited part of it. Another source, that of photography, would soon bridge that gap, offering lively images of everyday players of that time, who did not order genre portraits in Lees’ style to be hung up at home. Lowerson also tried to glean conclusions comparing two dissimilar classes of spectators, the one in Lees’ painting who were conceivably active golf players themselves, against a backdrop of the totally different crowd randomly gathered beside Epsom grandstand.

A club may be labelled elitist, if its membership is only elected from a certain group of people, but golf as a sport has often gone over and above club structures. Public golf courses were and indeed still are part of the game offering affordable golf to all-comers.25 Lowerson set aside St Andrews in his perception of the sport’s segregation process, and it is possible to ascertain that at St Andrews segregation was not the common practice.26 This seemed to be at odds with the club’s organisation of social golf tournaments for members only, as reflected in Charles Lees’ painting. However, such tournaments took up only a small part of the calendar year, leaving the Links to be used free of charge for the remainder of the year by children, ladies, serious and committed members of the R&A, and members of other golf clubs in the town, day-trippers, visitors or tourists. Not only that but people strolled -as they do today- across the Old Course on Sunday, a day when golf is not allowed there. The R&A, with a membership profile largely made up of middle and high class people27 was in charge, but still managed to sustain a friendly relationship with the townsfolk, which was not a ‘paternalistic’ approach by the Club (to coin a term frequently applied to sports activities).

The main aim of playing a sport, as well as creating a sports club, is to enjoy oneself. We need sound reasons to overcome our natural tendency to isolate ourselves from other people, and the quest for segregation and exclusivity does not seem to be the most stimulating. When we go out to practise an activity, whether it be a sport or any other leisure pursuit, we go with friends or with people who share our same affinities.28 We are not segregating or excluding anybody. The R&A might have been as particular about membership as they wished to be, excluding certain people from the social life of the club or at least discouraging them. But the important aspect is that it has always been possible for anybody to enjoy a round of golf and this was free of charge at least until 1913. Another consideration is that the principal value or asset, purely in material terms, of the location was its golf course, not the R&A club house which, as we see it today, impressively overlooks the Old Golf Course and is steeped in aura or social capital29 rather than offering purely sporting value. Indeed, there are club houses around the world as lavish, large, expensive and luxurious as the R&A home. It has been suggested that people not only joined clubs or organisations seeking leisure or sport in friendly company, but attempting some kind of professional or social advancement. If trying to become member of the R&A with its extensive social network could in part be motivated in the search of social capital, the reality was that the great majority of the daily golf players were (and are) mostly everyday visitors, who usually played with occasional fellow companions and whose expectations went no further than stroking the ball acceptably. I’m sure that many were unconscious that their temporary golfing paradise was run and maintained by the members of the first golfing palace.

There is another point of view, which we can ascertain from that of the workforce. Here, I’m bound to say that there is no place for paternalistic approaches either. People played golf at St Andrews if they wanted to. The steady stream of golfers and the expansion and growth of the golf clubs at St Andrews30 was matched by and even boosted by new jobs and enterprises, such as making balls and golf clubs or offering services as to players. The workers or artisans were the permanent inhabitants of the golf links and knew all its nooks and crannies, and they played not by kind permission of the R&A, but by right of birth. If they could be subservient in their relationships with the R&A or other employers, they were their own masters when it came to playing a round of golf, and their proficiency in the game was usually justifiably acclaimed and if this was the case, they would also gain social recognition.

St Andrews, as Linskill testified, was throbbing with crowds of expectant visitors, not all golf players or good players, but all feeling the lure of the golf links. And this raised another question regarding how to cope with this sustained growth when the number of players or visitors exceeded the capacity of the golf course. And this was the case, at least in the busy months of summer, and this crisis in growth led to heated clashes over the property and management of the golf course, between their old guardians –the R&A– and the local authorities whose undertaking it was to ensure the wholesome development of the town. Indeed, this could provide another chapter to this enthralling story. It took place between 1890 and 1896, culminating with the town promoting the St Andrews 1894 Links Act in Parliament, to acquire the property of the Links land, whilst offering or negotiating conditions with the R&A. These negotiations would have a lasting impact on the future life of the R&A, the use of the golf links by everyday players, and the aura of the town as a golfing resort. The answer in the end would be that this crisis in growth brought about benefits for all concerned. The R&A maintained and reinforced its status as rector and leading body of the sport of golf around the world. The Town Council guaranteed that golf as an activity was in good health and could grow and attract an increasing number of visitors, supporting the procreation of golf courses which stretched out round the Old Course, and controlling the regulations of play. The professionals and caddies maintained their good working conditions whilst the atmosphere continued to flourish. And the visitors were allowed, if they were lucky enough with the daily ballot, to try their luck at one of the best golf courses in the world.

Players performing at in the nineteenth century

It is not an easy task to ascertain the precise number or indeed the differences –origin, social background or habits like frequency of playing- of real St Andrean players. The list of applicants to the daily ballot, were it available, might have provided an accurate quantitative and qualitative perspective. If we were able to move back in time to the nineteenth century, what range of people would we have seen on the St Andrews Links? Would they be the same as today? As today, there were golf or social clubs using the golf course and organising competitions there. We would have seen residents of St Andrews, not always members of any particular golf club, mingling with an army of visitors. There were as today people enjoying a walk on the Old Course on Sundays. There were players with wide ranging abilities, gender and age, and of different social and professional backgrounds.

We can even conjure up an image of such times when looking over the 1879 recorded precognitions –a series of personal testimonies- attached to the road links case, a legal process which has been explored elsewhere.31 The precognitions are a lively source of social knowledge,32 as everyone was keen to highlight their familiarity with the Links; if they were or had being golfers; their first acquaintance with the Links and the game; or if their profession had led them to a better knowledge of the Links. Some would detail their playing frequency, or indicate the fact that they were regular visitors to St Andrews. This image could be completed with the works of the golf writer and leading amateur golfer Horace G. Hutchinson, or reviewing the R&A minutes.

Firstly, it is possible to demonstrate that there were players of a wide range of ages, e. g. schoolboys and old people. The R&A felt the necessity to regulate the use of the course by boys. A member, Jordyce, expressed in an 1890s report of the R&A caddies’ subcommittee the following:

Also that the Headmasters of Schools be communicated with in order that some plan may be devised for the boys playing in some regular fashion, and at some regular hours instead of the present straggling fashion, which is not only uncomfortable, but dangerous to all, and ruinous to the green.33 If some boys played on their own, there were others more formally engaged at a club for children, which actually began in 1888.34 As Seonaid McAinsh expressed, the club ‘was formally started with a membership of 134 boys and girls aged 5 to 13. They were all children of members of the Ladies Golf Club and summer visitors’.35 They had their own space to train, a putting green beside the 17th green of the Old Course. In similar way as with the Ladies Golf Club -which was nominally independent from but in some degree subservient to the R&A (many were wives and daughters of R&A members)- the children’s club could be perceived as a branch of their mother’s golf club. The presence of nannies and the children’s photographs reflects middle class families. The warning given by Jordyce indicated that the children’s club activity, confined to its reduced premises, was not the only one, and there were also schoolchildren playing on their own on the full eighteen-hole course. In this case, as it was the general rule regarding the St Andrews Links, club activity was not exclusive, and a variety of players not engaged in formal structures also used the Links to play golf. The precognition of Charles Anderson reflected how he regularly played the first hole of the Old Course as a boy attending .36 The students of St Andrews University had the opportunity to play, as John Cameron duly testified. He had lived in St Andrews for the last eight years, was a student of Divinity and captain of the University Golf Club. He stressed that every student in attendance ‘is entitled to be a member of the Club, and to play in all competitions’.37 And there was plenty of evidence of veterans using the Links, proving that the skills acquired in this sport could endure the passage of time.

The Ladies Golf Club had set aside a ground beside the Old Course, laid out as a large putting green which remains in existence today. It is known as the Himalayas. The presence of women playing real golf in the Old Course can be traced back to around 1894.38 This year marked the final stage of the struggle between the Town Council and the R&A to control the Links, and the power void was undoubtedly a favourable time for ladies to play the full course.

Meanwhile, the occupational profile of players was wide ranging. The aforementioned precognitions reflected a number of manual workers, e.g. golf professionals making a living from golf as club or ball makers. Other professionals included a candle maker, a slater, a plasterer or a shoemaker who played frequently; members of the army and church; a school teacher, a joiner, a jeweller, the postmaster, a mason, grocers, builders, an engineer as well as lawyers, among others. There were usually mentioned when their contact with golf began, and if they were active players in 1879 the local golf club to which they belonged might be added. This was not the case of John Baldie, a hotel keeper of 55 years of age, who expressed that he was an old golfer but had never joined a club. Horace G. Hutchinson also reflected such wide ranging social backgrounds. Peter N. Lewis cited an article published by him in Murray’s Magazine in October 1887 and then in the first edition of the Golfing Annual. Hutchinson referred to the St Andrews golfing way in the following manner:

It is not confined to sex, to age or to station. Youth and beauty, grey hairs and fustian jackets, jumble forward to witness the final putt; while eager eyes look forth from the club window, and from every window round. ‘What sort of man is So-and-so?’ the stranger coming to St Andrews will ask; and will be sorely puzzled when, instead of information anent the social qualities of the So-and-so indicated, he hears in replay: ‘Oh I can give him about a half’. Yes it is that –the absorbing interest that is taken in it- that makes golf what it is at St Andrews; makes it what it is nowhere else.39 Hutchinson, as an eminent golfer and golf writer had first-hand knowledge of the St Andrews Links, being a member of R&A from 1884.40 In another piece, Hutchinson reproduced the aforementioned article once again, this time entitled The Pilgrim at the Shrine, adding a follow- up chapter, which included some social notes. The chapter was Mecca out of Season which dealt with St Andrews in winter. He noted the presence at the Links of mariners playing golf, who could not go out to sea due to adverse weather conditions.41 People who had made a living out of golf also played golf on the Links when they were off duty. Hutchinson stressed the stationary kind of labour, ‘Links and professionals are alike free and unoccupied in these winter months’, in contrast with the long summer days, when ‘after the day’s work of carrying clubs is over, […] the professionals go out in parties of two or three or four’.42 The caddies represented a singular group at the Links. They took up their office often at an early age, as is the case of Robert Nicholson, an omnibus driver of twenty-four years who expressed in his precognition43 that he was a caddie in his early life and had begun at ten to twelve years of age. As Hutchinson noted, in the busy months of summer they gathered together and played short holes adjacent to the R&A, or practised driving shots towards the Swilcan Burn early in the morning, while waiting to be hired by players.44

The locals and people in close connection with the town who made the precognitions help conjure up an image of the lively atmosphere of a free use of the Links, but their testimonies also revealed the surprising presence of a new range of players who were increasingly flocking to the St Andrews Links, the occasional or seasonal visitors from Great Britain, soon to be followed by continental or overseas golfers. Now many eyes from several countries were fixed on the St Andrean golfers, and their manners and ways could no longer go unnoticed and might even be replicated elsewhere. In 1879 the constant flow of tourists could be said to be thriving and this trend would only increase with the years. This source of prosperity for the town would arouse conflicts, as the struggle to control the property of the Links between the R&A and the Town Council would soon demonstrate.

Land in search of an owner: the Links for the Town or the R&A, 1890-96

The status quo previously established45 whereby the Town Council took a back seat was to reach its conclusion in the 1890s and would thereafter take a more active role. The protagonists involved in this transition could be seen as forming a triangle, the vertices of which being the owner of the Links, James Cheape; the R&A and the Town Council. The relationship between them underwent a series of stages or movements. Although both the R&A and the Town Council moved toward the same goal, which was the extension of the golf facilities, they did so for quite different reasons. In the end both competed to buy the property from Cheape. The main act of this affair began when Cheape sold the land to the R&A. This led the Town Council to promote an Act of Parliament to obtain the property, a daunting task in itself which eventually boiled up to a local raging controversy, fuelled by R&A members who were living in St Andrews. The R&A’s approaches to the owner were brought about by its aspirations to have a course which could be called its property. They were deeply considering the purchase of the entire St Andrews Links, to keep the Old Course open as before, while making a new adjacent course for members only. In that time the R&A might have taken advantage of the fact that the owner - James Cheape- as a club member would be willing to sell the Links to them. They surely46 had in mind the successful move made by another historic golf club, a bit older than R&A, the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, which relinquished the public Links of Musselburgh in 1891, owing to the overcrowding47 of its nine-hole course,48 in favour of a move to its own premises, . The Open in its new format had been restarted in 1872 by three clubs, Prestwick, R&A and the Honourable Company, and played alternatively at their home courses. The movement of the latter to Muirfield led them to organise the 1892 Open at their new venue, though not without protests from Musselburgh.49 As has been recorded in Champions and Guardians, extracted from the golf press of the time, at Muirfield during the Open ‘the spectators of the play were select rather than numerous and were not to be compared with that tumultuous throng of golfing democrats to be seen at Musselburgh or St Andrews’.50 Lowerson could have used Muirfield as a more accurate example of exclusivity than Lees’ colourful portrait of R&A members playing at the Links. In the end, the Honourable Company club house, beside the Musselburgh links, remained stranded,51 like others, even if golf maintained its presence at this historic links, now in use. This could have been the fate of the R&A club house. It was then the main (or only) asset held by the club52 and they would have lost it had they left St Andrews. Moreover, the real sporting value emanated from the golf course. Maybe once away from St Andrews, the R&A would have faded and have become just another club, albeit with great prestige, but without the same global impact and authority of the full range of the R&A’s activities.

The other interest which clashed with the R&A ambitions was a civic or municipal one, which set out to gain ownership of the existing golf course and adjacent links with a view to securing a golfing real estate which would remain free and open for ever. They now had a legal advantage, which was the new Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1892, as David Hamilton has pointed out.53 This Act was one of the platforms which allowed the towns to purchase land for public purposes, land which in some cases had been previously sold by the municipalities and remained in private hands. The Town Council might have had in mind the steps taken by another nearby resort, smaller than St Andrews, namely , where the Town Council had bought their links in 1892. Another striking example of municipal golf which enjoyed a considerable media impact, in this case not at a resort but in a suburban environment, was the Edinburgh’s Braid Hills course, opened in 1889, on land bought by the municipality to provide further space for the crowded and popular Bruntsfield Links. Golf had been banned there owing to the difficulties of combining it with the other uses of an urban park. The Braid Hills course proved to be an overnight success among workers and all kinds of players.

What was at stake was by no means inconsequential for both corporations. The R&A could feel that if they did not take the lead soon, the Town Council would do so, and the conditions to use the St Andrews Links, at least as far as the R&A was concerned, would change dramatically. And if in 1893 the Town Council’s stance had remained indifferent when the R&A purchased the land, what we now see at St Andrews would have been totally different.54 In 1893 the R&A managed the single golf course in existence and were building a new one beside it, on the land acquired by themselves that year, to be later known as the New course. It is plausible to think that the building of the future courses, -including the Jubilee in 1897,55 the Eden in 1914, both constructed by the Town Council, and the newer ones- which make up today a complex of seven public courses, managed by a Trust, would be beyond the scope of a single golf club, even one such as the R&A.

Such uncertain developments led those institutions to carry out different tasks and trials. The R&A’s procedure to buy the Links in November 1893 was paved with less strenuous efforts than those needed by the Town Council to achieve the Bill, because they were fighting on a single front, that of ensuring golf and social life for its members. The corporation, on the other hand, was taking up its new role in the golfing affairs in the town, whilst at the same time dealing with general municipal matters. The councillors needed to overcome internal and external opposition in order to promote the Bill to acquire the Links. The former came from the fact that there were members of the R&A who were at the same time councillors,56 and the latter from the members themselves or from independent citizens opposed to this measure. The Town Council would need the majority of its 29 members to vote in favour of the Bill, a majority which was consolidated after the municipal elections in November 1893.

Luckily, the R&A and the Town Council did not relinquish the battle, and in the end made sensible agreements. The ensuing symbiosis between a great and historic club like R&A and the Town Council, with the participation of other local golf clubs and townsfolk, produced a sporting haven considered the spiritual and governing centre of such a beloved sport everywhere in the world. During this particular series of events perhaps the R&A was not the genuine winner, but instead golf at St Andrews itself. The differences in the way of conducting golfing affairs at St Andrews did not end in 1894 with the St Andrews Links Act. It was destined to be an enduring cordial opposition, after which punctuated by renewed approaches. As councillor Rutherford put it in 1910, ‘the working of all the courses should be co-ordinated’.57 He was speaking about regulations and the equal right to play, but highlighted a key point, namely the importance of preserving the unity of the golf complex, which could have been easily split into many small independent parts. Another key point is that they were able to take advantage of the special natural conditions enjoyed by the St Andrews Links, which was its disposition for the building of further golf courses. It was stressed that they were fortunate to have a land which ‘could be easily adapted to the laying out of golf links’.58 The agents involved in this new golfing joint venture were ever more conscious that they were dealing with something special, nothing other than having a golfing gem on their hands.

In this light it is possible to reconsider The Links Act chapter of Champions and Guardians, the official history of the club, where the Town Council was presented as a body who ‘rubbed their hands with glee at the benefit from this tourist attraction’ [the Old Course].59 To observe the decisions taken by the R&A the main source used has been the review of the R&A minutes. A verification of the points raised by this issue involving local characters are the press cuttings collected in a book by David Hay Fleming, a local historian, who covered developments from May 13, 1893 to April 20, 1894.60 Another fruitful source, apart from official documents such as the St Andrews Links Act 1894 and the plan attached to it (see Figure 1),61 has been the R&A’s Secretary Charles Stuart Grace’s62 letter books recorded at St Andrews University Library.63 In a letter he expressed that in the end the whole affair had been for the R&A ‘a vexed piece of business’.64

Figure 1. Plan of St Andrews Links signed and attached to the St Andrews Links Act, 1894, indicating the limits of the New Course and the Ladies Links. The north is to the right side of the sheet. From Parliamentary Archives, ref. HL/PO/PB/3/plan1894/S2.

Display full size Flags of the R&A, or how the club acquired the St Andrews Links in 1893

What was the aim of the R&A when addressing the purchase of the land where they played golf? This was explained in Champions and Guardians65 which pointed to the boom in the number of golf courses in Britain, added to the inauguration of continental and overseas ones. As a consequence the growing number of players drawn to St Andrews made it difficult for the members to secure a place to play in the busiest months, namely in summer. The R&A was the club with the largest number of members recorded in the newly edited (1887 until 1910) Golfing Annual.66 It had around 750, but only just over 10%67 were residents at St Andrews. The great majority of members stayed sometime in the town, their main interest being to play golf during those days, something which was becoming increasingly difficult to do. And so what the R&A tried to do was to purchase the land and make a new golf course, where the members were able to play unhindered.

What the R&A intended to buy were the Pilmour Links, representing a large part of the St Andrews northwest peninsula. The border with the Town Council property was the Swilcan Burn (see Figure 1). The space between the burn and the R&A club house, where the first and eighteen holes of the Old Course are placed, was and has always been municipal, and this was not under discussion. A review of the minutes of the 1890s R&A autumn General Meeting shows that the land question had wider implications than the desire of non St Andrean R&A members to play, one of which was the necessity of new caddies regulations. This was mentioned in a club report:

That if the Royal and Ancient Club waits till a new Police Bill for Scotland gives it the control of its Links, so as to enable it, in conjunction with the Local Authority, to enforce Regulations for the employment of Caddies, it may have to bear the inconveniences under which it at present suffers for many years to come. That even after such a Bill became a law, the Club might be in a less favourable position than now for suggesting Rules which would be accepted by the other Clubs of the country; inasmuch as, if all could fall back on police authority, each might frame its owns rules independently of the rest.68

These two points are of particular interest. They expressed that in 1890, the R&A envisaged the impending Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1892. As a consequence, they feared the loosening of the stronghold held by the R&A in the world of golf, in the event that each club chose to rely on its own Town Council and not on the authority of the R&A as a central governor of the game. The report mentioned three clubs, Hoylake, Sandwich and Prestwick, which owned their links and had complete control over the caddie’s regulation, but outlined that the most successful in adjusting rules had been ‘several clubs which have no control of their greens, (the Links being public ‘commons’)’.69

The final stage in the buying process took place in 1893. The owner of the land was James Cheape of , who was an R&A member and had been appointed trustee of the Club the previous September.70 The events seemed to be progressing in the right direction as reported in the spring General Meeting, only to be somewhat eclipsed by the reception of a small communication indicating that the committee of the Town Council was studying the ‘extension of the Golfing Course’. The special committee of the R&A appointed to finalise the purchase for the R&A was only authorised to contact them in order to find out what their intentions were.71 The Town Council still did not have a clear intention apart from safeguarding golf’s free status at St Andrews, offering equal conditions to play to all and sundry.

The first round was won in November 189372 by the R&A, which bought the Links from their owner Cheape. However, they would not be allowed to enjoy their new property peacefully, because the Town Council immediately took measures to acquire the land in favour of the community of St Andrews. The flags of the R&A were not only a symbol representing the charge made by the club forces; being rather something more prosaic, as was reported by Hay Fleming, the Town Council’s rights advocate. The R&A had marked the position of the greens on the New course they were about to build with white flags,73 some of which were at the east side of the public coastal path, which would become dangerous for walkers. June 1894 would see the tipping point between the R&A and the Town Council.74 The signature of the plan attached to the Act (see Figure 1), where two lines of play were drawn from greens 16–18, one indicating that previously intended and another the final one displaced to the west to allow a safer path, heralded the promulgation in July 1894 of the St Andrews Links Act.

In the name of the townsfolk, or how the Town Council promoted a Bill to recover the St Andrews Links, 1893-4

1893 proved to be a confusing year in St Andrew’s golfing affairs. While the R&A went ahead with its process to buy the Links, the Town Council was becoming increasingly conscious of its consequences. One of these unpleasant consequences for the townsfolk would be the removal by the R&A of the Himalayas Ladies putting green from its original place,75 ostensibly to make the first hole of the envisaged New Course the nearest possible to the R&A club house. Another major point of discussion surrounded the building of the New Course, whether it was going to be free and open to all, as the Old Course was, or instead a course used by R&A members and their guests. Any future inauguration of a private course at St Andrews would not be tolerated by the majority of councillors, who felt that in this point they were giving voice to the St Andrean townsfolk.

The turning point in this process took place in September 1893, when the Town Council became aware that the Links were about to be sold to the R&A. Until then they had hoped to buy the Links directly from the owner, Cheape. This sent the alarm bells ringing in some municipal minds, and the Town Council decided to go for the Parliament Bill in order to acquire the Links for the Town. It was not on the Town Council agenda to snatch the links from R&A hands. The club had the expertise and experience to run golf at St Andrews as well as the prestige to attract players, championships and visitors. This, in fact, had been the key factor in the recent prosperity of the town. It had not been a wise move from the Town Council to break loose from such a charismatic institution as the R&A. The Town Council movements began in September 22, 1893 with a meeting in which the promotion of a Bill was approved, subject to the approval of ratepayers, which was duly received at a public meeting on September 25. The notice to promote the Bill in Parliament was presented in November 1893. The R&A duly noted the Town Council’s strategy at a General Meeting in September 26, 189376 attended by 51 members, one of them the lawyer Andrew Graham Murray, who played a special role in the defence of the R&A’s interests.77

It was the outbreak of what could be labelled as a peaceful war. The main actor now would be the Town Council, which went full steam ahead with the Parliament Bill, a document to which they would need to attach an agreement with the proprietor of the land envisaged to become a municipal property, which was then in the hands of the R&A.78 This club had to tackle a more difficult task. They were owners after November 1893, but if the Links Act was going to be successful, and the signs were in favour of that possibility, the Town Council would soon be the new owners, and the R&A would need to bargain with them, in order to attempt to reach the most suitable agreement. The R&A had won the first battle, but now their position was unsecure, and their future was less than clear. The current climate had brought about growing uncertainty for the R&A, and in the subsequent months seemed to follow a process now being engineered by the Town Council. As the R&A leader Graham Murray expressed in another crucial Extraordinary General Meeting hold by the club in March 1894, the club ‘was now quite uncommitted’.79

Peace conditions: the st Andrews Links act, 1894

Prior to the above mentioned R&A Extraordinary General Meeting of March 1894, the club had been in contact with the Town Council in order to negotiate the conditions to be included in the Act, which embodied the agreement between both parts. The R&A had endorsed many of the Town Council’s proposals, such as further extending the up-keep of the Old Course; to build the New Course at their expense and to undertake its maintenance as well. The Old Course would be open to the general public free of charge forever, unlike the New, which would have some restrictions in the busy months of summer, in favour of R&A members, ratepayers and the proprietor of Strathtyrum and his family.80 Such meagre privileges were to cost the R&A 125 pounds a year, payable to the Town Council, although the Club would receive charges levied on the New Course from persons apart from the aforementioned, in the summer months, at a maximum rate of two shillings and sixpence per day, making sure that they ‘shall not overcrowd such course’.81 This all meant that the R&A were going to defray from the Club’s annual budget a substantial amount, which would not be invested in their property but on a public one, the St Andrews Links. The Town Council also set out to protect the position on the Links of the St Andrews Ladies Club, and in order to achieve this they had included in the text of the Bill a clause concerning the possibility of letting a part of the Links. This was made explicit in the second schedule of the Act,82 where it was disclosed that the R&A ‘shall also maintain a short hole course within the lines marked blue’ on the plan attached to the Act (see Figure 1).83

Nevertheless, still remained under discussion in March 1894 a key point considered by both sides a conditio sine qua non. It was as to which body would have the control over the envisaged new regulations of play and starting order.84 Both corporations agreed that the R&A, creating and maintaining a new Green Committee, would be the main agent, but the Town Council wanted to reserve a right of veto, through which they would have the final word regarding the approval of the forthcoming regulations. The R&A tried to solve this conundrum by including on the Green Committee two councillors, pitted against five R&A members. This was accepted by the Town Council, opposing the view of Thomas Thornton, the Dundee lawyer who carried the Bill for the Town Council.85 As it turned out Thornton was right, because soon the nominated councillors would be reluctant to accept this assignment, because they felt that their presence was rather inconsequential in such a committee.86

This key point would prove to be crucial in the future management of the Links. The Town Council would not adopt the role of an owner who neglected the daily problems of the golf courses. Instead, they would be an owner with a dominant role, operating in coordination with the main agents, the R&A. The right of veto meant that the two corporations were compelled to live together. The Town Council had no intention of exercising any managerial powers. Any initiatives taken needed to begin at the R&A level. However, within the new structure the club would always be required to contact the Town Council which still held the final say regarding matters of regulations covering the use of the links. Problems would undoubtedly arise using this formula but it would also oblige both corporations to cooperate.

The Town Council’s right of veto was not approved by the R&A extraordinary General Meeting of March 1894, and consequently the club opposed the Bill in London. On May 4, 189487 the final agreement came about, in which the club accepted the Council’s right of veto, and following the signature of the plan (see Figure 1) came the approval for the St Andrews Links Act, dated July 20, 1894. The institution of the daily ballot to address the congestion on the Links

The promulgation of the Act meant that in the following years the R&A and Town Council, although they would not work hand in hand, would often be in contact in order to tackle problems, the most urgent being the so called ‘congestion’, as the press coined it. This congestion was not evenly spread around the Links, but took place only on the Old Course. This required some further explanation. The R&A was, in 1893, looking for a golf course of its own, but the New Course they had built had its first hole a good distance from the R&A club house, further than the Swilkan Burn, and was significantly less glamorous than the Old. It was becoming increasingly apparent that the R&A members wanted to play on the Old Course, and were not satisfied merely with some preeminent position over the New Course, conferred to them in the Act. On the other hand, the agreement between the R&A and the Town Council sanctioned by the Act envisaged that ‘the old course shall be always open to all members of the public free of charge’,88 whereas in the New Course during July, August and September visitors (except R&A members, or ratepayers of St Andrews and their children, or Cheape’s family) were required to pay a fee, thus making the Old Course a more desirable place to play.

The system used to control the access to the Old Course was the daily ballot. In 1895 there was a mention in a news item that some local clubs –St Andrews, Foresters, Guild and St Regulus– had pointed out that the ballot had begun four or five years earlier, tracing its origins back to 1890.89 The Act and its two schedules, the second being the agreement between R&A and Town Council, did not mention the ballot system nor the regulation for starting times. The Honorary Secretary of the R&A, C. S. Grace, sent a proposal of regulations to play made by the new Green Committee to provost Mc Gregor in July 1896, with a view to having it rubber stamped by the Town Council. Grace felt that they were experiencing a historic moment, because ‘this is the first time that any attempt has been made to regulate play and starting on St Andrews Links’.90 The bylaws were published in the press91 as drawn up by the Green Committee, and approved by the Burgh Commissioners on December 14, 1896. In part two (‘Regulations for starting’), point two, the ballot system was established, although in the introduction to the piece of news it was stated that such regulations were going to be tested over a year, and could be adjusted if they proved ‘to be satisfactory in its operation or not’.92 Andrew Bennet’s 1898 guide to St Andrews Links included the regulations, and the ballot system was similar to that approved in 1896.93

How did the daily ballot to play on the Old Course work in and around 1900? The ballot was in charge of the Green Committee, and its expenses should be, like all of the maintenance costs, part of R&A annual budget.94 In its infancy it was performed on the R&A premises,95 and this was criticised, especially by people who considered themselves to be plagued by ill fortune, whereas other people obtained a place to play not only in the morning, but also in the afternoon. Applicants desiring to play were required to present a card at the starter box or the Post Office not later than 5 pm on the previous day. These cards were balloted and a list hung up at around 6 pm. The timetable was not stated in the regulations, but only said that the starter, when present, will be at the first tee from 9 am to noon and from 1 pm to 6 pm, to regulate the starting of the players in accordance with the previously balloted list. On Thursday afternoons every fourth place and on Saturday afternoons every second place were not balloted, a condition that would be maintained in the future in order to offer local workers, with tight working timetables, more options to play.

How was the system of play organised in and around 1900? The regulations to control the steady flow of players on the golf courses of St Andrews were slightly different to what they are today. Individual players in 1900 on the Old Course had no right to play, unless an opponent could be found and assigned to them. People usually departed in groups of two or four. Today the maximum number of players going out together is four, as in 1900, but the time between each departure is now ten minutes rather than four, more than double. Players in the past were faster, and a round on the Old Course was expected to finish in two hours, which perhaps now takes no less than three hours and a half. The match-play style,96 scored on a hole by hole basis, without the need to record the amount of shots of each pair of golfers proved extremely popular. This format adds great flexibility and dynamism to the use of the course. Today, as in earlier times, caddies at St Andrews, now with a bright blue jacket, are engaged by amateurs in their daily rounds, a custom lost in other countries for amateur players.

The daily ballot was adjusted in 1913 after years of controversy, when a Parliamentary Bill was approved,97 which included a section about the Links, and a second schedule with a new agreement between the R&A and Town Council. The ballot was now considered in full. On the Old Course the R&A had now gained the right to reserve twenty starting numbers in the morning, between 10 am and 11.16, and another twenty in the afternoons, between 2 and 3.16 pm during August and September. To ascertain how this 1913 agreement could have changed the conditions for R&A players, it is useful to make an assessment of the number of players before and after. Before the 1913 agreement, a press release published in 1912 by H. M. Singer98 declared that in the previous year, during July, August, and September 14.316 visitors applied for places on the Old Course, and 7.771 obtained places. A second group of players were St Andrews’ ratepayers, of whom 2.888 applied, and 1.741 of them were successful. During the same period from 4.716 R&A members and temporary members balloted, 2.736 were awarded a place. The latter figure represents around 912 including both types of members each month.

In the new agreement forty starting numbers with two players per number meant a total of 80 R&A players per day, or 1.920 players per month, based on an average of twenty-four playable days. The numbers Singer mentioned meant that before 1913 during the three busiest months 54% of visitors, 60% of ratepayers and 58% of R&A affiliated players could play. Of the total number of 12.248 players, the R&A members and associates represented some 22%. According to the terms of the agreement the allocation of R&A players grew considerably. And more importantly, the R&A was able to guarantee a daily place for a fixed number of its own players at the Old Course. Other points within the agreement aimed to address congestion at the Old Course included levying charges -for visitors only- at this course, to dissuade them from playing there, and to charge the Town Council with the task of providing another golf course, the Eden to cater for the overspill. It was the 4th to be inaugurated within the St Andrews complex, in 1914, as the municipality had already opened the Jubilee Course in 1897.

Conclusion

In conclusion, golf at St Andrews during these years (1880-1914) took on a new meaning, transforming it from being a burgeoning sport which attracted many visitors and catered well for locals, R&A members as well as local golf clubs, to be a policy and economic issue vital to the development of the town. This was due to the outstanding geographical dimensions which golf at St Andrews had taken on. Starting off as a purely British affair, there was an ever growing awareness that St Andrews and the R&A had now become the world golf centre,99 and that they had a golfing gem on their hands. The R&A began to manage world golf issues as well as domestic ones, whilst the Town Council was fighting the battle to accommodate the growing number of golfing visitors who represented the bread and butter of hotels, guest houses, and of the local industry surrounding golf such as workshops and retailers, the employment of caddies or other services connected with the game.

In 1893, upon taking the decision to buy the overall property which included the golf course, the R&A was faced with meeting several considerable challenges and overcoming serious problems, some of which were indeed self-inflicted. At stake was the survival of the R&A,100 and also the welfare of the town. After the 1893 crisis, the R&A, from its previous role as protector and guardian of the Links, paying maintenance costs whilst allowing free golf as much as they could, eventually emerged into a co-governing joint body with the Town Council in all matters concerning regulations of play, which were in fact their biggest challenge. If on the Links prior to 1894 all-comers were awarded a place for a free round of golf, the promulgation of the 1894 Links Act led to new regulations, enacted not to make the place more select, but to preside over an overcrowded sporting arena. The Act meant that after 1894 the R&A was obliged to share their role of guardians of the Links, and cooperate, or at least to be in touch, as far as golf issues were concerned, with the Town Council, a body which was representative of the whole interests of the town. This forced joint venture was going to be an enduring and in the end happy one, and would preserve the unity of the golfing land. It would henceforth never be split into many different parts whilst at the same time involving the whole population in golfing affairs. This could be accomplished due to the good natural conditions of the Links, perfectly situated in the town, and offering optimum opportunities to add new golf courses.

In the end the struggle proved beneficial for all concerned, and if the congestion was an unsolvable problem even with regulations, it would not affect the growing aura of the town as the premier golfing venue to visit. The balance between the different forces proved to be satisfactory in ensuring the future of such an important sporting venue, which has overcome many difficult hurdles during its development, whilst all the while maintaining and increasing its great appeal as a golfing shrine. The Old Course, which has hosted the Open on so many memorable occasions, remains in Singer’s words ‘the principal asset and attraction of St Andrews’.101 There has not been express need to add ‘invented traditions’ as has been assumed,102 in order to attract players from all over the world. If one walked the Old Course in or around 1900, it would be possible to see or perhaps speak with Tom Morris in flesh and blood,103 a living golf legend at the time.

The answer to one of the issues addressed in this article, namely why there is a complex of seven public golf courses,104 lies in the lively exchanges which took place regarding the public and private sphere. It was fruitful and paved the way for St Andrews golf to be what it is today, a place which offers an almost unique opportunity for thousands of golfers, most of them aficionados, from a wide range of abilities and social backgrounds, to play at one of the world’s most formidable golf courses, and from the same spot where the greatest professional golfers of all times have played. For it to remain a public sporting venue, open to all on a pay per play basis, something quite remarkable in itself, offers encouragement to the ‘golf for all’ movement now prospering everywhere in the world.

Acknowledgement

My thanks go to Julie Greenhill, Maia Sheridan, Steven Martin, Catriona Foote and all the staff of the Special Collections Division in the Library. To Susan Goodfellow, Andrew Dowsey and the staff of the Archives at Bankhead Park (Glenrothes). To Angela Howe, Kieran George, Hannah Fleming and the staff of the British Golf Museum at St Andrews, created and run by the R&A, where I reviewed some R&A minutes' books. To Blyth Bell, R&A member and golf author. He allowed me to experience the real thing, playing the St Andrews old course in December 2018 with him, his wife Jeanne and his friend Lance Sloan, all good players. To Peter N. Lewis. To Robert J. Lake and Kay Schiller.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gerardo Rebanal Martínez Gerardo Rebanal Martínez was born in Santander (Spain) in 1962. He is an architect (Polytechnic School, Madrid, 1988), and has worked as a civil servant architect for the Asturias Administration since 1991. He has lived in Oviedo (Spain) where he completed a thesis in Art History at the University of Oviedo in 2014 under the direction of Luis Sazatornil Ruiz. It is entitled ‘H. S. Colt and the beginning of golf in Spain, 1900–1936: Architecture, Society, Sport'. He has published the article ‘Golf, enterprise, and tourism in Belle Époque Europe c. 1900– 1914’ in Journal of Tourism History 11, no. 2 (2019). He is interested in golf architecture and golf history.

Notes

1 St Andrews boasts one of the best golf courses in the world (the Old Course), and the R&A is based here, an outstanding golf club with a worldwide role as co-governing body insomuch as are concerned. Also the R&A was one of the three clubs which in 1872 recommenced the oldest major golf tournament, the Open, and has run it in exclusivity since 1920. The Open is regularly played at the Old Course.

2 See in David Hamilton, Golf: Scotland’s Game (The Partick Press: Kilmacolm,1998), 168-9, a compendium of golf literature of that time.

3 John Lowerson, Sport and the English middle classes 1870-1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), 125.

4 Peter N. Lewis, in Why Are There Eighteen Holes? St Andrews and the Evolution of Golf Courses 1764- 1890 (The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, 2016), 45-7 and 55, summarises this evolution and the role of an eminent provost, Hugh Lyon Playfair (1786-1861). There seems to be a clear correlation between the influence of the R&A and the final decision to adopt eighteen holes as the established number of holes on a golf course in Great Britain, according to Lewis. The synopsis of the front cover explains that it also deals with St Andrews as the ‘metropolis of golf’, and the process which leads the R&A to be a governing body of the game, both pertinent aspects to the subject under consideration.

5 Worrall’s Directory of the North-Eastern Counties of Scotland (Oldham: John Worrall, 1877), 270.

6 Maps website of the digital National Library of Scotland, first edition of Ordnance Survey, Fife and Kinross, sheet 12, 1855, https://maps.nls.uk/view/74426829 (accessed March 16, 2020).

7 Worrall’s Directory, index of towns and villages with the population of the parishes.

8 Excerpt taken from H. B. Fernie, Golfers Manual,1857, in Golfiana Miscellanea, ed. James Lindsay Stewart (London: Hamilton, Adams, 1887), 118.

9 See Alastair J. Durie, ‘The Development of the Scottish Coastal Resorts in the Central Lowlands, c.1770–1880: From Gulf Stream to Golf Stream’, Local Historian 24, no. 4 (November 1994): 206–16.

10 See Alastair Durie, ‘Sporting Tourism Flowers – the Development from c.1780 of Grouse and Golf as Visitor Attractions in Scotland and Ireland’, Journal of Tourism History 5, no. 2 (2013), 131–45.

11 Hamilton, Golf, 180. 12 Ibid., 203.

13 See John Lowerson, ‘Golf and the Making of Myths’, in Scottish Sport in the Making of the Nation: Ninety-Minute Patriots?, ed. Grant Jarvie and Graham Walker (Leicester University Press, 1994), 75–90.

14 It is not an easy task in the case of St Andrews, owing to the pervasive influence of great golf club histories, such as those rendered by the R&A itself, like the official Club history in three volumes, the second covering the years selected in this article: John Behrend, Peter N. Lewis and Keith Mackie, Champions and Guardians: The Royal & Ancient Golf Club 1884-1939 (Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, 2001). Other Clubs have its own histories, e. g. Keith McCartney, St Andrews for Ever: A History of the , 1843-2018 (The St Andrews Golf Club, 2018).

15 An exception about a club in France in Gerardo Rebanal Martínez, ‘A Longing for Golf: Biarritz and San Sebastián, 1900–1936’, Historia Contemporánea 53 (2016): 527, adding some conclusions about two daily sheets from the golf course of Biarritz, opened in 1888.

16 Lewis, Why Are There …

17 See Gerardo Rebanal Martínez, ‘Golf, enterprise, and tourism in Belle Époque Europe c. 1900– 1914’, Journal of Tourism History 11, no. 2 (2019): 127.

18 In reference to the ownership of St Andrews Links see Norman Reid, ‘Five Centuries of Dispute: The Common Land of St Andrews’, Scottish Archives 21 (2015), 30-43, which may be reviewed on the website of the Scottish Record Association https://www.scottishrecordsassociation.org/scottish-archives (accessed 17 March, 2020).

19 W. T. Linskill, Golf (London: George Bell and Sons, 1889), 5.

20 Lowerson, ‘Golf and the Making’, 75–90.

21 Ibid., 84.

22 Hamilton, Golf, 203.

23 Lowerson, ‘Golf and the Making’, 79.

24 Concerning the work of Charles Lees, see Lewis, why are there? 54-5 and xxvi- xxix.

25 There is at St Andrews a series of golfing fees in accordance with the course to be played, ranging from the expensive Old Course to the cheap Balgove.

26 This does not mean to say that there were people of different social classes playing together, or to coin an expression used by Lowerson, that it was a ‘pan-class’ sport. It does however stress that it was, like other social activities, a multi-layered reality. E.g. the caddies layer, or the lawyers layer. Every layer was made up of people who occasionally or regularly played golf together, sharing professional or personal interests, playing in their own time. They did not mingle, and the layers only occasionally interacted, but all had similar rights to play, and no people were discouraged from playing golf, or discriminated against. They usually played among friends, colleagues, or random playing companions, like today.

27 In the golf club minutes, at least in those reviewed, when a ballot to elect new members was run, it was recorded with names, and also professions and addresses in many cases.

28 There also remains the solitary player, or sportsman, willing to play on his own.

29 In the sense applied to the British golf club by Wray Vamplew, Not Playing the Game: The Socio- Economic Divide at late Victorian and Edwardian Golf Clubs (Saarbrüken: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2017), 11-3. 30 There was a great variety and scope of golf clubs at St Andrews. It could be perceived in the directory of the Golfing Annual, edited from 1888 to 1910. E. g. in the book written by the great professional player J. H. Taylor, Taylor on Golf, 4th ed. (London: Hutchinson, 1905) a list of sixteen were included, such as R&A, St Andrews, New, Thistle, three for Ladies, University, school, children, professional or politics.

31 See e.g. David Malcolm and Peter E. Crabtree, Tom Morris of St Andrews: The Colossus of Golf 1821- 1908 (Glengarden Press: Ballater, 2008), 198-209.

32 They make up a series of archive items, containing many hand-written sheets, some of them clipped together in joint documents. It has been reviewed in the Special Collections branch of the St Andrews University Library (hereafter to be referred to as StULSC) and have call numbers B65/22/70/12 and B65/22/70/19 to 27. They cover around 90 testimonies of people in connection with the Links. One of the documents, B65/22/70/25 is the largest volume with 44 testimonies. Its first page is an index of people, with the official title as headline, Precognitions of Paterson and others versus The Magistrates of St Andrews and others.

33 The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews Archive Minutes (Later referred to as RAAM), RNA 70/16, General Meetings 1882-93, Committee of Management, 1th December 1890.

34 Year taken from Seonaid McAinsh, St Andrews Ladies’ Golf Club 1867-2017 (St Andrews Golf Press, 2017), 79-89, its 9 th chapter is dedicated to the Children’s Golf Club.

35 McAinsh, St Andrews Ladies, 83.

36 StULSC, B65/22/70/21, precognition of Charles Anderson.

37 StULSC, B65/22/70/26, precognition of John F. Cameron.

38 McAinsh, St Andrews Ladies, 108.

39 The Golfing Annual, 1887-88, 62-71, cited from Lewis, Why Are There, 156-7.

40 Year taken from the list of members, in Rules of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews with Alphabetical List of Members (edition of the Club, 1912), 32.

41 Horace G. Hutchinson, The Golfing Pilgrim on Many Links (London: Methuen, 1898), 31.

42 Ibid., 32.

43 StULSC, B65/22/70/19.

44 Hutchinson, The Golfing Pilgrim, 15.

45 The status quo was the R&A managing and using inter alia to play golf the Old Course, which was a part of a private property known as the St Andrews Links, and the Town Council watching from afar.

46 See Malcolm and Crabtree, Tom Morris of St Andrews, 257.

47 Overcrowding led the Club to move, as explained the Golf Club online site https://www.muirfield.org.uk/history/ (accessed March 21, 2020).

48 David Hamilton explained that the town of St Andrews was better equipped to continue to engage the R&A –owing to the availability of land to make new courses- than Musselburgh, where the municipality managed a small space shared with the race course, and was not in favour of bettering the golf facilities to keep the clubs playing there, in Hamilton, Golf, 184-8.

49 See Behrend, Lewis and Mackie, Champions and Guardians, 46-50. A. C. M. Croome alluded to Musselburgh and its decline after the exodus of the Honourable Company and the Edinburgh Burgess Golfing Society in ‘St Andrews Courses’, Dundee Evening, August 20, 1912. 50 Behrend, Lewis and Mackie, Champions and Guardians, 48.

51 See in Hamilton, Golf, 139, a part of an Ordnance Survey Map of Musselburgh, showing the location of three abandoned clubhouses of three great Edinburgh golf clubs.

52 Materially speaking. I am not familiar with R&A’s history. In 1893 it also had significant prestige and aura (a real asset) and an impressive list of members. The club was flourishing. And in recent times the club has promoted and in fact runs the British Golf Museum, opposite the club house. However much of this aura comes from being located beside the first tee of the .

53 Hamilton, Golf, 203-4.

54 As has been pointed out by Behrend, Lewis and Mackie, Champions and Guardians, 56, it would be difficult to envisage the evolution of golf at St Andrews, if the purchase of the Links by R&A had not been contested.

55 It was proposed in 1896 by a commissioner that the Town Council should make a special course for ladies, whereas another advocated one for beginners, as was stated in ‘Golf. St Andrews Links. Proposed Ladies Course’, Dundee Advertiser, December 16, 1896. The final outcome was to make an all players course.

56 Also the R&A secretary C. S. Grace was then the son of the Town Clerk. The personal attachment between the R&A secretary and his father the Town Clerk was never heard to raise suspicion. Nevertheless, the presence of prominent R&A members who were also councillors, attending municipal meetings and voting in favour of the club raised heated controversies.

57 ‘Mr Rutherford’s Speech’, St Andrews Citizen, February 19, 1910.

58 ‘The Difficulties of St Andrews’, Belfast News-Letter, February 19, 1910.

59 Behrend, Lewis and Mackie, Champions and Guardians, 51-6.

60 David Hay Fleming, neither an R&A member nor a councillor, was a champion of the Town Council cause. His book in StULSC, ms38977/6/5/26.

61 The St Andrews Links Act 1894 is available in the UK Parliamentary Archives online, www.parliament.uk with the link https://digitalarchive.parliament.uk/HL/PO/PB/1/1894/57&58V1n136 (accessed March 23, 2020) [the downloaded file may be opened using e. g. Microsoft Internet Explorer]. The attached plan (fig. 1) was signed on June 14, 1894 by three key parties: the chairman of the committee of the House of Lords which dealt with this Bill; Andrew Aikman on behalf of the commissioners of St Andrews and A. Graham Murray on behalf of the R&A. This plan was referred to in clause eleven of the Act and in article four of the Agreement confirmed by the said clause and set forth in the Second Schedule of the Act, and its main purpose was to fix the limits of the New Course and the Ladies Links.

62 He was a lifelong servant to the R&A. An obituary of C. S. Grace appeared in ‘Death of a well-known Fife lawyer: Mr C. S. Grace of the Grange’, Dundee Evening Telegraph, January 31, 1936.

63 StULSC, ms38437. There are seven volumes covering the years 1879 to 1910, two of which have been used. They are number 3 and number 4, the no. 3 (31 January 1889-25 August 1893) and no. 4 (2 September 1893-30 October 1897).

64 Letter from C. S. Grace, May 22, 1896, in StULSC, ms 38437, Letterbook of R&A no. 4, 1893-1897, p. 633.

65 Behrend, Lewis and Mackie, Champions and Guardians, 51.

66 Ibid., 17. 67 As expressed in a letter sent by the R&A secretary Grace on April 13, 1894, ‘There are just about 100 Members who are resident in St Andrews or within a couple of miles of it’, in StULSC, ms 38437, Letterbook of R&A no. 4, 1893-1897, p. 156.

68 RAAM, RNA 70/16, General Meeting, September 23, 1890.

69 Ibid.

70 James Cheape quickly stood down from the office of trustee, and his resignation was accepted in September 1893, in RAAM, RNA 70/017, General Meetings 1893-99, Committee of Management, September 25, 1893.

71 Ibid., General Meeting, May 2, 1893.

72 It was in November 8, 1893 when Cheape sold the Links to trustees for the R&A, as was mentioned in ‘St Andrews Links Case’, Dundee Courier, May 15, 1895.

73 D. Hay Fleming, letter to the editor, St Andrews Citizen, November 25, 1893.

74 ‘St Andrews Links Bill. The footpath question. Settlement of differences’, Dundee Courier, June 15, 1894.

75 ‘Extension of the Golfing Links’, St Andrews Citizen, May 13, 1893.

76 See the minutes of this key R&A General Meeting in RAAM, RNA 70/017, General Meeting, 26th September 1893.

77 Was an influential Scottish lawyer, see notes about his life in Behrend, Lewis and Mackie, Champions and Guardians, 52.

78 The R&A was owner of the Links from November 1893 until the Links were handed to the Town Council in 1896. The R&A secretary Grace expressed in a letter of September 9, 1895, that the club was then the ‘nominal proprietors’, in StULSC, ms 38437, Letterbook of R&A no. 4, 1893-1897, p. 467. The Links were handed to the Town Council on May 15, 1896, according to Tom Jarret, St Andrews Golf Links: The first 600 Years (Mainstream, 1995), 36. This book deals with the Links as a public property, and the relationship between the R&A and the municipality.

79 RAAM, RNA 70/017, Extraordinary General Meeting, 10th March 1894

80 Strathtyrum was the house of James Cheape, the previous owner of the Links.

81 See St Andrews Links Act, 1984, 13-4.

82 Ibid., 13.

83 The land to be taken up by the New Course (then being built by the R&A) was indicated with red lines on the plan, whilst the surface of the Ladies putting green was indicated in blue.

84 The courses would receive these by-laws to manage the increasing numbers of locals or visiting players, without wishing to restrict access to everybody.

85 ‘The Bill and Agreement adopted by the Town Council’, St Andrews Citizen, March 17, 1894.

86 The ‘St Andrews Green Committee’, Dundee Evening and Telegraph Post, October 2, 1906 stated that the Provost and his fellow councillor who stood for re-election had never attended a meeting for the past three years. In ‘St Andrews Councillors and Golf’, Dundee Courier, October 2, 1906, a councillor said that appointing representatives to that committee was a farce. The Green Committee would seem to have been somewhat symbolic in structure, as the club also retained its established ancient Green Committee which was in charge of championships and the maintenance of the courses. 87 Date on St Andrews Burgh Extension and Links Order Confirmation Act, 1913, 4. This document is available in the UK Parliamentary Archives online, www.parliament.uk with the link https://digitalarchive.parliament.uk/HL/PO/PB/1/1913/3&4G5cxxviii (accessed October 19, 2020) [the downloaded file may be opened using e. g. Microsoft Internet Explorer].

88 St Andrews Links Act, 1894, 13.

89 ‘The proposed new rules for the Links’, St Andrews Citizen, March 9, 1895.

90 StULSC, ms 38437, Letterbook of R&A no. 4, 1893-1897, p. 688.

91 ‘St Andrews Links. Regulations for golf courses’, Dundee Evening Telegraph, December 15, 1896.

92 Ibid.

93 Andrew Bennet, The Book of St Andrews Links (St Andrews: Innes, 1898), 43-8. This booklet does not contain the name of the author. A reference to its authorship e.g. in ‘University of St Andrews. Honorary degrees’, St Andrews Citizen, March 23, 1935.

94 The starter, who was an R&A employee, received the daily application cards in his hut, beside the R&A club house.

95 As expressed by Grace as Hon. Secretary in a letter of 14th September, 1897 ‘the Ballot for order of Starting takes place each afternoon in my room, but applicants are not entitled to be present’, StULSC, ms 38437, Letterbook of R&A no. 4, 1893-1897, p. 952.

96 See Hamilton, Golf, 78, 130, 176-7.

97 St Andrews Burgh Extension and Links Order Confirmation Act, 1913.

98 H. M. Singer, letter to the editor, St Andrews Citizen, April 27, 1912.

99 The presence of foreign players like Pierre Deschamps, the father of French golf, playing golf at St Andrews, was a testament to, and indeed heralded this new era. He was appointed R&A member in 1909, see Royal and Ancient Golf Club (official annual R&A book before mentioned), 1912, 28.

100 E. g. in ‘R. and A. Membership’, Dundee Evening Telegraph, December 3, 1907, the R&A was said to have had 894 members, with only 78 including those residing in St Andrews or the St Andrews parish. Nineteen of them never play golf, whilst fourteen go away during the summer months, which left 45 local R&A members, who were regular players in the summer. This meant that the Club were required to assist in the allocation of members in the daily summer list of the Old Course.

101 H. M. Singer, letter to the editor, St Andrews Citizen, April 27, 1912.

102 In John K. Walton, The British Seaside: Holidays and Resorts in the Twentieth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 31.

103 An image of Tom Morris sitting beside the 17th green of the Old Course, ca. 1907, in Malcolm and Crabtree, Tom Morris of St Andrews, 330.