The Rough Guide to Scotland by Greg Dickinson

Author:Greg Dickinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241271032
Publisher: Rough Guides

GOLF IN ST ANDREWS

St Andrews Royal and Ancient Golf Club (or “R&A”) is the international governing body for golf, and dates back to a meeting of 22 of the local gentry in 1754, who founded the Society of St Andrews Golfers, being “admirers of the ancient and healthful exercise of golf”. The game itself has been played here since the fifteenth century. Those early days – highlighted in the British Golf Museum – were instrumental in establishing Scotland as the home of golf, for the rules were distinguished from those of the French game by the fact that participants had to manoeuvre the ball into a hole, rather than hit an above-ground target. It was not without its opponents, however – particularly James II who, in 1457, banned his subjects from playing since it was distracting them from archery practice.

The approach to St Andrews from the west runs adjacent to the famous Old Course, one of seven courses in the immediate vicinity of the town. The R&A’s strictly private clubhouse, a stolid, square building dating from 1854, is at the eastern end of the Old Course overlooking both the eighteenth green and the long strand of the West Sands. The British Open Championship was first held here in 1873, having been inaugurated in 1860 at Prestwick in Ayrshire, and since then it has been held at St Andrews regularly, pulling in enormous crowds. Guided walks of the Old Course are available, though any golf aficionado will savour a stroll around the immediate environs of the golf courses, where there are numerous golf shops, including a couple selling and repairing old-fashioned hickory-shafted clubs.

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