The rise of the first golf clubs in Scotland, and how it changed everything

Today, when we think of the concept of a “club” as it pertains to golf, there are both positive and negative associations. The negative ones are easy to conjure—elitism, exclusivity, and perhaps even a little snobbiness. To go a little further, it’s not a huge leap to associate some of the most prominent clubs in the world with racism and misogyny, including in the modern era. What’s fascinating about this system, though, is that in its earliest origins, it had nothing to do with the desire to be exclusive or separate. In fact, it was all about the trophy.

In 1744, a group of golfers in Edinburgh who played at the now-defunct Links of Leith petitioned the city for a silver golf club to be given out as a trophy at an annual open event they wanted to hold. The city granted it, the golfers wrote up some rules for their tournament, and then only ten people showed. But they kept going, and the winner each year was declared “the captain of golf”; a position that was purely ceremonial and came with no actual responsibilities. After 20 years of this, all the previous winners gathered and decided that they no longer wanted the event to be open—they wanted to be recognized as a closed “company of golfers,” for membership to be determined by them and them alone, and for only their members to be allowed to compete for the silver club at the annual tournament. In other words, they became the first club, and held the first club championship.

In St Andrews, the early version of what would become the Royal and Ancient Society followed a similar timeline, albeit ten years later at each step. And the pattern repeated across Scotland, with clubs sprouting everything that golf flourished. Before long, it became entrenched.

In this week’s Local Knowledge podcast, the second of our early history series, we look at the development of the game in Scotland in the pre-club days, the rise of the clubs themselves, and the ascendancy of St Andrews as it took over from Edinburgh as the focal point of Scottish golf. Listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts.