The Scottish Golf Guide E-Book

David Hamilton

• Herausgeber: Birlinn
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 323

Beschreibung

Features a foreword by Sean Connery. Scotland gave golf to the world. With more golf courses per head than any other country, it is still a golfer's paradise. They range from remote honesty box clubs to superb Open Championship courses and the busy clubs of the towns. Scotland's strength is the vast range of enjoyable and historic courses throughout the land which welcome visitors, be they players of professional standard or recreational golfers who play only for the love of the game. Previous editions of this vastly popular guide have introduced thousands to the game in Scotland. It covers the history of Scottish golf, its best courses, and gives helpful information and advice about all aspects of play in the home of golf. This new edition is greatly expanded from an informative guide to a full-scale golfing miscellany. David Hamilton has added fascinating lists, details of extraordinary and dramatic golfing feats, tales about funny and tragic incidents on the golf course, statistics about leading golfers and championships and quirky facts and figures that show the rich diversity of Scotland's national sport. As well as being a practical companion for beginners and visiting players, The Scottish Golf Guide is now the ideal gift for the golf nuts in the family.

Leseprobe

THE SCOTTISH GOLF GUIDE

David Hamilton is a leading Scottish transplant surgeon with a lifelong interest in Scottish golf and its history, and now lives in St Andrews. He has produced several limited-edition golf books on his own printing press under the Partick Press imprint. Among his many other books are The Healers: A History of Medicine in Scotland and Golf – Scotland’s Game.

THE SCOTTISH GOLF GUIDE

with

BEST HOLES, GAZETTEER, GOLF MISCELLANY AND QUOTATIONS

DAVID HAMILTON

This eBook edition published in 2011 by Birlinn Limited West Newington House Newington Road Edinburgh EH9 1QSwww.birlinn.co.uk

First published in 2003 by Birlinn Ltd First published in 1982 as The Good Golf Guide to Scotland by Canongate Publishing Ltd Second edition published in 1995 as The Scottish Golf Guide by Canongate Books Ltd Third expanded edition published in 2009 by Birlinn Ltd

Copyright © David Hamilton, 2009 Illustrations © Harry Horse, 1982

The moral right of David Hamilton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-109-5

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

CONTENTS

Preface to the Third Edition

Foreword by Sir Sean Connery

Introduction

History of Scottish Golf

The Language of Golf

Playing the Game

Food and Drink

The Scottish Weather

Advice to Visitors

The Courses

The Best Holes in Scottish Golf

A Chronology/Timeline

A Scottish Golfing Miscellany

Scottish Golf Quotations

The Golfing Gazetteer

Index

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

SOME have been kind enough to say that this is the thoughtful person’s guide to Scottish golf. For this edition, some new thoughts and background are necessary, since the Scottish golfing experience, particularly for visitors, has changed steadily. As of old, the great championship courses remain a magnet for visitors, but many now seek not only the hidden gems but also perhaps ‘buried diamonds’ and other experiences relevant to our golf heritage. The courses designed by James Braid are used for heritage tours and some visitors even feel drawn to play in the older style, and dress accordingly, seeking such courses from an earlier era admirably suitable for hickory play. The nine-hole courses are no longer neglected.

Activity at the top and bottom of the market is evident. Major elite developments with huge risky investment have appeared and the more cautious pay-and-play sector is increasing. Elsewhere new courses have been created in suitable places by local enthusiasts using existing terrain, simple greens and basic maintenance. Traditional suburban men’s clubs are less supported and exclusive than before, and welcomes there are a little warmer.

Other things have changed. For exploring Scottish golf, the Net gives assistance of all kinds and, nearer the course, SatNav gets the visitor there. Golf carts, even for the healthy, have made a hesitant entry into the Scottish game, and room for a practice area has often been reluctantly found. Marketing in the golf tourism sector is now more evident and many composite tickets for different areas have appeared, with flexible pricing, such as twilight and winter fees, permitting more varied and economical golf.

But, as always, Scotland has strength in all matters golfing. Our heritage is rich and deep, and our variety of golf courses derives from hundreds of years of playing and developing the game at different eras and for all sorts and conditions of player.

FOREWORD

by Sir Sean Connery

TO be asked to contribute a foreword for a golf book such as David Hamilton’s splendid Scottish Golf Guide provokes in one a chain reaction of emotional memories and souvenirs that any third-rate psychiatrist would have a field day with. On the backward journey with oneself the ‘trip’ encounters blackouts, brainstorms, touches of madness, orgasmic pleasures, fantasy behaviour – that under normal circumstances would be totally unacceptable to anyone in their right mind – whatever that means! The terrible beauty is that in the brotherhood of golf we are all the same – certifiable: the mutterings to no one in particular, with a whine in the voice that loving parents would not permit in their own children; the numbed disbelief at the lack of justice; glazed eyes; hissing ‘What luck!’ through clenched teeth; not to mention the callisthenics on the course in search of that elusive swing.

The great Jack Nicklaus summed things up neatly during a charity match on the Old Course at St Andrews where he and I were playing against Ben Crenshaw and Glen Campbell. I asked him what he considered the most important factor to be overcome in the game of golf. His reply was, ‘It is an unfair game.’

To me it is more than a game – as Michael Murphy so aptly captures in his book Golf in the Kingdom. I toast all the Jekylls and Hydes I have encountered in its pursuit.

The amount of literature on golf is enormous and will obviously continue to grow. My own shelves have more than their fair share of Dobereiner, McCormack and Alliss.

The beauty of Hamilton’s book is the abundance of information, whether seated by the fire on a winter’s night with a glass of the best, playing an immaculate tee to green over Scotland’s finest, or planning an entire golfing holiday. It gives the know-how to handle the sometimes delicate approaches necessary to gain access to the hallowed turf, and suggests other diversions for the rest of the family, leaving us to get on with the important thing – THE GAME.

And what a pleasurable way of learning something of Scottish history and Scottish characteristics as Hamilton presents them. His explanations of golf courses or links in relation to the lives of local people and their towns is a joy. For the golf analyst, his clear and precise observations of the design and objectives of the course architects – a side of golf that is, unfortunately, rather neglected – are a constant stimulation.

INTRODUCTION

SCOTLAND has more golf courses for her population than any other country in the world – 570 at latest count, and rising – and most of these courses are open to visitors. Two of the five Open Championship courses in Scotland are municipal links – St Andrews and Carnoustie – and the other three can be played with some forward planning. But the visitor will also find many other first-class courses of championship quality and there is a wealth of smaller, sporty courses where golf is enjoyed at its best, the first tee is uncluttered, and where the young can learn the game in peace. Moreover, municipal golf in the larger towns and cities can be good, and is certainly cheap: for those with deep pockets, luxury golf can increasingly be obtained.

To pick some of the many Scottish courses for this book involves problems of selection. Those golfers who can cope with the championship links may feel boxed-in on our delightful 9-hole courses, and short-hitters may find the longer links rather an ordeal. Nevertheless, some selection is necessary and I have chosen those courses on which good golf can be enjoyed. ‘Good golf’ is easily defined: the course and its holes linger in the mind long after play.

Throughout this book I have the visitor or traveller in mind. For the thoughtful golfer, I have provided much historical background on the courses, and a miscellany of assorted Scottish golf facts, figures, quotes and incidents is added. Only a general indication of facilities to be expected at these clubs can be given, since these services change rapidly and vary with the season and time of day.

And throughout this book, I have the golfer of moderate skills in mind: there are so many of us.

David Hamilton, St Andrews, 2009.

HISTORY OF SCOTTISH GOLF

HISTORIANS now support the view that the modern game of golf originated in Scotland. Though the inhabitants of Europe played various club-and-ball games from early times over rough fields, or in the parks of the noble chateaux or cathedrals, or in the muddy streets of inland towns, or when the canals were frozen, these games were not golf. They were all ‘short’ games.

The Scottish ‘long’ game was different. It was probably the result of the networking in Europe by the much-travelled Scots nobility and clergy who brought back the latest club-and-ball game from visits to the continental inland courts and cathedrals. Back home, they developed a unique club-and-ball game which was golf as we know it now. Scotland had two things not found in inland Europe – firstly, the firm coastal linksland on which a ball would run well, and secondly a mild winter. Winter in mediaeval times was the time for recreation, surprising though this seems. Summer was for preparing and bringing in the crucial harvest, or for travel by the nobility for diplomacy or warfare.

With a winter coastal playground at hand, the Scots could evolve a long game played with increasingly powerful clubs and an unusual ball which sought to get maximal length of shot, without sacrificing precision near the hole. It seems that the great and good of Scotland asked their bow-makers to produce a better club than used in European games and they summoned the shoemakers (the skilled leather-working cordiners) and told them to construct better and better feather-stuffed balls.

Golf became a lasting national sport and obsession in Scotland alone. All the major improvements in the game up until the twentieth century appeared first in Scotland, and it was from Scotland that the rules, players and designers of the game spread throughout the rest of the world to assist the golf boom of the 1880s.

Long and Short

In Scotland the gentry played this long game from mediaeval times. But the humble had their simple economical ‘short’ game also, played in the Scottish town streets and churchyards with simple equipment, as in Europe, and it was also called ‘golf’, perhaps because it mimicked the noble version. The short game was popular in Scotland among those humble citizens since James II had to pass a law discouraging it in 1457. Instead the ordinary people were encouraged to practise archery, a military necessity at the time.

A Winter Game

From the 1500s, the well-off golfers met regularly in winter on the links, but without forming formal clubs. It was an east coast game, and useful linksland was available near the capital Edinburgh at Leith; the sporting clergy of the cathedral towns – St Andrews, Aberdeen, and Dornoch – also had their town links at hand. Many landowners in other parts of Scotland moved to Edinburgh for winter conviviality and litigation, and played golf at snow-free and playable Leith Links.

The Links

As Scotland’s land-forms emerged after the Ice Age ended, storms at the coast threw up small stones onto the beaches beyond the high water mark and these mounds then trapped blown sand. These sandy ridges were then fixed by the remarkably deep, spreading roots of the attractive marram grass. Behind the dunes were natural sheltered alleyways where blown sand mixed with the richer alluvium brought down by streams and rivers. Humus from dead plants blended there with bird and animal droppings to give a very thin top soil, and rabbits and sheep usefully nibbled away not only at the tough grasses that grew there, but they also dealt with unwelcome shoots of whins and other bushes. Only short, tough grasses survived since the salty air and occasional serious droughts killed or discouraged all other varieties. The early peoples knew to their cost that planting or ploughing the linksland was risky: one or two good crops might be obtained, but once the topsoil was broken, wind carried it away and a sandy wasteland returned. The Scottish Parliament even acted to prohibit harvesting the useful marram grass.

The links created the game of golf. The crumpled, grassy channels behind the dunes were called ‘fairways’ at the fishing towns, a nautical term meaning a navigable channel. They hosted a satisfying game, with an element of chance, and with long shots followed by accurate play to a small target. Often a single narrow strip was an obvious choice and holes were played out and back close to each other. Natural sandy breaks or those caused by rabbits gave the early bunkers. Storms from time to time refreshed the links with a new useful film of shore sand – not inert, as often supposed – but rich in lime and nutrients from shell debris. The sandy base below the thin grassy topsoil meant that rain drained away rapidly: the links were always playable.

Routine Play

In the 1600s, golf was played only on the common linksland belonging to the east coast towns, and not inland, and mysteriously not on the west coast with any enthusiasm. The east coast golfers had to share this ground with many other users – sheep and cattle, travelling fairs, military musters, townspeople at other games, grave-diggers burying the dead, and fishermen and women drying their nets or clothes. This mixture of citizens on the links had one useful effect later, since the aristocratic golfers were prepared to fight and pay for the necessary legal battles to preserve this land for everyone’s use.

In the 1700s the gentleman golfers of the links started to form themselves into the first golf ‘clubs’. The first in the world was that of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers of 1744, as it is still called, and in that year, this society simply regulated and wrote down what had been their long-standing habits and rules for play.

Town Changes

By the 1800s, after the tranquil period of the Scottish Enlightenment, industrialisation meant that the towns started to grow and many town links used for golf became encroached on by new building and the bustle of the enlarging towns and factories. Golf became difficult for players and dangerous for citizens. The larger towns like Edinburgh and Glasgow often lost their golfing ground, but smaller Scottish towns which did not grow so rapidly were luckier, and there the municipal links survived, as did their ancient golfing habits. To this day, St Andrews, Carnoustie, Monifieth, Aberdeen and other towns still have their ancient golf links starting from the middle of the town.

The Boom

In the mid-1800s, balls and clubs became cheaper. With more affluence, an enlarging middle class and better-paid working people, many more wanted to play golf. Also helping in this expansion of Scottish golf was the rapidly spreading network of new railway lines, allowing city dwellers to play golf at the coast.

Importantly, summer golf was emerging, since the new industrial society was based on factories which worked through the winter, and this meant that recreation and holidays came in summer. The Scottish golf holiday became popular with city families, and brought in many visitors from England. The popularity of Scottish summer golfing reached a peak with the patronage of golf by men such as Arthur Balfour, later Prime Minister, who started to play with determination at North Berwick – ‘the Biarritz of the North’. He was followed by numerous English imitators who reached Scotland and hired bemused caddies to teach them and help them through a round.

The railway network expansion continued to be crucial. In remote parts of Scotland, when a railway line reached a town without a course, one was built, often with a new hotel. On the west coast, steamers took holiday makers to the many piers and new golf courses on the Clyde coast and beyond. These new courses in Scotland were largely as-it-is in design, with use of natural land forms and minimal building of greens, and designers like Tom Morris were ready to offer economical layouts.

The Suburbs

In the expanding towns the well-off golfers were increasingly cramped in their play on public land and solved the problem by moving away and purchasing land outside the town. They often obtained a well-established estate with a gracious mansion and parkland where they established private golf clubs to continue their golf in peace.

The growth of new golf courses at the end of the nineteenth century was helped by new technology. Golf had previously only been possible where the grass was naturally short: hence it had been a winter coastal game. With the new grass-cutting machines, golf could expand inland into parkland areas and surprisingly emerged even on cleared heathland. Golf could move away from the links. Even at the links, the grass could be cut regularly, instead of once for a summer grass crop: any farmers involved could be compensated from the new funds of the prospering golf clubs.

Abroad

With the rise of English golf came also the rapid expansion of golf in the Empire, Europe and North America. There had been isolated Scots-run golf groups internationally, even in the 1700s, run by merchants or the military, but when the Scots moved away the local game was lost. Now there was a change: everyone wanted to play the game and there was a major need for assistance. Scotland had an abundant supply of what was needed for the game world-wide. In England, Scots businessmen, doctors and engineers supported the rise of golf, notably in Liverpool, and young Scottish bankers supported enthusiasts in Canada. The jute industry in Dundee had links with India and boosted golf there.

But the most important contribution from Scotland was the flood of young emigrants to be club professionals and clubmakers overseas. These were the skilled artisan tradesmen of the east coast, notably Carnoustie and nearby towns, and from St Andrews and North Berwick. The ‘pull’ to emigrate was to seek adventure and a better life. The ‘push’ was uncertain prospects of work at home. But this Scottish ‘golfing diaspora’ weakened the domestic game. There was a huge loss of talent. Scottish dominance, particularly of the professional game and the Open Championship, came to an abrupt end.

The Equipment

The equipment used in early times by the grandees of the Scottish game became quite sophisticated. The hybrid clubs used the bow-maker’s skills in joining a flexible shaft to a harder head, thereby gaining distance of shot. The early ‘featherie’ golf balls drew on earlier hair-filled versions dating back to Roman times, and were modified to get maximum length of shot. The best ball was sought by the noble sportsmen and the Robertson product from St Andrews was favoured into the 1700s. Later, obtaining balls from Gourlay’s output in Edinburgh and Musselburgh was highly desirable. For clubs, play with a set of woods and one heavy iron ‘trouble’ club made by blacksmiths was still routine until the 1850s. It was a time of match-play, not stroke-play, and doubtless the precious ball was picked up when in deep trouble and the hole conceded. There were many skilled Scottish makers of wooden clubs, but the McEwan family, later also of Musselburgh, were the suppliers whose products fetched the highest prices, as they still do in today’s antiquarian markets.

About 1858 a revolution occurred in golf ball and golf club manufacture. New cheaper and stronger club shafts could be made with hickory imported from America, and a new, cheaper ‘gutta’ ball appeared. There are many claimants to ‘inventing’ the first ball formed out of Malaysian malleable gutta percha, a versatile gum increasingly in use for many purposes in industry at that time. After the gutta ball and stronger shafts appeared, serious golf was open to all. These new clubs and balls meant an increasing popularity of the game and also an expanding market for Scotland’s golf industry. The skills of wooden club-making flourished, and Forgan’s output at St Andrews became well-known. Better iron clubs appeared, since in St Andrews, Musselburgh and elsewhere, blacksmiths diversified their output by making these increasingly popular iron heads. For the first time they marked them with their name, handing the heads on to the club professionals to shaft with hickory. As the world turned to Scotland for clubs and balls a huge export market developed, and of the many later makers, Stewart at St Andrews is the most celebrated.

Scotland’s last gift to club-making is hardly known now. In 1894, near Edinburgh, a Baberton golfer and blacksmith, Thomas Horsburgh, patented a steel shaft. It was a solid rod and jarred the hands. Not until tubular versions appeared was the steel shaft legalised in Britain in 1929. Another chapter in Scottish golf ended in the early 1900s when the gutta ball was displaced by the American Haskell wound rubber version.

The Game

The early Scottish game was match-play, usually two-ball foursomes, and a primitive handicapping system appears even in the earliest records. The clubs had usually at least one stroke-play event. This led to a simple strategy, namely that the winner of this medal, and it usually was a medal, was captain for the year, and presided over their dinners and outings and adjudicated on the rules. The earliest professional competitions were great challenge matches amongst the well-known players and were often complex home-and-away affairs. For this, money was put up by aristocratic backers of the two sides and heavy side-betting on the outcome occurred at all stages. The most famous early match was the great three-round challenge match played over three different courses in 1849, and involving the considerable stake of £400, between the St Andrews pair Allan Robertson and Tom Morris, who, after sustained drama, eventually beat the Dunns of Musselburgh, a town then rivalling St Andrews.

The Open

In 1860, there was a famous initiative by the Prestwick club, namely the holding of an open tournament for professionals, later to be known as ‘The Open Championship’. The idea came from the club’s pride in having attracted ‘Old’ Tom Morris from St Andrews to be their professional and he and son ‘Young’ Tommy dominated the early years of this tournament. From 1872 onwards, it steadily grew in importance. The Open Championship left Scotland for England for the first time in 1894, thus recognising the rise of golf south of the Border. Indeed the last win by a home-based Scot had been by Willie Auchterlonie in 1893, and the last win by a Scots-reared professional was in 1920, when George Duncan, born in Scotland and playing in England, won at Deal. Elsewhere, emigrant Scots like the Smith brothers from Carnoustie and Fred McLeod and Willie Anderson from North Berwick took the highest prizes regularly in America and elsewhere, and Tommy Armour from Edinburgh returned from America to win the Open at Carnoustie in 1931.

The Designers

The professionals of the late 1800s were often successful in other entrepreneurial directions. Old Tom Morris was in demand as an course designer and endeared himself to the committees planning a new club and course by his flattering comments on their choice of location. ‘Young’ Willie Park of Musselburgh was the first to exploit his potential in a way that became familiar later, skilfully promoting himself as a golfer through flamboyant dress and golfing challenges, and he had a remarkably successful career as a businessman, club-maker and designer. The Dunn dynasty had early success in Europe and then in America. Other Scots emigrants took their enthusiasm for golf with them. In 1902 a Mr John Duncan from North Berwick managed ‘the largest golf store in the world’ in New York.

Donald Ross, who left Scotland for America in 1898, gained a substantial reputation for course design there, using his experience of redesigning his home course at Dornoch to set new standards. At home, the great golfer James Braid made his mark by laying out many of the new courses, often simple ‘village courses’, and his total of courses designed in Britain exceeded all others.

In 1890 there was a significant event. Some Scots golfers opened a club and course at The Hague. A club-and-ball game had returned to Holland after centuries of neglect.

Twentieth Century

The golf boom in Britain ended in World War One, and between the wars the increased use of motor cars reduced the role of the railways in the development of golf. World War Two had a further adverse effect on the golf world with reduced memberships, staff shortages and food rationing, and many courses returned to agricultural use. The great golf hotels were converted to be used as hospitals. After the war there was a slow recovery, and in the late 1980s, a new wave of golf courses were opened following an Royal and Ancient Club report in 1989 which concluded that, in the UK, 700 more courses were needed. The new ventures were quite different from the member-run clubs of old.

The Rules and Governance

The early game of golf was match-play, as we have seen, and in a match between gentlemen, disputes could be resolved harmoniously by unwritten, well-known customary codes. However, the Edinburgh Golfers in 1744 had an open competition, and since strangers were expected, they drew up the first set of rules. These rules were later copied by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, who by the mid-1800s had an increasingly national membership as a result of summer visitors to St Andrews. These players formed new clubs in their home areas and wrote back for a copy of the R&A’s domestic rules. In the 1890s the R&A sensibly produced a more universal code, dealing with matters not found at St Andrews, such as trees and out-of-bounds, and reluctantly conceding that stroke-play golf existed. The Club wisely was also prepared to respond to questions on the rules and make decisions on the increasingly complex situations arising. With this service, the R&A, together with the United States Golfing Association, emerged as the controller of the rules of golf world-wide, and matters of club design, giving final judgments thereon.

A second decision established the R&A’s dominant position. By the 1920s, the Open Championship, whose organisation was shared by the older clubs, was a loss-making event and the St Andrews club agreed to take it over, as well as the Amateur Championship. When in the television age the Open started to be very profitable, the Club used the growing income to support all aspects of the game.

Scotland’s role thus remained important. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews successfully held onto its administration of the game world-wide, and the Ladies’ Golf Union is also based at St Andrews. The world’s most successful tournament, the Open Championship, has a very Scottish element to its rules, namely that it is played on links courses, often in Scotland, and is open to all players of skill throughout the world.

Scottish golf started as the popular, economical sport of the people played on common land. This is its greatest tradition.

THE LANGUAGE OF GOLF

BECAUSE golf evolved to its present form almost entirely in Scotland, many golfing terms have their origins in the Scottish language.

Caddie: Often said to be French in origin (meaning the youngest sons of the nobility), in fact it was the name of some disreputable porters who hung about the Edinburgh streets in the early 1700s. To them naturally fell the odd jobs and errands of the town, and they also took on the work of carrying the golf clubs of the noble Edinburgh golfers down to Leith and assisting there.

Links: A term used mostly on the east of Scotland to describe the common land of the town used for many functions including sport. The playing of golf on these links led to the term being applied to the golf course itself, but when golf expanded inland in the late 1800s, the name was restricted to mean a seaside golf course. ‘Links golf’ is back in fashion as a location, design type and also a style of play.

Green: Originally the name was used in Scotland for any grassy area, notably public common ground, then later applied to the entire area used for golf. Later, as the quality of golf courses improved, it was used for the putting area only. The older, wider use of ‘green’ still survives in the phrases ‘Green Committee’ and the ‘Rub of the green’.

Bunker: The word was used in golfing language in Aberdeen in 1636. In literary use, notably by Sir Walter Scott, it describes the shallow hollows used by sheep for shelter, and the word was used for similar hollows on the golf links. These sandy hollows have been duly placed in all types of golf course as the game reached all parts of the world.

Featherie: The original golf ball was expensive to make and involved tedious, forcible insertion of wet feathers into a bull leather shell. If hit badly, the ball could burst and release the feathers. It was succeeded by the gutta ball in about 1858.

Stymie: This old Scots word for a partially-blind person was easily applied to the situation on the putting green when one golfer’s ball lay between the other ball and the hole. Prior to the abolition of the stymie in 1949, this challenge called for an ingenious, lofted escape shot.

Dormie: A term used in match-play when a player is leading an opponent by the same number of holes left to play.

Mashie: An older term for an iron club – about a No 5 in modern terms. Its pulping effect on the expensive leather-covered featherie ball may have given it this name.

Brassie: In the mid-nineteenth century the tracks and paths beside and through the Scottish links were changed to hard, paved roads, notably at Musselburgh. To play from these unyielding surfaces, the club-makers strengthened and protected soft-headed wooden clubs by adding a brass plate. This change proved to be useful also for ordinary shots and the plate was added to all woods thereafter. The name ‘brassie’ was retained until quite late for the equivalent of the No 2 or 3 wood.

Jigger: This narrow-bladed, short club was specially designed to play the traditional pitch and run shot of Scottish links golf. It was invented by Ben Sayers of North Berwick, and, though not favoured by professionals, it can still be lethal in the hands of a handicap player.

Tee: Used for the first time in golfing language in Aberdeen in 1636.

Niblick: An older name for a lofted, narrow-headed iron club: about a No 8 in modern terms.

Gutta/Gutty/Guttie: Made out of gutta percha, this ball was the cheaper successor to the featherie. It ran as far and changed the game of golf, since it allowed the game to be played by a wider cross-section of the community. Of the variants of its name, ‘gutta’ was most widely used at the time.

Burn: Not a thermal injury, but a small river or stream, i.e. a creek, such as the Barry Burn at Carnoustie or Swilken Burn at St Andrews.

‘Scotch’ foursomes: Often called two-ball foursomes, the two members of the team play alternate shots with one ball, as do their opponents. This method of play is fast and sociable. As golf has become slower, this two-ball game has had a modest revival, having always been popular in Scotland.

‘Rub of the green’: This term was used by early Scottish golfers (and also in lawn bowling rules) to mean an unexpected deflection of the shot. ‘Rub’ is an old Scotch word for robbery – hence it was applied to an unfortunate event which lands the player in undeserved trouble.

Lastly, some mysterious ‘broad’ Scots words may appear in discourse with locals: sclaff (topped shot), skelp (a vigorous shot), dunt (firm half shot), dyke (stone wall), smirr (light rain), widni’ (would not), glaikit (stupid), gobsmacked (startled), drookit (drenched), dreich (damp weather), and much more: there are helpful phrasebooks.

PLAYING THE GAME

PLAY in Scotland can still be fast, and the visitor may find that a full set of clubs and a large bag may be a hindrance: a slim pencil bag, as used by many locals, may be more suitable. The ancient Scottish golfing dress of plus-fours with Argyle stockings is returning to fashion among visitors.

Visitors are well aware that in many golf clubs a jacket and tie must be worn in the public rooms, notably the dining room and bar. Though the reasons for this rule are obscure, it is nevertheless strictly enforced in older or more stuffy clubs.

In Scotland, club handicaps are decided on the player’s best rounds, played from the back tees, on competition days. In other countries, all rounds may count and the average scores are used for the handicap. Scottish hosts should therefore not be contradicted when they say that a visitor’s handicap is too high. Visitors will also understand why in Scotland a card is not usually marked and match-play is preferred to stroke-play in friendly games. Thus it is not customary to hole out when the hole is lost. Visitors will note that this enables rounds of golf to be completed in under four hours. Scots are cool about yardage charts and lukewarm about metric distances.

Interest may also be sustained throughout medal- or match-play by gaining small sums for golfing triumphs, not only birdies and eagles, but also oozles (the person whose tee shot is nearest the hole at the short holes), ferrets (holing out an approach shot from off the green) and golden ferrets (holing out from a bunker).

Older scoring methods: When scoring was higher, the shots taken were not counted; instead the difference in the number taken as the hole progressed was watched closely. ‘Playing the odd’ meant the player was one behind when reaching his shot; ‘playing the like’ meant that they were even before the next shot.

FOOD AND DRINK

OUR cuisine is now pulling up and away after a dull period (blame the 1939-45 war). Scotland has given many delicacies to the world – Aberdeen Angus beef, salmon, game, seafood, marmalade, Barr’s Irn-Bru and whisky. Other niche Scottish treats are Arbroath smokies, haddock cooked in milk, Selkirk bannocks, Abernethy biscuits, shortbread, cranachan as a sweet, Tunnock’s Caramel Wafers and much imaginative use of oatmeal. The big, so-called ‘English Breakfast’, certainly originated in Scotland and was a lavish meal designed to get the men out onto the moors for a day’s hunting. We can claim another gift to the world, since historians of gastronomy are now agreed that in the 1700s it was in the taverns at Newhaven and in the port of Leith beside Edinburgh that the fish supper (haddock and chips) was invented. Also from Leith came Rose’s Lime Juice in 1886.

As for local specialities, porridge is now an official favourite of sports nutritionists – best eaten at breakfast with cream, but no sugar on top. Grouse (in season) and venison are local products, and Scottish prawns and oysters harvested off the west are also available, with the rest sent rapidly out in refrigerated lorries to the waiting world. Haggis, with peppered turnip, mashed potatoes and a tot of whisky, is a celebrated first or second course. In May, but only for a short time, the ‘new’ potatoes from the Ayrshire coast are a treat – eat them with butter, salmon and a white sauce.

The ‘high tea’ is still alive and well in Scotland. Formerly widely taken at 5 o’clock in the evening, it was a main dish with eggs, bacon and more, followed by cakes, scones and tea to drink. It is still offered in some golf club visitors packages. It is also alive and well along Main Street, Carnoustie.

One dish in Scotland is kept secret. After close questioning by visitors, the existence and niche use of the Scots Pie will be admitted – tasty mutton in a circular, moulded, conical, ventilated pastry container with a rim ready to hold securely an added layer of gravy, beans or mash. It is served hot at half-time at Scottish soccer matches, together with a cup of yet another Scottish gift to the gourmet world – warm ‘Bovril’ – a sustaining meat extract devised for the military by John Johnston of Edinburgh in 1870. Sophisticated football fans shake on some white pepper and add a touch of cayenne flavouring.

Lastly, the Scottish deep-fried Mars Bar does exist. With dark humour, in 1995 the Haven Chip Bar in Stonehaven first took the plunge and created it, tongue in cheek, so to speak. The demise of this delicacy has yet to come.

Drink

Scotch whisky matures in the barrel not, like wine, in the bottle, and many Scottish hotels and bars have formidable displays of single distillery ‘single malts.’ These are drunk with a little water, never with ice. In former times, the old Scots links with France meant we were great claret drinkers. The globalised American cola drinks have conquered all the world except Scotland, where the locally-famed Irn-Bru outsells them. Try it, especially if your diet is short on iron, as it gives you zest for life.

THE SCOTTISH WEATHER

WHILE it is not true that the climate is continuously wild, wet and cold, it should be remembered that our temperate climate and copious rainfall created the fine grass of the links which allowed the invention of the original game of golf. It was the winds which blew (and still blow) fine dry sand from the beaches which creating the dune ridges and linksland and still refreshes the courses. The visitor to Scotland should be prepared at all times for sun, or to meet biting winds and rain: to be dressed for one usually ensures the other. Often forgotten is that winters are so mild that golf at the coast continues round the calendar. With marked daily variation in the weather, some exhilarating golf can be had on sharp, sunny days even in December and January.

For those who wish exact figures on the Scottish weather the facts are given below, but on any particular day anything can happen: it can be ‘Vivaldi’ weather – Four Seasons, in a day. You may have to ‘weather the weather.’