Gentlemen Golfers of Leith
The Gentlemen Golfers of Leith , also known as the Gentlemen Golfers of Edinburgh , are one of the oldest golf clubs in the world. Today they are called The Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers and run Muirfield's famous Links course .
The other "oldest golf clubs in the world"
- The Royal Burgess Golf Society refers to the founding date 1735 and thus a tradition 9 years longer than the Gentlemen Golfers. However, there are no records of the Royal Burgess from this period. The oldest records date from 1773 and the first documentary mention of the founding date from 1834.
- The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews was founded ten years after the Gentlemen Golfers, but it can be said that since then it has always been located in the same location and has consistently operated the same, club-owned golf course .
Leith links
In Leith , a town near Edinburgh, one of the world's first golf courses was built on the Leith Links. It consisted of 5 holes, each of them over 400 yards long. The first written mention comes from the year 1552. According to oral tradition, the traditional warning call Fore is said to come from the two cannons that were stationed there. In fact, the so-called Siege of Leith (siege by England) took place on the links in 1560 .
The first international competition
In 1682 a match between Scotland and England took place in Leith. The Scottish Duke of York challenged two English nobles from his entourage, claiming that golf was an English sport. The Duke chose the middle-class, but technically savvy John Paterson as his partner and won the game. With half of the prize money, Paterson bought a house that existed until 1960 as Golfer's Land . In this context, a caddy is mentioned for the first time, an Andrew Dickson carried the Duke of York's bat.
The first rules of golf
On March 7, 1744, the Gentlemen Golfers of Leith presented the first golf rules to the City Council of Edinburgh, which in return was to donate a silver spoon for an annual competition. The surviving text, which can be regarded as the first minutes of a golf club's meeting, shows that this was not the first application for a silver spoon and that the magistrate had demanded that a formal set of rules be issued as a prerequisite.
For a long time, the original rules of golf were considered lost, but they were rediscovered in a collection of old protocols in 1937. The 13 articles are signed by John Rattray, Captain of the Golf between 1744 and 1747, and 1751.
The first golf tournament
The tournament for the silver spoon finally took place on April 2, 1744, making it the first officially advertised golf tournament in the world. The winner became Captain of the Golf and was given sovereignty over all golf-related issues, especially the rules, for one year. Ten years later, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews adopted the rules of the Gentlemen Golfers and from there spread them across the country and later, after numerous changes and additions, across the world.
The Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers
After the construction of the world's first clubhouse was successful in 1768, the name under which the club still operates today was given in 1800 for legal reasons. Strictly speaking, the Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers was an officially registered organization, which means that the Gentlemen Golfers would then have to cede the award as the oldest, still existing golf club in the world to the Royal and Ancient. However, given its long history and many records, there is widespread consensus among historians that this view is inappropriate.
Removals
From 1831, the club ran into financial difficulties that led to the sale of the property and the clubhouse. In 1836 Musselburgh was re-established , with the 8 holes of the Musselburgh Links and the North Berwick course being played. Since that time, the Captain of the Golf is no longer determined in the annual competition for the silver spoon, but is chosen by the members. As in Leith, the square in Musselburgh finally became congested, so that in 1891 they moved again, this time to the Gullane area . This is where the Muirfield course was built, which is still one of the most important tournament courses in the world today.