The world famous Tommy Naccarato wrote:
Dan, You are my dear friend and trusted scholar, but I need you to prove that ascertation to me.It can’t be proven. Like I said, it is only unlikely. This is because there are other areas that can make just as strong of a claim. Doesn’t mean golf wasn’t first played at St. Andrews, just that there is no proof that it was.
If one is to believe that golf developed from the game of kolven, then chances are the place were golf was first played was somewhere with active trade with the Netherlands. St. Andrews was a major city in Scotland in the 15th century, with a major port. But Edinburgh, North Berwick and Aberdeen had stronger ties to the Netherlands than St. Andrews.
In the excellent book, Golf: Scotland’s Game by David Hamilton he makes a strong case for golf being two different games. A noble game played out on the links and a commoner game played on city streets, more like street hockey. This would better support the St. Andrews claim, since the University town did bring nobles to it during the winter months. But it also strengthens the claim of Edinburgh (and Leith) because nobles hung out in Scotland’s central city during the winter months.
We will never know where golf first started, so the claim that St. Andres is where golf began cannot be proven or disproved. My point was only that it is unlikely, since it is only one of many claimants.
I have been down this road with you before about the Links Of Pilmour (The Old Course) Don't make me prove it again!
The Links of Pilmour map was done in 1836, (Tom Jarrett's St Andrewes Golf Links: The First 600 Years) so golf had been played around St. Andrews for at least 300 years prior to that map. Even on that map, the first and 18th hole was very narrow, with the sea hard up against the first fairway. It took man (not God) to reclaim land from the sea before the course could be widened.
There wasn’t a record of the 22-hole course until 1754 when the Society of St. Andrews golfers were first formed and played that configuration. Did that configuration exist prior to the clubs forming, or did they create that configuration for their first competition? What was golf like at St, Andrews in the 200+ years prior to 1754?
Dan King
dking@danking.org
quote:
Sir Guy Campbell's classic account of the formation of the links, beginning with Genesis and moving step by step to the thrilling arrival of 'tilth' on the fingers of coastal land, suggests that such notable features of our planet as dinosaurs, the prairies, the Himalayas, the seagull, the female of the species herself, were accidental by-products of the Almighty's preoccupation with the creation of the Old Course at St. Andrews.
--Alister Cooke (Forward to The World Atlas of Golf)