Golf Arrived In America Earlier Than Originally Thought!

[Michael Whitaker]

It seems golf was being played in Charleston, SC in 1739 as a newly found document in Scotland proves. Here is a writeup in Charleston's The Post and Courier: http://bit.ly/1rTjbr0

According to The Island Packet of Hilton Head, The oldest continuously operating golf club in the United States is Saint Andrew's in Yonkers, New York, founded in 1888. But the game was being played in Charleston 150 years earlier!

[Tim Martin]

It seems golf was being played in Charleston, SC in 1739 as a newly found document in Scotland proves. Here is a writeup in Charleston's The Post and Courier: http://bit.ly/1rTjbr0

According to The Island Packet of Hilton Head, The oldest continuously operating golf club in the United States is Saint Andrew's in Yonkers, New York, founded in 1888. But the game was being played in Charleston 150 years earlier!

Whitty-You will do anything to try to one up the North. Remember who won the war.

[Michael Whitaker]

It seems golf was being played in Charleston, SC in 1739 as a newly found document in Scotland proves. Here is a writeup in Charleston's The Post and Courier: http://bit.ly/1rTjbr0

According to The Island Packet of Hilton Head, The oldest continuously operating golf club in the United States is Saint Andrew's in Yonkers, New York, founded in 1888. But the game was being played in Charleston 150 years earlier!

Whitty-You will do anything to try to one up the North. Remember who won the war.

Really? Then why are all you Yankees moving down here? 

[Joe Bausch]

Are you still using those clubs, Mike?   

[Bill_McBride]

It seems golf was being played in Charleston, SC in 1739 as a newly found document in Scotland proves. Here is a writeup in Charleston's The Post and Courier: http://bit.ly/1rTjbr0

According to The Island Packet of Hilton Head, The oldest continuously operating golf club in the United States is Saint Andrew's in Yonkers, New York, founded in 1888. But the game was being played in Charleston 150 years earlier!

Whitty-You will do anything to try to one up the North. Remember who won the war.

Really? Then why are all you Yankees moving down here? 

Carpetbaggers redux. 

[Phil Young]

Michael,

There were several newspaper articles in the 1934 issues of the Farmingdale Post on Long Island that made the claim that golf was introduced to America in 1688 when the Duke of York visited America. He supposedly showed Thomas Dongan, then Colonial Governor of New York, and Thomas Powell, founder of the village of Bethpage, how to play golf on a site known to the local Indian tribe as "Rim of the Woods." It turns out that is approximately where the 13th fairway of Bethpage Black sits.

The writer claimed that he had found the documents proving this and traced it out accurately but neither quoted from them nor elaborated on them.

The first problem with the story is that there was no Duke of York in 1688 as just a few years earlier he was promoted to King. I've searched for thos documents for more than 14 years now and haven't even found the first trace of a hint that it is true. That being said... could you expect me to say anything other than that it is a fact that golf was introduced and first played in America where Bethpage Black now sits? 

[Mike_Young]

It seems golf was being played in Charleston, SC in 1739 as a newly found document in Scotland proves. Here is a writeup in Charleston's The Post and Courier: http://bit.ly/1rTjbr0

According to The Island Packet of Hilton Head, The oldest continuously operating golf club in the United States is Saint Andrew's in Yonkers, New York, founded in 1888. But the game was being played in Charleston 150 years earlier!

I thought it was pretty well know fact that golf in what was going to become the US was first played in Charleston in the mid 1700s.  What am I missing?

And Savannah...I think

[Michael Whitaker]

I think the 1739 date is the earliest documented linking golf to America. If not, the researcher in Scotland has gotten all excited over nothing!!! 

[Jim_Kennedy]

Begin here, flip through the next few pages:

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.32106016177880?urlappend=%3Bseq=162

[Mark Pritchett]

Harleston Green

https://harlestongreen.wordpress.com/

[Bill Gayne]

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation have records of early golf in Virginia.

1600s-1700s
Virginia death inventories from Northampton and Norfolk counties list “goff clubs, golfe sticks, balls” as items included in estates. Quantities in one Norfolk County inventory are large enough to suggest the deceased was a golf equipment retailer. In addition, it is likely that Scottish and Irish immigrants to the colonies brought their favorite recreation to the New World. 
1774 –1776
The last British colonial governor, John Murray, the Earl of Dunmore, was a Scot. Informal records indicate he played or practiced golf on the grounds of the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg.