The Locker Room :: Golf History

Most believe that some Scot had the original idea of this game, as its origins go back centuries, I am not in a position to prove otherwise. However, If anyone out there has a home movie of a grandparent that contradicts this theory, then please forward it on for me to investigate further (this will have to be on a cine-film, as quite obviously there were no such things as camcorders back then.

I can’t tell you how golf came to the organisation but I could tell you of how the organisation came to the game of golf. The ‘Articles of laws in playing golf’ were the earliest rules that came about from organised golf competitions needing a common agreement on the way the game should be played, these were drawn up by the Gentlemen Golfers of Leith in 1744.

Unfortunately, these rules were not e-mailed out to all the golf courses around at the time, so even though they provided a basic uniformity to the game, these other clubs still persisted in drawing up there own rules. Thus confusing things once again.

This ball of confusion remained, despite the temptation to change it, up until 1897 when the three Chent brothers (Roy, Alan, Dan, Andrew) decided to make their own golf club. They were asked by all the leading golf clubs of the day (a Thursday, I think), to compile a new uniform code of rules. They devised all the new rules but even though Roy, Alan and Dan agreed that they were “okay? the new” The youngest brother, Andrew could not bring himself to agree with them. The three brothers that agreed with each other, thought, that there was only one way that they would be remembered together, that was to send Andrew away. They have never looked back and the story remains that Roy, Alan, Dan Chent’s Golf Club, off sent Andrews, was where the rules were comprehensively revised.