Various - Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 724

For ages golf has been pre-eminently the national game of Scotland. As its history emerges from the mists of antiquity we find football and it linked together as representative games, in fulminations against 'unprofitabill sportis,' unduly distracting the attention of the people from more serious affairs. But our game far exceeds this old rival in interest; and if it were not for the popularity of curling in its season, no rival pastime could pretend to vie with golf in Scotland.

The mode of playing golf is so well known in these days that it may suffice to explain that it is a game played over extensive commons, or 'links' as they are termed; that the implements used are peculiarly constructed clubs, so weighted at the crook or 'head' of the shaft, as to give great impetus to the small hard gutta-percha ball to be driven along the grass; and that the object of the players – either as single antagonists or two against two – is to endeavour to vie with each other as to who shall drive the ball towards and into a series of small artificially made holes, in the fewest strokes. From hole to hole the party proceeds, sometimes one winning a hole, sometimes another, and occasionally (by evenly contested play) halving: until the whole round of the green has been traversed; when the party who has gained the greatest number of holes is declared the winner. The links ought to be of considerable extent, and the holes several hundred yards apart, so as to give opportunity for skilful driving and other niceties of the game. To those unfortunates who have only read of the pastime, it may appear hard to believe in the reality of the enthusiasm shewn by its votaries; but whenever they are privileged to come under its influence, even as spectators, they will find it is one of the most fascinating of pursuits. How can a man describe in fitting language the subtle spell that brings him out in all weathers and seasons, and makes him find perfect pleasure in 'grinding round a barren stretch of ground, impelling a gutta-percha ball before him, striving to land it in a succession of small holes in fewer strokes than his companion and opponent,' as the game might be described by one of that class of men to whom the 'primrose by the river's brink a primrose is, and nothing more.'

The fascinations of the game have enlisted in the ranks of its votaries men of all classes, many of them famous on other fields, who have made their reminiscences of their beloved pursuit mediums for many a bright word-picture in prose and verse. Hitherto no attempt has been made to gather together what has been so said and sung in praise of the pastime; but in Mr Robert Clark's beautiful volume now before us, entitled Golf – a Royal and Ancient Game , ample amends have been made for this neglect, by one of the most enthusiastic and best golfers of the day. Here we have presented in a gossipy way so beloved by golfers, wealth of material, both as regards the history and literature of the fascinating game – a labour of love in an artistic guise. What the author is on the links, so seems he to be among his printers and artists and binders — facile princeps . The volume before us, though unfortunately too costly to be very generally available, is a marvel of beautiful typography and tasteful binding. Our author has gone for his information to the most various sources – old acts of the Scots parliament, proclamations by kings, burgh records, minutes of the more prominent golf-clubs, books and magazines; and by judicious editing of this medley has shewn the many-sidedness of the game in a way that none but a devotee could.

Mr Clark wastes no space on unprofitable speculations as to the origin of golf. All that is clear in this vexed subject is that though Scotland is the chosen home of the game, she is not its birthplace. It is, however, of little moment whether the game came in with the Scandinavians who settled on the east coast of Scotland, or whether it was brought northward over the Border as a variety of the English 'bandy-ball;' or even if we have to go back to the Campus Martius, and look for the parent of golf in the curved club and feather ball of the Roman Paganica . Games of ball seem to have existed in all ages, and it is therefore probable that golf is a development of some older game, or perhaps a 'selection of the fittest' from several previously existing ball-games. It is sufficient for our purpose that early in the fifteenth century it was at least as popular with all classes as it is to-day.

When gunpowder made archery a thing of the past, the conflict between love of country and love of golf ceased, and the game went on prospering under the smiles of royal favour, surviving proclamations of various town-councils directed against sacrilegious golfers whose sin was held to be, not so much that they played on Sunday, as on that part of the day called 'the tyme of the sermonnes.' This matter was set at rest by the decree of James VI. of Scotland, who in 1618 sent from his new kingdom of England an order that after divine service 'our good people be not discouraged from any harmless recreation,' but prohibiting 'the said recreations to any that are not present in the church, at the service of God, before their going to the said recreations;' or as Charles I., when subsequently ratifying this order, puts it, 'having first done their dutie to God.'

Besides James VI.'s crowning act of founding the Royal Blackheath Club, Mr Clark has recalled two other instances of royal connection with the game in a charming way, as one of the illustrations in his book is from Sir John Gilbert's picture of Charles I. receiving, during a game on Leith Links, the intelligence of Sir Phelim O'Neill's rebellion in Ireland in 1642; while another is a delicately drawn pen-and-ink sketch by Mr James Drummond, R.S.A., of the house in the Canongate of Edinburgh, which John Patersone, shoemaker, built for himself with half the stake in that famous 'foursome' – the Duke of York (James VII.) and Patersone against two English noblemen.

With the Stuarts went out for a time royal countenance of the game, till William IV. became patron of the Royal and Ancient Club of St Andrews, and presented to it for annual competition that coveted golfing trophy, the gold medal.

But though there came kings who knew not golf, the game lost none of its old popularity. Still, as before, pre-eminently the game of the people, we find it associated with many a notable scene and character in the history of Scotland. So fond of the game was the great Montrose, that hardly had the minstrels ceased to serenade him and his day-old bride 'Sweet Mistress Magdalene Carnegie,' when we find him hard at work with clubs and ball. That fifty years later it continued to be the favourite amusement of the aristocracy of the Scottish capital, we can gather from the curious books of expenditure of Sir John Foulis of Ravelstoun, who seems to have spent most of his leisure time 'losing at golfe' on Musselburgh and Leith Links with Hamilton and Rothes and others of the highest quality of the time. We read of Balmerino's brother, Alexander Elphinston, and Captain Porteous, the victim of the famous 'mob,' playing in 1724 'a solemn match at golf' for twenty guineas on Leith Links, where, a few years later, might constantly be seen Lord President Forbes of Culloden, who was such a keen golfer, that when Leith Links were covered with snow he played on the sands; though even he has to yield in all-absorbing devotion to the game to Alexander M'Kellar, 'the Cock o' the Green,' immortalised in Kay's Portraits , who played every day and all day long, and then practised 'putting' at the 'short holes' by candle-light.