TIMELINE pre-1900 | 1900-30 | 1930-60 |
Pre-1900


1457
The first written reference to golf can be found in a Scottish Parliamentary order of 1457 - imposing a ban on the sport because it had begun to interfere with the archery practice deemed necessary for the wars with England.

Scots were allowed back on "the green" - the old term for the course, in 1502, when the Peace of Glasgow brought temporary respite from hostlities and Scotland's monarch James IV became the first in a long line of keen royal golfers In 1552 the links at St Andrews were given, under licence of Archbishop Hamilton, for free and unfettered use of citizens at football, golf and other games.

The notoriety of Mary Queen of Scots increased when, in 1567, she was rumoured to have been out on the course at Seton, near Musselburgh, only a day or two after her husband Lord Darnley was murdered.

The spread of golf south of the border came in 1603, when Elizabeth I died without issue, and the Stuarts assumed the English throne in the shape of James I of England and VI of Scotland. The monarch had a powerful influence in favour of golf and made his view known that the people's right to enjoy sport on a Sunday was to be respected, as long a religious observances had been completed first.

1650
James, Duke of York, later James II, is credited with setting up and playing in the first international match in 1661. Partnered by a shoemaker named Patersone, the Scots were victorious against two English noblemen.

Early clubs had an elongated slender clubhead with a shallow face and were refered to as long-nosed. The most popular woods were made from blackthorn and beech, while ash was commonly used for shafts.

By the 1720s, the featherie - a leather ball stuffed with feathers, was the first manufactured golf ball - prior balls had been wooden.

The first golf club was established in 1744, when a group of players who practiced on Leith Links petitioned the city of Edinburgh to provide a prize for the winner of an open competition.

A local surgeon named John Rattray was the winner of the Silver Club and successfully defended his trophy the following year. The club, who were bound only by the annual competition, were know as the Gentlemen Golfers of Leith, and were the first to establish a code of rules to govern play.

1766 saw the first club to emerge in England, when a group of expatriate Scots established competition in Blackheath, Kent.

Twenty years later, America got its first club - in South Carolina. There had already been reports of Scots military men playing in the New York area although the game was slow to take root in the US.

In 1810 Musselburgh Golf Club established a prize for "the best female golfer who plays on the annual occasion".

By the 1820s the British discovered the resilience and weather resistant qualities of hickory and began importing it from the US and it soon replaced ash as the wood used for most club shafts.

1843 saw an epic contest between two of the great players of the day when Allan Robertson from St Andrews took on Willie Dunn of Musselburgh in a 20 round match (two rounds per day for ten days). The challenge went down to the last day, with Robertson two rounds up with just one to play.

An inter-club foursomes competition, known as the Grand National Tournament was set up in 1857 and constituted the first Championship Meeting to be played at St Andrews - with the host club beaten in the final by Blackheath's Scottish representatives George Glennie and Lieut. John Stewart. The St Andrews club had assumed authority as the game's law-givers and decided to cut the number of holes on their course from 22 to 18.

The following year the Grand National became a singles event. When Robert Chambers Jr. took the medal he effectively became the first Scottish Amateur Champion.

The 1850s marked the dawn of the "gutty" - a harder, cheaper to assemble golf ball. Gutta percha was obtained from the sap of the palaquin genus of trees native to Southeat Asia, it was then softened, in strips, in boiling water moulded into shape and dropped in cold water to harden, then left to season for six months. The durability of the new ball encouraged the development of iron faced clubs.

1860
The first Open Championship took place at the Ayrshire fishing town of Prestwick in 1860.

At the suggestion of Major J. O. Fairlie, the secretary of the local golf club, the event begun on October 17 and was contested by eight professionals.

The first winner of the red Morocco leather Championship Belt was Willie Park of Musselburgh, with a total of 174 for three rounds over what was then a 12-hole course.

The following year it was decided to make the event truly open and amateurs have been able to compete with the pros ever since.

It was Willie Park again who lifted the tournament's first ever financial prize - £10 for his 1863 triumph.

The early history of the Open is completely dominated by Tom Morris, the runner up at the first competition, and his son, also called Tom.

After Old Tom won for the fourth time in 1867, Young Tom achieved a hat trick of wins, and so was allowed to keep the winners' belt as his own property

Tom Morris Jr went on to win a fourth successive Open title, which is a record still, and became the first holder of the present trophy, a silver claret jug, in 1872. In that same year the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews and the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers agreed to join Prestwick in hosting the event.

On Christmas Day 1875, Tom Morris Jr died from a lung disorder, aged just 24.

From 1877 to 1879 Jamie Anderson won three Open titles in succession with his rapid, no-nonsense style.

1880
Ferguson won the first three Opens of the 1880s and lost in a play-off in 1883 to narrowly miss out on Tom Morris Jr's record of four consecutive triumphs.

The first British Amateur Championship was held at Hoylake, the home of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, in 1885 and was won by A.F McFie. John Ball won the first of his record eight Amateur titles in 1888.

1890
In 1890, John Ball, from the Hoylake Club, became the first amateur and first Englishman to win the Open.

1892 saw the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers move from Musselburgh to Muirfield, where the Open was hosted that year.

In 1894 it was decided to introduce other venues into the rota, and Royal St George's, Sandwich, gained the distinction of becoming the first non-Scottish club to stage the Open. Hoylake became the second English club to host the Championship in 1897. Harold Hilton, a member of the host club, upstaged the professionals to win the title for the second time, having previously won at Muirfield in 1892.

The first Ladies Amateur Championship was held in 1893 at Royal Lytham with Lady Margaret Scott of Westward Ho! prevailing.

The 1890s brought new developments in golf clubs, with persimmon replacing beech wood for club heads - and the heads becoming shorter and fatter similar to today's driver - and the neck of clubs thickening. The brassie was invented - with a brass plate screwed into the base of a 3-wood style club.

In 1895 both the US Open and US Amatuer Championship were born. The Open was relegated to a one-day 36-hole affair, to follow the three day Amateur event, won from a field of 32 by Charles Macdonald, founder of the Chicago club. The Open was won by 19-year-old Harold Rawlins, the English assistant at the Newport club.

John Henry Taylor won the first of his five Open victories in 1894 at St George's, while Harry Vardon pipped Taylor in a play-off in 1896 to land the first of his record six titles.

1900-30


1900's
By the turn of the century it was estimated that more than 20 million guttys were in play world-wide.

James Braid won the first of his five Open titles in 1901 to join J.H.Taylor and Harry Vardon as the dominant players of the day (16 Open wins and 13 second place finishes between them). Vardon won the US Open of 1900 during a tour of America where he played in approximately 80 matches - winning 70 of them.

Willie Anderson, from North Berwick, Scotland, was a four-time winner of the US Open, with a present day record hat-trick from 1903 to 1905.

The first time the Open Championship was won by an overseas player was at Holylake in 1907, when Frenchman Arnaud Massey held on to beat J.H. Taylor by two strokes.

1910's
1910 saw James Braid become the first player to land five Open titles with victory at St Andrews.

Harry Vardon joined him on that score the following year, with J.H Taylor making it a three-way tie in 1913.

Vardon pulled away with a record sixth victory at Prestwick in 1914, before a five-year hiatus due to WWI.

A new young American talent emerged in 1914 - Walter Hagen won the US open, and triumphed again in 1919. Hagen would go on to dominate the 1920's and mound a new role for the Professional golfer.

The first meeting of the US Professional Golfers Association took place in New York on January 17, 1916. Later that same year, the US PGA tournament, which was for many years a match play event and is today refered to as the fourth "major", was won by Long Jim Barnes. Barnes defended his title in 1919 after a two year break for WWI.

1920's
The Royal and Ancient Club took over complete running of the Open in time for the 1920 event at Deal, a task performed by their Championship Committee ever since.

Walter Hagen won the first of his four Open titles at St George's in 1922. The other triumphs came in 1924, '28 and '29.

In 1922 the 20-year-old Gene Sarazen burst on to the scene in dramatic fashion, landing both the US Open and US PGA titles The following year he retained his US PGA Championship in a play-off with Walter Hagen. However, Hagen was not to be denied and won the next four US PGA contests in a row 1924-27.

The Walker Cup was established in 1922 when the R&A sent an official team to the National Golf Links of America at Southampton in New York. The clash between amateur teams representing America and Great Britain and Ireland was played on an annual basis for the first three years - then, from 1926, it assumed its present day two-year cycle. It is a competition that the Americans have dominated throughout the ages.

In 1923 the 21-year-old Bobby Jones won the first of his four US Open titles and from 1924 to 1930 he won five of his seven entries in the US Amateur and was runner-up once.

In 1926 the remarkable Jones won the Open at Royal Lytham and defended the claret jug the following year at St Andrews.

1927 saw the first Ryder Cup match between the United States and Great Britain and Ireland, with Walter Hagen captaining the Americans to a convincing victory at Worcester, Massachusettes. Hagen was to lead the US side for the first six cup competitions - winning four times.


1930-60


1930 saw Bobby Jones complete quite an incredible season with victories in the US Open, the Open, the British Amateur and US Amateur Championships . Shortly after his never-to-be-repeated Grand Slam, Jones decided to retire, aged just 28. In his brief but spectacular career he only played 52 tournaments - winning 23 of them.

In 1931 Britain played France in the first "official" women's international for the Vagliano Cup. The following year saw the dawn of the Curtis Cup, with females from the US taking on a Great Britain and Ireland team every two years.

Gene Sarazen won the Open at Sandwich in 1932, and two weeks later tasted success for the second time at the US Open. The following year he won his third US PGA title.

In 1933 Johnny Goodman won the US Open - since then no amateur has lifted any of golf's "majors". The first Augusta National Invitation was issued in 1934 on the splendid course that was brainchild of the great Bobby Jones. Horton Smith won the tournament that was immediately dubbed The Masters. Gene Sarazen was to win at Augusta the following year which included the now legendary final round holing of his four wood second shot at the par five 15th.

Henry Cotton won the Open at St George's in 1934 with opening rounds of 67, 67, 65 and despite shooting a final day 79 won by five strokes. Cotton's finest hour was to come three years later when he lifted the claret jug once again, playing against a strong field and the gruelling conditions of Carnoustie.

In 1934 W. Lawson Little won the Amateur Championships of both Britain and the US and remarkably repeated the same double the following year.

1938 witnessed the first Great Britain & Ireland win in the Walker Cup, at the tenth time of asking.

1940's
The War interrupted championship golf, but there were still some tournaments held, and some great players on the circuit.

The big three around this time were Sam Snead, Ralph Guldhal and Byron Nelson. Hogan would emerge during this decade, but was still developing as a player during the war years.

Snead was triumphant in the 1942 US PGA, an event he was to win on two other occasions, while he won the Open on only his second attempt in 1946.

However, the American was not keen on travelling and did not visit the UK again for another 16 years.

1946 saw the first US Women's Open, with Patty Berg emerging victorious.

Hogan's breakthrough came when he captured his first major trophy in 1946 with victory at the US PGA. Two years later he was to win his first US Open and capture the US PGA again.

A third Open title came Henry Cotton's way at Muirfield in 1948, while Bobby Locke won the first of his four Open Championships in 1949.

Sam Snead captured the first of his three Masters wins in 1949.

1950's
Ben Hogan, having recovered from a serious car crash the previous year, continued his winning ways in 1950 with his second US Open title, while the following year he tasted victory in both the Masters and the US Open for a third time.

1951 witnessed the Open go for the first and only time to Ireland, where the unfancied Max Faulkner was victorious at Royal Portrush.

South Africa and Australia provided the Open's stars of the 1950s, in Bobby Locke and Peter Thomson. Between them they won seven Championships in the period 1950-58 , with Thomson completing a back-to back hat-trick 1954-56, coming second in '57 and winning again in '58.

The exception to this southern hemisphere domination was the legendary Ben Hogan. Hogan had won the US Open and the Masters in 1953, and he believed that he must win in Britain to prove his standing in the game, which he duly did, and with some style at Carnoustie. Sadly for British golf fans it was to be Hogan's only appearance in the event. No other player won three of the modern majors in one season until Tiger Woods came on the scene at the end of the century.

1958 saw the US PGA lose its match play format in favour of stroke play, and heralded the arrival of Arnold Palmer as a major force in the game with his victory in the Masters, while the final year of the decade saw the great Gary Player win his first major, with a win at the Open at Muirfield. 1959 also saw Jack Nicklaus emerge as the 19-year-old US Amateur champion. The fourth "great" of this period was American, Billy Casper, whose son Byron currently works with Heritage Golf.



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