The Royal Dornoch PhD Studentship: Winter Golf By Wade Cormack

Sitting inside the club house at the Royal Dornoch, next to the windows overlooking the links, the sun begins to set at 4:00PM and it is apparent that winter is fast approaching.  Turning my gaze towards the east, the North Sea crashes against the beach, to the south, past the stack of the Glenmorangie Distillery, the hills behind the Struie will start to accumulate snow and to the west, the glistening white pointed peaks will announce their presence against the blue winter skies.

This sight, from down on the links is breathtaking for golfers and non-golfers alike. Here, though, the snow does not fall as deep, or like last winter, rarely at all. The placement of the winter tees signals the beginning of a new golfing season. Although the temperature is dropping and the sunlight lacks its nearly constant glow of the summer months, golf in Dornoch continues with enthusiasm as members adjust their game for winter play.

(Dornoch Castle in the Winter from the West 1950, Source: www.historylinks.org)

(The 13th Green, the Championship Course December 2010 Source: http://www.royaldornoch.com/Gallery)

Golfers in Scotland have rarely languished in the winter months but remained active continuing their favourite pastime. Sir Samuel Forbes’ 1715 description of the Queen’s Links in Aberdeen provides insight into the favoured winter sport. He wrote that along the Queen’s Links ‘the one end of which field, affords a healthfull summer recreation of short bowls; and the other end, the like healthfull winter recreation of the gowff ball’. The links were indeed an active site of recreation in Aberdeen with university students and grammar school pupils taking to the fields alongside their adult counterparts. Dornoch’s praised links were also busy with sports during the school term. In the seventeenth century we have multiple references to Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstoun, tutor to the young Earl of Sutherland, purchasing bows, arrows, golf clubs and balls along with other ‘necessars for his lordship’s exercise’ to be used while at school in town. 

Thirty years later, when the Earl of Sutherland’s two sons were in London, they also enjoyed golf during the winter months, as their expenses list the purchase of equipment in mid-November of 1656. The Earl of Findlater and Seafield, travelling in the opposite direction, north from London to his seat at Cullen House,  purchased a set of golf clubs for his son, Lord Deskford, in Edinburgh before returning home in the autumn of 1711. The Earl himself also enjoyed golfing near Cullen throughout the autumn and into the winter months of 1712 and 1713, as he recorded the purchase a dozen golf balls that were to be sent from Aberdeen.

While the elite have left numerous expense accounts for purchasing golf equipment in preparation for winter play, we know that the common people were also playing golf during the winter months. The kirk session was vigilant that people were to observe the Sabbath and attend sermon; however, on occasion, avid golfers contemplated their place with God while out on the links. For example, on 19 January, 1596 Walter Hay of Elgin was accused of playing bowls and golf on Sunday during the time of divine service and was fined accordingly.  Fifty years later in Elgin, golf related business remained active in the winter months. George Watsone, a burgess and golf ball maker, was brought before the burgh magistrates who reprimanded him for not settling his debts and instructed him to pay Alexander Geddes for a set of golf clubs he had purchased in February 1649. 

From these few examples, it is clear that golf has been enjoyed in both the summer and winter months. From the elite to the more common ranks of society, golf was played and business continued as snow began to accumulate on the hills. Although there were fewer hours of daylight and the temperature had cooled, golf in Scotland, and especially along the Moray Firth region, was an enjoyable winter sport. So, put on your hats, throw on another layer of clothing, fill your flask up with tea and do not let your golf clubs gather dust. Golf in Scotland is not just a fair weather sport but fit for all seasons.

The Royal Dornoch PhD Studentship: Introduction By Wade Cormack

Hello,

Thank you for reading the first instalment of my blog. My name is Wade Cormack. I am the post-holder of the Royal Dornoch PhD Studentship at the University of the Highlands and Islands, Centre for History. In my blog I will discuss my research as it unfolds as I investigate the history of early-modern sport and physical education in northern Scotland.

Specifically, I examine the coastal plain that stretches from Wick in the north, to Beauly in the south-west and to Aberdeen in the east. Geographically, it is a low-lying and largely fertile area flanked by the Highlands at its back and the North Sea to its front. Historically, writers have marvelled at how the north and the south shores of the firth share similar landscape features with corresponding rivers and rises and depressions in elevation. In the early-modern period there were a number of important royal burghs that dotted shoreline. They were centres of trade, civil and ecclesiastical administration and sport!

Culturally, this region was neither totally Highland nor Lowland in nature but a mixture of the two. Similar to other geo-cultural boundary areas in Scotland, the Highland and Lowland cultures and landscapes converge and ideas, customs and goods were exchanged. Take for example, sport. In the burghs of Dornoch and Elgin, both with their cathedrals and royal burgh status, golf was played by the inhabitants. Golf, was a largely Lowland sport thrived in this northern region, as the links were, and still are, a great quality. However, in Dornoch and Elgin golf was at times played alongside the Gaelic sport of shinty. Here, then, we have an overlap of sporting traditions and cultures. While golf was played out on the links by small-independent groups of people, shinty was a festive sport, played at least yearly, but especially around Yule, that involved large numbers of townsfolk who often battled until darkness to settle who would claim victory for the day.

From 1600 to 1800 sport in Scotland transformed, as it did elsewhere in Britain and in Europe. The early instances of improvised and festive sports slowly changed into what we would recognise today. Catalysts for this change were the codification of rules, the standardisation of equipment and the creation of sporting associations. These changes happened slowly at first, but rapidly increased with the dawn of the nineteenth century. From the 1830s onward, sport transformed at a gallop pace. It was institutionalised, massive spectator events became popular and there was a division between amateur and professional athletes. 

In the following blog entries I examine the early history of golf in the north, the rise of new sport related professions and how the informal game of golf was formalised. Next, I investigate the history of archery, bowls, football, horseracing and shinty in this region. Importantly, my blog explores who controlled sport, where and when it was to be played, and who the active participants were. The history of sport in early-modern Scotland is still largely unknown. My aim here is to slowly pull back veil of time and uncover what Scottish sport was like and how it was interwoven with cultural practices within this region.

Until next time, all the best,

Wade Cormack