North Berwick is one of the early courses in golf's birthplace, the east coast of Scotland, where, in Suy Guy Campbells' words, 'Nature was their architect, and beast and man her contractors'.
Play here was not formally organised until 1832 with the formation of the North Berwick Golf Club. The game, however, had been played in the town for a long time before though originally on the East Links, rather than the West where the North Berwick club is now situated. It was a winter activity because the town harvested the grass on the East Links during the summer. This is first mentioned in the Town Council minutes of 21st March 1775 banning play between March and September. Despite the club's formation, interest in golf waned in the early nineteenth century and the club almost closed in the late 1840s. By the 1870s the Council were allowing villas to be built on the East Links and golfing activity moved to the West Links. This had originally been convent farmland and tenants still had the right to graze cattle on the links. As happened in many parts of Scotland there was tension between the tenants and the golfers and the tenants demanded compensation. Ultimately it was agreed that 18 shilings be paid to each tenant with grazing cattle. The requirement for the golfers' green fees to be used for this purpose diminished greatly by the mid-1880s and disappeared altogether at the start of the twentieth century.
The West Links began as six holes and was extended to nine holes in 1868. It was extended to 18 holes in 1877. It was lengthened in 1895 but it is not a long course now and was not considered long then either. Horace Hutchison, writing at that time, says 'you might as well leave your driver at home, If you are even a medium driver, it is scarcely in your hand.' Short it may be but never easy and it boasts one of the most famous, and most copied holes in golf, the par 3 15th the 'Redan' which will be covered in a separate article.
North Berwick was never short of characters either. Davie Strath, James Beveridge and Tom Dunn were all greenkeepers/professionals and clubmakers here. They, and the later clubmaker and professional, Ben Sayers, will be covered in more detail in a later article.
Tom Dunn taught two prime ministers, Gladstone and A J Balfour to golf. Balfour, who did much to raise the prestige of golf, played frequently at North Berwick where he was lionised by his, and Ben Sayer's, caddy 'Big Crawford'. The aforesaid caddy ran a ginger-beer stall on the links and flew the Scottish flag at it when A J Balfour was playing. When visited by Grand Duke Michael of Russia, himself a keen golfer, who enquired for whom the flag was flying, Big Crawford replied forthrightly, if somewhat undiplomatiocally, 'A better mon than you'.
The picture is a detail from Sir John Lavery's painting of Lady Astor playing golf at North Berwick.
(Sources include: Sir Guy Campbell, The History of Golf in Britain (1952); Bass Rock Golf Club: the First 125 Years; Malcolm Campbell, The Scottish Golf Book (1999))
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