True Golf History

[el tigre]

Heard this funny bit of golf "history" today, and was wondering if it is actually true or not:

Why do full-length golf courses have 18 holes, and not 20, or 10 or an even dozen?

During a discussion among the club's membership board at St. Andrews in 1858, one of the members pointed out that it takes exactly 18 shots to polish off a fifth of Scotch. By limiting himself to only one shot of Scotch per hole, the Scot figured a round of golf was finished when the Scotch ran out.

[Kilroy]

Hehehe... an old wives tale (or a happy co-incidence).

In 1764, the St Andrews Old Course was 11 holes; golfers would play out 11 holes and then play the same holes in reverse coming in, thus playing 22 holes.

Golf at St Andrews in the middle 19th century was becoming increasingly popular, and the course was becoming crowded. Golfers playing out began to meet golfers playing in, at the same hole. This led to problems, and arguments between players. Something had to be done. It was solved by cutting two holes on each green, with white flags for the holes going out, and red flags for the inward holes. This was how the famous double greens came into being.

The course was then played clockwise and anti-clockwise on alternate weeks. Nowadays the left-hand or clockwise course is hardly ever used but some of the bunkers are still obviously intended as obstacles for players going in this direction. The first four holes, (also the last four) on the course were judged too short so they decided to combine them into 2 longer holes. The 22 hole course became 18 holes and the game of golf has been played over 18 holes ever since.

[mpare]

Dan, you've summarized this bit of historical trivia nicely. For anyone interested in more details of the evolution of golf, you should have a look at The Golf Course by Goeffrey S. Cornish and Ronald E. Whitten, published by The Rutledge Press, 1987. This is a great book, but of partiicular interest to me at least is Part Two of this joint effort. It contains profiles of all the notable and not so notable golf course architects as well as providing a detailed list of all of the courses, by location, that each of them designed, remodeled or added to. Believe it or not, this is fascinating stuff.