Others believe that people were actually taking up golf as we know it. Either way, the game itself fell into disfavor during the War of 1812. Seen as a British game, Americans turned their backs on golf for some 80 years. As early as the game of golf started in the United States, the first written record occurs in 1457, when it was banned by the Scots Parliament of James II because it interfered with military training for the wars against the English. Soccer was also banned at this time for the same reason. The ban on golf was lifted in 1502 with the signing of the Treaty of Glasgow. James IV made his first purchase of golf equipment, buying a set of clubs from a bow-maker in Perth, Scotland. By 1513, Queen Catherine of England referred to the growing popularity of the game in a letter to Cardinal Wolsey. The year 1552 marks the first recorded evidence of golf at St. Andrews in Scotland; one year later, the Archbishop of St. Andrews decreed that the locals had the right to play the links at St. Andrews. And, in 1567, Mary, Queen of Scots, became the first known female golfer when she was spotted playing shortly after the death of her husband, Lord Darnley. While the game had its roots in Scotland, golf is almost an obsession in the United States, if you judge by the sheer number of courses. Though every state has golf courses, the southern states seem to be the most popular because the temperate weather allows for year-round playing. The southeast coastline is dotted with hundreds of courses, many designed by the top players. Hilton Head Island is home to a large number of courses, three of them at Sea Pines, including the well-known Harbour Town Links. SeaPines50thAnniversary.com | SeaPinesHomesAndVillas.com 35 MOST AVID GOLFERS KNOW that the game has its roots in Scotland, but few know that the first golf club in the United States was conceived in South Carolina. Legend has it that the first golf clubs and balls arrived in Charleston as early as 1743; the shipment included 96 clubs and 432 balls. Later, in 1786, the South Carolina Golf Club was formed; eventually, the club evolved into the Country Club of Charleston, which is still in existence. Members met at Williams’ Coffee House, playing the game on park land known as Harleston Green; players shared the space with horses, carriages, children at play and others. By 1795, the group had a clubhouse but still did not have a course to play. A second club formed in Savannah, Georgia, in 1795. A Miss Eliza Johnston held her wedding at the Savannah Golf Club in 1811—perhaps the first wedding to take place in a golf setting. It was not until 1898 that the nation’s first true golf resort in Pinehurst, North Carolina, opened. Since those days, golf has taken off throughout the Carolinas. According to historian Charles Price, Andrew Johnston, a Charleston merchant, brought an assortment of goods from Glasgow—including 12 golf clubs and some balls. Price speculates that Johnston used these items on his plantation before his death five years later. John Reid, a Scot who settled in Yonkers, New York, heard that a fellow Scot was traveling to Scotland on business. He requested that his friend, Robert Lockhart, order some clubs and balls while at the famous St. Andrews course. On Feb. 22, 1888, Reid got a group of friends together and laid out a three-hole course in a cow pasture. The group was bitten by the golf bug and, when summer came, they built six holes on a nearby 30-acre site. A few months later, they established the St. Andrews Golf Club. There is some disagreement about whether the game being played was golf or a derivation of a similar Dutch game called “kolven.” Some speculate that, since golf was all the rage in Scotland, South Carolinians were simply copying European names. The Birthplace of Golf in the United States Historic Charleston, South Carolina
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