WEBVTT - The Great English Golf Boom 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.800 I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:04.920 I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:06.960 And when I find my ball in a bride egg 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.080 Frida Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg, 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:12.640 Brian Egg, Frida Egg, Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:14.120 to run off the golf course. 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:37.120 And welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.520 and today we're talking about the Great English Golf Boom. 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:43.919 My guest is Michael Morrison, a golf historian who just 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.440 published a book of that very title, The Great English 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:49.080 Golf Boom. You can get a copy of your own 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:52.680 by simply emailing him at Mike dot Morrison fifty seven 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:56.880 at outlook dot com. The book covers a fifty year 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:01.120 period between eighteen sixty four and nineteen fourteen when golf 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.600 became very popular in England. This was the first time 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:08.160 that the game had really caught on anywhere outside of Scotland. 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:11.640 And I think it's such an interesting period because the 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.880 kind of golf that was played in England ended up 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:18.280 being the kind of golf that was played many other places. Now. Obviously, 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.480 golf is a Scottish invention, but the way we play 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.399 the game today owes just as much, I think, to 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:27.840 how English people took it up in the late eighteen 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.760 hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. So let's just go straight 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:40.400 to my interview with Michael Morrison. So briefly, Michael, when 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:43.720 you say the Great English Golf Boom the title of 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:45.840 your book, what are you referring to. 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:51.520 Well, it covers the period essentially from when golf got 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:57.000 started through until the First World War nineteen fourteen. It 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:59.800 was a very slow build up and perhaps we wouldn't 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.560 today consider that to be a boom because it was 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:06.360 barely detectable for about a quarter of a century. But 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.640 then in the second quarter of a century, from eighteen 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:13.560 ninety to nineteen fourteen, that's when golf really took off 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:17.840 in England and it surpassed the number of clubs the 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:20.720 number of golfers that were playing golf in Scotland very 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.720 very quickly into the early eighteen nineties, so very suddenly 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:28.560 England became the country in the world where most golf 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:29.280 was being played. 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.040 So, in basic terms, why is this period important? So 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:36.920 say somebody is thinking great English Golf Boom, why should 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:39.000 I care about that it happened a long time ago. 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:42.239 What is the importance of this period and this set 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:44.119 of events to us now. 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.880 Well, I think a starting point is that there's a 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:52.280 temptation to believe that what happened in Scotland is what 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:56.320 happened in England. And the boom that took place in 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.480 Scotland when golf began to take off in the mid 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:03.840 ninety teenth century was a dramatic change also, but it 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:06.560 was driven by two quite important events that more or 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.280 less coincided, and that was the invention of the gutter 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:13.880 persho golf poll commonly assuming to be around eighteen forty eight, 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:18.040 and about the same time the Scottish railway network was 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:21.920 beginning to expand from just a link between Glasgow and 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.720 Edinburgh to become a genuine network covering the whole country. 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:28.640 And in fact, the largest number of railway stations to 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:32.080 open in any given year in the nineteenth century was 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:36.600 eighteen forty eight in Scotland. So you had a combination 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.600 of events and on the back of that we went 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:43.480 from around a dozen golf clubs scattered around the east 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:48.120 coast of Scotland to thirty thirty four thirty five golf 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.080 clubs in by the end of the eighteen fifties. So 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:55.840 this was the golf taking off in Scotland, very specifically 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:58.680 in Scotland, and I could maybe give you a very 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.720 quick ills that eighteen fifty nine was one thousand miles 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.360 of railway track in Scotland. There were thirty four clubs, 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.960 all of them were in close proximity of a railway station. 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.200 If you then look at England at exactly the same 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:16.080 point in time, there was seven five hundred miles of 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:20.600 railway track in the country. Every town with the population 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:24.039 of over seven and a half thousand had a railway station, 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:28.000 and there was only two golf clubs in the whole country. 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:33.520 That was Blackheath and Old Manchester. Both were formed prior 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.720 to the railway age. So there was no response in 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:40.599 terms of the two factors that drove golf to become 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.919 a major feature of Scottish life and in fact to 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:47.559 become the sport of Scotland, and the same thing didn't 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:50.839 happen in England, so there was a substantial delay between 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:53.479 the two. And coming back to your original question, then, 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:57.279 was the reason why the great boom in England is 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:00.800 important because the characteristics of it were were so different 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:01.960 from what happened in Scotland. 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.080 So focusing on the Scottish golf boom for a second, 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.760 you mentioned the Guta percha ball. Why was it that 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.240 the Gutta percha ball made the game more popular in Scotland. 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:17.000 Well, it boils down by large to economics. The feathery ball, 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:21.520 which has been the ball in play for centuries, leather 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.880 pouch stuff with feathers was expensive to make. A good 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:28.440 quality ball maker could maybe make six balls per day 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:34.400 of a feathery, and when they were used in play, 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:37.800 a caddy might carry four or five golf balls in 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:41.239 his pocket. So the cost of a feathery might range 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:44.920 from in old money two shillings and sixpence to four 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:48.800 shillings a ball. When the guta persher ball, which was 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:55.120 this wonderful material which had been discovered in tree gum 0:05:55.360 --> 0:06:01.000 in Malaysia, could simply be sort of warmed up and 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:03.800 rolled into a bowl shape, and it didn't require a 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.560 great deal of skill at all to create a golf ball, 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:11.599 and they sold almost immediately around that time for about 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.800 one shilling. So it was a dramatic fall in the 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.680 cost of the golf ball, which then to the extent 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:20.880 that Scott's were familiar with the game, a greater number 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:23.720 across the social classes could afford to play it. 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:26.279 And then the other factor that you mentioned was the 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:30.640 expansion of the railroad network, which, as you were arguing before, 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:33.880 didn't have as much of an impact on golf in 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.920 England as it did in Scotland, but it did have 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.440 an impact on golf in Scotland. What was that impact, 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.279 maybe you could make that connection for me. Why was 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.279 it that the railroad was such a boon for golf 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:47.159 in Scotland. 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:53.359 Well, as I said, initially it was most of the 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.240 golf clubs at that time were on the east coast 0:06:56.240 --> 0:07:00.279 of Scotland, and of course the largest part of the 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:04.520 population were in the major cities, not on the coast. 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:09.039 So then the railway network gave gave people the opportunity 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:13.280 to go and have seaside holidays. Leisure time was increasing 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:18.560 at this point in time, affordability to take train to 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:22.880 take railway trips to the coast became a possibility, and 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.720 the population was then seeing golf being played, So there 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:30.000 was this increasing awareness at the same time as the 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.640 game was becoming more affordable. So it was a combination 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:38.160 of these two factors which were quite significant in the 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:41.640 takeof of golf in the mid nineteenth century. 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:44.400 And this was especially true of Saint Andrews. Right more 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:48.400 people were getting to Saint Andrews and you know, vacationing 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.360 there and seeing the golf that was being played there 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:53.920 on that terrific golf course, which was you know, much 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:58.040 different from other golf courses of that period. More people 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.160 just got to see that, specifically saying Andrews Golf. 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:06.080 So Andrews was at that time very much recognized as 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:10.920 the best golf course that was and visitors, Scottish visitors, 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:15.080 and I should add also English visitors were traveling up 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:19.200 to the east coast resorts. North Berwick was very popular, 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:25.040 Gullen of course, and of course Andrews. The railway networks 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:28.960 of England and Scotland were connected together around about that 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.720 same point in time, around about eighteen fifty, so for 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:35.920 the first time English middle class people could afford and 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:42.160 the time frame for getting from London to Edinburgh shrank 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.440 from the better part of a week on a stagecoach 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:50.960 to ten to twelve hours on a train. So this 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:55.040 was a part of the process of initially English people 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.320 being exposed to this crazy Scottish game called golf. 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:03.400 Before we get to the English boom period, maybe you 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:07.360 could just give me a general picture of Scottish golf 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:12.479 during the Scottish boom period, specifically maybe focusing on elements 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:17.800 that the English then changed or abandoned. What was you 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:21.360 know unique about Scottish golf, especially as compared to the 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:24.080 game that was played later in England. 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:28.440 Well, I mean, the most crucial distinction was was golf 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.640 was played predominantly on Link's Land, not exclusively. There were 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:35.880 there were places where Brunsfield and Edinburgh which was basically 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:40.760 just Meadland, and also at Perth on the North Inch 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:44.920 again that was pasture, but predominantly and of course the 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:48.080 best courses were on Link's Land around the coast, which 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:52.800 was created as a combination consequence of geological factors and 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:57.640 weather patterns that created the June land around particularly on 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.160 the east side, also on the west side of Scotland. 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:04.199 But but but golf itself took off more on the 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.200 east side and mostly on the links Land, so that 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:11.079 that was very much a distinction, and that golf was 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:15.520 seen to be an interesting game played on an undulating surface, 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:21.920 with challenging weather conditions in terms of the wind. So 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.040 it was it was an interesting game to play because 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.679 there was many factors that were out with the golfers control, 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:30.880 but they had to use the skill to get the 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:35.080 ball round and into that small hole. So Scottish golf 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:39.400 links land English golf much less so when when the 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:44.520 boom began, already golf was moving inland closer to where 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:48.040 people lived rather than at the coast. So there wasn't 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:51.640 this as I mentioned, there wasn't this strong linkage between 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:55.280 the railways where in Scotland people would would travel to 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:57.800 the coast to play golf much less so in England 0:10:57.840 --> 0:10:59.960 there was a preference to play golf closer to home. 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.160 Maybe they got more hooked on it and wanted to 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:03.959 play it more often. 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:07.360 Right yeah, So you know, English golf when it came 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:11.000 about was a lot more inland than Scottish golf. And 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:13.800 we can expand on that a little more later, but 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:17.200 you know, just to drive this point home, the Scottish 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:21.840 lynks Land was in many cases not what people now 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.679 imagined to be a golf course. It was often shared 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:30.080 among multiple different golf clubs and also multiple different activities, 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.599 right and it was obviously very natural. Even if the 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.520 lynks land was quite well suited to the game. If 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.880 a modern person looked at at an old Scottish links course, 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:42.760 it might take a little while for them to recognize 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:43.560 it as a golf course. 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.319 Right, Yes, it was pretty wild. I mean, it wasn't 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:49.200 manicured in the way that we think of the best 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:53.040 golf courses to this day. Even the bunkers were essentially 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:59.120 what was created both by animals scrapings and golfers hitting 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.840 shots of rough areas in the ground. So there it 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:06.280 was more of a natural landscape. And as you say, 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.480 it wasn't just for single usage. It wasn't just for golfers. 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.480 It was common land and used for a whole range 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:17.319 of different activities. Golf was just one of the activities 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:19.640 that would take place on the links land. It wasn't 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:21.679 exclusively for the golfers. 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:25.040 All right. Let's move to England. The first couple of 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:29.760 golf clubs in England were pretty early, right, They didn't 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.480 come about in the late eighteen hundreds. Blackheath was there 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:36.400 very early on, and then there was a golf club 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.640 near Manchester. I believe that was there from the early 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.680 eighteen hundreds, So could you tell me about these like 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:48.120 early instances of English golf clubs. What were they like? 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:53.120 As you mentioned black Heath Royal. Black Heath as it 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:58.960 became known, was just to the southeast of the city 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:05.080 of London on some rough heathland area which was very 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:07.880 rudimentary again and I guess would be the best way 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:12.720 to describe it, and sort of quarries and undulating territory. 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:14.560 So there was some interest in it in terms of 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.120 the playing the game there and they it was predominantly 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:22.520 played by expatriot Scots who had settled in London, and 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:26.920 the club was formed in the eighteenth century somewhere around 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:31.240 about the seventeen sixties, I think, and pretty much was 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:35.840 expatriot Scott's perhaps with a few English friends taking getting 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.120 involved in the game. And it started out as a 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:43.280 five hole golf course, subsequently extended to seven and then 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.360 and then later two more holes in the nineteenth century. 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:52.079 And the second club came along in eighteen eighteen, Manchester 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:56.400 Golf Club, very small, typically no more than twelve golfers 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:58.840 who were members. Again, they had a small five hole 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:02.760 course on some rough heathland just on the periphery of 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:07.679 the very rapidly growing industrial city of Manchester, and in 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:13.760 fact subsequently the pressures of growth of the city resulted 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:17.280 in them leaving that land and moving elsewhere. And by 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:21.480 the time we get to the eighteen eighties but very 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:26.320 modest set and again expatriate Scotts who were had owned 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:30.320 mills and other activities they were involved in in merchants 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:34.240 in Manchester. But it was basically two Scottish golf clubs. 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:38.920 So when I think of the beginning of golf in England, 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:43.160 it wasn't there. It was where golf was first played 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:46.160 by Englishmen, and we have to wait till eighteen sixty 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:49.200 four for that to happen, when the club was formed 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:53.520 at Westwood ho and became Royal North Devon, and I 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.640 think over seventy five percent of the initial members were English, 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:59.400 and that to me was the starting point. You had 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.560 Old Morris laid out the course at Westwood Hoe in 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:06.800 eighteen sixty four. It was eighteen holes, only the second 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:11.000 golf course to have eighteen holes after at Saint Andrews, 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:15.000 and it was on Lynxsland. So there was early character 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:17.640 beginning to look like well maybe maybe we're going to 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:21.880 see a following on of what happened in Scotland being 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:26.240 pursued in England. But as the story rolls through in time, 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:30.320 that wasn't the case. It wasn't all about Lengthsland that 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:32.400 it wasn't. It wasn't Nessley Coastal either. 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:36.800 Westward Hoe is one of those historical moments that you 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:40.040 just couldn't predict, right, like a golf club like that 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:44.520 formed by English people where it was so for people 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:48.320 who don't know where Royal North Devin is, what's its 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:52.080 location like and why is it sort of surprising that golf, 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.400 like English golf might take root there. 0:15:55.080 --> 0:16:00.080 Well, it's in the far southwest of England only or 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:03.320 Wall is probably other away from from London in terms 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:07.720 of accessibility. The railways could get people and some of 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:10.320 the some of the Black Heath members would go down 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:12.880 and play in the spring and autumn meetings once the 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:16.360 club was established. But it was all I mean, as 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.360 you say, it's quite unexpected. It started there, and it 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:23.920 was started by a family called the Gossips, and the 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:30.480 Reverend Gossip was the founder of the club. And again 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:33.880 it was surely by chance that he had two brothers 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:39.040 in law. One was in based in Saint Andrews and 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:44.360 the other was in the engineer's Royal Engineers based at Prestwick. 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.560 So he had two brothers in law who played golf 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:50.280 and when he went to visit them, he learned to play. 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.600 When he was up in Scotland and found the game 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:58.240 fascinating and saw this as an opportunity where he settled 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:02.520 as the local vicar down in that corner of Devon 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:06.640 and laid out a very informal course until he got 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:10.360 enough people interested in the game, and then subsequently they 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.160 formed this club North Devon, and Old Tom Morris came 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:16.520 down to lay out the course, was invited down to 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:17.240 lay out the course. 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:21.560 So then from there you know, how did English golf 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:22.880 become popular? 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:27.800 Well, as I mentioned earlier, it was a very slow process. 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.200 I mean, so Royal North Devon formed in eighteen sixty four. 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:34.440 By eighteen sixty nine there was only a further four 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:38.560 clubs had been formed. In England. There was London Scottish 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:44.680 on Wimbledon Common, there was Royal Liverpool at Hoylake, and 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:46.800 there was a very small club up in the north 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:51.960 northeast of England Northumberland called Almmouth and Cambridge University golf 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:54.119 Club was formed in eighteen sixty nine as well, so 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:56.159 that was it. There was seven golf clubs by eighteen 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.280 sixty nine. If we rolled it forward another decade to 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:03.400 eighteen seventy nine, then but then we only had sixteen 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.160 golf clubs. So in Scotland by that time we were 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.280 probably about eighty golf clubs in a country with a 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:13.320 population of about one sixth of the population of England. 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:15.760 But then it was the eighteen eighties that really saw 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:18.960 the By eighteen eighty nine there were one hundred golf clubs, 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:21.960 so things were then beginning to take off. And of 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.080 those one hundred golf clubs, about forty percent of them 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:28.399 were at the coast and sixty percent of them were inland. 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:33.919 Most of them were on private land rather than on 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:38.080 public land as in Scotland, and almost all the only 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:43.119 exception was London. Scottish and Royal Wimbledon played shared a 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.280 course on Wimbledon Common, but all the other clubs had 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.520 their own golf courses. So it was the beginnings of 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:52.960 the takeoff of golf in England already were of a 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:56.040 quite different character to what we'd seen in terms of 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:57.400 development of golf in Scotland. 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:03.640 What is your basic interpretation of why golf took off 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:08.159 in the eighteen eighties in England and not earlier and 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:08.760 not later. 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:12.040 Well, I think the sort of two factors. The two 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:18.560 underlying factors is the growing awareness of golf as a 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:22.720 game by English people, and that was initially, as I'd 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:26.520 mentioned earlier, as a result of English people in greater 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:31.440 numbers visiting Scotland for holidays in the summer time. And 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:36.639 if you've seen the cover on my book, which The 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:40.760 Great English Golfman, it's from. The cover is based on 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:44.440 a cartoon appeared in Punch magazine in eighteen eighty five 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:49.679 and it has a large group of English golfers, men, women, 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:53.879 children and the elderly marching with their golf clubs up 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:57.280 to Scotland and it's called the Golf Stream, and it 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:01.480 was the cartoon was sort of signified the fact that 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:04.800 golf now was seen as a and was a visible, 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:07.800 a visible game amongst English people. And at the same 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:11.520 time as english people going north and seeing golf the 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:14.600 first time, a lot of Scots were emigrating south. They 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:17.280 were emigrating all over the world in fact, but there 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:20.880 was nevertheless a large number of middle class Scots ended 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:25.280 up moving south and they had already experienced the golf 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.320 boom in Scotland. So many of the Scots going south 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.680 brought their golf clubs with them, and if they settled 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.760 in various parts of the country then they were important 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.119 in getting golf clubs off the ground. These initial clubs 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:40.920 in the eighteen eighties, but gradually there was a transition 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:44.520 towards more English people getting involved in that process of 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:47.680 beginning clubs, and by the late eighteen eighties, the English 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:50.600 English people, the new adopters of the game, were more 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:55.919 important than the Scots who who who'd moved south, So 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:57.920 there was a bit of a transition there in that sense. 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:00.480 So the game in England basically took on a life 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:04.040 of its own sometime in the eighteen eighties and eighteen nineties. 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:06.400 This is kind of the first phase of the great 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.360 English golf boom that you cover in your book. Now, 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:13.320 there was a second phase as well. So what happened 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:16.800 between those two phases, the one in the eighteen eighties 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:19.840 and eighteen nineties and then the one in the early 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:23.640 twentieth century leading up to the beginning of World War One. 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:28.000 In nineteen fourteen. What separated those two phases, and then 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:31.280 what was the cause and kind of character of that 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.200 second part of the boom. 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:37.840 Well, there, you're quite right in distinguishing these these two 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:42.360 distinct phases, because the as I've interpreted in my research, 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:46.119 they had very different underlying factors behind them. The boom 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:50.640 in the late eighteen eighties threw into the The entire 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:54.360 decadive of the eighteen nineties was pretty much driven by demand. 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:59.919 The enthusiasm for golf that was amongst English people was 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:04.680 in this huge upsurgey in golf clubs being formed all 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:08.119 across the country. I mean to give an example, in 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:11.199 eighteen eighty nine, there were only two golf clubs in Yorkshire, 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:15.640 the largest county in England. But by eighteen ninety three, 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:19.280 just a few years later, every county in England had 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:23.359 a golf club. So golf spread pretty much everywhere, and 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:28.720 it was characterized by this predominantly the clubs being formed. 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:31.119 I think the statistics are of the order of eighty 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:35.520 five percent of the clubs formed were formed Inland in 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:40.639 relatively rural settings, So it wasn't the case that the 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:43.760 clubs were formed at the coast and people who lived 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:46.560 in the cities took the train to play golf. That 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:49.400 was an occasional thing they did in the summer holidays 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:52.399 and at other occasions. But most of these golf clubs 0:22:52.400 --> 0:22:55.439 were being formed all over the country because people just 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:58.000 had got the golf bug, would be the best way 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:00.919 to describe it in the eighteen nineties. But as we 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:03.479 got towards the end of the eighteen ninety it looked 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:05.840 like it might be petering out. It was flattened. The 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:09.399 number of golf clubs being formed was flattening out, and 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:12.520 by round about the turn of the century, round about 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:16.480 nineteen hundred, there was although it wasn't in decline, there 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:19.439 was only a very modest number of clubs being formed 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:22.280 each year compared to what we'd seen in the in 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:24.959 the mid eighteen nineties. I mean, if we take eighteen 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:28.280 ninety three eighteen ninety four as an example, a new 0:23:28.320 --> 0:23:31.880 golf club was being formed every four days in England 0:23:32.320 --> 0:23:35.480 during that those two years. That was the real peak 0:23:35.520 --> 0:23:39.600 of the boom. By round about nineteen hundred were looking 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:43.760 more like a couple of golf clubs every month was 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:47.920 being formed. Run about that turn of the century, there 0:23:47.960 --> 0:23:51.080 there was also an important event was that there was 0:23:51.119 --> 0:23:56.360 a war, the Boer War, being fought in South Africa, 0:23:56.480 --> 0:24:00.199 and a large number of young men went left the 0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:04.159 country to fight in that war. So I looked at 0:24:04.160 --> 0:24:06.639 that in some detail to see whether that might have 0:24:06.720 --> 0:24:10.399 been a contributory factor to the decline or the slower 0:24:10.400 --> 0:24:12.720 growth rate in golf, But it didn't seem to be. 0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:15.920 Golf was still being played all around the country even 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:17.760 though there was a war on at the same time, 0:24:18.119 --> 0:24:19.480 albeit a very distant war. 0:24:19.640 --> 0:24:22.800 Yeah, and this was the war that Alistair mackenzie served 0:24:22.840 --> 0:24:26.840 in right and developed his ideas of camoufage, so little 0:24:27.119 --> 0:24:29.760 historical trivia there. So the Boor War was not a 0:24:29.760 --> 0:24:33.640 contributing factor. What did you find to be contributing factors 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:38.360 to this, Well, that's the downturn, But maybe more interesting 0:24:38.440 --> 0:24:42.159 is the contributing factors to the upsarch. I think that, 0:24:42.359 --> 0:24:44.320 you know, what you concluded in your book, just to 0:24:44.359 --> 0:24:47.639