Tain Golf Club's rich history brought to book to mark a major milestone
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STRETCHING from Newtonmore on the A9 to the Shetland Islands in the north, eastwards to the River Spey and west to the Outer Hebrides, the North District Area of the Scottish Golf Union can claim 62 golf clubs in its membership - with twenty or more still waiting to celebrate a hundred years in existence.
The majority of those who have passed the 100 year milestone have marked their centenary with a short history publication in a Centenary Book put together by a willing member with limited information available and many old club minute books gone missing.
Tain Golf Club, or as it was first named in 1890 its year of founding, The St Duthus Golf Club, Tain were one such club that brought out a Centenary publication in 1990. It was compiled by a past captain of the club, Ian MacGregor who without the current use of internet search engines laboriously trawled through his club’s old minute books and local newspapers to compile a history of his club since 1890.
Like so many other club’s centenary books they were well received but everything could not be covered and fuller descriptions and answers were passed over in the limited time and space available. The listing of past office bearers, competition winners and old financial records in £s shillings and pence filled too many pages but the long deceased club characters and where and how the game evolved was skirted over.
But what these books did do was to raise a bigger interest by members of their respective club’s history and inspire others to come along and dig deeper into past times, the history of golf and people who took up the game in the villages and towns as golf was evolving. Two fine recent examples are Dr John MacLeod’s history of Royal Dornoch from formation in 1877 to 1999, and Hugh Baillie’s book “Golf at the Back of Beyond” which concentrated on Brora Golf Club’s history beyond 1891 up to millennium year and these book were a more comprehensive hardback version of the Centenary Year publications.
Centenary celebrations were successfully marked at all clubs and turned out to be a lucrative added source of income for that specific year so committees still striving to balance their financial accounts went looking for other milestones to promote their clubs. Waiting another 100 years was too long so many have come up with the idea of having a 125 year celebration.
Tain Golf Club, from January 1, 2015 will so mark this milestone and they have been fortunate in having a club member who will help his club do so with the launch of a new book – “Tain, A Golfing History of People, Places and Past Times”.
Written by former club captain, Tony Watson to celebrate the 125th year of the modern club this book looks at the very early days of the game both nationally and locally. Particular attention has been made in identifying the positioning of the original Old Tom Morris designed course although additional researches show that local golf in Tain considerably pre-dated the present course. Find out how a photograph of a young lady, named Ruby, playing golf on a course in 1894 unlocked the mystery. A further combination of old maps and course description, together with modern GPS mapping systems has enabled Watson to establish that the original course was indeed very different to what had been previously assumed and his researches have contradicted all other previous publications about the early Tom Morris course.
In other chapters the author describes the early problems associated with playing golf on poor courses with indifferent equipment, the development of tourism in Victorian society, the impact of military and naval exercises on Tain’s membership, and potted family histories of some of the “early movers and shakers” associated with Tain Golf Club. Royal Dornoch Golf Club just across the firth are in 2016 building up to a 400 year history of golf in this Royal Burgh but read also how a son of the Laird of Newmore (a few miles south of Tain) in 1718 was incurring expenses in connection with golf, so could 2018 be another year for Tain Golf Club to keep in mind for a three hundred anniversary?
Tony Watson was born in Aberdeenshire and had his first experience of golf on Tain Links in 1965. Together with his wife Murial, (a genuine Tainite) and pharmacist like himself, they came to Tain in 1972 to run the local pharmacy until retiring in 1999.
Although he has written various historical articles for newspapers and periodicals this is his first – and last he says, effort at writing a book. In a final act of generosity to the golf club he has loved and served over so many years the sales of his book, favourably priced at only £10, will all be donated to Tain Golf Club to help with their 125 year celebrations. Purchases can be obtained by contacting the Tain Golf Club secretary with a £2 charge for postage.
As a part of this history the author, with the help of head greenkeeper Iain MacLeod and Graham Oliver have mapped out the original Tom Morris twelve holes and it is planned to play as many of them that is possible in a special “Old Tom Morris Competition” on Saturday, April 18, 2015 to begin the club’s 125 celebrations. On Saturday, June 6 golfers from other local clubs will be invited to an Anniversary Golf Day for golf and evening entertainment.
