TeeTime Scotland: Scottish Golf History

King James VI of Scotland is said to have played golf on the Inches (parks, from the Gaelic, innis, an island) of Perth and the King James VI Golf Club was named in his honour when it was formed, at a meeting in St John's Inn, Kirkside, in December 1858 and was suggested by the presbyterian minister "Golfing Charlie" Robertson (more of him in the "Golf on Sunday" article). Subscriptions were fixed at 2s 6d (just under $0.20 nowadays), a small room rented in the Castle Gable and Tom Potts and James Menzies hired to clean the rom and the players clubs.

The club's first competition was held on 2nd April 1859 with two rounds of ten holes over the North Inch. Mr Alec Imrie, a railwayman and a prime mover in the formation of the club, won the gold medal with a score of 117.

As always seemed to be the case in the histories of Scottish golf courses a dispute arose with a tenant about when grass could be cut on the North Inch and so, in 1896, Mr P W Campbell took the initiative in looking for a new, private, course. He found Moncreiffe Island and, more importantly, raised £2000 on debenture bonds. The course is unique in Scotland in that it is situated on Moncreiffe Island between two channels of the River Tay and is reached by a narrow walkway attached to the railway bridge.

By 1906, the lawyer John Dickson could write of the attractive clubhouses in Tay Street and the one associated with the King James VI club but noted that it was not always so. Describing his visit to Perth in 1848 he wrote, 'The only Club-House then was a low-ceilinged flat in Charlotte Street, surrounded by the golf boxes of the members, with a long table in the centre and a few Windsor wood-bottomed chairs, without a newspaper to read or a glass of water to allay one's thirst. '

(Sources include: Peter Baxter, Golf in Perth and Perthshire, (1899); John Dickson, Perth Society, in Auld Perth, (1906))

Golf Courses

King James VI Golf Club