ayrshire’s golfing history
trains & tourism
Harry Ward
Our journey back to the glory days of golf continues to when steam locomotives transported passengers from their home stations to some of the most remote rural towns and villages in Scotland. This contributed greatly to the explosion of the sport at the turn of the century.
The other great factor in the popularity of the game came when the Gutta Percha ball was first introduced to Scotland in 1848, superceding the old featherie ball which had been in existence for 250 years. The Gutta Percha would out-distance the old featherie by about 50 yards, starting the first big major equipment change and development in the sport’s history.
The new ball with its extra distance created a problem for several clubs. Unable to obtain extra ground to extend their course, some were eventually forced to close.
This problem was to repeat itself in 1901 when the Haskell ball was introduced from America giving the golfer yet another 60 yards off the tee.
Now we have Rory McIlroy launching it down the fairway over 400 yards!
As well as the Gutta Percha’s better performance capabilities, it was also much cheaper to buy, giving the ordinary working man an opportunity to participate in golf which had been denied to him for hundreds of years. The combined improvements of both the railways and the ball would launch the game to a new level and would bring enlightenment to many who wished to play golf in scenic and healthy surroundings, especially people who were resident in the smog and fog bound cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Tourism was also on the rise and if you could advertise in the newspapers that your town or village had both a station and a golf course, you were well on your way to bringing the punters and visitors in to boost your local economy.
A family holiday in the late 1800s might only have been a trip of some 30 to 40 miles from your home, but a trip on a steam train was an adventure, both to families who could afford such a luxury, and those who had never experienced a holiday at all.
Bronchitis was a common illness at the time, and doctors in the cities would suggest to their patients to get out into the clean air of the countryside to clean out their lungs. Some of the less fortunate would never manage to leave the city and knew little or nothing about the surrounding countryside outside their polluted environment. However, many of the outlying villages and towns in Scotland took advantage of welcoming those who were in a more fortunate financial position to come and play golf and be entertained by the locals during their visit.
We should remind ourselves that this was way before telephones, radios and television. It was a time when people created their own entertainment by singing, dancing, reciting poetry or prose, and of course, playing golf.
Until recently, it had been widely accepted by most golf historians that approximately 350 golf courses existed in Scotland around 1900. However, research of forgotten greens over the past 30 years has revealed almost double that figure, proving that Scotland truly was, and still is, the home of golf.
Although this massive explosion was happening throughout the entire nation, I would like to return to our original theme of golf in Ayrshire and hopefully surprise our local readers by revealing a little-known golf course in the village of Fishertown (now Fisherton) at Dunure. The course, laid out in 1908, was in the field adjacent to the old station overlooking the bay to the Isle of Arran. Unfortunately, it closed in 1915 due to the war.
Other golf courses existed in the district at Cumnock, New Cumnock, Sorn Castle, Barrhill, Catrine, Galston, Dunlop, Stewarton, Straiton, Auchinleck, Garnock, Kilbirnie, and Bogwood.
