YOU state that the rules of golf were created in 1774 ("A stroke of inspiration", The Herald, July 12).
This should have read 1744, when "the Gentlemen Golfers" playing on Leith Links appealed to the city fathers for a Silver Club similar to the Archers' Silver Arrow. The Edinburgh magistrates agreed on condition a set of rules be drawn up and the competition be "open" to all.
These 13 original rules, signed on March 7, 1744 by John Rattray, are recorded in the Edinburgh City Archives and form the basis of the modern game.
They stood for more than 90 years before changes and additions were made and the R&A took over their management.
Rattray won the competition on Leith Links becoming, "Captain of the Golf" in both 1744 and 1745. Then, as a surgeon and Jacobite he helped the troops and served as surgeon-general to Bonnie Prince Charlie's forces and was captured at Culloden. It was Rattray's good fortune to be released by the intervention of Lord Duncan Forbes, his golfing partner.
Lord Forbes, then Scotland's Chief Justice, could not allow his golfing partner to be hanged.
Pat Denzler,
Chairman, John Rattray Statue Committee,
Leith Rules Golf Society,
10 Abercromby Place,
Edinburgh.
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