HISTORY

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club

	Royal & Ancient Golf Club St Andrews Fife KY16 9JD
	Telephone +44 ( 0)1334 460000 www.randa.org

The R&A is a private golf club and is also the governing body of golf throughout the world outside the USA. It runs major championships including the Open and reviews the rules of golf.

The R&A does not own the Old Course - the Links land and all the courses are public. However, The R&A has had a long and close connection with those responsible for the Links. For many years this was the the Town Council. Then in 1974, with the abolition of St Andrews Town Council , a new Act of Parliament created St Andrews Links Trust, an independent and charitable body charged with the running and protection of the courses.

The relationship with the R&A continues today and three of its members are nominated to the Board of the Trustees and the Links Management Committee of St Andrews Links Trust.

The club's origins lie in the creation of the Society of St Andrews Golfers by 22 Noblemen and Gentlemen of the Kingdom of Fife in 1754.

Under the names of the 22 founders, the first written account reads: "The Noblemen and Gentlemen above named being admired of the Ancient and healthful exercise of the Golf, and at the same time having the interest and prosperity of the ancient city of St Andrews at heart, being the Alma Mater of the Golf, did in the year of our Lord 1754 contribute for a Silver club having a St. Andrew engraved on the head thereof to be played for on the Links of St. Andrews upon the fourteenth day of May said year, and yearly in time coming subject to the conditions and regulations following."

In 1834, King William IV conferred his patronage on the Society of St Andrews Golfers, giving them the title of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club. Agreement was later reached with the Union Club to use their premises overlooking the golf course, and later the two clubs merged. The imposing clubhouse which, in much extended and modified form, stands sentinel behind the first tee of the Old Course today, was built in 1854.

Throughout this same period an older golf club formed by the golfers of Leith was suffering. The impossibly overcrowded conditions of the small five-hole public course which had been their home since 1744 finally drove them to move to the more generous, but still public, acres of the nine-hole Musselburgh links. Under their new name - the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers - they finally moved even further from the capital city, to the village of Gullane, where their Muirfield course was opened in 1891.

While golf's most senior club was enduring this extended period of change, the R&A had become a model of stability and the leading authority of the game. This role was officially recognised in 1897 when the explosive growth of the game led to a general demand for a uniform code of rules rather than the use of local regulations. The leading clubs of the day turned to the R&A for guidance and the first Rules of Golf Committee was appointed.

From that moment the R&A has been recognised as the game's governing authority in all countries of the world except the United States of America. The 22 Noblemen and Gentlemen of Fife who convened the first meeting in 1754 could have had no conception that their philanthropic attempt to help protect the golfing reputation of St Andrews would lead, centuries later, to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club holding a pre-eminent position in the worldwide administration of the game.