Journal Mobile

Author(s): 
IMC Macintyre
Journal Issue: 
Volume 37: Issue 4: 2007

Format

Abstract

 

Individuals associated with Edinburgh surgery have been involved with the history and development of the game of golf since the fifteenth century.  King James  IV  of  Scotland  (1473–1513), who  ratified  the  surgeons’  Seal  of  Cause  in 1506, played the game, ensuring its first Royal patronage, and he also became the first named golfer to play at a named location. In the seventeenth century,Thomas Kincaid  the  Younger  (1661–1726)  gave  the  first  detailed  description  of  what  he regarded as the ideal stance, address and swing.  John Rattray (1707–1771) signed the first rules of golf in 1744 and became almost certainly the first person whose life was saved by his golfing connections. In the nineteenth century, Laidlaw Purves (1842–1917) helped establish the Ladies’ Golfing Union and devised the modern rules of handicapping.

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