Oldest US club celebrates 125 years

The world's first golf club, reputed to be the Royal Burgess Golf Society in Scotland, has been well documented as being formed in 1735 but this year is the 125th anniversary of the club recognised as the oldest in the USA - where the game is mostly played.

Appropriately named the Saint Andrew's Golf Club in Yonkers, New York, it is the oldest continuously existing golf club North America, established on November 14, 1888 after the first exhibition match had been played on George Washington's birthday (February 22) between John Reid and John B. Upham over three holes laid out in a cow pasture.

From such modest beginnings, golf in the US has grown in size and stature to more than 15,000 courses used by approaching 26 million golfers.

The SAGC and its earliest members are responsible for numerous other American golf firsts including:

• The first photograph of golf in America, in 1888

• The first recorded mixed foursome, played on March 30, 1889, when John Upham teamed with Mrs John Reid to defeat Miss Carrie Law and John Reid

• The first American 'clubhouse' featuring a rudimentary 19th hole - an apple tree on which Reid and friends used to hang their coats while playing in the apple orchard that became the club's second course.

• The first US Amateur matchplay, in 1894, and won club member L.B. Stoddart

• The first US Open Championship, also in 1894, when Henry O. Tallmadge organised a meeting of five golf clubs that resulted in the creation of the United States Golf Association (USGA). It was also played to a matchplay format won by W. Dunn

• A SAGC member, Charles E. Sands, won the first Olympic gold medal for golf in 1900

In commemoration of the 125th anniversary, a tournament will be played in June to support the families of deceased and disabled members of the military, followed by a 24-team fivesome event - each including four amateurs and one celebrity.

FOOTNOTE: According to Scottish golf history, the world's oldest golf clubs still in continuous existence (though not necessarily at their original sites) are:

1735 Royal Burgess Golf Society
1744 Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers
1754 Royal & Ancient Golf Club, St Andrews
1761 Bruntsfield Links Golf Society
1766 Royal Blackheath Golf Club, England
1774 Royal Musselburgh Golf Club
1780 Royal Aberdeen Golf Club
1786 Crail Golfing Society
1787 Glasgow Golf Club
1791 Burntisland Golf Club

Individual matches with money stakes are recorded from 1503 when King James IV apparently lost to the Earl of Bothwell in Edinburgh, establisahing these two aristocrats as the world's first two named golfers and the first two golf club members.

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