Great Places in Golf - Musselburgh

When I started this blog it was my intention to write about many of the wonderful places in the game, especially those with which the reader might be unfamiliar.  I did a small number early on (Cabot, Cruit Island and Brora), but then lost the plot...

A Shackelford post from a few days ago tees up just such an opportunity, one that has the added benefit of

allowing your humble blogger to make fun of himself.  Win-win, as they say.  Shack's post consisted of nothing more than an old postcard he ran across, an image of  the golf course that is partially within the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, yanno the one where they were racing this past weekend.  Currently known as Brickyard Crossing Golf Club, it dates back to 1929 and four holes remain within the racetrack.

I find stuff like this to be great fun, and I'm quite sure that Shack's postcard collection should be donated to Golf House.

The astute reader is now scratching his chin wondering how this has anything to do with the post title, to which I can only urge patience.  In 2001 I took my future bride to Scotland for the first time, and we spent some five days in East Lothian, the region surrounding Edinburgh and home to many first-rate links, including Muirfield, Gullane, North Berwick and Dunbar.  While there we drove through the town of Musselburgh, and a bell went off.

I knew that Musselburgh was a storied name in the game's history, the original location for the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers (Muirfield), the oldest golf club in the world.  I believed that golf was still played there and suggested we detour to take a look at the links.  However, we were unable to find the links, and as a male of the species I am lawfully enjoined from asking directions.  Now, in a typical Scottish town, you can always find the links.  First, they're going to be down by the water and second, there's always a Golf Road or Links Drive off the town's main square that takes you there.

Why couldn't we find the?  Because the links are completely contained within the horse racing oval, a minor detail that became known to me later.  Now you can see the link (pun intended) to Shack's postcard, though in this case the entire course is within the oval.  Here' more on the history from the club's website:

The earliest documentation of golf being playing on Musselburgh Links is from 1672, which has earned Musselburgh Links the Guinness World Record for being the oldest golf course in the world. However, it has been reputed that Mary, Queen of Scots played on Musselburgh even earlier in 1567. 

Musselburgh Links was originally seven holes, with another added in 1838 and the full nine-holes coming into play in 1870. The first three holes stretched eastwards from the grandstand at the racecourse, the site of the former clubhouse of the Honourable Company. 

To the right is the main traffic route through Musselburgh, onto which the Musselburgh golfers used to slice their shots, then played back to the links using brass-soled clubs. The metal plate on the ‘brassie’ wooden club was invented in Musselburgh in 1885 to deal with such shots.

At the fourth green there still stands Mrs Foreman’s Inn. There used to be a hatch in the wall through which refreshments could be passed to the early golfers. 

The course turns northwest with the next three holes following the coastline and the eighth returning south towards the Home Hole, which is now the present first hole. 

The four and a quarter inch diameter hole became standard during the 19th century, its seemingly random size was just that, it happened to be the width of the implement used to cut the holes at Musselburgh and in 1893 the R & A made the size mandatory.

 I know that's a long excerpt, but you'll no doubt agree that's a lot of golf history (and we'll return to Mrs. Foreman's Inn below).  And after all, what were you doing in 1567?

In conjunction with last year's Open Championship at Muirfield, Shack wrote this typically fine piece on golf in East Lothian, a truly wonderful cluster of great and historic links conveniently located in the Edinburgh suburbs.  It's typically the first place I send people when helping them plan golf trips to Scotland, as the older we get the less time we can bear on the roads.

But more on point, Shack has posted extensively on Musselburgh on his blog, including videos of his time there.  One day he played the nine-holer in the a.m. and stuck around for the afternoon race card, where the turf meets the turf, as he put it:

Here's his videos from that day:

And as for the aforementioned Mrs. Foreman's, it warrants its own video:

Geoff kind of leaves us hanging, no?  Wonder if he ever got that drink as well as how he did on his bump-and-run with the hickories...

One last not from The Cradle of Golf.  an ancient skull was found on that same fourth hole by greenskeepers, believed to be some 2,500 years old.  Jim Moriarty amusingly provides the details:

In a discovery of nothing less than hickory-shattering significance, the longest suffering bunker

The bunker in question, with Mrs. Foreman's pub in background.

player in the history of golf has been unearthed by greenkeepers on the fourth hole of the world's oldest golf course, the Musselburgh Links. Not unexpectedly, the 2,500-year old skull was found beneath the lip of the bunker which the ancient player, it has been theorized, was unable to clear after what can only be surmised were sufficient attempts to result in extreme agitation and, ultimately, death.

Musselburgh's fourth hole is known as "Mrs. Forman's," so called because drinks were served through the window of a nearby house, thus making it not only golf's first fourth also its first 19th. The comity for which The Old Golf Course's fourth was celebrated made it a favorite place for golfers to linger during a round so it's not terribly surprising evidence of such lingering would continue to, well, linger. While anthropologists at Dundee University were unable to immediately ascertain the cause of death, there is little doubt among historians that it was a case of atypical mortification. While the partial remains from 500 B.C. predate Mrs. Forman's hospitality, in light of current discoveries there is every reason to believe the area surrounding the fourth green served as a traditional clan gathering point for the passing of animal skins filled with meade and the ritual hurling of insults at inept bunker play.

We'll go out with Moriarty's final words:

Old bones are not a rarity at the Musselburgh Links. The second hole of The Old Golf Course, dubbed "The Graves", is thought to be the final resting place of the soldiers who perished in the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547. The bodies were supposedly buried on the golf course to discourage the playing of golf a thousand years after it was determined the bunker on the fourth, alone, wasn't going to get the job done.

Archeologists are in hopes further excavation will yield the entire remainder of the fourth holes' Iron Age skeleton. Already found were the phalanges and metacarpals frozen in an overlapping position while, nearby, a crude implement thought to be the tool the unfortunate golfer was attempting to use has also been discovered. While the wooden shaft of the club, quite naturally, has not survived centuries stuck in the ground, the iron head has. Carved into the back of the somewhat larger than normal club were the words, "Modus Eugenius Saracenius."