SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



For a long period of years these two 

 clubs, joined with the Royal Blackheath, 

 were the influential governing authorities of 

 the game in the neighbourhood of London. 

 Though restricted by the Conservators 

 to the playing use of the Common on 

 three days a week only — Tuesday, Thursday, 

 and Saturday — the membership of each club 

 is numerous, as well as being representative of 

 the highest golfing skill. Each club has had 

 for a long time upwards of 300 members on 

 its roll, and the fact that each club charges 

 an entrance fee of £10 los. with an annual 

 subscription of £$ p. attests sufSciently the 

 popularity of the game and the desire to 

 obtain adequate facilities to play it within 

 easy reach of town. Among those who have 

 been associated with the fortunes of the 

 London Scottish Club are the venerable Earl 

 of Wemyss. In the earlier days of golf he 

 was one of the keenest playing members, but 

 since the Conservators passed a by-law in the 

 interests of public safety that every golfer 

 playing on the Common must wear a red 

 coat Lord Wemyss has not played there.* 

 But Lord Wemyss did not sever his connec- 

 tion with the club. His box containing his 

 old-fashioned set of clubs, all of them in 

 wood, is stiU there, and the club has recog- 

 nised his services as one of the pioneers of 

 the game, not only in Surrey but in England, 

 by electing him Hon. Captain. Mr. A. J. 

 Balfour has been a member since 1885, and 

 some years ago when the cares of State were 

 less exacting than they are to-day, he often 

 played at Wimbledon in the company of his 

 isrother, Mr. Gerald Balfour, M.P., and Sir 

 Robert Finlay (the Attorney-General). Sir 

 David Baird of Newbyth, Sir George Newnes, 

 M.P., Colonel Eustace Balfour, the Duke of 

 Argyll, and the Hon. Percy Wyndham are 

 some of the better known public men who 

 have long been associated with Wimbledon 

 as golfers. Among the members who have 

 figured in championships and other import- 

 ant tournaments are Messrs. James, John and 

 George Duncan (brothers), Mr. D. Stanley 

 Froy, Mr. T. R. Pinkerton, Mr. Kenneth 

 Brown (captain in 1903), and Mr. F. H. 

 Newnes. Attached to the Royal Wimbledon 

 Club either as past or present members are 

 or have been Mr. Horace Hutchinson, Mr. 

 Andrew Lang, Mr. Mure Fergusson, Mr. 

 J. A. Fairlie, Dr. Laidlaw Purves, the Earl of 

 Darnley (then Mr. Ivo Bligh), Mr. Alfred 



• Up to a time within living memory the wear- 

 ing of the red coat was an obligation forced on all 

 golfers in Scotland under a system of fines and . 

 penalties imposed by the clubs. 



Lubbock, Mr. Norman Foster, Mr. J. L. 

 Ridpath, Mr. Arthur Molesworth, and the 

 late Mr. Henry A. Lamb, while J. H. Taylor, 

 the well-known professional and ex-open 

 champion, was for several years attached to 

 the club. 



The course over which the members play 

 has been changed several times since the in- 

 auguration of the game at Wimbledon, 

 when golf was first started on Wimbledon 

 Common, Willie Dunn, a well-known Scottish 

 professional, was brought over from Black- 

 heath to plan out a course. Dunn laid out 

 eighteen holes round the outskirts of the 

 Common, but this course being over three 

 miles, was found too long, and too expensive 

 to maintain. It was curtailed to seven holes, 

 laid out a short distance round the Windmill 

 and back to the Iron House. The club, how- 

 ever, grew in prosperity and membership, and 

 a few years later Tom Dunn, a North Berwick 

 professional engaged by the club, extended 

 the course at first to fifteen, and later to 

 eighteen holes ; and this course was played 

 over until 1901, when another change was 

 made. Many of the holes skirted the open 

 ground near the public roads. In the inter- 

 vening years the population had been steadily 

 pressed out towards the Common, with the 

 result that the players were often greatly in- 

 commoded by pedestrians who, in turn, ran 

 no little risk of injury from the golf balls. 

 With the consent of the Conservators four 

 new holes were made among the rough heath 

 and bracken west of the Windmill, on ground 

 not much frequented by the general public. 

 Another change affecting the London Scot- 

 tish was the demolition of the old Iron House 

 which had served as their quarters for thirty 

 years. When the shooting competitions of 

 the National Rifle Association were trans- 

 ferred to Bisley the volunteer target practice 

 on Wimbledon Common was abolished and 

 the Iron House was no longer needed. It 

 has been razed to the ground, and the golfers 

 in 1896 took a forty years' lease of a piece of 

 land within the enclosure at the Windmill, 

 upon which they erected a very handsome 

 club-house at a cost of £3,000. 



The Clapham Golf Club comes next to 

 Wimbledon in seniority. It was instituted 

 in 1872, and for many years in its early history 

 it included among its members a fair sprink- 

 ling of first-class players whose playing career 

 has since become associated with later and 

 more important greens. But when the game 

 of golf was played on Clapham Common the 

 governing authority of this open space was 

 the old Metropolitan Board of Works ; and 

 with the exception of one or two made foot- 



523 



