![]() They were thoroughfares for the public," said golf historian Harry Ward, curator of the Forgotten Greens site. "These links were used by people, horses and carriages. As the game grew, golfers were soon competing for space with grazing animals, quarrymen and other residents. But unlike modern golf courses, players shared the space with others in the city. The Scots created a custom-made club and ball, agreed that the ball's target should be a hole in the ground and adopted their coastal sandy grasslands, called links, in old Scottish, as dedicated playing grounds.īecause of their proximity to Edinburgh's Old Town and the fact that they were both public grounds, Leith Links and Bruntsfield Links soon became local favourites. It's commonly believed that golf originated from the medieval Dutch game of het kolven or kolf and crossed the North Sea to eastern Scotland in the early 1400s, where it took its modern form. This unique space-sharing arrangement goes back centuries. One evening this summer, players were making their way across the park's short-hole course , a few feet away from sweaty runners, mothers pushing prams and students having a picnic. Something else makes the park special: Bruntsfield has always been an open park where people can play golf while others walk about, converse or just sit and enjoy the views. Its green lawns are less crowded than neighbouring The Meadows, and if you choose your spot carefully, you can see two unmistakable signs of the cityscape: Edinburgh Castle, one of the oldest fortified places in Europe and Arthur's Seat, the extinct volcano that towers over the city. When I first moved to Edinburgh, Bruntsfield Links quickly became my favourite park. ![]() "The reason why Bruntsfield and Leith became so important is because of the proximity to Edinburgh and lots of important golfers." ![]() "Edinburgh was Scotland's biggest city, with important people like lawyers and judges and even the Stuart kings, who also played golf," said golf historian Neil Laird, who runs the website Scottish Golf History. And as the globe's oldest golf tournament (the Open Championship) starts this week, it's worth looking back at how the sport took off. But with the recent " shock merger announcement" of the PGA Tour and the Saudi-funded LIV Golf, one of the world's most popular sports is about to enter a new era. ![]()
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