Scott Macpherson

The game had become a lot more popular.

People were coming off the train.

The cost of golf had come down because the gutter perch here was a lot cheaper than a feathery ball.

So all these people were coming and now there's lots of golfers and they needed a wider sort of...

course in which to play in Old Tom.

So that was an incredibly dynamic period in the evolution of the old course.

Yeah.

No.

And of course, at that point, so there was a period where there was one double green.

So we had no double greens.

And then there was some safety issues.

So the first double green in the 1830s was 1834, I think, from memory, was five and 13.

And then within 25 years or so, the RNA said, well, the game's still growing.

We've got safety issues out there.

All the greens are now going to be double greens.

Of course, the two that weren't were nine and 18 as you came back.

And then we had this split between 1870 and 1872, just prior to the first open, 1873.

we had this evolution of the first green kind of moving towards the sea.

And we know it because there was a court case which happened in 1885, and it was to do with trespassing, of all things, on the Himalayas, the ladies' putting course.

And there was a guy called James Denham who was accused of trespassing, and his point was, well, hang on, I can play wherever I want.