St Andrews, the R&A and the first golf clubs.

The Gentlemen Golfers of Leith, 1744

The earliest documented golf competition, according to Scottish Golf History, was played in Edinburgh, not St Andrews. According to the National Library of Scotland (NLS), golfers asked Edinburgh Town Council in March 1744 for a silver club to play for. The council agreed on condition that they organise themselves, and the result was the Company of Gentlemen Golfers, today the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. Scottish Golf History says the idea copied the city's gift of a silver arrow to the Royal Company of Archers in 1709.

For that first competition on Leith Links the Company drew up 13 "Articles & Laws in Playing at Golf", which NLS says are generally seen as the origin of the modern rules. John Rattray won the Silver Club and was declared "Captain of the Golf" on 2 April 1744. NLS adds that Rattray, a Jacobite field surgeon, was imprisoned in Inverness around 1746 and released through the help of a golfing companion, the Lord President of the Court of Session.

Scottish Golf History traces the club's later path. The Leith competition was open to all golfers for twenty years and restricted to members from 1764, and a clubhouse followed in 1768. The club fell into financial difficulty in 1831, held no competitions from 1831 to 1835, and moved in 1836 to an eight-hole course inside Musselburgh racecourse. Its own course at Muirfield opened with 16 holes on 3 May 1891, and the last two were added that December.

Which club is oldest?

Several clubs claim seniority, and the sources do not line up neatly.

The early 20th-century historian Charles Clapcott put the oldest clubs in the order Honourable Company, R&A, Royal Burgess, Bruntsfield Links and Royal Blackheath, according to Scottish Golf History, which itself calls any ranking somewhat arbitrary because the clubs existed side by side for about fifty years.

The Society of St Andrews Golfers, 1754

The R&A dates its own founding to 14 May 1754, the day of the first Challenge for the Silver Club. History Hit describes it as a local club for golfers on the St Andrews links, founded as the Society of St Andrews Golfers. St Andrews already had a long golfing record: Archbishop Hamilton's charter of 1552 had reserved the links for golf and other games.

From 22 holes to 18

In 1764 a round on the Old Course was 22 holes. On 4 October 1764, the day after a Silver Club competition, the society minuted that the first four holes be turned into two, cutting the round to 18. Geoff Shackelford quotes the minute through an R&A story. Other courses followed later; one Australian Golfer account, seen only in summary, says Prestwick moved to 18 holes only in 1881, which we could not confirm.

Captains, patrons and the royal name

• Around 1806 the Gold Medal was introduced and the captaincy became an elected office, so the Silver Club challenge became a symbolic ceremony, according to the R&A.
• King William IV became patron in 1834 and the society took the name the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, according to History Hit. A Scottish Places gazetteer page implies an earlier name change, but 1834 is the better supported date.
• After William IV died in 1837, Queen Adelaide agreed to be the club's patroness. In 1838 she presented a medal for the Captain to wear, first awarded in 1853.
• The R&A says the custom of a new Captain driving a single ball to take office may date from about 1863, when Edward, Prince of Wales, was Captain. The R&A itself says "may".

The club does not own the St Andrews courses. History Hit notes that the St Andrews Links Trust, a charity, owns and runs the seven courses there. Wikipedia links the arrival of the railway in 1852 to the growth of golf tourism in the town.

Writing the Rules

By the late 19th century, the R&A says, the club was widely regarded as a governing authority at home and abroad. The sources we found on the detailed history of the Rules are thin. The enthusiast site leith-rules-golf.co.uk says the R&A formed a Rules of Golf Committee in September 1897 and issued the UK's first unified Rules of Golf in September 1899; that is a single, unofficial source. The same site says the R&A and USGA co-operated on separate codes from 1900 until they agreed a Joint Code in 1952, with the USGA administering it in the United States and Mexico and the R&A everywhere else.

Even after 1952 the ball was different on each side of the Atlantic. Golf Compendium says the R&A's minimum diameter stayed at 1.62 inches, against the 1.68 inches the USGA had adopted in the early 1930s, until the R&A moved to 1.68 inches on 1 January 1990. According to Wikipedia, a single set of rules applied throughout the world for the first time from 1990. The equipment history page follows the ball through that change, and the Rules of Golf editions page covers the current joint Rules.

The 2004 split

In 2004 the club's governing and championship work was handed to a newly formed group of companies known as The R&A, separating it from the affairs of the members' club, according to the R&A. History Hit describes the club today as private and invitation-only, with about 2,400 members around the world. The R&A also runs a museum opposite the clubhouse: it began as a "cabinet of curiosities" in the 1800s, was known as the British Golf Museum for about 30 years, and took the name The R&A World Golf Museum in 2021.

Women members and the first woman captain

On 18 September 2014 the club's members voted to admit women. ABC7 News reported that 85 percent of votes were in favour, that more than three-quarters of about 2,500 members voted, by proxy for the first time, and that secretary Peter Dawson confirmed the club was now mixed. On 10 February 2015 the club named its first women honorary members: Princess Anne, Louise Suggs, Annika Sorenstam, Laura Davies, Renee Powell, Belle Robertson and Lally Segard.

On 6 May 2026 The Irish News reported that past captains had nominated Claire Dowling of Dublin, a four-time Great Britain and Ireland Curtis Cup player who was in the 1986 side that won at Prairie Dunes, as the club's first woman captain for 2026-27, taking office at the September driving-in ceremony. A Today's Golfer report, which we could see only in summary, dates that ceremony on the Old Course to 25 September 2026. The wider story of women and club membership is on the access and integration page.