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1457

The first written reference to golf can be found in a Scottish Parliamentary order of 1457 - imposing a ban on the sport because it had begun to interfere with the archery practice deemed necessary for the wars with England.

Scots were allowed back on "the green" - the old term for the course, in 1502, when the Peace of Glasgow brought temporary respite from hostlities and Scotland's monarch James IV became the first in a long line of keen royal golfers In 1552 the links at St Andrews were given, under licence of Archbishop Hamilton, for free and unfettered use of citizens at football, golf and other games.

The notoriety of Mary Queen of Scots increased when, in 1567, she was rumoured to have been out on the course at Seton, near Musselburgh, only a day or two after her husband Lord Darnley was murdered.

The spread of golf south of the border came in 1603, when Elizabeth I died without issue, and the Stuarts assumed the English throne in the shape of James I of England and VI of Scotland. The monarch had a powerful influence in favour of golf and made his view known that the people's right to enjoy sport on a Sunday was to be respected, as long a religious observances had been completed first.

1650

James, Duke of York, later James II, is credited with setting up and playing in the first international match in 1661. Partnered by a shoemaker named Patersone, the Scots were victorious against two English noblemen.

Early clubs had an elongated slender clubhead with a shallow face and were refered to as long-nosed. The most popular woods were made from blackthorn and beech, while ash was commonly used for shafts.

By the 1720s, the featherie - a leather ball stuffed with feathers, was the first manufactured golf ball - prior balls had been wooden.

The first golf club was established in 1744, when a group of players who practiced on Leith Links petitioned the city of Edinburgh to provide a prize for the winner of an open competition.

A local surgeon named John Rattray was the winner of the Silver Club and successfully defended his trophy the following year. The club, who were bound only by the annual competition, were know as the Gentlemen Golfers of Leith, and were the first to establish a code of rules to govern play.

1766 saw the first club to emerge in England, when a group of expatriate Scots established competition in Blackheath, Kent.

Twenty years later, America got its first club - in South Carolina. There had already been reports of Scots military men playing in the New York area although the game was slow to take root in the US.

In 1810 Musselburgh Golf Club established a prize for "the best female golfer who plays on the annual occasion".

By the 1820s the British discovered the resilience and weather resistant qualities of hickory and began importing it from the US and it soon replaced ash as the wood used for most club shafts.

1843 saw an epic contest between two of the great players of the day when Allan Robertson from St Andrews took on Willie Dunn of Musselburgh in a 20 round match (two rounds per day for ten days). T

he challenge went down to the last day, with Robertson two rounds up with just one to play

An inter-club foursomes competition, known as the Grand National Tournament was set up in 1857 and constituted the first Championship Meeting to be played at St Andrews - with the host club beaten in the final by Blackheath's Scottish representatives George Glennie and Lieut. John Stewart. The St Andrews club had assumed authority as the game's law-givers and decided to cut the number of holes on their course from 22 to 18.

The following year the Grand National became a singles event. When Robert Chambers Jr. took the medal he effectively became the first Scottish Amateur Champion.

The 1850s marked the dawn of the "gutty" - a harder, cheaper to assemble golf ball. Gutta percha was obtained from the sap of the palaquin genus of trees native to Southeat Asia, it was then softened, in strips, in boiling water moulded into shape and dropped in cold water to harden, then left to season for six months. The durability of the new ball encouraged the development of iron faced clubs.

1860

The first Open Championship took place at the Ayrshire fishing town of Prestwick in 1860.

At the suggestion of Major J. O. Fairlie, the secretary of the local golf club, the event begun on October 17 and was contested by eight professionals.

The first winner of the red Morocco leather Championship Belt was Willie Park of Musselburgh, with a total of 174 for three rounds over what was then a 12-hole course.

The following year it was decided to make the event truly open and amateurs have been able to compete with the pros ever since.

It was Willie Park again who lifted the tournament's first ever financial prize - £10 for his 1863 triumph.

The early history of the Open is completely dominated by Tom Morris, the runner up at the first competition, and his son, also called Tom.

After Old Tom won for the fourth time in 1867, Young Tom achieved a hat trick of wins, and so was allowed to keep the winners' belt as his own property

Tom Morris Jr went on to win a fourth successive Open title, which is a record still, and became the first holder of the present trophy, a silver claret jug, in 1872. In that same year the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews and the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers agreed to join Prestwick in hosting the event.

On Christmas Day 1875, Tom Morris Jr died from a lung disorder, aged just 24.

From 1877 to 1879 Jamie Anderson won three Open titles in succession with his rapid, no-nonsense style.

1880

Ferguson won the first three Opens of the 1880s and lost in a play-off in 1883 to narrowly miss out on Tom Morris Jr's record of four consecutive triumphs.

The first British Amateur Championship was held at Hoylake, the home of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, in 1885 and was won by A.F McFie. John Ball won the first of his record eight Amateur titles in 1888.

1890

In 1890, John Ball, from the Hoylake Club, became the first amateur and first Englishman to win the Open.

1892 saw the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers move from Musselburgh to Muirfield, where the Open was hosted that year.

In 1894 it was decided to introduce other venues into the rota, and Royal St George's, Sandwich, gained the distinction of becoming the first non-Scottish club to stage the Open. Hoylake became the second English club to host the Championship in 1897. Harold Hilton, a member of the host club, upstaged the professionals to win the title for the second time, having previously won at Muirfield in 1892.

The first Ladies Amateur Championship was held in 1893 at Royal Lytham with Lady Margaret Scott of Westward Ho! prevailing.

The 1890s brought new developments in golf clubs, with persimmon replacing beech wood for club heads - and the heads becoming shorter and fatter similar to today's driver - and the neck of clubs thickening. The brassie was invented - with a brass plate screwed into the base of a 3-wood style club.

In 1895 both the US Open and US Amatuer Championship were born. The Open was relegated to a one-day 36-hole affair, to follow the three day Amateur event, won from a field of 32 by Charles Macdonald, founder of the Chicago club. The Open was won by 19-year-old Harold Rawlins, the English assistant at the Newport club.

John Henry Taylor won the first of his five Open victories in 1894 at St George's, while Harry Vardon pipped Taylor in a play-off in 1896 to land the first of his record six titles.