St Andrews Follows Augusta National

It's official! After 260 years, The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews has voted by an overwhelming margin to admit women.  The Home of Golf has finally stepped into the 21st Century and on behalf of all us women who love and play the Ancient Game I applaud them.  Here's the response of one Women's Golf Association:

Women Golfers Can Never Equal Men?

Women golfers can never equal men?  So declared Harold Hilton in an article published in 1915 not by Fox News or Penthouse, rags better known for a lunatic fringe bias than for informed reporting of All The News That's Fit to Print, but by the scion of even-handed reportage, The New York Times.  Click the link and read the article for yourself.

Let's dig deeper  What women were penetrating the sacred links when Harold spewed out his vitriol?  Lots of them, it seems.

Darrell Remembers: Golfing With Little Old Ladies

I’ve been struggling with my golf game for several months.  Simply put, things have gone downhill.  My drives have gotten shorter, my fairway shots are going awry, and I’m even occasionally topping the ball on my trusty flop shot.

What’s the problem?  Has age finally caught up with me?  Have I, without even knowing it was happening, become one of those little old ladies who can’t hit her drive more than 100 yards, who uses her 5-wood to advance the last 75 yards to the green, whose hands are so knotted with arthritis that she can’t maintain a firm grip on her clubs?

Musselburgh Links - Let's Pack Our Clubs!

In 1567, in East Lothian, Scotland, not too far from Muirfield, which will host the 2013 British Open, not too far from Edinburgh, on the Firth of Forth,  25-year old Mary Queen of Scots played golf on the Musselburgh Links.  Mary had recently married James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, following the murder of her 2nd husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.  Could it have been a golfing honeymoon?

Details of Mary's golf attire, information about her choice of clubs, the the nature of the ball she used are lost to history, as are the identities of her golfing companions.