The SOCIETY Newsletter #104

Golf’s First Entrepreneurs

How early professionals built the game—one ball, one rule, one idea at a time

Before golf had governing bodies, sponsorships, or formal careers, it had makers. Men who stitched, carved, argued, experimented, wrote, and taught—often all in the same day. These early professionals were not merely players earning wagers. They were golf’s first entrepreneurs, shaping the game’s economy, its rules, its landscapes, and even how it was understood.

They did not wait for permission.

They built golf because no one else could.

⸻

Manufacturing the Game: Balls Before Glory

In early golf, the ball was the business.

The great Allan Robertson made his living crafting featherie balls—hand-stitched leather spheres stuffed with boiled goose feathers. Each ball was expensive, consistent, and precious. A poorly made featherie could unravel mid-round, destroying trust and reputation in one stroke.

Robertson’s dominance stemmed from this dual authority: he sold the best balls and proved their quality by winning matches. In an era without standards, credibility was enforced on the links.

The arrival of the gutta-percha ball in the 1840s was revolutionary. It lowered costs, improved durability, and expanded access. Many craftsmen resisted it. Entrepreneurs embraced it. The professionals who adapted survived—and helped democratize the game.

⸻

Carving the Tools: Clubmaking as Identity

Golf clubs were once as individual as handwriting.

Early professionals shaped clubs from hickory beech, apple, or pear—each club tuned to a specific player, ground condition, or wind. Clubmaking workshops became laboratories where feel, balance, and forgiveness were quietly explored long before modern fitting existed.

This craftsmanship mattered. Equipment didn’t just reflect skill—it defined it. Professionals understood that better tools created better golf, and better golf created demand.

Manufacturing was not separate from playing. It was inseparable.

⸻

Inventing the Course: Architecture Without Blueprints

Golf course architecture emerged not from drawings, but from experience.

Old Tom Morris changed the profession forever by expanding beyond play and manufacturing into course creation and maintenance. He rerouted holes, introduced strategic bunkering, and—most importantly—learned how to care for turf.

Morris pioneered practices now taken for granted:

 • Top Dressing Greens to smooth putting surfaces

 • Proper drainage to extend seasons

 • The creation of tee boxes to save golf greens and vary angles and challenge golfers.

Courses stopped being accidental landscapes and became intentional tests. Strategy replaced brute force. The professional became a steward of land, not just a competitor upon it.

Later architects would refine these ideas, but the entrepreneurial leap—golf as designed experience—was already made.

⸻

Rules Enforced by Reputation

Before rulebooks, there were reputations.

Professionals acted as referees, interpreters, and enforcers of the game’s written laws. Disputes over balls, lies, and hazards were settled not by committees, but by respected players whose livelihoods depended on fairness.

If a golfer was known to bend rules, he lost business. Trust was currency.

This reality shaped golf’s early ethos: play it as it lies, because your standing depends on it.

⸻

Innovation on the Ground: Tees, Greens, and Hazards

Some of golf’s most important innovations were humble.

Originally players would tee up their golf balls just a couple club lengths from the golf hole. In other words the first tee boxes were in fact the greens. Old Tom Morris invented the idea of the tee boxes.

Greens evolved from rough natural patches into carefully tended targets. Bunkers shifted from accidental scars to deliberate hazards, placed to tempt and punish in equal measure.

These changes weren’t accidental. They were thoughtful. It was the golf professionals who shaped the land on which it was played.

⸻

Teaching the World: Golf Goes to Print

Perhaps the most enduring entrepreneurial act came when professionals began to share their knowledge via the written word.

Instructional books transformed golf from a local craft into a global language. Techniques, grip theories, and philosophies once whispered on the links were suddenly available to anyone who could read.

These early authors standardized the game:

 • How to hold the club

 • How to swing with rhythm, not force

 • How to behave, not just score

Golf instruction books did what workshops could not—scale expertise. One professional could now influence thousands.

The modern idea of golf “fundamentals” begins here.

⸻

A Profession Built from the Ground Up

By the late 19th century, the template was set:

 • Manufacture the tools

 • Shape the land

 • Teach the player

 • Enforce the rules

 • Share the knowledge

Golf’s first entrepreneurs created a self-sustaining ecosystem—long before tours, media, or sponsors existed.

They proved something timeless:

Golf survives not because it is managed, but because it is made—again and again—by those who love the craft.

Every modern professional, architect, and equipment maker still works in their shadow.

A STUDY OF ALISTER MACKENZIE

This week I will have the extreme pleasure of playing two courses designed by Dr. Alister MacKenzie.

The first course has evolved over time and the second course has only 12 holes of the 18 holes completed- that course is the MacKenzie Course at the 21 Golf Club.

The course came from the vision of owner Wes Farrell. Wes saw the potential of an amazing property in Jackson, SC. On this rich tapestry, Mackenzie’s lost design is finally coming to life. The MacKenzie course is an homage to Dr. Alister MacKenzie’s lost design, El Boqueron. 18 holes with 9 shared greens with only 15 bunkers.

THANK YOU

A special thanks for taking the time to read our newsletter. In a couple of weeks many of you will be making your way to come to our first annual meeting at Belleair CC. I can’t wait to share our course and some great history with you.

We also have a grouping of great podcasts coming up on the History of Leith Links, the Inside Story of the Ben Hogan Company, the History of Musselburgh Links and so many more.