- THE SOCIETY Newsletter
- Posts
- The SOCIETY Newsletter #108
Old Musselburgh Links: Where Time Learned to Play
In Pandy Play Two More by John Smart
There are places in golf that announce themselves.
They arrive with gates and guards, with crests and ceremonies, with manicured perfection and whispered reverence. They tell you, before you ever strike a ball, that you are somewhere important.
Old Musselburgh Links does not.
It waits.
A links that once was lapped by the grey waters of the Firth of Forth, between sea wind and town life, it was open and unassuming—more meadow than monument, more pathway than pageantry. And yet, within this quiet strip of turf lives one of the deepest memories in sport.
This is where golf learned to walk.
⸻
A Landscape Older Than Records
Mid-1800s map of Musselburgh Links
Long before scorecards were printed and champions crowned, people gathered here simply because the land invited them to.
Flat, firm, forgiving.
Brushed by salt air.
Carved gently by tide and time.
Sheep once traced the earliest fairways. Fishermen and tradesmen followed. Clubs were crude. Balls were fragile. Rules were negotiated as often as they were obeyed.
But something essential took root.
By the seventeenth century, golf had settled into Musselburgh like a familiar accent—spoken daily, rarely questioned, passed quietly from one generation to the next.
It was never imposed here.
It emerged.
⸻
Silver, Stone, and Memory
In 1672, the first written words of Musselburgh have been found. Giving credence to a golfing land of sand and sea. Nearly 100 years later Royal Musselburgh would award its first Silver Club, honoring skill not with money, but with permanence. The winner became “Captain of the Golf,” entrusted not merely with status, but with stewardship.
Around that very time, in 1764, a small stone building rose beside the links—the world’s first purpose-built golf clubhouse.
It was not grand.
It did not need to be.
It simply said: This game belongs here. And here, it will remain.
Few buildings in sport have ever made a quieter promise—and kept it so faithfully.
⸻
A Course Drawn by Footsteps
Musselburgh was never designed.
It was accumulated.
Each hollow was pressed by thousands of walks.
Each rise refined by decades of play.
Each green smoothed by hands that never signed their names.
For years, golfers played seven holes. Then eight. Then nine by repetition, turning outward journeys into homeward reflections.
There were no blueprints.
Only habit.
Only memory.
Only the slow agreement between land and people.
⸻
When the World Came Calling
1945 aerial where we see land encroaching on Musselburgh Links to the Northeast
In the late nineteenth century, the world noticed.
Between 1874 and 1889, the Open Championship arrived six times, bringing with it crowds, commerce, and consequence. Champions were crowned here. Reputations were forged here. The game briefly revolved around this quiet honest town.
Great players walked these fairways—members of the Park and Morris families, craftsmen of skill and temperament. Their swings were shaped not by academies, but by wind. Not by technology, but by necessity.
Musselburgh taught them honesty.
Every shot was answered by the land.
⸻
The Gentle Passing of Glory
Musselburgh Links in 2025 completely separated from the Firth of Forth. No longer a seaside links
Eventually, championship golf moved on.
New venues rose. Larger stages beckoned. The Open shifted to Muirfield. Attention drifted eastward.
Musselburgh did not protest.
It simply remained.
While others enclosed themselves behind gates and exclusivity, the Old Links stayed open. Municipal. Democratic. Shared.
Here, history was not monetized.
It was lived.
⸻
A Place Without an Architect
Most great courses bear signatures.
Musselburgh bears fingerprints.
Of children learning to swing.
Of workers playing at dusk.
Of elders tracing familiar routes.
Of visitors walking softly, unsure whether to speak.
Its architects were wind and weather. Time and tide. Curiosity and care.
It is golf before intention.
Golf before industry.
Golf before ego.
⸻
Walking with Ghosts Who Never Left
To play Musselburgh today is to feel company without crowd.
You sense it in the firmness underfoot.
In the low hum of sea air.
In the slight irregularity of each lie.
You are not alone.
Not because others surround you.
But because others have been here.
Always.
Every swing echoes one before it.
⸻
Where Golf Still Belongs to Everyone
Old Musselburgh Links is not preserved behind glass.
It breathes.
Children still run its edges.
Locals still play its loops.
Visitors still arrive with reverence and leave with gratitude.
It asks nothing of you.
No pedigree.
No membership.
No performance.
Only participation.
⸻
The Eternal First Chapter
Every game has a beginning.
Most lose it.
Golf did not.
It kept it here.
Between town and tide.
Between memory and motion.
Between past and present.
Old Musselburgh Links is not a relic.
It is a sentence still being written.
And every golfer who walks its fairways adds one more word.
Quietly.
Faithfully.
Forever.
THE HISTORY OF MUSSELBURGH LINKS
This week on the TalkinGolf History Podcast we interviewed Mungo Park, the Great Grandson of Willie Park Senior on his new book “Musselburgh: The Cradle of Golf.”
If you are interested in listening click the link below.
Purchase Mungo’s Book at Auld Grey Toon Books
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter. I am still hoping to give you some good news in the next couple weeks. Let’s hope I can share this story with you soon!
