At the 17th February meeting of Anstruther Rotary, club president Alastair Graham was delighted to welcome Mr Sandy Wallace to club membership. With his home in Kilconquar, Sandy’s business background is in insurance and financial services.

Following this, Bill Batchelor took the floor to speak on the history of Crail Golfing Society’s Balcomie course, as it developed during the period 1895 – 1905. Bill’s talk was illustrated by maps, showing three distinct phases of course development during that time period.

When Crail Golfing Society was instituted in 1786, members played over Sauchope Links, with the earliest record of play on Balcomie being 1857. At the time both courses were of 8 holes.

Then on 3rd July 1895, an updated 9-hole Balcomie course was opened by Prof. Chiene. Tradition says the re-development included advice from old Tom Morris.

As today, the links proved very popular and additional land was acquired to enable the course to be extended to a full 18 holes and this layout was opened on 4th July 1900, by Mr Moneypenny of Balcomie. It was interesting (at least for the golfers in the audience) to see how this course compared to the one in use today.

A pavilion, purchased from Crail Tennis Club, had been in use as a clubhouse, but this was changed in 1904 with the construction of a more suitable structure. The location of the new clubhouse led in turn to the 16th green becoming the 18th, with the steep climb up the hill at completion of a round being the same as today – although the maps showed many differences still to the course in use today.   

Following questions, Bill was thanked by club president Alastair Graham.