Archie Baird’s ‘history of golf’ is a most enlightening story and he shows that golf did not begin in Scotland, as generally thought, but in Holland, from where it was brought to Scotland by Scottish wool-merchants. These merchants had learned the ‘game’ (played on ice there) when they took their wool to sell. Archie explains the importance of St Andrews and shows the stages of development in balls from feather to gutta-percha to rubber-filled, and in shafts from wood to steel. Archie’s wife Sheila was the great-grandaughter of the legendary Willie Park Senior, first winner of the Open Championship, Prestwick in 1860: