Scottish district to honour world’s ‘first golf captain’

EDINBURGH - A district north of Scotland’s Edinburgh city announced plans to create a major new landmark to honour the captain of the first club to lay down the rules of golf.

Leith has commissioned one of Scotland’s leading sculptors, David Annand, to create a two-metre high statue of John Rattray, the founding member of the Company of Honourable Golfers, which was to stage the first official match at Leith Links in 1744.

Historians in Leith, where golf is reputed to have been played in the 15th century, launched a bid to have the port established as the home of golf nine years ago, when games were reinstated on Leith Links.

Rattray, a surgeon, signed off the very first rules and went on to win the first competition, for the Silver Club donated by the Leith Council, to replace previous wagers such as legs of mutton, or firkins of whisky.

The bronze statue of Rattray is to come up at a new pedestrian entrance to the links at Salamander Place.

According to The Scotsman, a 150,000-pound campaign is being run by the Leith Rules Golf Society to pay for the new monument.

The statue is to come on a circular pavement platform and will also have two stone columns carved with the original rules of the game.

Annand, who is based in Kilmany, in Fife, said: “It’s very unusual being asked to create a sculpture of someone from such a long time ago. There are no photographs and only a few paintings. The other interesting thing is that golf was played very differently in those days, with one foot in front of the other.”

Leith councillor Gordon Munro said: “Leith is the home of golf and this statue is apt for the place where the first rules of the game were agreed.” (ANI)