Muirfield and the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers

The oldest club of its kind

The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers holds the claim of being the oldest verifiable organised golf club in the world, though the game itself is several centuries older. Its records run unbroken from 1744, when it drew up thirteen Rules of Golf for a competition at Leith Links, played for a Silver Club that the City of Edinburgh had agreed to provide.

John Rattray won that first competition, signed the rules and became the first captain. The club played over five holes at Leith for nearly a century, before overcrowding forced a move in 1836 to the nine-hole Old Course at Musselburgh. That, too, became too busy for the members’ liking.

A charter, then a course of its own

The Company applied to Edinburgh for a charter in 1795. It was granted on 26 March 1800, together with a Seal of Cause and the title the club still uses.

In 1891 it built a private course at Muirfield, near Gullane on the East Lothian coast. Old Tom Morris laid out 16 holes, extended to 18 for the Open the following year. Stone walls surrounded the ground, which covered 117 acres, and some of the lower points were waterlogged; over thirty years the land was drained and the sandy areas seeded and cultivated.

Reshaped by great architects

The walls limited the design, and the first significant change came with the purchase of 13 more acres in 1907. In 1923 the club secured a further 50 acres to the north and consulted Harry Colt, whose recommendations effectively produced the layout of today: 14 new holes, arranged as two loops of nine, one played within the other in the opposite direction.

The effect is that the wind seems to change from hole to hole; no more than three consecutive holes follow the same direction. In 1935 Tom Simpson was invited to give hole-by-hole advice. His report is still on display in the clubhouse. He remodelled the 13th and gave his name to the fairway bunker short of the 9th green.

Three years before the 2013 Open, Martin Hawtree was asked by the R&A to recommend changes: new championship tees, tighter bunkering, fairway shaping and some enlarged greens.

Opens, cups and a change of rules

Muirfield has hosted the Open Championship 16 times, the first in 1892, the most recent in 2013, when Phil Mickelson lifted the trophy. Jack Nicklaus won his first Open here in 1966. It has also staged the Ryder Cup in 1973, and Walker and Curtis Cup matches.

In March 2017 the club voted to admit women as members, and in August 2022 it hosted the Women’s Open for the first time. The course borders Archerfield Wood, which appears in Robert Louis Stevenson’s story The Pavilion on the Links.

Champions

The roll of Open winners at Muirfield includes Harry Vardon, Walter Hagen, Henry Cotton, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Nick Faldo (twice) and Ernie Els. Nicklaus finished runner-up by a stroke to Trevino in 1972, which halted his attempt at the third leg of a grand slam.

Tiger Woods met gale-force wind and rain in the third round in 2002 and shot an 81. He answered with a 65 on the Sunday. The Walker Cup came in 1959 and 1979, the Curtis Cup in 1952 and 1984, and the Senior Open in 2007.

Visiting

Muirfield is a private members’ club that opens to visitors on its Visitor Days, Tuesdays and Thursdays outside public holidays, by application in the diary window; our course page has the details. Gullane and North Berwick, with their own links, are close by.

Our advice: apply as soon as the visitor diary opens, and play the two loops with the wind in mind; no more than three holes in a row run the same way.