ROYAL WIMBLEDON GOLF CLUB & THE RULES OF GOLF

The slow expansion of English golf clubs in the 1800s turned into a flood by the last decade of the 19th century. Only 19 clubs had been formed by 1879. Eighty more were established between 1880 and 1889 and a further 522 in the 1890s. Not surprisingly, the rules situation was extremely complex.

It is no exaggeration to say that an initiative by Wimbledon golfers was key to simplifying and codifying the rules followed by millions of golfers around the world today.

At the time, some English clubs adopted the rules favoured by national peers, usually Blackheath, which was founded in 1608. Others preferred the R&A code current at their inception. But R&A rules were designed specifically for St Andrews, with no provision for conditions pertaining elsewhere. For example, the extensively re-written R&A code of 1882 still bore references to the River Eden and the Station Master’s Garden.

To correct this, and what they considered to be other weaknesses in the R&A code of 1882, Wimbledon golfers developed their own rules.

These were basically a rather close adaptation of the principles of the new R&A code; but the Wimbledon rubric was original in that it combined the rules for match play and stroke play and, in many instances, set different penalties for breaches. Henry Lamb and Dr William Laidlaw Purves were the main architects of the refinements, formally adopted by the club in 1883.

The RWGC code can now be recognised as innovative and far-sighted. It introduced the modern conception of "intention" into the definition of a stroke, the notion of "stroke and distance" when a ball was lost (instead of the R&A’s automatic loss of hole) and the first distinction between permanent and casual water (although a one stroke penalty applied in each case).   

The next rules-forming initiative came in the form of a letter sent to the R&A in March 1885. No copy exists today but the R&A Minutes on May 5, 1885 give a clue to its contents:A communication from the Honorary Secretary of the Royal Wimbledon Golf Club was read, stating that the Club had instructed their Committee to urge the Royal and Ancient Golf Club to take steps for the formation of an association of Golf Clubs bound to accept one uniform Code of Rules

Royal Wimbledon’s appeal was not positively received by the R&A membership and no change came about. But it did spark a lively debate in the English country life journal The Field that continued between 1886 and 1888 with more than twenty correspondents participating.

Henry Lamb contributed under his own name but many others chose pseudonyms: WR, Old English Golfer, A Bunker, a Fossil, Wimbledon Hal, White Flag. White Flag, who later dropped his disguise and identified himself as Sir Walter G Simpson, Captain of the Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, finally mounted his spirited defence of the St Andrews rules in an 1888 edition of The Golfing Annual – to be answered by Dr Laidlaw Purves (who by now was Captain of the St George’s Golf Club at Sandwich which he and Henry Lamb had helped found in 1887) in the same journal in 1889.

The entire debate is one of the most entertaining and informative episodes in the history of golf. The R&A took notice on 1st May 1888 with the unanimous adoption of a proposal to: Extract from the main body of their rules those relating to such local accidents as the Swilcan Burn, the Eden and the Station Master’s Garden, and so group these under a separate heading, so that the main body of the Rules may be used wherever the game of Golf is or shall be played

In September 1890 the R&A resolved that "a Special Committee of members thoroughly qualified to carry out a careful revision of the whole Rules of Golf, be appointed". The seven members included RWGC’s Henry Lamb and Laidlaw Purves who were both members of the R&A as well as other clubs.

Their revised code was adopted in September 1891; but the R&A was still not formally recognised as a rules-making authority and its efforts to achieve this ran into difficulty from two directions: historic Scottish clubs who preferred to maintain hegemony over the Johnny-come-latelys from England and some English who preferred the idea of setting up their own Golf Union. Finally, at the R&A general meeting in September 1897, a spirit of compromise produced a resolution authorising the club to appoint a committee to be called The Rules of Golf Committee, consisting of fifteen of its own members. Its power was to be limited to questions of interpretation of the rules, but in this it was to be the final authority. It could also propose changes in the rules, but these changes would have to be approved by two-thirds of the members present at a general meeting of the R&A. This has remained the mandate of the Rules of Golf Committee to this day.

The first new code of rules proposed by the Committee was adopted in September 1899, becoming the first truly universal code of rules, observed by golfers in all clubs and on all courses in all parts of the world.

Royal Wimbledon can be justly proud of its contribution to ending more than one hundred and fifty years of what could be called separatism and anarchy, thus setting the stage for the development of golf in the new century about to unfold.

RWGC gratefully acknowledges Kenneth G Chapman’s The Rules of the Green – A History of the Rules of Golf from which almost this entire text has been directly taken. ISBN 1 85227 711 4 Published in association with the R&A and the United States Golf Association - copyright USGA