There are a host of historical golf books that have been published to coincide with the 150th playing of The Open at St Andrews this year.
Early Golf Royal Myths And Ancient Histories live Neil S Millar is one of them, exploring the myths and revisiting the evidence surrounding the early history of golf.
I love my golf history and the writing style of Professor Millar suits my interests superbly.
This is an academic treatise of the finest order and it provides a genuinely forensic analysis of past misconceptions and myths.
He has delved deeply into the available source material on behalf of the reader and provides a scalpel like incise analysis of the material in order to ensure the historical integrity.
Many years ago when I first trained as a police detective, one of the instructors impressed upon his eager students, myself included, the following ABCs of crime detection. It served me for 34 years and has become a mantra for my analysis of historical material.
Accept nothing,
believe nothing
Challenge everything.
This book uses exactly the same thought process providing the reader with definitive and validated historical facts.
The quality and depth of the analysis is simply superb and allows the reader complete confidence in the material, its context and veracity.
Where no clearly delineated path is supported by the research, Professor Millar offers all available sides of the argument allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions.
This book is already being seen as a classic of its kind and is likely to become a goto reference work for anyone interested in the early periods of golf development.
The royal connections are clearly important and the influence of the royalty who encouraged the game in its early stages is detailed and thorough.
As the game grew in popularity across the lesser social classes, it became a game of wider appeal and started to gain traction among those who were now able to become more mobile.
The book also details how the “Scottish” game became a global sport through the development of golfing societies, club and equipment developments.
There are a wealth of illustrations detailing the points raised in the text of material from a range of extraordinary sources.
I have genuinely enjoyed reviewing this book and found my own misconceptions and ideas challenged on several occasions.
This is a scholarly book that will add greatly to any golfing library.
Early Golf Royal Myths And Ancient Histories is available at a cost of £24.99 in hardback (published in August 2022) from the attached link via the Edinburgh University Press; https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-early-golf.html.