The History behind the picture

Our thanks to Adrian Paterson for providing these further details of the match in which the above Wags took part.

My great great grandfather, William Currie died in 1915 aged 95. He was a member and one time captain of the Royal Musselburgh Golf Club just outside Edinburgh. William Currie played golf to a ripe old age, even to the extent of playing and winning an octogenarian foursome match in December 1906 when he was aged 85, with the match reported in the Scotsman on 7 December 1906. It was in this context that my father organised the two octogenarian matches at Sandy Lodge.

As an aside, in those days Royal Musselburgh Golf Club played at Musselburgh Links together with 3 other very long established golf clubs, namely Royal Burgess, Bruntsfield Links, and the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. Musselburgh Links has the distinction of having hosted the Open on six occasions between 1872 and 1892. In that period the Open was hosted on three courses, namely Prestwick (the original host in 1860), St Andrews, and Musselburgh Links, with the event held over 36 holes, ie 3 rounds at Prestwick (then 12 holes), St Andrews (18 holes), and 4 rounds at Musselburgh Links (then and still now – Hazel and I played there a couple of years ago). Musselburgh Links is enclosed by a horse race track, which lead all four clubs to leave the Links course over time. The Honourable Company was the first to leave in 1891, when they noved to Muirfield, taking with them the Open hosting rights.

Adrian Paterson