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Rules of Golf (1744)
By Angus MacLeod

The rules of golf (modern) are governed by and the copyright owned by The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.

However the rules of golf have developed over centuries but, in essence, they have changed very little. The earliest surviving (written) rules of the game of golf where created by the Gentlemen Golfers of Leith and then the honorable company of Edinburgh golfers (seventh of March, 1744). Below is a copy of those rules which make interesting reading but please not that there are no spelling mistakes that is the way they were written in those days!

Articles and Laws in Playing at Golf 1744

  1. You must tee your ball within a club's length of the hole.
  2. Your tee must be on the ground
  3. You are not to change the ball which you strike off the tee
  4. You are not to remove stones, bones or any break club for the sake of playing your ball, except upon the fair green, and that only within a club's length of the ball.
  5. If your ball comes among watter, or any wattery filth you are at liberty to take out your ball and bringing it behind the hazard and teeing it, you may play it with any club and allow your adversary a stroke for so getting out your ball.
  6. If your balls be found anywhere touching one another you are to lift the first ball till you play the last.
  7. At holing you are to play your ball honestly at the hole, and not to play upon your adversary's ball, not lying in your way to the hole.
  8. If you should lose your ball, by its being taken up, or any other way, you are to go back to the spot where you struck last and drop another ball and allow your adversary a stroke for the misfortune.
  9. No man at holing his ball is to be allowed to mark his way to the hole with his club or anything else.
  10. If a ball be stopp'd by any person, horse, dog, or anything else, the ball so stopp'd must be played where it lyes.
  11. If you draw your club in order to strike and proceed so far in the stroke as to be bringing down your club, if then your club should break in any way, it is to be counted as a stroke.
  12. He whose ball lyes farthest from the hole is obliged to play first.
  13. Neither trench, ditch, or dyke made for the preservation of the links, nor the Scholar's Holes or the soldier's lines shall be accounted a hazard but the ball is to be taken out, teed and play'd with any iron club.

Pretty basic rules for any group of golfers wanting to play a round of golf ;-)

Author Details:
Angus MacLeod, copywriter for various websites including, Golf in Scotland and The A to Z of with his main interests being golf and fishing, especially when in Scotland.

Article Source: Golf Articles

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