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St Andrews is a town and former royal burgh on the east coast of Fife in Scotland. The town is named after Saint Andrew the Apostle. St Andrews has a population of 16,596 making this the fifth largest settlement in Fife.

Today, St Andrews is known worldwide as the "home of golf". This is in part because the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, founded in 1754, exercises legislative authority over the game worldwide (except in the United States and Mexico), and also because the famous links (acquired by the town in 1894) is the most frequent venue for The Open Championship, the oldest of golf's four major championships. Visitors travel to St Andrews in great numbers for several courses ranked amongst the finest in the world, as well as for the sandy beaches.

The first reference to golf at the historic town of St Andrews was in 1552. The clergy allowed public access to the links a year later. In 1754 the St Andrews Society of Golfers was formed to compete in it's own annual competition using Leith's rules. Stroke play was introduced in 1759 and in 1764, the 18-hole course was constructed which has of course become a de-facto standard. The first women's golf club in the world was formed there in 1895. King William honoured the club with the title 'Royal & Ancient' in 1834 and the new famous clubhouse was erected in 1854. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews (R&A) became the premier golf club because of it's fine course, the publication of rules, it's royal patronage and it's promotion of the game as a proper sport.

Of course, by this time golfers were using proper clubs and balls. Club heads were made from beech or the wood of fruit trees such as apple. Some club heads for were made from hand-forged iron. Shafts were usually ash or hazel. Balls were made from tightly compressed feathers wrapped in a stitched horse hide sphere. The sport was somewhat exclusive due to the expense of the handcrafted equipment. After 1826, perimmon and hickory were imported from the USA to make club heads and shafts respectively. Today these antiques are highly prized by collectors. The British Empire was at it's pinnacle during the 19th century. Indeed the phrase 'the sun never sets on the empire' was coined to reflect Britain's world-wide influence. Most of the early golf clubs outside the British Isles and America were formed throughout the Commonwealth.

The first golf club formed outside Scotland was Royal Blackheath (near London) in 1766. However golf is believed to have been played there since 1608. The first golf club outside Britain was the Bangalore, India (1820). Others were the Royal Calcutta (1829), Royal Bombay (1842), Royal Curragh, Ireland (1856), the Pau, France (1856), the Adelaide (1870), Royal Montreal (1873), Cape Town (1885), St Andrew's of New York (1888) and Royal Hong Kong (1889). Some say that the South Carolina Golf Club, Charlestown of 1786 precedes all of these.

The Victorian Industrial Revolution brought with it many social and economic changes. The growth of the railways gave birth to the mass tourism industry. For the first time, ordinary people could explore the country as day-trippers or weekend visitors. Golf clubs popped up all over the country and people could enjoy the challenge of playing a different one every weekend.

Hitherto golf equipment was handcrafted and therefore expensive. Golf was therefore the preserve of the affluent. Once metal club heads and shafts and gutta percha balls (1848) began rolling off the production lines, the average person was able to afford to play golf. Both of these factors directly contributed to the phenomenal growth of golf.

If golf as we know it had its birth in the dim and distant past of the 17th century and its upbringing under the Robertson family on the links of St Andrews, then its adolescence occurred abruptly between 1848 and 1852.