St. Mungo Golf Club
The Club Within
Robert Adams came to Irvine and started looking around for a suitable piece of land on which to lay out a golf course, a group of gentlemen, golfing members of the Glasgow Licensed Trade Association, commissioned two Ayrshire professionals, one of whom was Wille Fernie, to carry out the same mission.
They duly reported that for the sum of £25 – yes, Twenty-Five pounds - eighteen tees and eighteen greens could be constructed on an area of ground which was available at Gailes. For reasons which are not now known, the golf section of the Licensed Trade did not take this offer any further. The year was 1890, just the time when Irvine Golf Club was coming into its own.
In the following year, 1891, the St. Mungo Club was constituted. This had been the Trade’s golf section, and membership of the new club was limited to Glasgow publicans and their sons.
It is likely that because of the easy accessibility of the Bogside Course by rail and because there were several members of Irvine Golf Club from Glasgow, an approach was made by the St. Mungo Club to Irvine and the outcome of the negotiations was that Associate Membership for St. Mungo members was offered and accepted, thus bringing about what could well be described as a symbiotic relationship which has lasted for 134years, a fact which shows that the relationship has been successful.
St.Mungo Members can play the course any day except Saturday, but Thursday is traditionally the “St. Mungo Day”. This came about as this was the ‘slack’ day for pubs and therefore the day when the owners were able to play.
Thursday is still the day when all Medals and Trophies are played for, indeed there is a competition played every Thursday during the year.
The running of competitions on alternative weeks and the handicapping of members was under the Clubs own jurisdiction and this suited the members for eighty years until it became more and more obvious that stricter control must be exercised in relation to the handicaps, as playing off the ‘Yellow Boxes’ rather than the ‘Medal Tees’ was producing handicaps which did not relate when members played other courses.
The difficulty was that the St. Mungo Club was not a course owning club so official recognition had to be sought.
During his captaincy in 1972, George Falconer held discussions with Irvine Golf Club, then wrote to the Scottish Golf Union and the R&A. at St. Andrews. The result was that St. Mungo gained recognition as an Official Club with their Home Course being Bogside. This recognition was accepted by the Committee of the Irvine Golf Club and through their good offices they were allowed to play from the ‘Medal Tees’ which qualified them to come under the National Handicapping System.
Extracted from the book – James Braid and his Four Hundred Golf Courses..
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