THE glories of Gleneagles are not new-born. The Golf Course is admittedly modern, having been opened so recently as Midsummer, 1919. Its birthday is recorded by the Cairn on the ridge adjoining the Club-House, in which has been inserted a stone bearing the inscription -

Gleneagles Golf Course

Opened In 1919

The Year Of The Peace After The Great War

But Gleneagles claims its portion of the heritage that belongs to the traditional home of golf in Scotland - the County of Perth - and in carrying on that tradition it more than justifies its happy inception. There has been much controversy on the birthplace of golf, and no one has yet been able to state authoritatively when and where the game first saw the light. But the question of birth, in itself, is unimportant and matters not two straws. What is of real interest is that the game was played in Perthshire more than five hundred years ago. The first of the famous - some say infamous - Acts of Perth, ratified by King James I. in 1424, prohibited the playing of football, the intention being to encourage archery and proficiency in the arts of war. The result was not what was expected. There was a rush of recruits - to "gouff." The Government authorities were nonplussed. It took them some considerable time to recover from the shock, hut in 1450 King James II. prohibited play and issued an edict to the effect that "goutf be utterly cryed down." This was directed against all goiters between twelve and fifty years of age. It failed in its purpose, for although it was never repealed, golf was played in Perthshire with the old enthusiasm a few years later, and that enthusiasm has been maintained without a break. Indeed the opening of Gleneagles Golf Course has tanned it into a flame that is reflected wherever golfers foregather. Flourishing as it did prior to 1450, golf in Perthshire gains lustre from so long a lineage. The more so when it is recalled that the reservation for golf of the links of St. Andrews hears the date 1552, when a licence was granted to the ruling Archbishop. History further records that when Providence decreed in 1621 that Perthshire should sutler from excessive floods, the stout Presbyters of the period attributed the visitation directly to "gouff." Hut that opinion did not long prevail. The game was soon flourishing as it had never done before, and has continued to flourish ever since.

It is very remarkable that golf should have been played in Perthshire throughout five centuries.