Scottish Golf Books

Hitting a ball with a stick: a game probably invented and re-invented countless times around the world, but it was the Scottish variant gouf, or Golf, which rose to dominance. So popular was the early Scottish game that King James II banned it, to ensure his army concentrated on their archery and not their golf. In the 15th century golfers in St Andrews, Fife, played on a narrow strip of uneven land near the coast, with eleven holes played twice in a match. Later, three of those holes were removed, and so the modern count of 18 was reached.

Today golf is a global industry and a huge contributor to Scotland's tourism industry. Thousands flock to St Andrews and other courses around the country. The game is governed by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.

Olive M. Geddes has written an excellent history of the early days of golf in Scotland called A Swing Through Time: Golf in Scotland 1457-1744.

In the 18th and 19th centuries improvements in the manufacture of equipment helped spread the game to the masses, with clubs springing up across Scotland, England and hence through the British Empire. Golf club makers even became household names, such as Thomas Carruthers, who lived and played beside Edinburgh's Bruntsfield Links course in the late 19th century. Willie Park Jnr was another successful golfer, golf club maker and course designer, and in 1886 his published the first book on golf by a professional, The Game of Golf, which is still in print. In 1920 Park published The Art of Putting, a best-seller in its time.

Other books on Scottish golfing history include One Up and One To Go, which contains early photographs of many of Scotland's leading courses; and books on specific golf courses, such as Old Ranfurly, in Bridge of Weir, and Pilgrims in the Rough, about St Andrews.

For author Andrew Greig, golf is the great leveller, the bringer together of CEOs and miners, the Scots and the English, the tweed and the tartan. In his essential book on Golf, Preferred Lies, he hunts for the "true heart" of Golf, and finds it not at the Old Course in St Andrews, but on the ninth hole of the free course on North Ronaldsay. For Curtis Gillespie, perhaps the true heart is in Gullane, as he discusses in his memoir Playing Through: A Year of Life and Links Along the Scottish Coast. The book is part biography, part travel writing, part sport memoir.

A Season in Dornoch is set in the Scottish Highlands, and is Lorne Rubenstein's account of a summer spent in Dornoch. As well as the local golf, Rubenstein ruminates on the Highland clearances, single malt whisky, and the local community. Of course, the true home of golf will always remain in St Andrews, as American George Peper and his wife Libby found during their two-year stay in the town. In A Home on the 18th, Peper writes about golf, the life of an American in Scotland, and how he came to feel part of the St Andrews community.

There's surprisingly little golfing fiction around, with the quirky exception of Michael Tobert's The Mating Call of the Racket-Tailed Drongo. For the members of the August and Venerable Golf Club of St Magnus, their beloved clubhouse is under threat - from the daughter of the local fishmonger.

Perhaps Scotland's most famous golfer is Colin Montgomerie, who has been playing - and winning - since the late 1980s. His story is recounted in his autobiography, The Real Monty and also in Dale Concannon's more recent Monty Raw!. Although born in England, Sandy Lyle has played for Scotland and was the first ever British player to win the Masters. His autobiography, To The Fairway Born, was first published in 2006.

Tommy's Honour tells the story of the two Tom Morrises, a father-and-son team of record-breaking golfers. Walter Stephen's biography of Willie Park Junior is an essential read for anyone interested in the history of the modern game.

Other non-Scottish biographies include the humorous Natural Hazard: The Diary of an Accident-Prone Golf Watcher, by Norman Dabell; Dabell's collection of memoirs of the caddies How We Won The Ryder Cup; and of course In Search of Tiger by Tom Callahan.

If you're more interested in playing golf than reading about it, then you'll need a guide to the best courses in Scotland. There are general UK guides such as FHG's The Golf Guide: Where to Play, Where to Stay, or, in a curious Celtic twist, Finegan's Where Golf is Great: The Finest Courses of Scotland & Ireland.

There are over 500 courses in Scotland, all collected in R.J. Price's Scotland's Golf Courses and also in Vic Robbie's earlier Scotland's Golf Courses: The Complete Guide. A more selective collection is Golf at the Water's Edge, a history and tour of Scotland's seaside links courses.

• There is also a complete list of all golf-related books available