Gender bender

Editor's Note: Please enjoy this encore of a story that originally appeared on GGPWomen on March 9, 2024. The Himalayas, as the St Andrews Ladies’ Putting Club is known the world over, was designed by Old Tom Morris, a four-time winner of the Open and “keeper of the green” in St Andrews from 1864 to 1904. It was in 1867, the same year he won the fourth of those Opens, that Old Tom put the finishing touches to the first and easier nine holes of this famous putting surface. The scary ups and downs of the additional 18 holes (there are 27 in total) were to follow. Many reasons had been advanced as to why such a facility had become a necessity for the wives and daughters of R&A members. In the first place, the women had been making trouble by hanging around the R&A clubhouse while their menfolk were out on the links. As for the species of trouble they were creating, that had most to do with their penchant for trying their hand at putting on what was the caddies’ putting area on the site of what is now the Rusacks Hotel.

The caddi...