Two partners, one ball and a shot each in turn: that is foursomes, and it is one of golf’s oldest and most demanding formats. Here is what we can say about where it comes from and why it is still played.

Before there were clubhouses, there were societies of gentlemen, a silver trophy and a tavern table. Here is what the record shows about the first golf clubs, and how the clubhouse became part of the game.

A leather case, a top hat of boiled feathers and a maker with a sore chest: the story of the ball that carried golf for centuries. We look at how it was made, who made it and why it gave way.

Before factories and catalogues, a golf club was cut, spliced and weighted by hand at a bench. Here is what the records say about the long-nose clubs, the tools and the clubmakers of the early game.

Before there were marked teeing grounds, you teed off within a club’s length of the last hole, and a caddie walked with you. Here is what the record says about the rule, and about the men who carried and advised.

A burn is only a small Scottish stream, but on the old links courses it has decided championships and turned quiet shots into stories. Here is what we can say about them with confidence, and what we would rather call a myth.

Why golfers on links land keep the ball low and let firm ground do the work, and how that humble shot grew out of the way the old game was played. A short history of the run-up, from feather balls to the modern wedge.

Around 1848 a lump of gum from a Malayan tree turned golf’s most expensive habit into an affordable one. Here is the real story of the gutty, and the accident that taught golfers a scuffed ball flies better.