The rules of the game were laid down by the Royal and Ancient of St Andrews. In that same 19t​ h​ century, golf course design emerged as an art form, the foremost designers being Scots. The daddy of them all was undoubtedly Old Tom Morris who introduced a new challenge in his courses – the dog leg. Old Tom was the son of a weaver in St Andrews: he rose from caddy to champion golfer. He organised the first Open in 1860 and was the first to tee off. He came second that year but won over the next 2 years.

Golf was mainly for adult men in the 19t​ h​ century, there seemed to be few opportunities for youth golf, but Aberdeen was an exception – there was a long established youth medal system in operation from the 1820s that produced a string of very promising golfers. One of the leading juniors in the 1880s was Tom Bendelow.

Tom Bendelow was born on 2 September 1868, one of the nine children of John and Mary Edwards Bendelow who ran a very famous pie shop at 42 Causewayend in Aberdeen. Bendelow’s pies were famous; they were reputed to be the best in the north-east. They sold particularly well as a pay day treat or a weekend special or for family celebrations. There were even poems written about Bendelow’s pies. People came from all over the city to taste the gastronomic delights of that shop. It went on for generations. Jane Bendelow married into the Jessamine family and the shop continued under the name of Jessamine’s Bakery until the 1960s. The Bendelows and Jessamines were Brethren and were strict in their religious observance. Sunday was centred on the St Paul Street Gospel Hall. The Jessamines lived in Elmbank Terrace and on Sunday evenings a crowd would gather outside their home to hear the family as they sang their hymns around the pedal organ. The Jessamines also produced a popular dentist who practiced in Belmont Road.

Tom learned the game of golf, playing with his father at the Town Links, a course that straddled the Kings Links and Queen’s Links and incorporated part of the Broad Hill. His club was Royal Aberdeen and they played on the Links until they had a course of their own at Balgownie, just north of the Don, in 1887.By now, Tom was 19 years old.

Tom had been playing regularly from the age of nine and was highly proficient. He was never a champion but he was always in contention. He competed in most of the main courses in Scotland and England. He kept playing even in his apprenticeship years. From the age of 14, he served a seven year apprenticeship as a typesetter with Aberdeen Free Press. Fitting in golf could not have been easy because his religion forbade him playing on a Sunday. He also fitted in athletics, he was a sprinter who covered the emerging Games circuit and even competed at Powderhall. There was money to be made from running. There were also perks attached to golf, it gave him a taste of the world beyond Aberdeen.

From around 1890, he courted Mary Ann Nicol, the daughter of a prosperous local farmer. The Balgownie course had acted as a matchmaker. They seemed to have done most of their courting around the Brig o’ Balgownie. They married at Belhelvie in February 1892. Father-in-law was not happy that his daughter was married to the son of a mere shopkeeper. To escape the constant interference, Tom emigrated to the States in September 1892 leaving behind his pregnant wife. He moved to that great melting-pot of a city, New York, and took up a post in the New York Herald. His daughter was born in December 1892 and both wife and baby joined Tom in New York in 1893.

​His first big break came when he was typesetting a letter to the Herald seeking golf coaching. Family tradition suggests that that letter was never printed. Tom answered it and met the rich Pratt family. They were the co-founders with John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil of New Jersey. He sold the game to them so enthusiastically that they got him do lay out six holes for them in their Long Island estate (it became the nucleus of the future prestigious Nassau Country Club). That successful foray into design got him a commission to develop the 9 hole municipal Bronx course into a classic 18-holer. It was the first full municipal course in America and became the envy of rival towns and cities. They all wanted one.

The Pratts introduced him to A. G. Spalding, the sporting goods manufacturer. Spalding saw the business potential in golf. If the courses could be created then there would be a huge market for golf clubs, golf balls and all the other paraphernalia associated with the sport. Spalding hired Tom to promote the game in New York and New Jersey. Tom acted as salesman, teacher and designer. He gave lessons on the use of the clubs, he ran the first indoor golf school in the Carnegie Hall complex, he was the first to train caddies, and he was eventually to be the first to lecture on golf course design. He did promotional tours. His most famous one was coast-to-coast across the States with Harry Vardon. Harry, from Jersey in the Channel Islands was an early superstar of golf. He used to advise,
“Don’t play too much golf: two rounds a day are plenty”.

His 1900 tour involved 80 exhibition and challenge matches: Vardon won over 70 of them against the best in each locality. He managed to fit in time to win the US Open as part of that tour, and Tom was his caddy. Vardon had already won three British Opens and would go on to win a further three. That 1900 tour gave a huge impetus to the game in the States.

He moved into the townships and popularised the game. His energy and enthusiasm were infectious. If a township wanted a course, then he designed a starter course for them. He believed in affordable golf, he believed in families playing together. The municipalities did not have a lot to invest, so he had to keep costs low. He never argued over price. They got what they could afford. His courses followed the natural contours of the land, they maximised the use of the natural hazards, and he was not one for creating artificial hazards. His courses had to be “sporty” i.e. challenging enough for the seasoned player but not so difficult that the learner would be forced to give up. The greens were small, to cut costs. He preferred virgin ground that had not been farmed and fertilised: fertile soil creates fast growing grass and luxuriant rough and makes maintenance expensive.

His courses were natural as opposed to artificial. The only earth-moving equipment available to him in the early days was a navvy with a shovel. If you follow the natural contours of the land, as we did in links golf in Scotland, then you create a course that is interesting and challenging. A round of golf ought to be both a test and a pleasure. As he said himself, a course should be
“a satisfying picture to the eye, as well as a fair test of skill”.

The great Bobby Jones, who learned the game at the Bendelow course at East Lake, Atlanta, marvelled at the fact that Bendelow made you use every iron and wood in the bag. Why have a tool kit with tools that are never used? Bobby Jones had battled health issues as a child and was prescribed golf to give him strength. He won his first tournament at 6. He remained an amateur throughout his life: in 1930 he took the then “Grand Slam” by winning both the Open and Amateur titles in Britain and the USA.

In 1901 Spalding promoted Tom to Director of Golf Course Design, based in Chicago. He relished the challenge. Tom obviously worked quickly. At his peak, he could plan out a course in a week. We know that in 1922 when he designed the Urbana Golf and County Club, he arrived at noon on Tuesday, went over the area, drew up plans, staked out the tees and greens and completed the job by noon on Friday, ready to drive home for the weekend. It was enough to get golf started in the area. His early courses had to be cheap to build ad cheap to maintain... He had to maximise play, minimise costs and maintain interest. His municipal courses were essentially a walk in the park. Most of his courses were later redeveloped as fashions changed and money became available but this does not diminish his missionary work for the game.

He stayed 16 years in the Spalding post; it was a prolific period in the development of the game. In 1917 he moved to the rival firm of Thomas Wilson Sports. He earned more money and they gave him his own line of clubs. In 1920 he was head-hunted by the American Park Building Company of Chicago. As the Depression loomed and money became even tighter, he was taking any available commission to keep the company going: he designed many parks and even the occasional cemetery.

Yet golf course design was his real legacy. He is credited with designing over 700 courses; he also contributed to the design of around 300 others... He certainly created the initial golf landscape in the New World from the States to Canada. Each course was unique and well crafted. He always told his students at the University of Illinois that designers must think both technically and creatively. He followed in a Scottish tradition that is maintained today by Colin Montgomery and Sam Torrance.

Tom remained faithful to his Brethren upbringing. He never played on a Sunday, he never drank alcohol, and he never told the kind of dirty jokes so popular in the club houses. He returned every weekend to his beloved Illinois where he often preached to the local Brethren community. He was a committed and talented preacher. His only known sin was his love for a good cigar. Most photos of him show him relaxing with a good smoke. He died at home in River Forest in Illinois on 24 March 1936, he was 67.

He has sometimes been nicknamed the “Johnny Appleseed of Golf”. Johnny Appleseed was the pioneering nurseryman who spread the love of apples across the States. He was a simple soul and very strict in his religious beliefs. So there is a similarity between the two as fervent missionaries of family values and moral rectitude: both had a hands on approach to the task ahead. Tom would not, however, have been a follower of Johnny Appleseed, because Johnny was planting cider apples destined to produce the Demon Drink, the Devil’s Brew.

Fittingly, Tom’s grandsons followed in his footsteps. He used to take them fishing at South Haven where he had a holiday home. Jack was a professional golfer and golf teacher at Montague in Michigan. Stuart graduated in Geography and Earth Sciences and became a senior planner. Stuart has written a biography of his grand-dad and has done much to resurrect his memory.

The 2012 Ryder Cup will be played at Medinah 3 at Illinois. Tom designed all three courses. Medinah 3 has been much changed over the years, the last revamp was in 2000, but Tom saw the potential and laid out the basic course. It is a great testament to his ability...

Ironically, an Aberdonian, Tom Bendelow, did much to take the game of golf to America. Now an American, Donald Trump is re-exporting back to us. It would be fitting if in the process we could remember the achievements of Tom, the son of the pie man, who became the most prolific golf course designer the world has ever known. He certainly deserves a mention in the north-east’s Hall of Fame.

The first real royal interest in a tartan-clad Scotland came with the visit of George IV to Edinburgh in 1820. The event was orchestrated by Sir Walter Scott who created a new mythology of the romantic Highlands and the brave and loyal highlanders. Victoria loved the works of Sir Walter Scott; she wholeheartedly bought into the myth. Victoria, who was crowned in June 1838 made her first visit to Scotland in 1842. Her Prime Minister, Robert Peel, initially advised against such a visit – he was worried about Chartist activity in the north of England. The compromise was for Victoria and Albert, whom she married in 1840, to sail to Scotland on the Royal Yacht, “Royal George”. It was the last royal use of the three-masted sailing ship built in 1817.They sailed from Woolwich to Leith and toured for 2 weeks getting no further north than Taymouth - but they tasted and appreciated real porridge and finnan haddies for the first time. They vowed to come back.

In 1844 they sailed to Dundee en route to Blair Castle. This time they toured for a month and tasted Athol Brose, which again, was appreciated. They were developing a real taste for the Highlands. They loved the countryside and it was
good to get away from the stuffiness of Court life.

In 1847 the royal yacht “Victoria and Albert” sailed the west coast and visited Ardverikie. The ship had been launched in 1843; it was a twin paddle steamer, the first steam-powered royal yacht. There were to be 2 other royal yachts of the same name, number 2 was launched in 1855 and number 3 in 1899.

By now, Victoria was in love with the Highlands and was quietly proud of the few drops of Jacobite blood in her veins. The weather, however, was dreadful, it poured with rain. Meanwhile, her physician Sir James Clark was boasting that his son, John, was enjoying the sunshine in Balmoral, where he was recuperating from a long illness: he claimed that the air there had revitalised his health. Albert
asked for reports on Balmoral, being worried about Victoria’s pangs of rheumatism.
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That winter, the tenant of Balmoral, Sir Robert Gordon, died suddenly with 20 years left on his lease from the Earl of Mar. The royal couple took on the lease. On 5t h September 1848, the royal yacht sailed into Aberdeen. Next day the royals set off up Deeside. They had breakfast at Cults, lunch at Aboyne, and reached Balmoral in mid afternoon. They were delighted with the place, the views, the air and the new set of servants retained from Sir Robert Gordon. John Brown was a stable boy when they first arrived.

The royal couple eventually bought Balmoral with its 17000 acres in 1852 for £31,500: Albert had already bought Birkhall. In December 1852 Victoria was unexpectedly left a legacy of £500,000 by the eccentric miser John Neild and this was poured into a rebuild project for a new Balmoral Castle. The architect was Aberdeen’s City Architect, William Smith. The Royal Couple actively participated in the interior design with a concept once described as a “Feast of tartanitis”.

The foundation stone was laid in September 1853 and it opened in September 1855. Most of the Royal Household hated the place some 567 miles from the comforts of Buckingham Palace: the politicians also hated the remoteness and the discomfort of having to visit Deeside.

Victoria and Albert, however, could relax at Balmoral, free from the snooping critics and escaping the regimentation of the Royal Household in London and Windsor with their orchestrated ceremonies and strict protocols and routines. Balmoral was their creation, run by their rules; it gave them a sense of freedom and a sense of belonging.

John Brown was born in a humble but and ben in the small hamlet of Crathienaird in December 1826. He was the second son of a tenant farmer in a growing family that would eventually produce 9 boys and 2 girls. Five of the brothers were eventually to work on the royal Estates (James, John, Donald, High and Archie). The name Crathie comes from the Gaelic for brushwood. John started working on the family croft at 14 with a supplementary job as a stable lad at Pannanich Wells. He then looked after the Balmoral ponies for Sir Robert Gordon.

Victoria grew up with a flair for languages, some real ability in art, particularly drawing, and an intense interest in horse-riding. From her teen years onwards, she was a compulsive diarist. Unfortunately, Beatrice, her youngest daughter, edited out anything that could possibly be open to criticism. There are, however, many interesting bits in her journals. We can, for example, read of her suitors and her reaction to them. There was only ever going to be one winner, Albert, who “Is very handsome. I like him in every way”.

Victoria became Queen in 1837. She married Albert in February 1840 and gave birth to her first child, Princess Vicky, in November 1840. By the time that the couple leased Balmoral, they had 6 children.
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Victoria retained the Balmoral estate workers and got to know their families. She got to know her workers by name, and gained their loyalty and respect. She loved the countryside at Balmoral and was entranced by the Highland way of life. She particularly liked her Highland picnics – Albert liked to hunt on his own, he needed his own space from time to time, so Victoria was taken by the staff on a picnic. John Brown could make the best tea she had ever tasted – he laced it with whisky. As they got older, the tea disappeared from the picnic menu but the whisky remained and was much appreciated by the monarch.

Albert recognised Brown as the most skilled of the gillies and promoted him in 1851 to ride on the box of the Queen’s carriage. Albert had huge respect for Brown who by 1860 bore the title of the “Queen’s Personal Assistant”. He led
the Queen’s pony, passed on the local folklore, kept Victoria alert to the current gossip in the area and in the Household, and even told her the latest jokes. He looked after her, protected her, and made her feel at ease.

In December 1861 Prince Albert became ill with typhoid at Windsor Castle, and he died on the 14t h December, aged 42. He had suffered ill health for some 2 years: m0dern diagnosis suggests Crohn’s disease or cancer. He had complained of stomach pains and back pain. The antics of the Prince of Wales with his taste for unsuitable accomplices did not help his father’s health. Victoria buried herself in grief, she was even too distraught to attend Albert’s funeral service, and for a time she verged on the suicidal. The Court was in mourning for a year but she remained in mourning for the rest of her life.

It was only at Balmoral that she seemed to come out of her shell. There John Brown fussed over her and deliberately got her involved in day-to-day details such as deciding which guest was suited to which pony. She always enjoyed her pony cart rides which Brown led. Elsewhere she remained morbid and trapped in her own self-pity. Her health was visibly deteriorating. In December 1864 John Brown was summoned to Osborne on the Isle of Wight, to give the Queen the fresh air she needed. He took along her favourite pony, Lochnagar.

Albert had persuaded Victoria to buy the Osborne estate in 1845 after renting it for a year. It offered them privacy and they normally took 4 short visits there per year, in spring, May, July and December.

From now on, Brown was with the Queen throughout the year. Wherever she happened to be, he met her at breakfast for instructions. He took his orders directly from her and passed on her instructions to others – often rather abruptly, he would never have made a diplomat. The Household hated his influence and his crude manners. He also drank rather a lot. Nevertheless, he had the ear of the Queen: they normally enjoyed cart-rides in the mornings and afternoons. His salary rose as his influence increased. In 1865 he was appointed “The Queen’s Highland Servant” at a salary of £120 per annum. In 1866 it increased to £150, by 1869 it was £230 and by 1870 it was £400. She had complete trust in him and valued his judgement. She really saw him as the male head of the Household. This somewhat miffed the Prince of Wales whom she thought would never be fit to rule: he was a playboy of the worst order.

The resentment of Brown kept growing at Court: he was lower class, rough, lacked the social graces, and had too much influence and too much salary. Although Victoria prized his comforting presence, most of her children hated him and were ashamed of her affection for him. He was, after all, a mere servant – and servants ought to know their place. Snobbery was rife at Court where Brown was
regarded as “A Rude, unmannerly fellow”.

Court life was stifled by boring, repetitive routines. By the late 1860s Victoria was becoming lethargic. She needed as new project to reawaken her interest in life and in 1868 she published an edited version of her Highland Journal. It was very readable and was a financial success but it caused her problems both at Court and among the general public.

The family was not happy with her obvious familiarity with her Highland servants whom she described as “noble” and on whom she lavished praise. She knew all her estate workers at Balmoral, and liked to pay visits to their families. There were 21 glowing references to John Brown: the Prince of Wales claimed that he himself didn’t get a mention – Victoria gave her son page references to read to prove that that was not the case. Edward was certainly mentioned but never praised. Victoria always blamed him for hastening Albert’s death.

The Journal seemed to suggest to the public that Victoria did very little other than fill her life with picnics and banquets. In fact, Victoria’s life centred round her desk: she was almost drowning in official paperwork – her only breaks were for meals and exercise.

In 1868 Brown was missed at Balmoral for a week and eventually turned up clearly battered and bruised. Rumour had it that the Prince of Wales had hired heavies in Aberdeen to beat up Brown in the grounds of Balmoral. Thereafter, Brown always slept with a pistol under his pillow, and he took to patrolling the grounds at dusk to check on the Queen’s safety.

The Queen was always a security risk with Fenians and Republicans around. There were in total some 7 attempts on her life. She was fired at by a deranged 18 year old in London in 1840, there were a further 2 shooting attempts in 1842, and again by an insane Irishman in 1849. A retired Army Officer managed to strike her on the face with his cane in 1850. By far the most serious attempt on her life was by a mentally-disturbed teenager with a flintlock in 1872 in the grounds of Buckingham Palace – an alert Brown grabbed him by the throat and held him down until the Police arrived. The Queen rewarded him with a gold medal, the “Devoted Servant Medal” – again, much to the chagrin of the family. The seventh attempt of her life was in March 1882 when a demented Scots poet shot at her at Windsor Station – 2 Eton schoolboys were the first to react and battered him with their brollies: he was sentenced to life in the asylum.

John Brown had always been renowned for his athletic fitness. By the 1870s that was a thing of the past. His health was deteriorating. His face swelled up from time to time, fuelling rumours of alcoholism – in fact it was erysipelas (a skin infection). He was also getting fatter, his joints ached and his limbs swelled. His legs gave him trouble from time to time due to cellutitis (a related skin infection). At Easter 1883 he fell ill after a severe soaking at Windsor. By Easter Sunday, erysipelas covered the right side of his face and he was delirious. By the Tuesday he was in a coma from which he never recovered. He died aged 56. The Queen was devastated. He was buried at Crathie on Thursday 5t h April. Victoria ordered his headstone in Aberdeen grey granite and penned the words “In affectionate and grateful memory”.

She handed out funeral brooches and tie-pins and commissioned a life-sized bronze statue (which can still be seen on the Balmoral estate, although it is largely hidden from view after Edward VII had it moved). Despite rumours that he had enriched himself at the Queen’s expense, he left just over £7000. He had quietly donated rather generously to numerous charities.

What he did leave behind was a trail of gossip. Victoria wanted to publish a memorial to John Brown: the manuscript was written and it took a lot of persuasion for her not to publish. The problem lay partly in her literary style. She was somewhat naïve in writing expressions of devotion to friends – she frequently used word such as “dearest”, “darling” and “beloved”. She even once sent a Valentine to her Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. Disraeli flattered her, Gladstone bored her.

The rumour that she was “Mrs Brown” is as flawed as the earlier rumour that she was “Mrs Melbourne”(after her first Prime Minister). She was always faithful to her beloved Albert. She only stopped bearing children on strict medical advice. She gave birth to 9 children, 4 boys and 5 girls over a 17 year span – Vicky in 1840, Albert Edward in 1841, Alice in 1843, Alfred in 1844, Helena in 1846, Louise in 1848, Arthur in 1850, Leopold in 1853 and Beatrice in 1857. She was 38 when her 9t h child was born. After her death, her autopsy showed a prolapsed uterus: so further sex was physically out of the question. It was also socially out of the question: there was no way that she would sleep with a commoner.

She liked men. She never formed a close relationship with any woman. Albert was irreplaceable: Brown merely filled a void in her life. He devoted his life to her: she regarded him like a hero out of a novel by her favourite author, Sir Walter Scott.

Another scurrilous rumour was that Victoria had turned mad and that Brown was her keeper. There certainly was a history of mental illness in the family, but Victoria escaped it. She did, however, fall into depression from time to time and she hated changes.

The Scottish Republican, Alexander Robertson, seems to be the source of the rumour that Victoria and Brown were married: he also described Victoria as “semi-imbecile”. He even wrote that Victoria and Brown had a son, born in Switzerland. Such stories still emerge from time to time. In fact there seem to be 4 different “child” stories – one in Switzerland, 2 in Paris and one in New York.

The other false rumour was that Brown was a medium, gifted with the Gaelic “second sight”, using spiritualism to unite Victoria with Albert. She is absolutely no evidence that Victoria dabbled in Spiritualism: she didn’t need to; she was always convinced that Albert was watching over her.

After Brown’s death, Victoria attached herself to an Indian servant, Abdul Karim, whom she called Munshi (teacher). He was resented at Court ever more than Brown. An Indian Muslim, he served during the last 15 years of her reign. He took Brown’s room at Balmoral. The Household staff always felt superior to him: there were racial overtones just as there had been with Brown. Significantly, Edward VII
sent Munshi back home to India on Victoria’s death.

Victoria died at Osborne in January 1901 in her 82n d year, some 18 years after Brown’s death. She was interred in a series of coffins each inside the other. In the shell was placed Albert’s dressing gown and cloak. Her wedding veil was spread over her face and in her left hand was a photograph of John Brown and below her corsage of flowers was placed a lock of Brown’s hair and his mother’s ring (which Victoria had worn after Brown’s death).

On the morning of Victoria’s death, the Balmoral shepherds noted that Brown’s cairn had been flattened. After the Prince of Wales became Edward VII, he arranged the removal of all the busts, statues and artefacts of Brown. Brown’s room at Windsor became the billiard room. Edward never forgave his mother for loving her servants more that her family.