08/22/2024
The Early Days of the Perth Golf Course
"Each spring, the longest grass was burned to clear the course, but during the rest of the season the Matheson cows, and those of Perth residents who also pastured their animals on the farm, kept the fairways in trim. The greens were fenced to confine the farm’s sheep flock and thus ensure they were closely cropped.
As the course added greens, more sheep were required and, in 1914, a motion was passed at the club’s annual meeting approving rental of the grounds to additional flocks. There was a down-side to pasturing sheep, however. The gutta-percha golf balls of the day were made from the resin of the Sapodilla tree, a substance sheep found a tasty treat. On reaching the green, caddies were frequently called upon to wrestle a partly chewed golf ball away from a hungry ewe. The sheep themselves could also be in danger. For several weeks in the summer of 1916 the club ran a newspaper warning notice, “Attention – Sheep at the golf links. Keep your dog in at night”.
Despite the four-footed greenskeepers, in the earliest days the greens were hardly distinguishable from the fairways or rough, and livestock dictated the course’s first local ground rule, that “The player may remove his ball from rural soil without penalty”.
~ Ron W. Shaw
