Prairie Links of American Golf — Scotland's Influence on the American West

The spread of golf across America was not confined to the established clubs of the East Coast. This article explores how Scottish investment, migration and enterprise helped carry the game into the emerging communities of the American West.

During the late nineteenth century, Scottish financiers, particularly those based in Edinburgh and Dundee, invested heavily in American railways, cattle ranching and the development of the Great Plains.

These commercial connections created opportunities for Scots to establish new lives across the Atlantic.

Among them was Alex Findlay of Montrose, who brought his golfing knowledge, hickory clubs and gutta-percha balls to Nebraska, where he laid out a rudimentary golf course on the prairie.

It was but a short step to link with a passing Henry Flager, and his hotel devlopments in Florida.

His story illustrates how the traditions of Scottish golf travelled alongside international investment and migration, long before the game became widely established across the United States.

Drawing on the historical research behind The Gentry Links Trilogy, the article demonstrates how golf's international expansion was closely connected to the wider economic and social history of the nineteenth century.

Previously published in The Golf, the journal of the Golf Heritage Society.