The house of golf’s first professional

He was born in St Andrews in 1815, into a family that had caddied, made balls and played the great matches for generations.

His home on Golf Place, originally Sandyhill and later renamed Allan Villa in his honour, looked out over the links. The game he grew up in was small, local and played with a ball of leather and feathers. By the time he died, he had helped make it something larger.

In his day the caddies and craftsmen were often the finest golfers, and Allan was the finest of them. He was never beaten in a singles money match. He had a reputation for sparing a lesser opponent’s pride, letting the match run close before closing it out on the last holes.

In 1858 he went round the Old Course in 79, the first man to do it in under 80. In 1853 he became Captain of The St Andrews Golf Club. Among those who learned the trade in his workshop was a young Tom Morris.

A leather case, stuffed with boiled feathers, stitched by hand and left to harden.

Allan took over the family trade of making feathery balls. It was slow, exacting work. He was the leading ball-maker in St Andrews and one of the finest in Scotland, and a skilled clubmaker as well. In his best year he is reported to have made around 2,500 balls.

Around 1847 the painter Charles Lees made a full-length study of him for his painting The Golfers, titled simply “Allan Robertson, Golf ball maker”. It is now in the National Galleries of Scotland. A cleek, an iron and a track iron that belonged to him, together with early gutta balls of his making, are recorded in the collections at St Andrews.

Clubs are still made by hand in St Andrews: shafts fitted, heads ground and weighed at the bench. It is the standard Allan worked to, and the one the house asks of every maker it works with.

The great double greens of the Old Course are still one of its defining features.

In 1848, under the patronage of Provost Sir Hugh Playfair, Allan is credited with changes to the Old Course that widened the fairways and created the double greens. Carnoustie also records that its original ten holes were laid out by Allan Robertson around 1839.

A house built on heritage depends on the accuracy of what it says. Every historical statement on this page is drawn from a published source, listed below. Where sources differ, as they do on the exact days of his birth and death, we say 1815–1859 until the parish record is confirmed.

We are preparing a bound Provenance Register: one researched and footnoted record of his life and work, and of every object made in his name.