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Allan Robertson is generally acknowledged as the first golf professional. He made the finest feathery balls of his day, shaped the Old Course with the double greens that still define it, and was never beaten in a singles money match. The R&A describes him as “undoubtedly the catalyst” for The Open Championship. He died in 1859, a year before the first Open was played. For more than a century and a half, the game remembered his name better than his story.

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Allan Robertson 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. 

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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. 

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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 great double greens. It is still one of the course’s defining features.

Carnoustie also records that its original ten holes were laid out by Allan Robertson around 1839.