Antique Golf Clubs from Scotland: Clubmakers

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Clubmakers

Simon Cossar
Edinburgh
Another of the early Edinburgh clubmakers (and, yes, if you are from Leith and seething I apologise but much of the readership here is North American and will not appreciate the difference between the city and the port) from whom a fruitwood putter exists in the R&A clubhouse and, from his workshop, perhaps the earliest known metal bladed putter was sold from the Royal Perth collection to Jaime Ortiz-Patino in 1998.

The literature treats him simply as a craftsman, which he undoubtedly was, but I see in him some of the first elements of clubmaking as a business. He stamped his name on the club, that’s branding, the most anyone did before that was initials (“AD” for Andrew Dickson or “GM” on the clubs made for John MacKenzie in 1692). He also understood the power of the brand as clubs were not just sold from his workshop but by agencies in other parts of the country. Simon was active from the 1780s (he was described as a clubmaker when he married Elizabeth Ross from Crail in 1787) until 1811 and his son, David b 1788, carried on the trade until his death in September 1816 ('clubmaker to the Thistle Golf Club ... a most convivial spirit ... generally allowed to be the best clubmaker in Scotland' accorfing to the Caledonian Mercury at the time) but the brand was “Cossar of Leith’s clubs”. As many one-man-band operation will understand, don’t make it all appear dependent on you. For instance, James Mellis advertised in the Aberdeen Press and Jourmal in 1801, ‘appointed agent for selling Cossar of Leith’s GOLF-CLUBS, at the maker’s prices; has just got to hand the greatest assortment of this article ever offered at this place’. What surprised me, thinking that children (ok, boys not girls) playing came with the later democratisation of the game, was ‘including Boys’ Clubs from 8d to 1s 6d each’. He followed this up with reinforcement in a newspaper advertisement in February 1802, ‘Golf clubs by Cossar of Leith, the best maker in Scotland’. If only they had social media, Cossar would be going strong today.

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