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1413
The University of St. Andrews is founded. Golf is being played on a primitive links layout.
1754
The Society of St. Andrews Golfers is founded.
1764
The twenty-two-hole Old Course is trimmed to eighteen, setting the standard number of holes for a round of golf.
1799
The Rabbit Wars begin, with the sale of the links to the Dempster family.
1821
James Cheape buys the links and grants priority to the Society of St. Andrews Golfers, bringing the Rabbit Wars to an end. At the same time, he commissions a survey of the links, delineating the length (3,189 yards) and boundaries of the course.
1834
The Society of St. Andrews Golfers becomes the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.
1842
Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair has Halket’s Bunker, on the eighteenth hole, filled in.
1856
The R&A, under its new captain, Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair, approves the cutting of two holes on each green. To allow for this, Allan Robertson expands the greens. The course begins to widen.
1866
Old Tom Morris builds the new eighteenth green.
1869
A bunker on the fifteenth that had been turfed over reappears and takes on the name “Sutherland.”
1870
Old Tom Morris builds the new first green.
1893
George Bruce plans embankment (seawall) and land reclamation.
1904
At least thirteen new bunkers are added to the course in response to the livelier Haskell ball.
1949
Hull’s Bunker (on the fifteenth hole) is the last known bunker to be filled in.
2005
A furor erupts when, in preparation for the Open Championship, the Road Bunker on seventeen is slightly reshaped to gather more shots.
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