Scottish Exiles.

A Song of Exile

From the lone shieling on the misty island,
Mountains divide us and a waste of seas;
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.

Traditional Nova Scotian Lament

Between 1895 and 1910 12 of the first 15 US Opens were won by Scottish born professionals (the others were won by Englishmen). At the time this was known as the Scottish Invasion.

Why so many Scotsmen? Well the obvious answer is that Scotland was the home of golf and Americans were willing to pay good money to have Scotsmen teach them the game.

However this simple answer conceals a deeper truth. Scotland had been exporting it's talent for hundreds of years. Certainly there had been Scottish exoduses comparable to that of the Irish following the potato famine; the brutal suppression of the highlands by the English following the 1745 Jacobite rebellion; and the clearance of highlands by absentee landlords in the C19th spring to mind, but for the most part Scottish emigration had a different flavour from that of other countries. Scotland did not export it's poor and desperate, it exported skilled workers.

Horace Rawlins is seated in front of Willie Anderson, who has his arm round Alex Smith

The first and most renowned of these skilled workers were mercenary soldiers. During the religious wars of the C17th , Scotland provided crack troops to both the Protestant and Catholic sides. Before that both the Ottoman Emperor and the Caliphate of Baghdad had looked to Scotland for their elite body guards, and continued to do so for hundreds of years. Apparently there was a tacit agreement that when Scot met Scot on the field of battle they would not fight each other, but would turn aside and fight non-Scottish foes. This sometimes led to peculiar results. There is a story, probably apocryphal, that in one mid-east battle, the crack Scottish troops on opposing sides had been placed on the right wing of their respective armies. Both right wings then proceeded to launch a murderous attack that overwhelmed the opposition, after a short time the only soldiers left standing were Scottish, who after exchanging greetings, retreated after the fleeing remnants of the army of their masters.

However Scotland exported more than Soldiers. In 1590 it is recorded that there were 30,000 skilled artisans and traders living in the Crakow area of Poland, and other similar tales are not uncommon. Closer to home the famed Hunter Brothers in London, John Hunter being widely considered the father of modern surgery, represented the emigration of Scottish intellectuals.

Why this propensity for self-exile? Two reasons:

• 1. Scotland is a country long on beauty, and short on natural resources. It was understood that to stay was to invite over-population and disaster.
• 2. The innate national character revered learning and self reliance and took easily to living in foreign lands.

Studies of European populations show hugh explosions during the Industrial revolution of the C19th. Scotlands merely doubled in this centuary. Indeed Scotlands population today is barely 2 1/2 times what it was in the times of Mary Queen of Scots - all on account of emigration.

And Scotland was peopled by a travelled race. An amalgam of the 'Late Celts' and sea-faring Vikings - plus a levening of other roamers - must account for a certain wanderlust.

The MacNeils have a story that they are descended from one Niall, chief advisor of the Pharaoh of all Egypt and for whom the Nile was named. He started out one summer to follow the sun to it's resting place and when he reached the Hebrides he could go no further. It would be left to Viking ancestors some 2000 years later to cross over to 'Vinland'. Other folk-lore tells of origins in North African, and the eastern Mediterranean and indeed the bagpipes were first reported in Tunisia, and the Celtic for Sea is "aigean" - compare with the Greeks "Aegean" sea. Whatever the truth the Scots were never loath to travel.

The table below shows the place of origin of the first 15 US Open champions, but it must be remembered that it was not just champions, but also others. Carnegie was a Scotsman, and Donald Ross was very far from being a caricature of a hard drinking Scotsman.

The tradition continues to this day. The emeritus professional at our club is a Scotsman who learnt his trade at Glen Eagles, and your writer recently met four sisters in their 60's, professional people all, who had emigrated to the States in their twenties. I myself have 1st degree relatives in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England and France but none in Scotland, and my wife born in Edinburgh has nary a relative still living in Scotland.

Scots have no difficulty fitting in with the local population, they blend to the local culture quickly, but they always carry a slice of their culture with them. Perhaps that is why golf prospers in so many countries, it is a our way of taking Scotland with us, and we and our descendants will defend the traditions of the game with the same ferocity as our warrior forefathers!

A Montage of U.S. Open winners up until 1915. [Click on image to get enlarged version] From American Golfer

Source: United States Golf Association

F.B 2006

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