Part IV – The Golf House Club
Researched and compiled by Graham Johnston
In part 3 we learnt how the Earlsferry and Elie Golf club became established over the Earlsferry course after the hiatus of the litigation with Malcolm and the Grange Estate.
The club was initially comprised of locals who lived in Earlsferry but as the arrival of the Railway opened up the villages to visitors, holiday makers and second home owners (even in 1870s) so the membership became rather more cosmopolitan with many members joining who lived in Edinburgh and Glasgow. It had ceased in many respects to be a local golf club.
At an extraordinary General Meeting in 1872 the then Captain, W.R. Ketchen a local lawyer and banker who lived in the National Bank Building in Bank Street, resigned. There had been some friction between the Earlsferry Town Council and some of the members and it is probable that Ketchen among others thought the club too parochial and too dependent upon the Town Council of Earlsferry who owned the course. Whether his resignation was well signposted or not we do not know but in the background over the next couple of years it emerged that he had created the foundation of a new golf club. At that time Earlsferry and Elie Golf club did not have its own premises – it was not until 1885 or so that George Forrester offered that club accommodation in his house at Georgeville.
It seems that in 1875 Ketchen along with Major General Briggs, gentlemen called Raimes, Orr Paterson, Browning and Dewar had along with Thomas Currie ,the builder and his son John Currie the architect met and formed the new club or rather had come out into the open as having leased from William Baird what was then known as Melon Park (at least the southern portion thereof lying to the north of the house at Williamsburgh). This is the piece of ground lying to the east of the Ferry Road. Baird leased the ground to Rev. William Hillhouse, John Luke, Thomas Currie and W.R. Ketchen. At that stage they were not trustees for Golf House Club but it became pretty clear that there was an intention to build a clubhouse for the GHC on part of the ground of the Melon Park. However it was only the piece of the Melon Park lying north of the houses at Willliamsburgh and a line drawn from the corner of the quarry to the recreation park. In effect this was just what is now the 18th fairway. It was enough however for there to have been established three holes in that area. This is a plan showing the golf course at that point when it was merely 14 holes. 
And so it happened that by 1877 the following appeared in the newspapers of the time
Of course the consequence of this, as we said earlier, was that the influence of the Earlsferry Town council and the Earlsferry and Elie Golf Clubs waned. No longer did the Town Council control all that happened on the golfing tract and the Town Council would have to give increasing precedence to the wealthier establishment on the east side of Ferry Road. A lot of the kudos perhaps of the GHC was gained by the pedigree and financial clout of most of its members. Initially it was agreed that the management of the golf course (both east and west of Ferry Road) would be in the hands of a joint committee and indeed George Forrester – an Earlsferry man – was appointed first greenkeeper of the new course.
Whilst Baird only leased the southern part of the Melon Park to Ketchen in 1873 he granted a further lease in 1899 over the area lying to the north of the Melon Park and it was this area that enabled the golf club to expand to 18th holes by 1902 as it is today.
As a result of the second litigation between Earlsferry and Sir Robert Malcolm a lease was taken by Earlsferry town Council over the golfing tract thereby as it were giving golf rather than farming the priority over the area.