A story is told that a lady who lived in Parliament Close, Edinburgh, was wakened from her sleep one summer morning by a noise as of singing, when, going to the window to learn what was the matter, guess her surprise at seeing Jamie Balfour and some of his boon companions, evidently fresh from an orgie, singing “The King shall enjoy his own again” on their knees around King Charles’s statue. It used to be said that Balfour could run when he could not stand still, and the story is told that on one occasion, going home late from a festive night, he happened to tumble into the pit formed for the foundation of a house in St. James’s Square. A gentleman passing heard his wailing, and, going up to the spot, was entreated by Balfour to help him out. “What would be the use helping you out when you could not stand though you were out?” said the passer-by. Whereupon Jamie retorted, “Very true, perhaps, yet if you help me up I’ll run you to the Tron Kirk for a bottle of claret.” And he did; and having won the first bottle, Jamie exclaimed, “Well, ’nother race to Fortune’s for another bottle of claret,” and he won that one also.
In its ancient days the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews was great on fines in wine. It promoted conviviality on every possible occasion, and, indeed, one of the first of its minutes that are now discoverable says, under date 4th May 1766, “We, the Noblemen and Gentlemen subscribing, did this day agree to meet once every fortnight, by Eleven of the clock, at the Golf House, and to play a round of the links; to dine together at Bailie Glass’, and to pay each a shilling for his dinner--the absent as well as the present.” It was some two or three years after this that means were devised for augmenting the dinner wine through the various social delinquencies of members. Thus, on 4th September 1779, a resolution is passed as follows: “It is enacted that whoever shall be Captain of the Golf, and does not attend all the meetings to be appointed throughout the year, shall pay Two Pints of Claret for each meeting he shall be absent at, to be drunk at such meeting; but this regulation is not to take place if the Captain be not in Fife at the time.” Many years later, in 1818, the wine tax on absentees was applied to members generally, under interesting circumstances, as indicated in the terms of the resolution that was passed, which read: “The Club, taking into consideration that the meetings have of late been thinly attended by the Members residing in town, in consequence of several members giving parties on the ordinary days of meeting, and thereby preventing those who would otherwise give their presence at the Club, from attending them, Do Resolve, that in future such Members as shall invite any of their friends, Members of this Club, to dinner on the days of meeting, shall forfeit to the Club a Magnum of Claret for himself, and one bottle for each Member so detained by them, for each offence, and the Captain and Council appoint this Resolution to be immediately communicated to General Campbell.” On 16th September 1825 a minute is entered, “Which day the present Captain, having imposed on himself a fine of a Magnum of Claret for failure in public duty, imposed a similar fine on the old Captains present.” It is quite evident that in these rich old days the social side of golf was cultivated in a manner that makes the worthiest efforts in this direction in the twentieth century look mean in comparison.