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John Spottiswoode (1565 – November 26, 1639) was an Archbishop of St Andrews, Primate of All Scotland and historian of Scotland.
John Spottiswoode in 1632[]
Archbishop John Spottiswoode had carried on a rivalry against Lord Ramsay and his son Andrew over the sport of golf, in which Spottiswoode had always won for two straight years. However, due to his age, Spottiswoode only played golf occasionally, and usually had his men Foreman and Hannay to play for him.
On a Monday in 1634, Spottiswoode and his men Foreman and Hannay were challenged to another game of golf by Lord Ramsay and Andrew. This time, however, Ramsay and his son were armed with up-time titanium golf clubs and up-time golf balls and tees. Despite Foreman and Hannay being impressed by the new golf clubs and assuming they were likely to be beaten, Spottiswoode was not too worried. Also, Lord Ramsay and Andrew decided to wager on the outcome of the game. But as a churchman, Spottiswoode excused himself from the wager, moving away so he could remain officially unaware of it.
Spottiswoode had judged that Ramsay was taken with the power of his new equipment, and that neither Ramsay nor Andrew had any real sense of which club to use or how hard to swing. He was correct. On his first shot, Ramsay used the largest club in his bag (presumably a driver) and hit a powerful shot. Unfortunately, the first hole was just over 100 yards, so the ball completely overshot the hole, overshot the second hole, then hooked and went into the sea. Ramsay and Andrew proceeded to lose the round in spectacular fashion, as they were unable to adjust to their new clubs.
As for the wager, the Ramsays humiliatingly played golf in the nude as half of everyone in St Andrews watched them, though Spottiswoode relented after two holes because of the cold.