THE Solheim Cup, the women’s equivalent of the Ryder Cup, is generally recognised as one of the most important golf tournaments in the world. It has been played three times in Scotland since its foundation in 1990, and on each occasion, Europe has won.

The top women professional golfers now thankfully get the lucrative rewards they deserve, though still not as much as their male counterparts. The prizes have come a long way, however, from the first recorded women’s golf tournament when the winner received a fishing creel and two silk handkerchiefs from Barcelona.

It was held in Scotland, of course, yet another example of this nation’s pioneering efforts in the sport we gave the world.

In this week 214 years ago, the first recorded golf tournament organised for women took place on Musselburgh Links which the Guinness Book Of World Records recognises as the oldest golf course in the world. In the first week of January 1811 – the exact date is disputed – some 55 local women, all of them apparently fishwives, played against each other on the Links course, then having just seven holes.

We do not know how many rounds they played, and we have no record of the order of play or the scores, though presumably it was the traditional sort of tournament with the lowest scorer declared as the winner. Here is the saddest aspect of the story – try as I might, I have to admit defeat in the quest to find the name of the winner.

That first women’s tournament was largely the work of Musselburgh Golf Club, later to become Royal Musselburgh, which gave the prizes. The club’s minutes for December 1810, stated: “The club resolves to present by subscription a new Creel & Skull to the best female golfer who plays in on the annual occasion on January 1 next, old style, (January 12 new), to be intimated to the fish ladies by the officer of the club.

“Two of the best Barcelona silk handkerchiefs, to be added to the above premium of the Creel.”

Fish Ladies were a vital part of industry and society in East Lothian at that time. As the name suggests, they were usually the wives of fishermen but they also played a full part in the fishing industry, distributing the catches from the various harbours, usually carrying their fish in creels which were handwoven baskets.

Musselburgh Links Ladies Club states on its website: “This was a strangely enlightened move for the time. Local fishwives were invited to compete in a tournament and to ensure a bumper entry from the hard-working women of the fishing community, a brand new creel was also donated as a prize.”

It was not, however, the first time women had played on Musselburgh Links. Mary, Queen of Scots is said to have played there and elsewhere in Scotland during her reign in the 1560s, and legend has it that she played a round against her lifelong friend Mary Seton – one of the Four Marys who accompanied the child Queen to France – who lived at Seton House not far from Musselburgh Links, and having lost, the Queen gave Mary Seton a necklace.

At any rate, Queen Mary’s enemies condemned her for playing golf or “pall mall” at Seton House, after the assassination of her husband, Henry, Lord Darnley, in February 1567.

Women definitely played golf in the Lothians in the 18th century.

That excellent website scottishgolfhistory.org reports: “A few years ago, a new first definitive reference to women playing golf has been discovered in the Caledonian Mercury newspaper. On April 24, 1738, two married women are reported to have played a match on Bruntsfield Links in Edinburgh, with their husbands acting as caddies.

“The Edinburgh paper reported that the match attracted quite a crowd and gambling. The women are complimented on their ‘dexterity’ in holing out as well as how manfully they ‘tilted’ the balls. The event was won by the ‘charming Sally’, though other than her first name, her identity is not known.

“This story was also reported in newspapers in London, Pennsylvania and Carolina, but, surprisingly, went unnoticed for almost 300 years. This contemporary story makes ‘charming Sally’ the first woman ‘named’ golfer, though known only by her first name.”

There is an unimpeachable source for women playing at Musselburgh some years before that inaugural tournament in 1811.

The famous theologian the Rev Alexander “Jupiter” Carlyle was a local minister at the end of the 18th century. In his contribution to the Statistical Account of 1791-92 he wrote of Musselburgh fishwives: “As they do the work of men and their strength and activities is equal to their work, their amusements are also of the masculine kind. On holidays, they frequently play at golf, and on Shrove Tuesday, there is a standing match at football between the married and unmarried women at which the former are always the victors.”

Musselburgh Links has a huge and often uncredited role in the history of golf. The written evidence begins a century after Mary, Queen of Scots, apparently played there.

East Lothian Council’s website for the Links course states: “Authenticating the record is the documentary evidence found in the account book of Sir John Foulis of Ravelston. Among many of his entries relating to golf, the following dated March 2. 1672 validates Musselburgh Links’ record:

‘March 2, 1672 – For 3 golfe balls 0 152 0

‘Lost at golfe at Musselburgh wt Gosfoord, Lyon etc, 3 05 0

‘For a horse htyre thither, 0 18 0

“This passage is referenced in the The Golf Book Of East Lothian, compiled and documented by John Kerr, M.A, FRSE, FSAScot, the minister of Dirleton, published in 1896.”

The Links was made up to a nine-hole course in 1870, just in time for the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, then based at Musselburgh, to play its part in the agreement between itself, Prestwick Golf Club and The Royal And Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews to host the Open Championship – first held in 1860 at Prestwick and won by Willie Park Sr from Wallyford near Musselburgh – in rotation.

Thus it was that Musselburgh Links hosted the Open six times between 1874 and 1889.

Those Opens and that first women’s tournament confirm the Links course as a national treasure.