The Swilcan Burn at the Old Course at St Andrews was much wider in the 18th and 19th centuries, with its banks covered with long sea grass. Its course meandered through the years until around 1890, when it was reshaped by human hands to give it its distinctive vertical walled, narrow look. The burn was used by women to wash clothes and sheets, who then hung the clothes on gorse bushes to dry. In 1851 a new rule was introduced: “When a ball lies on clothes, or within one club length of a washing tub, the clothes may be drawn from under the ball and the tub removed.” The rule was changed in 1888 to read: “When a ball lies on clothes, the ball may be lifted and dropped behind, without penalty.”
William Linskill described his experiences on the Links around 1873: “There were no golfers about at that very early hour, but a few folk would be beating carpets on the grass to the north of Gibson Place (there was no road there then), and a few hefty women and ‘sonsie lassies’ would be washing clothes at the Swilcan Burn, and laying them out on the grass to bleach or spreading them over the luxuriant whins by the Ladies’ Putting Green. Woe betide any luckless golfer who ventured to strike a ball on to those ladies’ washings; their language was plain, loud and sultry.”
