The question is a fair one: why did I write THE OPEN?
The answer is not a single moment of inspiration, but something that developed over time, rooted in a long and growing fascination with the rich history of golf.
I came to the game in my early twenties, and not long after, I began reading its history. What started as curiosity gradually became something more. Over the years, I built a personal library of hundreds of books, covering everything from the origins of the game, to antique clubs and balls, to the lives of its earliest players.
Again and again, one name surfaced: Allan Robertson.
The deeper I read, the more I returned to his story and his influence on the game. And as is often the case in history, the full measure of that influence only became clear after his death.
Which led me to a larger question: why is he largely unknown today?
More broadly, why do the most important figures of the past fade from memory? Even in a sport that values tradition, names once central to the game gradually recede, like photographs left too long in the light.
It raises an uncomfortable possibility. If time can dim the legacy of earlier generations, what will remain of today’s icons in a hundred years?
This question became one of the foundations of THE OPEN.
But history alone was not enough. I wanted to tell a story.
From the beginning, I saw the novel as a kind of literary time machine. One that would carry readers across centuries, into the formative moments of golf. Not simply to recount what happened, but to imagine what it felt like to live through those times.
In writing it, I sought to bring the past into sharper focus. To give voice to the players, craftsmen, and caddies who shaped the game long before it was formalized. Figures like John Rattray and Allan Robertson are not widely known today, yet their influence endures in ways most golfers never see.
Their stories reveal something essential: while the world changes, human nature does not.
The rivalries, ambitions, risks, and loyalties that defined their lives remain familiar to us now.
Closing Reflection
The story of golf did not begin with championships. It began with people.
Before leaderboards and titles, there were individuals whose skill, labor, and decisions shaped the game in its earliest form. Remembering them is more than an act of historical interest, it is a way of understanding how the game came to matter.
Where history records what happened, fiction allows us to explore what it may have felt like.
That, ultimately, is why I wrote THE OPEN.