The World Scientific Congress of Golf began as an idea in St Andrews, Scotland in 1987. John Scott, a member of the faculty administering the University of St Andrews Physical Education degree, looked for published research on golf science to give students ideas for their final year projects. He found a lot of articles about the history of golf but very few about the science of golf. He approach the head of the PE program, Martin Farrally, with the idea of putting on a conference about Science and Golf. Martin spoke with the R&A about supporting such an event and was put in touch with the technical director, Alastair Cochran. They were able to acquire the funding necessary and in 1990 hosted the first “Science and Golf” conference the week before the Open Cahmpionship, with around 300 attendees and speakers from all over the world.
With momentum behind them from a successful conference, Alastair Cochran and Martin Farrally, joined by Frank Thomas (technical director of the USGA) established the World Scientific Congress of Golf Trust to bring together researchers, professionals, and interested golfers in the areas of the Golfer, the Golf Course, and Equipment and Technology. The goal of the meetings was and remains to present the latest research on these areas to a wide range of researchers, industry representatives and golfers. Conferences were held every four years in St. Andrews, Scotland (1990, 1994, 1998, 2002) with interim (smaller) conferences held in Japan (1992), Ireland (1996) and the USA (2001). Alastair and Martin have kindly donated all records of the organization of the conferences from 1990 to 2002 to the University of St Andrews Library where they are kept in the archives. They are available to anyone in future wanting to access them.
In the mid 2000s the Trust in St Andrews was starting to wind down and Debbie Crews took the organization to Arizona, USA and created a new LLC with the name “World Scientific Congress of Golf”. Many of the board members in St Andrews assisted in this transition to its new home. Debbie remained chairman of the board for close to 15 years and oversaw further conferences in the USA (2008, 2012), Australia (2014), St Andrews (2016) and Canada (2018). In the summer of 2018, Debbie decided to step down and asked a few new members to join the board.
The current board took over the responsibility for the organization just before the 2018 conference and created a new not-for-profit organization called “Golf Science”. The 10th WSCG was held in 2022 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA. WSCG XI was held in Loughborough, UK in July 2024. We are currently looking for potential hosts for the 12th WSCG in 2026 or 2027.