Putter & Tweed

Hole 3 · Since 1870

The golf bag: from caddie carry to Sunday minimalism

1870s to today

A golf bag is how a player moves clubs around the course. It began around 1870 as a canvas tube with a strap. Today the family runs from minimalist Sunday bags to stand bags, cart bags and the big staff bags tour caddies carry.

A row of caddies at Baltusrol in the early 20th century, each holding a narrow canvas pencil bag
A row of caddies at Baltusrol in the early 20th century, each holding a narrow canvas pencil bag. Library of Congress, Bain News Service. Public domain. Source.

What it solved on the course

It carries the clubs, balls and tees, and it sets how much weight a player or caddie hauls. A stand bag props itself up on the turf, a Sunday bag strips back to the essentials, and a staff bag gives a caddie room for a tour player's kit.

History

For most of golf's history there was no bag. Players, and the first caddies, carried the clubs under their arms. The first recorded caddie carried for the future James VII of Scotland in Edinburgh in 1681, and by the 19th century the word meant someone who carried clubs for a golfer.

The bag arrived when the game grew. Tradition, as the Dutch Golf Museum tells it, credits the first one to a retired sailmaker in Britain around 1870. His name is lost. He made it from canvas tarpaulin with a leather strap, and it only needed to hold about seven clubs. Within ten years rough canvas bags were popular in Scotland because they made the caddie's job much lighter, and the first golf bag patent followed in 1890.

Those early bags were narrow tubes about three feet tall, with metal ends and an opening of roughly 4.4 inches. Golfers called them pencil bags, and they stayed in use until the 1930s. After the Second World War bags got roomier, with pockets for balls, gloves and tees. When battery-powered carts arrived in the 1950s and bag sales dipped, makers built cart bags that would not roll out of the cart.

The walking bag came back in the late 1970s. Rick Reimers, a California club pro, started experimenting with light nylon bags at a time when bags were heavy leather or vinyl. His company, Sun Mountain, released the Eclipse in 1986: the first lightweight bag with a built-in stand. Today's Sunday bag is the 1890s pencil bag again, which GOLF.com says is built to "hold your clubs, and take a beating."

1904 newspaper drawing of a man in a check suit with a slim golf bag of clubs
1904 newspaper drawing of a man in a check suit with a slim golf bag of clubs. The Tacoma Times, 1904 (Library of Congress, Chronicling America). Public domain. Source.

Who wore it best

  • Rick Reimers

    The California club pro who founded Sun Mountain. His 1986 Eclipse was the first lightweight golf bag with a built-in stand, the bag most walkers now carry.[7]

  • Ted Scott

    Scottie Scheffler's caddie. Golf Digest reported he earned $2.6 million in 2024, carrying the kind of staff bag the first caddies never had.[3]

How to use it now

  1. Choose a Sunday bag when you walk and want the lightest possible carry; let the clubs and a few balls be the whole kit.
  2. For a classic look, pick canvas or leather in navy, tan or forest green and keep the straps and hardware simple.
  3. If you ride or push a cart, a cart bag keeps the bag stable and leaves the stand legs at home.
  4. Match the bag to your shoes and glove rather than your whole outfit; one quiet color repeated looks intentional.

Where to buy

New

Vintage

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Sources

  1. Golf bag, Wikipedia. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
  2. Golf Bag Types and History, GOLF.com. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
  3. Caddie, Wikipedia. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
  4. Timeline 23: 1870 Introduction Golf Bag, Nederlands Golfmuseum. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
  5. A Brief History of Golf & the Golf Bag, Macdonald Leathergoods. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
  6. Golf Bag History, WoodGolfClubs.com. Retrieved 2026-09-29.
  7. Sun Mountain Sports, Wikipedia. Retrieved 2026-09-29.

Updated .