Prince Andrew becomes first member of Royal Family to tweet under his own name... but he is trolled within seconds The Queen's second son becomes first Royal to tweet under his own name Using Twitter handle @TheDukeOfYork, he signs tweets he wrote with '-AY' The 53-year-old's first message said: 'Welcome to my Twitter account' The prince - a keen golfer - follows golf courses in Norfolk and Scotland He quickly gains 5,000 followers - and plenty of abusive messages, too #GoonAndy!: The Duke of York, pictured here at Wimbledon, has become the first member of the Royal Family to open his own Twitter account The Duke of York has opened his own Twitter account - the first member of the Royal family to do so. He posted his first tweet this morning using the handle @TheDukeOfYork and wrote: 'Welcome to my Twitter account -AY'. The Queen's second son had hundreds of followers within seconds, some of them 'trolls' who sent him abusive messages over the social network. His biography on the social network says it is the 'Official Twitter account for The Duke of York' and notes that 'tweets from HRH are signed -AY', short for Andrew York. Within three hours of opening his account, which has an official 'blue tick' symbol to show it is genuine, the 53-year-old prince had 5,000 followers and was following 40 people on Twitter. Most of those the prince had chosen to follow were organisations or establishments that he had worked with before, but his personal interests were reflected, too, in his following of Hunstanton Golf Club in Norfolk and the Royal Liverpool Golf Club. The prince is a keen golfer with a low handicap, and became patron of the Hunstanton links after his father relinquished the role. One Twitter account he had yet to follow at the time of writing was that of his ex-wife Sarah, Duchess of York, who tweets using the handle @SarahThe Duchess. With 62,130 followers, she has a headstart on him in terms of follower numbers. While many people welcomed the fourth in line to the throne, others gave him a quick introduction to the less savoury side of online life, with some suggesting the -AY sign off made him sound like comedian Ali G. Others were more offensive, but the majority made jokes about the Duke of York needing 10,000 men to march up the hill - a reference to the nursery rhyme. Prince's first tweet: Some people suggested that by signing tweets with his initials he sounded like Ali G Personal interests: Prince Andrew, a keen golfer, is following two well-known golf clubs on Twitter One Twitter user, Sarah Delaney, sent the prince the message: 'I'd like to see some selfies and pictures of what you're having for your tea'. When the prince is not tweeting personally, tweets from his account will be written by members of his office. The second and third tweets on his account were not written by him and had links to photographs of the prince carrying out official duties. A spokesman for the prince said: 'The Duke has long been an early and enthusiastic adopter of new technology. He was in fact the first member of the British Royal Family to tweet on the British Monarchy (account) when he visited Tech City. The logical next step was to tweet individually. Hunstanton Golf Course on the north Norfolk coast is not far from the Queen's estate at Sandringham The Royal Liverpool Golf Club was one of the first handful of Twitter accounts the Duke of York chose to follow Asked about the derogatory tweets the prince had received, the spokesman added: 'The Duke is a champion of free speech, for him it's about telling people what he's doing.' Prince Andrew is the first member of the Royal Family that we know about to use Twitter personally - it has been suggested that some of the younger members may use the social network pseudonymously. There are several spoof accounts written by people posing as members of the Royal Family. Officially, the Queen and members of her family are represented on Twitter by the account @BritishMonarchy, while @ClarenceHouse covers the Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry. The prince, pictured here at St Andrew's Golf Course in Fife, Scotland, has a low, single-figure handicap Accounts being monitored by the Duke include entrepreneur Peter Jones, the BBC Dragons' Den star, Seamen's Hospital Society and the Royal Free Hospital in London. Pictures tweeted by his staff highlighted his visit today to the Black Country UTC (University Technical College) in Walsall, West Midlands. The trip coincides with the launch of the Duke of York Award for Technical Education by the Baker Dearing Educational Trust.