A Brief History of Golf
Today, golf players around the world can enjoy easy access to thousands of lush, green golf courses and lots of opportunities to watch players on TV. While it might seem like golf is not that old, the polar opposite is true. The history of the game of golf is long and storied, traversing much of northern Europe over several centuries. Keep reading to learn more about how golf was developed and became the game it’s known as today.
Early Forms of the Game
It is said that the first game that could be called “golf” was played by the Dutch in 1297. Players hit a leather ball with sticks, aiming for a distant target. Whoever reached the target with the fewest strokes or swings was the winner.
The game’s name may derive from Dutch “colf” or “kolf,” which referred to the club used to play it. In 1389, recognizing the popularity of the game with the club, the citizens of Haarlem, a Netherlands municipality, were offered a field called “De Baen” (“the course”) to play games like “colf.” Over the next few centuries, this game remained popular amongst the Dutch, who even played it on the ice during winter!
A Scottish Invention
Despite all this, the game we recognize today as “golf” is a strictly Scottish creation. The Scots language altered the Dutch “colf” into “gowf,” which morphed over time into the English “golf.” The first time that any Scottish historical records mention golf is in a 1457 Act of the Scottish Parliament, where “gowf” was prohibited by King James II because it was too distracting.
However, Mary, Queen of Scots, famously played “golf,” despite it being considered unladylike, and other members of the government and the royal courts continued to play the game, although not on the Sabbath day.
The First Golf Courses
The oldest provable course is “The Old Links” in Musselburgh, a large settlement in East Lothian, Scotland. Today, Musselburgh Links remains a playable 9-hole golf course that attracts a plethora of tourists every year.
The Old Course at St Andrews (“the Old Lady”) is another well-known golf course, which also attracts many golf enthusiasts each year. This links course dates to the 16th century, and it’s where the game was modified to its current 18-hole format in 1764, a reduction from its historical 22 holes.
Achieving Popularity
During the 19th century, golf finally found its footing as a popular game played in England and the United States. Part of its appeal is due to the fact that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert built their famous Balmoral Castle up in the Scottish Highlands in the mid-19th century. Once trains were capable of reaching Scotland, English players made their way up to the courses as well.
The “gutty” ball was developed around this time, which further revolutionized the game. Instead of using a leather ball full of feathers, players could use a mass-produced ball made from “gutta-percha,” which was a latex substance tapped from the tree of the same name. Golf courses began to proliferate around the British Isles, going from 12 courses in 1880 to over 1,000 courses by the beginning of World War I.
In the United States, golf was played by early pioneers during the 1700s, and the South Carolina Golf Club was created in 1787. The golf boom in England in the 1800s had a heavy influence on the development of golf here as well, resulting in 267 American golf clubs by 1910. The United States Golf Association (USGA) was formed in New York City during the 1890s by several smaller clubs. Golf exploded over the course of the 20th century and remains incredibly popular to this day.
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