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A Good Golf Bag Is A Beautiful Thing
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Some have legs that fold out when...
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Slugger Or Pitcher
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During the last NLCS, I asked Brandon Backe of the Astros what the hardest thing was for him in making the conversion from outfielder to pitcher in the minors. He said it was "not playing every day." That is why I...
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The History of Golf
Golf as we know it was invented in Scotland, but its roots
stretches back into Flanders. The first record of "Chole" is
from 1353 and portrays a something that could be described as a
mix between hockey and golf played in Flanders (Belgium). The
game was preferably played on ice and the players used sticks
curved at the bottom to move balls from starting point to finish
point. Since Scottish and Dutch merchants traveled a lot between
the two regions and traded with each other, the game played in
Flanders soon spread to Scotland where it developed on the
grassy Scottish fields and soon ceased to be a winter game. It
was the Scots that started to dig holes in the ground instead of
simply selecting a finishing point. Digging a hole in the Dutch
ice had naturally not been a good idea.
Even though the game changed a great deal after being introduced
in Scotland, the balls where still often imported from Flanders.
The more patriotic Scots claim that golf instead evolved from
different stick-and-ball games that we know were played all over
the British Isles as early as the Middle Ages. These games were
inspired by a stick-and-ball game introduced to the British
Isles by the Romans.
The first record of the term golf is from 1457 when King James
II of Scotland outlawed golf as well as soccer, since the games
were so popular that they made the king's archers skip their
practice and play golf and soccer instead. James III re-issued
this law in 1471, and James IV followed in his footsteps with a
new ban in 1491. Golf did however continue its development in
Scotland despite the ban. Even during these early days, all the
essential parts of golf had already been invented. The players
used a club to swing a ball into a hole in the ground. The
player that managed to get the ball into the hole using the
least amount of strokes won.
The word gold is derived from the Old Scots words "goff" or
"glove", and these words in turn derive from "kolf" or "kolve",
medieval Dutch
words that simply meant club. When the words kolf
and kolve were imported to Scottland, the old Scottish dialect
transformed the letter K into G, and the game was called Goff,
Glove, Golve and Gowl. During the 16th century, the word Golf
became established.
The ban on golf had been issued in a time when Scotland was
preparing to defend itself from the English. In 1502, the Treaty
of Glasgow made it possible for James I of England (King James
IV) to lift the ban. He even began to play himself and turned
into a keen golf enthusiast. The game became highly fashionable
and its popularity spread over the British Isles during the 16th
century, partly thanks to King Charles I who loved to play golf.
Mary Queen of Scots had French roots and she introduced the game
to the French while she attended school in France. The word
"caddie" actually steams from a French word - cadet. The cadets
of the French Military helped Mary Queen of Scots when she
played golf.
Two of the oldest golf courses in the world are Leith and the
Old Links. Leith is located close to Edinburgh and the Old Links
is found at Musselburgh. When King Charles I received the news
about the Irish rebellion in 1641 he was actually standing at
Leith. The Old Links was founded in 1672. The first
international golf match took place at Leith in 1682. The Duke
of York and George Patterson (playing for Scotland) managed to
beat two English players. Strangely enough, it wasn't until 1744
that the first known golf rules were written down and published
in Edinburgh.
About the author:
The game of golf has of course changed a lot over the years that
it has been played and more and more technology is involved in
and surrounding the game. An example among many of such
technologies that has affected the experience of golf is golf
carts. All golf carts from the most basic ones to more elaborate
models such as the
Hummer golf cart has made it easier to enjoy golf regardless
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