History of golf
The origins of golf are unclear and much debated. However, it is generally accepted that modern golf developed in Scotland from the Middle Ages onwards. The game did not find international popularity until the late 19th century, when it spread into the rest of the United Kingdom and then to the British Empire and the United States.
Origins
Netherlandish precursors
A golf-like game is apocryphally recorded as taking place on February 26, 1297, in Loenen aan de Vecht, where the Dutch played a game with a stick and leather ball. The winner was whoever hit the ball with the fewest strokes into a target several hundred yards away. Some scholars argue that this game of putting a small ball in a hole in the ground using golf clubs was also played in 17th-century Netherlands and that this predates the game in Scotland.There are also other reports of earlier accounts of a golf-like game from continental Europe.
File:Bruges Public Library Manuscript 251 folio 149r detail golf.jpg|thumb|This scene in the margins of a late 13th-century manuscript depicts a game with clubs and a ball, possibly the game of kolf referred to by Jacob van Maerlant. It is considered to be the earliest known depiction of a golf-like game.
In the 1261 Middle Dutch manuscript of the Flemish poet Jacob van Maerlant's Boeck Merlijn mention is made of a ball game "mit ener coluen". This is the earliest known mention in the Dutch language of the game of colf/kolf as played in the Low Countries.
In 1360, the council of Brussels banned the game of colf: "wie metlven tsolt es om twintich scell' oft op hare overste cleet".
In 1387, the regent of the county of Holland, Zeeland and Hainaut, Albrecht of Bavaria, sealed a charter for the city of Brielle, in which it was forbidden to play any game for money. One of the exceptions to this ordinance was "den bal mitter colven te slaen buten der veste". Two years later, in 1389, the regent Albrecht offered the citizens of Haarlem a field called "De Baen" to be used exclusively for playing games – especially colf – because these were too dangerous within the city walls.
A game similar to modern day golf features in a book of hours from 1540, which has, based on this association, acquired the name of the Golf Book. It was illustrated by a Flemish artist called Simon Bening.
In 1597, the crew of Willem Barentsz played "colf" during their stay at Nova Zembla, as recorded by Gerrit de Veer in his diary:
In December 1650, the settlers of Fort Orange played the first recorded round of kolf in America. The Dutch settlers played kolf year round. During the spring, summer and fall it was played in fields. In the winter it was played on ice with the same rules. Then on December 10, 1659, the ruler passed an ordinance against playing golf in the streets of the same city.
Early golf in Scotland
The modern game of golf is generally considered to be a Scottish invention. A spokesman for The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, one of the oldest Scottish golf organisations, said "Stick and ball games have been around for many centuries, but golf as we know it today, played over 18 holes, clearly originated in Scotland." The word golf, or in Scots gowf , is usually thought to be a Scots alteration of Dutch "colf" or "colve" meaning "stick, "club", "bat", itself related to the Proto-Germanic language *kulth- as found in Old Norse kolfr meaning "bell clapper", and the German Kolben meaning "mace or club". The Dutch term Kolven refers to a related sport where the lowest number of strokes needed to hit a ball with a mallet into a hole determines the winner; according to the "Le grand dictionnaire françois-flamen" printed 1643 is stated the Dutch term to Flemish: "Kolf, zest Kolve; Kolfdrager, Sergeant; Kolf, Kolp, Goulfe."The first documented mention of golf in Scotland appears in a 1457 Act of the Scottish Parliament, an edict issued by King James II of Scotland prohibiting the playing of the games of gowf and futball as these were a distraction from archery practice for military purposes. Bans were again imposed in Acts of 1471 and 1491, with golf being described as "an unprofitable sport". Golf was banned again by parliament under King James IV of Scotland, but golf clubs and balls were bought for him in 1502 when he was visiting Perth, and on subsequent occasions when he was in St Andrews and Edinburgh.
In March 1561, Thomas Eduein of Stirling attacked his neighbours with a golf club. Mary, Queen of Scots played golf, and she was accused of playing "pell-mell and golf" at Seton Palace after her husband Lord Darnley was murdered in 1567, when she ought to have been in solemn mourning. George Buchanan wrote that she had been following her "usual amusements in the adjoining fields that were plainly not adapted to women".
An entry in the Town Council Minutes of Edinburgh for 19 April 1592 includes golf in a list of pursuits to be avoided on the Sabbath. On 13 February 1593 the Duke of Lennox and Sir James Sandilands decided to go down to Leith to play golf. On the way they met members of the Graham family who were feuding with Sandilands, and fought with pistols instead.
The account book of lawyer Sir John Foulis of Ravelston records that he played golf at Musselburgh Links on 2 March 1672, and this has been accepted as proving that The Old Links, Musselburgh, is the oldest playing golf course in the world. There is also a story that Mary, Queen of Scots played there in 1567.
James VII of Scotland, while still Duke of Albany, was said to have played the first international golf contest in 1681 when he participated in a game against two English courtiers as part of a bet over rights to claim the game for Scotland or England. His teammate was said to be one John Paterson, who received as payment, enough money to build a mansion on the area of Edinburgh now known as Golfers Land.
Instructions, golf club rules and competitions
The earliest known instructions for playing golf have been found in the diary of Thomas Kincaid, a medical student who played on the course at Bruntsfield Links, near Edinburgh University, and at Leith Links. His notes include his views on an early handicap system. In his entry for 20 January 1687 he noted how "After dinner I went out to the Golve", and described his Golf stroke:The oldest surviving rules of golf were written in 1744 for the Company of Gentlemen Golfers, later renamed The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, which played at Leith Links. Their "Articles and Laws in Playing at Golf, now preserved in the National Library of Scotland, became known as the Leith Rules and the document supports the club's claim to be the oldest golf club, though an almanac published about a century later is the first record of a rival claim that The Royal Burgess Golfing Society had been set up in 1735. The instructions in the Leith Rules formed the basis for all subsequent codes, for example requiring that "Your Tee must be upon the ground" and "You are not to change the Ball which you strike off the Tee".
The 1744 competition for the Gentlemen Golfers' Competition for the Silver Club, a trophy in the form of a silver golf club provided as sponsorship by Edinburgh Town Council, was won by surgeon John Rattray, who was required to attach to the trophy a silver ball engraved with his name, beginning a long tradition. Rattray joined the Jacobite Rising of 1745 and as a result was imprisoned in Inverness, but was saved from being hanged by the pleading of his fellow golfer Duncan Forbes of Culloden, Lord President of the Court of Session. Rattray was released in 1747, and won the Silver Club three times in total.
Spread
Early excursions
In 1603, James VI of Scotland succeeded to the throne of England. His son, the Prince of Wales and his courtiers played golf at Blackheath, London, from which the Royal Blackheath Golf Club traces its origins. There is evidence that Scottish soldiers, expatriates and immigrants took the game to British colonies and elsewhere during the 18th and early 19th centuries. In the early 1770s, the first golf course in Africa was built on Bunce Island in Sierra Leone by British slave traders. The Royal Calcutta Golf Club, the Mauritius Gymkhana Club and the club at Pau in south western France are notable reminders of these excursions and are the oldest golf clubs outside of the British Isles. The Pau Golf Club is the oldest in continental Europe. However, it was not until the late 19th century that Golf became more widely popular outside of its Scottish home.The late 19th-century boom
In the 1850s, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert built Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands.The railways came to St Andrews in 1852. By the 1860s, there were fast and regular services from London to Edinburgh. The royal enthusiasm for Scotland, the much improved transport links and the writings of Sir Walter Scott caused a boom for tourism in Scotland and a wider interest in Scottish history and culture outside of the country. This period also coincided with the development of the Gutty; a golf ball made of Gutta Percha which was cheaper to mass-produce, more durable and more consistent in quality and performance than the feather-filled leather balls used previously. Golf began to spread across the rest of the British Isles. In 1864, the golf course at the resort of Westward Ho! became the first new club in England since Blackheath, and the following year London Scottish Golf Club was founded on Wimbledon Common. In 1880 England had 12 courses, rising to 50 in 1887 and over 1000 by 1914. The game in England had progressed sufficiently by 1890 to produce its first English-born Open Champion, John Ball. The game also spread further across the empire. By the 1880s, golf clubs had been established in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa. Singapore followed in 1891. Courses were also established in several continental European resorts for the benefit of British visitors.