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History of Golf
Arguably golf’s
interesting origin began five centuries in the past. It is a historical fact
that due to the interference of golf with much more serious combat drills James
II of Scotland banned golf in an act of Parliament on March 6 in the year 1457.
There is general agreement among historians and golf fans alike that the Scots
were the first golfers who became somewhat addicted to the sport. However the
persons responsible for the invention of golf are open to debate. And debate
will ensue if you breech the subject with the right persons. It has
been suggested that bored sheepherders became quite exceptional at knocking
round shaped stones into rabbit holes with their wooden shepherd’s staffs.
Making a competitive game of the boredom seemed inevitable. After all women’s
lib was not yet even considered so that means the shepherds were men. Let’s face
another fact of history; men tend to be more of a competitive nature. Various
forms of golf were played as early as the fourteenth century. These games were
played in Holland, Belgium, France as well as in Scotland, thus the debate of
golf’s origin is rightly fueled.
There is
another historical fact that Scottish Baron, James VI, was the man who delivered
the game we know today as golf to the English. For many years the game was
played on severely rugged terrain, where no proper upkeep was required. In most
accounts golf was played with crudely cut holes in the ground where the earth
was reasonably flat.
It was a
group of Edinburgh golfers who first formed an organized club. In 1744 the
Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers was established. At this time in history
the first thirteen laws of golf were drawn up for an annual competition. This
first competition consisted of players from any part of Great Britain or
Ireland.
One of the
earliest golf clubs that were formed outside golf’s debatable native home of
Scotland was the Royal Blackheath Golf Club of England. Blackheath came into
existence in 1766 and the Old Manchester Golf Club was founded on the Kersal
Moor in 1818.
By the
late 1800’s the Royal Montreal Club and the Quebec Golf Club were to become the
first in North America. It wasn’t until 1888 that golf resurfaced in the United
States with more fervor than each prior surfacing. Even then it was a Scotsman,
John Reid, who first built a three-hole course in Yonkers New York. St. Andrews
Club of Yonkers was built in a thirty-acre site near to the original three-hole
course.
From the
hesitant and fitful start golf grew rapidly as the new national pastime in
America. Modern for its time the golf club, Shinnecock Hills was founded in 1891
and in the nine years left in that century more than one thousand prestigious
golf clubs opened in North America.
The
historical value of golf is as interesting as any part of our heritage.
Following the path that golf took to get from a shepherd’s field to the amazing
golf courses that dot our culture today it is no wonder golf remains a popular
pastime in all parts of the world.
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