Wednesday, May 18, 2022
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Health
    • Home Improvement
    • Living
  • News
    • Politics
    • Science
    • Science
    • Streaming
    • Sports
  • Digital Marketing
    • SEO
    • White Hat SEO
    • Blogging
    • Link Building
    • SEO
    • Social Media Marketing
  • Travel Guides
  • Web Hosting
CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Home Articles

What Is The History Of Golf

Allen Brown by Allen Brown
March 16, 2022
in Articles
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
man playing golf

Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Golf stands as one of the most unique and prestigious sports in the world. As you’d expect, it has a very long and rich history that dwarfs many other sports. Today we’re learning all about golf and how it came to be.

Golf has a long history, so we’re touching on the main points. If you’re educating yourself about golf, you can find more resources and even product recommendations at https://bettergolfonline.com/.

  • The Precursor To Golf
  • Golf In Scotland
  • Golf Takes Over The World
  • Later Golfing Developments
    • Conclusion

The Precursor To Golf

With a sport as old as golf, there’s no hard and fast moment where it came to be. Instead, it came from a gradual process where older sports had rule/equipment changes, becoming more like the golf we know today.

So, with that in mind, we can find a very similar sport in The Netherlands – kolf. Kolf, sometimes kolven, was a Dutch game played in the 1200s. To play, players hit a leather ball with a stick, often on ice. The winner was the player who could get close to a target with the fewest hits. Think of it as a combination of golf and curling.

We know that kolf made it to America and developed through the 1500s as its own sport. Kolf seems to be where we get the word golf from, meaning club in Dutch. In the Netherlands and Scotland, golf was called goff or gowf.

Golf In Scotland

Golf is widely thought of as a Scottish sport – and for good reason. While golf may have links to the Dutch kolf, the sport was formalized and mainstreamed by the Scottish. By the 1600s, the Scottish were playing golf at courses called links, and the first rules were written down by Thomas Kincaid, a golfer who studied at Edinburgh.

Two big developments from Kincaid’s diary full of rules were the lack of handicap and his preference for harder leather balls.

Edinburgh is the historical home of golf. After Kincaid, the local university’s Company of Gentlemen Golfers wrote the first ruleset. These rules establish most aspects of golf, including rules against disrupting players.

The first 18-hole course was played in 1764 at St. Andrews, after which it spread through British territory. Since many scholars and aristocrats studied in Edinburgh, it became a sport of the elite.

In 1848, St. Andrews alumni Robert Adams Paterson invented gutta-percha golf balls that replaced the hard leather balls that had been used.

Golf Takes Over The World

As golf spread throughout the 1700s and 1800s, it wasn’t just restricted to the British isles. While the first English golf club was established – the Royal Blackheath Golf Club – the sport made it to India with the Royal Calcutta Golf Club by 1829.

Like kolf, golf made its way to American colonies too. In 1894, American golf regulated itself by establishing the United States Golf Association – the USGA.

Golf continued to spread throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, forming the Tokyo Golf Club in Japan in 1913. The modern golf tee was only invented in 1899.

In the 1900s, the first raft of golfing celebrities appeared. While many started out being English, couple John and Elizabeth Reed are often credited for mainstreaming golf in the USA. They established two clubs in New York, one of which opened golfing up to women.

In 1916, a man called James Barber invented and monetized the first-ever mini-golf course.  The PGA Tour was then invented in 1929, mainly based in Texas and Florida. It didn’t become a popular institution nationwide until after World War II.

Later Golfing Developments

With the main sport established, many other ideas and equipment have been invented since the 1930s.

This started with a man called Phil Young, an MIT graduate who X-rayed his ball and discovered the rubber inside was off-center. In response, he started a company dedicated to making quality balls and called it Titleist.

Two years later in 1932, J.K. Wadley invents the golf cart by converting a motorized cart for on-course driving.

Callaway started in 1982 and Nike moved into producing all kinds of golfing equipment in 1984.

The rise of modern golfing stars in the ‘90s humanized golf, showing that it can be a game for the common person too.

Conclusion

That’s the history of golf, from the frozen-over rivers of The Netherlands to the sunbaked courses of America. We even have fake golf that has been played through devices like the Nintendo Wii or, more recently, virtual reality. These show that golf is here to stay and will keep evolving into the future.

READ NEXT

pair of white sneakers beside vacuum cleaner

Things to consider before purchasing Carpet Extractor 

by Allen Brown
May 16, 2022
0

Getting fascinated with decorating the personal or commercial space is somewhat very special to every individual. We think of several...

Arrivals.

How to make long flights less exhausting

by Allen Brown
May 12, 2022
0

Can't go to bed. Joints are sore. The food was bad, too. This stinks, too! And it was hot... Now...

man in white t-shirt sitting on barber chair

 The Many Benefits Of Custom Beard Oil Boxes

by Allen Brown
May 10, 2022
0

Are you fed up with the same old drab packaging that beard oils come in? Your search for a more...

gray table with chair near trees

5 Benefits Of Composite Decking

by Allen Brown
May 10, 2022
0

Decking can be used as an outdoor entertainment area, a front porch, for additional storage, or as a platform for...

black flat screen computer monitor

how to make an enterprise video maker you need online

by Allen Brown
May 17, 2022
0

Business movies can assist your business enterprise higher selling its products, providing an explanation for difficult concepts, hooking up with...

side view of man's face

What Are The Top Treatment Solutions For Hearing Issues? Find Out Here

by Allen Brown
May 9, 2022
0

Millions of people suffer from some form of hearing loss, but many of them don't know that there are treatments...

Recent Posts

woman in black and yellow shirt sitting on chair

How to enrol into an online Business School

May 17, 2022
woman face close-up photography

Why You Should Consider Virgin Hair Bundles

May 17, 2022
woman in gray long sleeve shirt sitting beside boy in orange crew neck shirt

How Your Child will Benefit from Secondary Math Tuition

May 17, 2022
person holding white iphone 5

What are ways to run pokemon go spoofer properly

May 17, 2022
2 boys in red shirt sitting on yellow metal bar

Tips to Hire High-Quality Moving Services 

May 17, 2022
pair of white sneakers beside vacuum cleaner

Things to consider before purchasing Carpet Extractor 

May 16, 2022
man in black zip up jacket standing near white wall

Tips on Hunting for Good Neighborhoods to Move Into

May 17, 2022
black light post

Things To Consider Before Moving To A New Neighborhood Or City

May 17, 2022

Copyright © 2019-2021 Zone Desire.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Advertise

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Politics
    • Business
    • World
    • Science
  • Entertainment
    • Gaming
    • Music
    • Movie
    • Sports
  • Tech
    • Apps
    • Gear
    • Mobile
    • Startup
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Fashion
    • Health
    • Travel
  • About Us
  • Advertise with us

Copyright © 2019-2021 Zone Desire.