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 apocryphallyOorsprong van de verwarring, KNKB WebmuseumGeert & Sara Nijs, 1297, Loenn aan de Vecht: Facts or fairy tale?, 2009 September Golfika no. 4 (Magazine of the European Association of Golf Historians and Collectors) 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.:: The World-Wide Encyclopedia, 1896, "Golf" There are also other reports of earlier accounts of a golf-like game from continental Europe.golf :: Scots as inventors: a popular fallacy - Britannica Online Encyclopedia
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" (with a colf/kolf [club]). This is the earliest known mention in the Dutch language of the game of colf/kolf as played in the Low Countries.Jacob van Maerlant, Boeck Merlijn, 1261Geert & Sara Nijs, 750 Years 'Mit ener coluen', 2011 April Golfika no. 7 (Magazine of the European Association of Golf Historians and Collectors)
In 1360, the council of Brussels banned the game of colf: "wie metlven tsolt es om twintich scell' oft op hare overste cleet" (he who plays at colf pays a fine of 20 shillings or his overcoat will be confiscated).Jacques Temmerman, Golf & Kolf, zeven eeuwen geschiedenis, 1993
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" (to play the ball with a club outside the town walls).Steven J. van Hengel, Early Golf, 1982 Two years later, in 1389, the regent Albrecht offered the citizens of Haarlem a field called "De Baen" (the course) to be used exclusively for playing games – especially colf – because these were too dangerous within the city walls.Robin Bargmann, Serendipity of Early Golf, 2010
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 (near present-day Albany, New York) played the first recorded round of kolf (golf) 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 [gʌuf], 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".Online Etymology Dictionary 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."Le grand dictionnaire françois-flamen, Volumes 1-2 under "KOL", no page given This transition from early stick and ball games to the structured 18-hole format we see today was a central theme in the historical development of the sport's professional upbringing.
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.Golf in Scotland 1457-1744- National Library of Scotland
In March 1561, Thomas Eduein of Stirling attacked his neighbours with a golf club.Robert Renwick, Extracts from the records of the Burgh of Stirling, 1 (Glasgow, 1887), p. 78 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.Joseph Bain, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1563-1603, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1900), p. 558, the original has "palmall and goif." George Buchanan wrote that she had been following her "usual amusements in the adjoining fields that were plainly not adapted to women".James Aikman, History of Scotland of George Buchanan, vol. 2 (Glasgow, 1827), pp. 497-8.
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.Marguerite Wood (ed.), Extracts From The Records Of The Burgh Of Edinburgh (Oliver and Boyd, 1927), p. 63. 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.Annie Cameron, Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 49.
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.Our History, Royal Blackheath Golf Club 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.David Hancock, Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735-1785, Cambridge University Press, p. 1-2David Olusoga, Black and British - A Forgotten History , Macmillan, p. 181 The Royal Calcutta Golf Club (1829),History of the Royal Calcutta Golf Club Royal Calcutta Golf Club website the Mauritius Gymkhana Club (1844) and the club at Pau (1856)History of the club Pau Golf Club website 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 History of Balmoral , Balmoral Castle official website