The unbelievable reason for golf's name

Golf, a widely loved and very famous game, has a very, very hard to believe reason for being named golf.

In 1927, golf was invented, and was named ‘golf', meaning:'gentlemen only ladies forbidden'. It's amazing how ironic this name is once you read about the Royal and Ancient golf club. This club seeks to do away with gender discrimination by letting women play. Yet, Peter Dawson – whose job makes him both arbiter of the rules of the game and also responsible for the British Open – seemed scornful of the idea that his club should let women in. He explained to the Telegraph, sometimes men needed to be with men. In 2013's row over the Open going to Muirfield, another one of the men-only golf clubs in the SNP Utopia of fairness and justice, Dawson also dismissed the idea that men-only clubs should be banned from hosting the UK's biggest and oldest professional golfing championship. However, he has recently changed his mind enough at least to allow a vote on admitting women at his own club.

Today, men and women are notionally equal, but there is still room for reform. The feminist movement has opposed sex discrimination, fought to ensure greater participation by women in the new parliament, and had some success heightening awareness about violence against women. Still, many young men and women consider it acceptable to hit a woman or force her to have sex in certain circumstances. Women, especially as single parents and pensioners, are more vulnerable to poverty than men are, and the vast majority of single parents with dependent children are women.

Although you won't see women playing in this week's U.S. Open, technically the championship is open to both men and women with additional provisions for transgender golfers. In spite of this, however, the entry form assumes male golfers by its very language: "By his application, the player acknowledges that he is not entitled to remuneration of any kind for participation in the Championship."

The reason this technically "gender-neutral" major championship has male golfers only is that the U.S. Open application requires a USGA Handicap Index® of 1.4 or lower. (That's like shooting par on every hole from the longest tees.) More importantly, the Handicap Index of the applicant must be based on course ratings for male golfers!

Accordingly, if a top female golfer wants to qualify to play in the Open, she must post her scores for handicap purposes as if she was a male player. She must use the course ratings for male golfers from tees rated for male golfers, which are usually about 1,000 yards longer than tournament tees for professional women golfers.

Although there are many female recreational golfers that play better than recreational male golfers, at the very top of today's professional golf pyramid most female pros probably would not qualify for this week's men's U.S. Open. That's the reason you won't see women on the fairways at Merion next weekend and why the tournament is really just for men.

In the way of background: In 2003, Annika Sorenstam became the first modern-era female to play in a men's PGA Tour event. She received a sponsors' invitation to play in the Colonial Tournament in Fort Worth. She was at the top of her game. It was a highly publicized and historic event. But the Swede did not make the cut for the final rounds. Playing from the men's tees, she just did not have the length to play better than her male counterparts.

Sorenstam's golf attire from the Colonial now sits on display at the World Golf Hall of Fame Museum in St. Augustine, Fla., but she never again sought out head-to-head competition against men in a professional tournament. Instead, she is a driving force in promoting the success of the LPGA while pursuing golf course architecture and her golf instruction academy.