Nowadays millions of people either play or watch golf but have you ever considered the history of this fascinating game?
Today golf is played in almost every country in the world and the best players are household names watched by millions of people as they play in a series of annual tournaments at golf courses which frequently look as though they were painted as a film backdrop rather than carved from nature itself. Have you ever thought though about the history of this incredibly popular sport?
There are naturally a number of different versions of the history of golf as individuals and states want to stake their claim in the history books. However most historians of the sport are agreed that golf originated over one thousand years ago in Scotland.
In its earliest days what we today know as golf was nothing more than a pastime to while away the time for bored sheep herders who competed against one another by hitting stones with sticks to see who could get their stone into a rabbit burrow.
This game quickly spread however and started to attract much wider attention from the population at large eventually reaching all the way up to the very top of Scottish society with King James II and Mary Queen of Scots both reputed to have been very keen golfers in the 16th century.
It was perhaps only a question of time therefore before the game was formerly adopted as a national pastime and in the 17th century the first golf course was created at St. Andrews and not long after this the first rules for the game were drawn up and published in 1744.
Golf really began to take off however at the end of the 19th century when it crossed the Atlantic and several wonderful golf courses were created in the eastern United States including Pine Valley in New Jersey and Winged Foot in New York.
From here golf caught on amongst wealthier members of American society and the game grew very fast during the 20th century with perhaps the height of its expansion occurring during the 1920s.
Nowadays golf is played and followed by millions of people from every walk of life. Indeed, in the US alone some estimates put the number of regular golfers at over 30 million. This is not too bad for a game that was designed to amuse a few bored Scottish farmers.
