Golf - man's natural inclination to swipe

A. C. de Silva

GOLF: Scots are ada, ant at having being the originators of two items that have been objects of worldwide addiction - golf and scotch whisky!

W. G. Simpson says that hitting stones with a stick is almost instinctive to man.

Apparently, so the story goes, a shepherd was amusing himself, lofting pebbles with his crook, when accidentally, one of the pebbles happened to drop into a rabbit-hole. The shepherd then consciously tried to repeat his `hole-in-one' - not very successfully. This afforded much amusement to his friend, who challenged him to get the pebble into the burrow again.

A counter-challenge produced the first golf match on record!

Some historians claim that ancient Rome had a popular game called `paganica' which is probably the forerunner to modern golf. The Romans must have carried the game into Europe while on their marching campaigns. Still another suggestion is that the game is similar to `hurley', the ancient Celtic ancestor of hockey.

The Dutch claimed that the word `golf' itself emanates from the German/Dutch word `Kolbe' or `Kolf' - a hitting game played on ice, either on frozen lakes or canals in winter or on a paved court known as `Kolf Bann'.

Tried

The contestants tried, with a minimum number of strokes, to hit two sticks placed at opposing ends of the `court'. However, the ball was the size of a medium-sized grapefruit, and weight about 2 lubs.

Golf is doubtless an evolution in a natural way of some of these early sports. The earliest existing reference to the game is Scottish in origin and strangely enough, talks more against the game than for it. In 1457, the Scottish Parliament voiced the opinion that the playing of golf was gravely interfering with the more important pursuit of archery; and ordained that golf be "utterly turned down".

When, instead of training for their country's defence, men wasted their time hitting small balls for their pleasure, the government had to step in and declare the game illegal. James II of Scotland forbade it entirely!

Apparently, such prohibitions were only for a limited period, as Charles I and James II of England loved the game. Mary Queen of Scots, played several rounds of golf only a few days after the murder of her husband.

It was during her reign that the famous St. Andrew Club of Scotbaland was established (round 1552), which was the first to actually lay down the rules of the game. As golf addict and famed writer George Houghton says in his "Golfers Treasurey", "There are so many theories. In the United States, he had heard that the game was started by the North American redskins, and he was quite sure that one day the Russians will disprove all existing evidence and tell that that golf was first played by the early salt miners in Siberia...... Like everything else connected with golf, the history is fascinating and endless."

The golf club

Golf itself actually means a club. At first, clubs were sturdy tree branches with slightly curved striking ends. With progress, separate wooden heads were introduced, spliced or bound to the shaft. Replacement of the wooden heads by iron was the next natural step in the evolution of the club.

A whole variety was produced, differing in loft, weight and extent of striking surface. A lot of the iron headed clubs were made by a Scottish club-maker - Allan Robertson, considered the game's first `true professionals'.

In the 1920s, American golfers, faced with the problem of hickory wood shortage, changed their shafts to be accepted, as it was initially felt that steel unfairly increased the length of the drive. It was only in 1926 that steel shafts were officially accepted.

The ball

The earliest golf balls were wooden spheres, and could stand up to the punishment they had to take from the sticks. The introduction of the feathery ball, early in the 17th century, provided opportunity for advances in the clubmaker's art as well.

The ball, composed of feathers tightly stiched inside a bull-hide casing, was much better than wood, but had few obvious drawbacks - it was expensive, became waterlogged in wet weather, split easily in at the seams, and could be ruined by a single cut. Players experimented with other types, and success came in 1848. A Scotish professor produced a ball made a guttapercha, the rubbery juice of Malayan trees. As these balls became roughened by the impact of clubs, they responded to lift caused by eddying air over the indentations, and flew far and straight.

The more the damage to the `gutties' the better they flew. Damaged gutties came to be sold at a premium!

In 1880, a pock-marked mould was produced, instead of marking pocks on each individual ball. The new manufacturing process led to the making of cheap balls, and also to the standardisation of the ball's measurements. Gutties were used until the turn of the century when the rubber-core ball, invented by the Americans, replaced it.

The putt

Some suggest that the word is derived from the Dutch `puttern', meaning to replace in a hole. However, Browning relates the term to the Highland sport of `putting the weight', and asserts that the putt at one time described any slot that started the ball off on a low trajectory.

The Tee

The origin is a subject of controversy. The Gaelic word `tugh' literally meant a `house', but in sport referred to the marked spot on which players of the ancient Scot's game of `curling' tried to hurl large rounded stones.

Origin

The Dutch `tuitse'(pronounced `Toytse') referred to the little mound of sand from which Dutchmen used to shoot the ball.

Originally, the teeing ground was very small, was situated within a club's length of the hole. It was a much later development that divided putting greens from the teeing ground. The separate entities were first mentioned in 1875.

The cup

There were no standardised holes at first. The diameter of four-and-a-quarter inches was introduced by chance. Two golfers of the St. Andrew's course found one hole badly worn out and unusable. Keen on repairing the damage and continuing with their round, they stuck and old drain-pipe piece into the hole. It was the first-ever `cup', and the diameter of that old drain-pipe has remained.

The 18-Holes

Earlier on, there were five or six holes. With the development of the game, these became more numerous. Originally, St. Andrew's Club had twelve holes. These were arranged so as to lead away from the clubhouse. Keen golfers would play eleven holes on the way out, and then eleven on the way back in.

In 1764, when the members reduced the first four holes to two, the first eighteen - hole golf course had come into existence. This was copied everywhere, and soon became the standard.

However, it was realised that the actual number of holes was still nine. Inconvenience was caused to golfers going outward and encountering players on an inward round. It was also dangerous. Hence separate fairways were introduced, for the 2nd nine holes.