One has to admit that gold has no age barrier, unlike most other competitive and non-competitive sport. It is a sport you can play with your grandpa - and one he can win. And what other sport gives you the chance to take in exquisite scenery at most places in the world?

Golf has become an excuse to travel and to enjoy life. No other sport will allow players to gossip and discuss deals while playing. Golf allows you to do all that and more. Although there are many golf jokes that mock it as a ‘man’s game’, it is not so - some of the top names in the sport are women. But how did it Golf originate?

The origins are not crystal clear, but 1400s seem a good guess. The earliest known illustration of a recognizable precursor to golf is found in a 1460 French prayer book from the Touraine known as La Duchesse de Bourgogne.

It shows teams playing considerable distances to a grazed green with target stakes (the piquet) as goals, using a curved hockey-like one-piece wooden club (the crosse) for approach shots, and sophisticated putters (the mail), a paralellepiped with three nearly parallel sets of planes, to roll round wooden balls to the target. The use of a hole on ice as a target goal, is depicted in a French book of hours dated 1480; and a hole on a green, in a Flemish prayer book, 1505.

The modern game of golf is likely to have reached Scotland in the early 17th century. Golf spread from Scotland worldwide. But some of the best courses in the world, including the venerated St. Andrew’s, are still in Scotland. All golfers want to play there, the ‘birthplace’ of golf.

Golf is expensive if you count the cost of golf balls and clubs, caddy fees, green fees and travel costs. Golf has thus become a massive industry and there are numerous books, magazines, videos and websites offering advice and inspiration to golfers both novice and professional.

....................................
<< Panorama Main Page