{"id":675,"date":"2018-08-14T13:07:47","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T11:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.costa-blanca-greenfees.com\/golf-blog\/?p=675"},"modified":"2018-08-14T13:07:47","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T11:07:47","slug":"the-history-of-golf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.costa-blanca-greenfees.com\/golf-blog\/the-history-of-golf\/","title":{"rendered":"The History of Golf"},"content":{"rendered":"

History of Golf<\/u><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The first game using a stick and a ball started in Russia and was called \u2018paganica\u2019 and it travelled across Europe via Germany and France to Holland, where the Dutch renamed the game as \u2019kolf\u2019. While historical records show no evidence of golf being played in Scotland before 1450 there is proof of the Dutch playing \u2018kolf\u2019 in 1300. The game of \u2018Kolf\u2019 was played on ice in the winter and fields in the summer and historical records suggest that it died out in Holland in around 1700. It is suggested that Scotland is the home of golf and there is a link there because it was probably Scottish wool merchants who first took the game from Holland to the British Isles. Just how did this happen? It would appear that Scottish wool merchants took their \u2018wares\u2019 for sale across the North Sea to Holland but while waiting for favourable return winds they passed their time playing \u2018kolf\u2019 They took the game to the east coast of Scotland where the natural terrain suited this new game and they played the game across country to a rabbit scrape, which they used as a hole, which was marked with a gull feather. Just think about it for a minute, if it weren\u2019t for rabbits the game of \u2018golf\u2019 as we know it today would not have existed. The natural habits of rabbits is to chew grass and live in hollows thereby preventing growth of vegetation and creating bare patches which were probably the first \u2018greens\u2019. In the middle of the scrape, the buck rabbit would create a hole and urinate in it to mark his territory and the early golfers would play from one hollow to the next. Today due to the extended use of chemicals and fertilisers on golf course it is dangerous to lick your golf ball to clean after \u2018holing out\u2019 it but you can see that even in the early days this practise was best avoided!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So there you have it, the history of the origins of golf\u2026\u2026\u2026or is it?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

According to an article in the Daily Mail golf is now claimed to have it\u2019s origins in of all places China. Professor Ling Hongling has stated that the game began in China in 945AD some 500 years the Scots first played the game. There are references in Chinese libraries to a pastime called \u2018chulwan-chui\u2019 which when translated means \u2018to hit a ball\u2019 Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes are believed to have taken golf to Europe centuries later. There is also reference in a 10th century book in which a magistrate ordered his daughter to dig \u2018goals\u2019 in the ground so he may drive a ball into them with a purposely crafted stick. In addition two Chinese paintings from the 13<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup> century depict noblemen hitting balls into holes with sticks that look remarkably like today\u2019s golf clubs. Only time will tell whether golf history has actually been re-written but you should note that in the same article China claims to also have invented football, basketball and skiing. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Whatever the origins of the game there is clearly a history associated to golf, which gives it a certain mystic. Remember that all our fore fathers who created golf history would love to be the other side of the turf and to join you for one more game, good or bad. So the next time that you are out on the golf course and having \u2018one of those days\u2019, forget the disappointment and anger, simply enjoy your surroundings, the companionship, the challenge and enjoy this wonderful game of golf that our forefathers gave to us.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

History of Golf The first game using a stick and a ball started in Russia and was called \u2018paganica\u2019 and it travelled across Europe via Germany and France to Holland,…..Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"Layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.costa-blanca-greenfees.com\/golf-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.costa-blanca-greenfees.com\/golf-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.costa-blanca-greenfees.com\/golf-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.costa-blanca-greenfees.com\/golf-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.costa-blanca-greenfees.com\/golf-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.costa-blanca-greenfees.com\/golf-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":676,"href":"https:\/\/www.costa-blanca-greenfees.com\/golf-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions\/676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.costa-blanca-greenfees.com\/golf-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.costa-blanca-greenfees.com\/golf-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.costa-blanca-greenfees.com\/golf-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}