The North America trip provided the material for his dissertation, and in 1903 he received his doctorate from Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg for a piece of work on the natural underpinnings of the American irrigation-based economy.
[2] One result of these expeditions, which appeared in 1911, was a book on Arable Agronomy in German South West Africa, which dealt with "Trockenfarmen" (farming in dry conditions).
[1] One aspect of the imposed Peace of Versailles that directly affected Golf was the confiscation of German South West Africa and Germany's other colonies outside Europe.
[2] In 1922 Golf was appointed to a full professorship of animal husbandry ("Tierzucht") at Leipzig University in the "Mathematics and Natural Sciences" department of the Faculty of Philosophy,[3] taking on the position that had fallen vacant through the death, the previous summer, of Wilhelm Kirchner.
During the later 1920s and early 1930s Golf was also able to undertake further research expeditions, both to South West Africa, where many farmers of German origin still lived and worked despite the political changes and, during the first part of 1928, to what was at that time Soviet Central Asia.
[1] He also produced several pieces of research on problems of milk quality and directed Germany's first experiments involving introducing hormones into pig feed.
[1] He also became a member in 1920 of the German Popular Protection and Revanchism League ("Deutschvölkische Schutz- und Trutzbund" / DVSTB),[1] a nationalist movement noted, even at the time, for its savage antisemitism.
Because of the extent to which its beliefs were adopted and then integrated into government policy by the Nazi Party after 1933 the DVSTB acquired a retrospective significance that might well have surprised observers fifteen years earlier, .
For the party he became a Vertrauensdozent (liaison lecturer), identified as a link man between the university and the National Socialist German Students' League ("Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund" / NSDStB).
[3] Early in 1935 the Education Minister replaced him due to a perceived absence of vigour in pushing through of party policy (aufgrund "mangelnden Durchsetzungsvermögens").
[11] The Invasion of Poland in September 1939 marked the return of war, and his energies were devoted increasingly to the simple business of keeping the university's research and teaching activities going.