History of golf
[4] In the 1261 Middle Dutch manuscript of the Flemish poet Jacob van Maerlant's Boeck Merlijn mention is made of a ball game "mit ener coluen" (with a colf/kolf [club]).
[8] In 1387, the regent of the county of Holland, Zeeland and Hainaut, Albrecht of Bavaria, sealed a charter for the city of Brielle, in which it was forbidden to play any game for money.
One of the exceptions to this ordinance was "den bal mitter colven te slaen buten der veste" (to play the ball with a club outside the town walls).
[9] Two years later, in 1389, the regent Albrecht offered the citizens of Haarlem a field called "De Baen" (the course) to be used exclusively for playing games – especially colf – because these were too dangerous within the city walls.
In 1571, the book, "Biblia dat is, de gantsche Heylighe Schrift, grondelic ende trouwclick verduydtschet", describes the game of "Kolf" played with a "bat" and "sach".
[11] In 1597, the crew of Willem Barentsz played "colf" during their stay at Nova Zembla, as recorded by Gerrit de Veer in his diary: Den 3.
wint ende stil, doen maeckten wy een colf toe om daer mede te colven, om also onse leden wat radder te maeckten, daer wy allerley middelen toe zochten.
)In December 1650, the settlers of Fort Orange (near present-day Albany, New York) played the first recorded round of kolf (golf) in America.
[13]December 10th, 1659: The W. Commissary and Commissaries of Fort Orange and Village of Beverwyck [ today City of Albany ], having heard divers complains from the Burghers of this place, against playing at Golf along the streets, which causes great damage to the windows of the Houses, and exposes people to the danger of being wounded, and is contrary to the freedom of the Public Streets; Therefore their Worships, wishing to prevent the same, forbid all persons playing Golf in the Streets, on pain of forfeiting fl.
[17] The Dutch term Kolven refers to a related sport where the lowest number of strokes needed to hit a ball with a mallet into a hole determines the winner; according to the "Le grand dictionnaire françois-flamen" printed 1643 is stated the Dutch term to Flemish: "Kolf, zest Kolve; Kolfdrager, Sergeant; Kolf, Kolp, Goulfe.
[22] George Buchanan wrote that she had been following her "usual amusements in the adjoining fields that were plainly not adapted to women".
[23] An entry in the Town Council Minutes of Edinburgh for 19 April 1592 includes golf in a list of pursuits to be avoided on the Sabbath.
[24] On 13 February 1593 the Duke of Lennox and Sir James Sandilands decided to go down to Leith to play golf.
His teammate was said to be one John Paterson, who received as payment, enough money to build a mansion on the area of Edinburgh now known as Golfers Land.
In his entry for 20 January 1687 he noted how "After dinner I went out to the Golve", and described his Golf stroke:[20] I found that the only way of playing at the Golve is to stand as you do at fenceing with the small sword bending your legs a little and holding the muscles of your legs and back and armes exceeding bent or fixt or stiffe and not at all slackning them in the time you are bringing down the stroak (which you readily doe)[29]The oldest surviving rules of golf were written in 1744 for the Company of Gentlemen Golfers, later renamed The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, which played at Leith Links.
Rattray joined the Jacobite Rising of 1745 and as a result was imprisoned in Inverness, but was saved from being hanged by the pleading of his fellow golfer Duncan Forbes of Culloden, Lord President of the Court of Session.
In the early 1770s, the first golf course in Africa was built on Bunce Island in Sierra Leone by British slave traders.
17th-century America: In December 1650, near Fort Orange (modern city of Albany, New York), a group of four men were playing Kolf in pairs for points.
[44] On December 10, 1659, an ordinance was issued to prevent playing Kolf in the streets of Albany due to too many windows being broken.
During the Roaring Twenties the game expanded greatly in popularity and by 1932 there were over 1,100 golf clubs affiliated to the USGA.
[52] After the Meiji restoration of 1868 Japan made a concerted effort to modernise its economy and industry on western lines.
[54] In 1921, Japan established the first golf course in Korea at Hyochang Park, which then contained the tombs of Korean royalty.
[54] During the 1920s and early 1930s several new courses were built, however the Great Depression and increasing anti-Western sentiment limited the growth of the game.
[58][60][61] Hugh Edward Richardson introduced golf to Tibet, although he noted that the ball "tended to travel 'rather too far in the thin air'.
As early as the 15th century, golfers at St Andrews established a trench through the undulating terrain, playing to holes whose locations were dictated by topography.
[64] These standards were later followed by a USGA regulation stating that the initial velocity of any golf ball cannot exceed 250 feet per second (76 m/s).
The introduction of steel shafts began in the late 1890s, but their adoption by the governing bodies of golf was slow.
In 2003 the USGA and R&A began limiting the spring-like effect, also known as the coefficient of restitution (COR) to 0.83 and the maximum club head size to 460 cm3 in an attempt to maintain the challenge of the game.
This is a false etymology, as acronyms being used as words is a fairly modern phenomenon, making the expression a backronym.
