The Game Of Golf Has An Amazing History
Author: Donald Saunders
Category: Sports
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Golf these days is played in nearly every country on Earth and its top players are household names and are watched by millions as they take part in a series of annual tournaments at golf courses which frequently look as if they have been painted as a film backdrop rather than carved from Mother Nature herself. Have you ever wondered though about the history of this most popular of sports?
Of course there are a number of versions of the history of golf as individuals and states want to lay their claim to a chapter in the history books. Most historians of the sport are agreed however that the game of golf was born over one thousand years ago in Scotland.
When it started what we today know as golf was little more than a pastime to pass the time for bored farmers who competed against each other by hitting small stones with sticks to see who could get their stone into a nearby rabbit burrow.
This pastime spread fast however and started to attract much wider attention from the population at large eventually reaching all the way up to the top of Scottish society with King James II and Mary Queen of Scots both being thought to have been keen golfers in the 16th century.
It was simply a matter of time therefore before the game was formerly adopted as a national pursuit and in the 17th century the very first golf course was created at St. Andrews and not long after this the first set of rules for the game were written and published in 1744.
However golf really took off at the end of the 19th century when it crossed the pond and several tremendous golf courses were made in the eastern United States including Pine Valley and Winged Foot.
From this starting point golf caught on amongst wealthier Americans and the game grew very quickly during the 20th century with possibly the height of its expansion taking place in the 1920s.
Nowadays golf is played and followed by millions of people from every background and walk of life. In fact, in the United States alone some figures put the number of regular golfers at more than 30 million. This is not bad for a pastime which was designed to simply amuse some bored Scottish farmers.
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Keywords: golf, golf history, history of golf, St Andrews, Pine Valley, Winged Foot
View Count: 184
Date Submitted: 11/19/2009
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