Golf: History

Outdoor game for one or more players, each of whom uses specially designed clubs to propel a small, hard ball over a field of play known as a course or links. The object of the game is to sink the ball in each of 18 holes, using as few strokes as possible. The rules of play are numerous and complex and include a code of etiquette for behavior on the course.

The Golf Course

A golf course is divided into 18 sections, called holes. The standard course is about 5900 to 6400 m (about 6500 to 7000 yd); the individual holes may vary in length from 90 to 550 m (from 100 to 600 yd). Each hole has at one end a starting point known as a tee and, imbedded in the ground at the other end, marked by a flag, a cup or cylindrical container (also called a hole) into which the ball must be propelled in order to complete play at each hole. The cup is usually made of metal or plastic, 10.8 cm (4.2 in) in diameter, and at least 10 cm (4 in) deep.

The players begin at the first tee, a level area of turf, generally raised slightly above the surrounding terrain. From here each player successively tries to drive the ball onto the fairway or main part of the golf course, a carefully tended strip of land, 27 to 90 m (30 to 100 yd) wide, on which the grass has been cut to provide a good playing surface for the ball. On either side of the fairway is the rough, areas covered with long grass, bushes, or trees and sometimes containing sandy, rough, or marshy land that compel golfers to use additional skill and judgment in playing their shots. In the absence of such natural obstacles, artificial hazards are constructed. Among these are bunkers, also known as traps, which are hollows dug in the earth and usually filled with loose sand; mounds and other earthen embankments; and water hazards, such as ditches, creeks, ponds, or lakes. At the far end of the fairway from the tee is the putting green, an area of closely cropped grass surrounding the hole or cup. The smooth surface of the putting green is designed to facilitate the progress of the ball into the cup after the ball has been given a tap or gentle stroke known as a putt.

Golf Strokes and Golf Clubs

In addition to the putt, the specialized stroke used on the green, two main types of shots are used in playing each hole: the drive, which is a long shot from the tee onto the fairway; and the approach shot to the green. Both types demand great accuracy. Shots of various lengths are played with different clubs, according to the distance to be covered. A standard set of 14 golf clubs (the maximum that may be carried in tournament play), is divided into two main types: the woods--those with heads traditionally made of wood (now commonly made of composite materials such as boron and graphite); and the irons--those with heads made of forged steel (usually chromium plated). The shafts of both types are made usually of metal and sometimes of fiberglass. Formerly, each club was known by a distinctive name, but today most are designated by numbers. The woods are customarily numbered 1 through 5, the irons 1 through 9. The putter, an iron, has retained its name. In addition to the numbered irons are the utility clubs, including the sand wedge and the pitching wedge, used on short-range shots to loft the ball well into the air and limit its roll to a short distance after landing.

The clubs are variously used in achieving distance, height, or accurate placement of the ball; the angle at which the striking surface is set on the shaft of the club determines the trajectory of the ball. For making drives and distance shots on the fairway, the wooden clubs (No. 1, or driver, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4, or No. 5) and the "long" irons (No. 1, No. 2, or No. 3) are used. For the initial drive of each hole, the ball is teed up, that is, placed on a small wooden, rubber, or plastic peg (tee) which the players carry with them. This lifts the ball at least 1.3 cm (0.5 in) off the ground, allowing the head of the club to strike it with maximum force. For long, low shots on the fairway, the No. 2 wood is used, and for long, high shots the No. 3, No. 4, and No. 5 woods are employed. Other approach shots to the green, generally of a shorter range, are played with irons. For quite short approaches, known as chip shots, the same irons are used but with a shorter swing. The putter normally is used only on the green or the apron of the green (a fringe of less smooth grass).

The Ball

The game was originally played with a ball made of feathers tightly packed in a leather cover. About 1850 a ball made of gutta-percha came into use; and about 1901 a ball with a rubber core enclosed in gutta-percha, similar to the ball in use today, was developed. The pitted surface of modern golf balls acts to stabilize flight. The ball used in the U.S. and Great Britain has a diameter of no less than 4.27 cm (1.68 in) and weighs not more than 45.93 g (1.62 oz).

Forms of Competition

Two basic forms of competition exist in golf: match play and medal play (also known as stroke play). In match play the player (or, if more than one player, the side) taking the fewer number of strokes to sink the ball into any particular hole (to "hole out") is the winner of the hole; the contest is won by the side winning the most holes. If each side takes the same number of strokes on any hole, the hole is said to be halved (tied). A final score of "9 and 8" in match play as, for example, in the table of the U.S. Amateur Championship tournament, means that the winner was 9 holes ahead with only 8 left to play, sufficient to clinch the match. When the match goes tied until the last hole, the winning score is "1 up."

In medal play, now the more popular kind of play in major U.S. tournaments, the winner of the contest is the side or player taking the least number of strokes over the total number of holes agreed upon. Although a round usually consists of 9 or 18 holes, the play in championship contests covers 18, 36, 54, or 72 holes. In medal play, as illustrated in the table of the U.S. Open Championships, ties have traditionally been decided by play-off rounds. A winning score, for example, of "292-149-148" means that the contest was still tied after a first play-off (149) and was decided only with a second play-off round (148). Today, many major tournaments that end in a tie are decided by a "sudden death" play-off of one or a few extra holes.

Par is the term applied to the number of properly played strokes an expert golfer would be expected to use in completing a particular hole without mishap; the aggregate for all of the holes is par for the course. Par is based primarily on the number of strokes necessary to reach the green, plus two putts. Par for a single hole varies from three strokes for a hole of less than 228 m (less than 250 yd) to five strokes for a hole of more than 428 m (more than 471 yd). On a rare occasion, a player drives the ball from the tee into the cup in one stroke, thereby making a hole in one, or an ace; it has been calculated that the odds against any player doing this are 8606 to 1. A score of one less than par is referred to as a birdie, and a score of two less than par (for example, a score of three on a par-five hole) is called an eagle. Three strokes less than par is known as a double eagle. One stroke over par is called a bogey; two over par is a double bogey.

History

Some historians believe that golf originated in the Netherlands (the Dutch word kolf means club), but the Romans had a game played with a bent stick and a ball made of feathers that may have been the original source of the game. In any event, it has been fairly well established that the game actually was devised by the Scots in the 14th or 15th century. The game became so popular in Scotland that in order to keep people from playing golf and football during time that should have been employed in practicing archery, a military necessity, the Scottish parliament in 1457 passed a law prohibiting both games. The Scottish people, however, largely ignored this and similar laws, and early in the 16th century James IV, king of Scotland, took up the game of golf. His granddaughter Mary, later Mary, queen of Scots, took the game to France, where she was educated. The young men who attended her on the golf links were known as cadets, "pupils"; the term was adopted later in Scotland and England, becoming caddy or caddie. (Caddies, once an integral feature of the game, have now been largely superseded by golf carts and buggies.) In England the game was made popular by the attention given it by James VI of Scotland, later James I of England, and his son Charles I.

In the 18th century the first golf associations were established; they included the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers (1744); the Saint Andrews Society of Golfers (1754), which in 1834 took its present name, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews; and the Royal Blackheath (1766), near London, where according to tradition golf was introduced to England in 1608. The first clubs established outside Britain were the Calcutta Golf Club of East India (1829) and the Royal Bombay Club (1842). The first golf club established in the western hemisphere was Canada's Royal Montreal Golf Club, founded in 1873. It is believed that golf was played in America during the colonial period, but no documented proof of this has been advanced. In 1888 the St. Andrews Golf Club of Yonkers, N.Y., was established. Some authorities say this is the oldest golf club in the U.S. with a continuous existence. The popularity of the game in the U.S. and Great Britain reached great heights by the 1920s and has steadily increased in recent years, fostered by television. In 1993 in the U.S. alone, more than 14,600 golf courses served about 24.5 million people who played golf at least once that year.

Golf is also popular in Canada, South Africa, and Australia and since the end of World War II has enjoyed phenomenal growth in Japan.

Governing Bodies

The organizations that establish golf rules for the world are the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews and the United States Golf Association (USGA), founded in 1894. Before 1913, golf in America was played chiefly by people of wealth. In 1913, however, the American former caddie Francis Ouimet (1893-1967) won a victory over two outstanding British professionals in the U.S. Open Championship (open to amateurs and professionals), and thereafter golf claimed the attention of the general public. The Professional Golfers' Association of America (PGA) was organized in 1916, and annual tournaments were started during the same year. In 1993, the PGA consisted of more than 23,000 members and apprentices, including tournament players and directors, teachers, club instructors, and merchandisers. Each year several hundred professionals tour the country playing in major tournaments. These tours are controlled by the PGA Tour, a separate body made up mostly of PGA tournament players. The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) included about 700 members in its teaching and club professional division and about 300 tournament players in 1993.

Tournaments

Each year many golf tournaments take place. The most important of these for men are the U.S. Amateur, the British Amateur, the U.S. Open, the Masters (an invitational match for amateurs and professionals), the PGA Championship, and the British Open; the latter four are modern golf's major championships, or Grand Slam events. For women the important championships are the U.S. Women's Amateur Championship, the British Ladies Amateur, and the major events--the U.S. Women's Open (open to amateurs and professionals), the LPGA Championship, the Nabisco (formerly Nabisco Dinah Shore), the du Maurier Ltd. Classic (a major until 2001), and the Women's British Open (a major beginning in 2001). International matches are also played, notably between teams from the U.S. and Great Britain; these include the Walker Cup Match (amateur) for men and the Curtis Cup Match (amateur) for women. World competition is provided for men by tournaments for the Eisenhower Cup (amateur), the Ryder Cup and the World Cup (professional), and the Shun Nomura Trophy and the Francis H. I. Brown International Team Match Trophy (seniors); and for women by the Espirito Santo Trophy (amateur) and the Solheim Cup (professional) tournaments.

Golf Greats

The most famous feat in the history of golf was achieved by the American amateur player Robert Tyre (Bobby) Jones, who in 1930 made the Grand Slam of golf by winning the British Open, the British Amateur, the U.S. Open, and the U.S. Amateur. Other notable U.S. male players include Sam Snead, who holds the record for most tournament wins, and Jack Nicklaus, who has won the most Grand Slam events.

The British golfer Joyce Wethered (1901-97), winner of four British amateur and five English amateur championships, is often considered the greatest female golfer in the history of the game. One of the most famous women players of all time was Babe Didrikson Zaharias, an American who excelled both as an amateur and as a professional. Other noted American women include Kathy Whitworth (1939-    ), who has won the most tournaments for women, and Patty Berg (1918-    ),who has won the most major titles. See also World Almanac: Professional Golfers' Association Leading Money Winners, by Year; World Almanac: Ladies Professional Golf Association Leading Money Winners.