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When was golf first played? -

Historians have had a surprisingly hard time pinning down the origins of golf. "Ball and stick" games are one of the oldest styles of sports in history, and differentiating one ancient game from another can be tricky. But most historians agree that games very similar to golf were being played by the 14th century, although some argue that the progenitor of golf was being played as early as the 12th century.

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Ancient golf games -

Similar games to golf developed independently in several parts of the world, even as far back as the Ancient Romans who played a game called paganica, which involved pushing a feather ball towards a target with either a bent club or a club with a rock appendage sticking out of the side.

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Chuiwan -

In China, a game called chuiwan was developed as early as the 11th century that shared many similarities with the earliest versions of European golf.

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Where did the word "golf" come from? -

The English word "golf" has taken many forms over the centuries, and is most similar to the Scottish goff, which is derived from the Dutch words kolf or kolve, which translate literally to "club."

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Where did golf originate? -

For centuries, the available research and popular opinion pointed towards golf originating in Scotland. But while Scotland is certainly pivotal in the sport's meteoric rise in popularity and has a history closely intertwined with golf, the game itself may not be Scottish at all.

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The Scottish myth -

The evidence available to historians shows that the first mention of golf in Scotland comes from a court document, dated March 6, 1457, banning citizens from participating in any games of "futbawe and ye golf."

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The Scottish myth -

It's not until much later that golf was described or depicted in any way in Scottish media, and without a description to accompany the term there is no way to know that "ye golf" doesn't refer to any other game played with a club, such as hurling. However, numerous historical sources from 15th-century Holland, dated before 1457, both describe and depict a game that couldn't be mistaken for anything besides golf.

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How did golf reach Scotland? -

Once it was understood that golf wasn't a game native to Scotland, another question arose for historians: how did golf get to Scotland? Most historians agree that the game was brought over on ships by Flemish merchants, who brought clubs and balls and taught the game to the wealthy merchant and ruling classes of medieval Scotland.

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What was golf like in the Middle Ages? -

The earliest forms of golf, before the game was altered by wealth, were played on a smaller scale, but consisted of the same core concepts. Players would take turns hitting their respective balls with a "crooked club" nearer and nearer to a target. The player who got their ball to the target with the least amount of swings would win.

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The people's game vs. the game of the aristocracy -

But by the middle of the 15th century, evidence suggests that the class divisions began to split the world of golf.

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Kolf vs. golf -

"Golf" began to resemble the game we know today, and was played almost exclusively in the countryside by the ruling classes in the Flemish world, while "kolf" remained a small-scale game, played by the working class in the streets of cities and villages.

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Golf was we know it today -

Golf as it exists today, with multiple clubs at the players' disposal and 18 holes to play across massive swaths of manicured land, didn't develop until around the turn of the 16th century, when the ruling class of Scotland became hooked on the new sporting fad.

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Golf games over war games -

As previously mentioned, the first mention of golf in Scotland appears in a parliamentary act banning the games of "golf" and "futbawe." Whether these games were the same golf and football we know today is up for debate, but whatever these games were, they were apparently so distracting that King James II of Scotland was forced to criminalize the games so that his men would focus on their military training and always be ready to face the ever-looming threat of English invasion.

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The Treaty of Perpetual Peace -

Around 50 years later, when King James IV of Scotland and King Henry the VII signed the Treaty of Perpetual Peace in 1502, it was decided that it was safe to play sports again, and the citizenry, who had not stopped playing but had simply become more sneaky about it, openly picked up their games once again. 

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Popularity in Great Britain -

As soon as the ban was lifted, golf swept across the British Isles and became the favorite pastime of merchants, aristocrats, and royalty alike.

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Golf's spread to Europe -

It didn't take long after that for golf to reach continental Europe again, nearly a century after its progenitor had first come across from the Netherlands. This new, dignified version of golf that was played across great distances became especially popular in France, where it remains a favorite pastime of the affluent to this day.

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Mary, Queen of Scots -

Mary, the first Queen of Scotland, is thought of as the first woman in history to play golf. She played from an early age, and caused a scandal for being caught out on the course only a short time after her husband, Henry Stuart, was murdered.

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The first official rules of golf -

In 1744, the world's first golf club, the Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, wrote down what they believed to be the definitive 13 rules of golf. Shortly afterward, these 13 rules would become the standard for all golf clubs and courses to come.

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The oldest course in the world -

The oldest proper 18-hole golf course in the world lies, fittingly, in Scotland. In fact, it still operates to this day. The Saint Andrews Old Course was opened in 1764, along with one of the first-ever golf clubs that today remains one of the most prestigious, The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, who adhered to and further legitimized the Edinburgh rules.

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Golf in the United States -

The first mention of golf in the United States is in fact a police report dated to 1657, describing two men who were arrested for drunkenly playing golf in the streets and breaking the windows of buildings of Albany, New York.

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The father of American golf -

The proper start of organized golf games in the US, however, can be traced back to one man: John Reid. A native of Scotland, Reid had his clubs and balls delivered to his residence in Yonkers, New York, where he and five friends started the Saint Andrew's Golf Club of New York in 1888.

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The oldest golf course in the US -

Similar to the situation in Scotland, the first social golf club was formed before the first proper course was. Eventually, that title went to the Oakhurst Links, a sprawling, traditional course of 18 holes in West Virginia, which opened in 1884.

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The 19th-century golf boom -

In Europe, the golf craze had died down to a hum since it first swept the continent in the 18th century. By the late 1800s, however, and into the 1900s, European interest in the sport was sparked anew by the enthusiasm exhibited in the United States, and the expansion of the railway system across the British Isles and continental Europe, making the rural course more accessible to the aristocrats of the new industrial world.

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The United States Golf Association -

One of the largest and oldest golf tournament organizers in the United States, the United States Golf Association was formed in 1894, and hosted some of the first official amateur golf competitions.

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Francis Ouimet -

By the 20th century, golf was firmly cemented as a sport for the wealthy. Club memberships were prohibitively expensive, as were golf clubs. For these reasons and more, the golf world was turned upside down with the appearance of Francis Ouimet.

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Francis Ouimet -

Ouimet, a working-class 20-year-old from Massachusetts with no proper golf training, assisted by a 10-year-old caddie, won the 1913 US Open against some of the best and most veteran players in the country. After his shocking victory, he was elected the first non-English captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of Saint Andrews.

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Golf today -

Today, golf is a US$80 billion dollar industry, and over two million acres of land in the United States alone is dedicated to golf courses. Business, you could say, is booming.

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Golf courses on Native American land -

However, golf isn't free of controversy. Substantial portions of those two million US acres are built on top of contested and historically significant Native American land. For example, in 2005, the Shinnecock Indian Nation sued the Shinnecock Hills golf club for illegally constructing their 3,500-acre course on top of their ancestral burial grounds. In the end, the Shinnecock Nation lost the court battle, and Shinnecock Hills remains open to this day.

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Environmental concerns -

Environmentalists are also concerned with the amount of land around the world that is dedicated to golf courses. Activists argue that the deforestation and destruction of complex, fragile ecosystems and animal habitats, replaced with monocultures of unproductive grass, is simply not worth the Saturday afternoons on the green.

Sources: (Britannica) (Healthfully) (Keiser University)

See also: Golf's great celebratory moments

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