Al Barkow - The Golden Era of Golf: How America Rose to Dominate the Old Scots Game

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Contents

Introduction

No one knows for certain how golf actually came to be, and there will not be much additional speculation here on the much-belabored subject. Golf is an extension of a very ordinary human instinct. Hitting an object with a stick to propel it is as elemental as looking to see where you are going. To make a contest out of it is just as commonplace. However, these contests also could have served as religious rituals. Professor Robert W. Henderson, in his book Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origin of Ball Games, reckoned that all ball-and-stick games began with polo played by Persians before the time of Christ, a game that was grounded in a fertility rite, mainly to do with agriculture. The Persians batted around an animal skull because the head was integral to their fertility symbolism. Thus, when a contemporary golfer takes a swipe at the white dimpled head and digs out a chunk of turf, one might say he is plowing the good earth and importuning the God of Agriculture to assure or expand the food supply. Heart can be taken from this if the divot is too deep, and the shot is a poor one.

By a circuitous route, Henderson traced all other ball-and-stick games to Persian polotennis, cricket, rounders, baseball, hockey, and golf, although not necessarily in that order (or in the modern-day form of those games). However, hockey, or an early version of it, seems to be the closest progenitor or relative of golf. The precise history of golfs origins has always been a mystery. Fifteenth-century paintings by the Dutch artist Van Neer depict some of his countrymen bundled up against the cold winter air and pushing or shoving an object over the ice of a frozen canal. They are using long sticks curved at the striking end that resemble todays hockey sticks, as well as the earliest golf clubs. This game was called het kolven or kolf, Dutch for club. There is also a depiction in a Flemish Book of Hours circa 1500 of four ballsthree wooden, one of leathersaid to be used for kolf.

There was considerable fraternization between the Scots and Dutch by way of trade across the English Channel, and it has been speculated that the Scots watched Dutchmen pass the time at kolf, and took it from there. The first concrete reference to golf in Scotland, circa 1350, is a section of stained glass in Gloucester Cathedral depicting a figure that is almost certainly a golfer. However, it is also known that in the early 1300s the Scots bought their golf balls from Dutch ball makers. The etymology of the name of the game is definitely Dutch. The Oxford English Dictionary says the word golf dates back to 1457 and is of unknown origin. But the great British etymologist, Eric Partridge, in his Origins, an etymological dictionary of modern English, says the word apparently comes from the Middle Dutch colf. Thats what I think, too.

The position taken here is that the Scots simply adapted the Dutch kolven to their own tastes, or conditions. Where the Dutch played on ice, and attempted to deposit a disk or ball into a goal atop the surface, the Scots played on turf, striking the ball so it would first fly in the air, then bounce and run. Most significantly, the Scots sought to put the ball in a hole in the ground. Thats the big difference.

Why the Scots decided the goal would be a hole in the ground is not known, and never will be. Maybe they were acting out another version of the fertility ritefinding a release of sexual energy repressed by the well-known strict moral doctrines of their church. Men (for they were the first players) using a long stick to strike a small round white ball with the intention of depositing it in Mother Earth is not too much of a metaphoric stretch in that direction, is it? What that has to say for women playing golf we will leave to others.

The game of golf as we know it is Scots-originated. No argument. The curious thing is, the Scots didnt do much with it for some five hundred and fifty years. From the mid-fourteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, there were very few changes in the game in the way of the equipment that was used, the venue on which it was played, rules of play, and formal competition. Could the players have been completely satisfied with the status quo all that time? That seems to go against human nature. Maybe they didnt care enough about the game to make changes. Or perhaps there werent enough players to cause the divisions of opinion that bring about revisions. Maybe they were dullards, without imagination. Or too frugal.

Whatever the reasons, it wasnt until the Industrial Revolution that golf began to evolve. A new energy was released in the Western world that stimulated technological innovation or was the result of it. The Earths basic resources were mined and turned to practical use on a scale never before seen in history. New tools and machinery were concocted for the manufacture of devices large and small meant to improve peoples standard of living. Modes of communications and travel were expanding, getting faster and more convenient. The economy broadened as the labor force grew and became more diversified.

The Scots were surely inspired by the vitality of the times and the manufacturing advances, and finally got off their inert golf horse. In the mid-nineteenth century the Scots began to organize their game, establish formal competitions, write the first official rules of golf, and introduce a new ball. Still, it was not until the last quarter of the nineteenth century when golf made its way to America that truly significant, golf-world-shaking innovations were made and participation grew. Scotland was the cradle of golf, but America became the games second home and its most prolific nurturer.

The ascendance of American golf can be attributed in part to the good luck of the nations geography. Every region of the United States is suitable for golf for at least six months out of every year. But more important, there are sections of the country in which the game can be played the entire year round. This opportunity led to the first and, in time, the most prestigious professional tournament circuits; the creation of the vacation-golf industry; and the largest body of golfers in the worldall within U.S. borders.

However, it was not only geography that allowed golf to flourish in the United States. The American economy was far more expansive and varied than Scotlands, fueled by the entrepreneurial spirit that has always signified the American character. In fact, American golf would never have achieved such preeminence if not for the democratic character of American society. In Scotland, common folk always played golf, but it was prohibitively expensive. In 1743 one handmade featherie golf ball retailed for two and a half shillings, the amount a working stiff could expect to earn in six months. Whats more, because golf is a daylight game, it was far easier for those of the monied classesthe gentry and royaltyto find free time for a few hours on the links. Thus, by dint of economics and lifestyle, people of means and status in society came to control the game. There is also something about strolling along on a nicely trimmed stretch of grass that evokes a feeling of well being and bespeaks wealth. Golf became another way to exhibit preeminence in a society with a rigid class system already in place.