Golf Is A Game With An Extremely Interesting History
Golf today is played in just about every country in the world and its best players are household names and are watched by millions as they play in a number of annual tournaments at golf courses which often look as if they were painted as a film backdrop rather than carved from nature itself. But have you ever wondered about the history of this incredibly popular sport?
There are of course several different versions of the history of golf as people and states want to stake their claim in the history books. Most historians of the sport are agreed however that golf was born over a thousand years ago in Scotland.
In its earliest days what we now call golf was little more than a pastime to while away the time for bored farmers and sheep herders who competed against one another by hitting stones with sticks to see who could get their stone into a rabbit burrow.
This pursuit quickly spread however and began to attract the attention of the population at large eventually reaching all the way up to the very top of Scottish society with King James II and Mary Queen of Scots both reputed to have been very keen golfers during the 16th century.
It was perhaps only a question of time therefore before the game was formerly adopted as a national pastime and in the 17th century the very first golf course was established at St. Andrews and not long after this the first rules for the game were drawn up and published in 1744.
Golf really began to take off however at the end of the 19th century when it crossed the Atlantic and a number of wonderful golf courses were created in the eastern United States including Winged Foot in New York and Pine Valley in New Jersey.
From here golf caught on amongst wealthier Americans and the game expanded very quickly during the 20th century with possibly the height of its expansion taking place during the 1920s.
Nowadays golf is played and followed by millions of people from every walk of life. Indeed, in the United States alone some figures put the number of regular golfers at over thirty million. This is not too bad for a game which was designed to amuse some bored Scottish farmers.
Donald Saunders has been publishing articles on a range of topics for several years now. Visit his latest website which offers information about EZ GO golf carts and EZ GO lift kits together with a great deal more.
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