# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Table of Contents

How much does a golf ball weigh?

Where did golf originate?

What is the diameter of a golf hole?

What is the average distance of an 18-hole golf course?

Is golf an Olympic event?

golf, a cross-country game in which a player strikes a small ball with various clubs from a series of starting points (teeing grounds) into a series of holes on a course. The player who holes his ball in the fewest strokes wins. The origins of the game are difficult to ascertain, although evidence now suggests that early forms of golf were played in the Netherlands first and then in Scotland.

From a somewhat obscure antiquity, the game attained worldwide popularity, especially in the 20th century. Nothing is known about the early game's favourite venues on the European continent, but in Scotland golf was first played on seaside links with their crisp turf and natural hazards. Only later in the game's evolution did play on downs, moorland, and parkland courses begin. Golfers participate at every level, from a recreational game to popular televised professional tournaments. Despite its attractions, golf is not a game for everyone; it requires a high degree of skill that is honed only with great patience and dedication.

History

Origins

The origin of golf has long been debated. Some historians trace the sport back to the Roman game of paganica, which involved using a bent stick to hit a wool- or feather-stuffed leather ball. According to one view, paganica spread throughout several countries as the Romans conquered much of Europe during the 1st century bc and eventually evolved into the modern game. Others cite chuiwan ( ch'ui-wan) as the progenitor, a game played in China during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and earlier and described as "a game in which you hit a ball with a stick while walking." Chuiwan is thought to have been introduced into Europe by traders during the Middle Ages. However, upon close examination, neither theory is convincing.

Other early stick-and-ball games included the English game of cambuca (a term of Celtic origin). In France the game was known as chambot and may have been related to Irish hurling and Scottish shinty, or camanachd, as well as to the French pastime (derived from an Italian game) of jeu de mail. This game was in turn exported to the Low Countries, Germany, and England (where it was called pall-mall, pronounced "pell mell").

I Am the Greatest (Athlete)

As early as 1819 the English traveler William Ousely claimed that golf descended from the Persian national game of chaugán, the ancestor of modern polo. Later, historians, not least because of the resemblance of names, considered the French cross-country game of chicane to be a descendant of chaugán. In chicane a ball had to be driven with the fewest possible strokes to a church or garden door. This game was described in the novels of Émile Zola and Charles Deulin, where it went by the name of chole.

Chicane closely resembled the game of kolf, which the Dutch golf historian J.H. van Hengel believed to be the earliest form of golf. Many traditions surround the game of kolf. One relates that it was played annually in the village of Loenen, Netherlands, beginning in 1297, to commemorate the capture of the killer of Floris V, count of Holland and Zeeland, a year earlier. No evidence supports this early date, however, and it would seem to be a clear anachronism.

Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now

Based on the evidence, it may well be that golf came into being only a little before the 15th century. It may be conceived as a domesticated form of such medieval games as football, in which the size of the goals and the ball was radically reduced and in which, as a consequence, the element of violence had to give way to the element of skill. Seen from this perspective, golf would be the result of the process of civilization as described in the work of German-born sociologist Norbert Elias.

Scots as inventors: a popular fallacy

For many years it was believed that golf originated in Scotland. This belief rested on three references in Scottish acts of Parliament from the second half of the 15th century. In a resolution of the 14th Parliament, convened in Edinburgh on March 6, 1457, the games of football and golf ("futbawe and ye golf") were banned with a vengeance ("utterly cryt done"). This ban was repeated in 1471 when Parliament thought it "expedient [th]at...ye futbal and golf be abusit." In a resolution passed in 1491, football, golf, and other useless games were outlawed altogether ("fut bawis gouff or uthir sic unproffitable sports"). In addition, these texts enjoined the Scottish people to practice archery, a sport which might be put to good use in defending the country.

In more recent times the validity of these sources has been called into question on two grounds. First, pictorial evidence now seems to point to a continental European origin of golf. The earliest golfing picture is a miniature in a book of hours formerly owned by Adelaïde of Savoy, the duchess of Burgundy. Executed about the middle of the 15th century (Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS 76), it predates the earliest of the Scottish sources quoted above. The miniature from Adelaïde's book is, in turn, the forerunner of the well-known example from a book of hours in the British Library that is ascribed variously to the workshops of two Flemish artists, Simon Bening (c. 1483-1561) and Gerard Horenbout (c. 1465-1541), both of whom were active in the Ghent-Bruges school in the first half of the 16th century. There is yet another miniature, from the book of hours of Philip I (the Handsome), the son of Emperor Maximilian I (Colegio Real de Corpus Christi, Valencia). Created in 1505, one year before Philip's death, it shows golfers in the process of swinging and putting.

In addition to the books of hours, there are engravings that highlight golf. Playing Monkeys, by Pieter van der Borcht (1545-1608), features a monkey taking a swing at a teed ball, and Venus, Protectress of Lovers, by Pieter Janszoon Saenredam (1597-1665), shows, in the margins of a picture of an embracing couple with Venus and Cupid, some people playing games such as football and golf. The latter work is a copy of an earlier work by engraver Hendrik Goltzius (1558-1617).

The earliest known scenes depicting golf in Scotland are found in two paintings dated 1680 (or 1720) and 1746-47. The earlier work is an oil painting by an unknown artist who depicted a gentlemen foursome and two caddies against the backdrop of the town of St. Andrews. The second, a watercolour by the Englishman Paul Sandby (1725-1809), shows a squad of soldiers fighting over a golf ball in the shrubbery at the foot of Edinburgh Castle.

As to the Scottish acts of Parliament, the difficulty there lies in the uncertainty concerning the meaning of the term golf in 15th-century Scotland. In the equally controversial debate about the origins of cricket, British historian Eric Midwinter pointed out that a sport's provenance cannot be proved by a mere textual reference to a game unless the context and the meaning of the reference are exactly known:

Thus, by the strictest definition of historical evidence, we require both the name, and its [being attached] to some description which is recognizable cricket, before it is safe to talk about the origin of the game.

The Scottish sources fail to meet this standard for the origins of golf.

As early as 1360 the magistrate of Brussels issued an ordinance according to which anyone caught playing a similar club-and-ball game was threatened with a fine of 20 shillings or confiscation of his upper garment ("Item. wie met coluen tsolt es om twintich scell' oft op hare ouerste cleet."). While it seems plausible that met coluen (which is the dative plural of colve, of which kolf, meaning "with clubs," is a variant) yielded the Scots loanword golf, it is clear from the verb tsollen (from the French souler, "to play football") that the text envisaged the rough competitive team game of soule played with a curved stick.

That on the Continent kolve primarily denoted a hockey stick becomes evident from the Boek van Merline (1261), poet Jacob van Maerlant's translation of Robert de Boron's Livre de Merlin, in which young Merlin is engaged in a game of soule à la crosse (hockey). Where in the French source Merlin viciously hits one of his playmates with a crosse (a hockey stick), in Maerlant's Flemish version the word used is kolve. Proof that golf in Scotland had exactly the same meaning as its Flemish counterpart kolve comes in The Buik of Alexander the Conqueror, a translation, by Sir Gilbert Hay (c. 1460), of the medieval Roman d'Alexandre. In Hay's French source, Alexander the Great had received a ball ( estuef) and a hockey stick ( crosse) from the king of Persia. In his Scots version, Hay rendered crosse into golf-staff and further alludes to the stick as a means with which to chase the Persian emperor and his lords to and fro like a ball in a hockey match. Such a description leaves hardly any doubt that in 15th-century Scotland the term golf primarily referred to a fiercely contended team game, and this accounts for its being banned in the acts of Parliament quoted above.

A continental origin of golf is also suggested by a linguistic analysis of golfing terms and a recently discovered Dutch description of golf from the first half of the 16th century. Golf historians have long surmised that the terms tee and stymie are based on the Dutch word tuitje (a diminutive of tuit, meaning "snout") and the phrase stuit me (meaning "hinders me"), but these derivations have been questioned on phonological grounds and therefore have never been accepted by historical dictionaries. However, a Dutch origin of tee is still plausible, as a variation of the Flemish tese, meaning "target" (as in curling); the word originally referred to the hole but eventually came to mean a "pile of sand taken from the hole." There are also good reasons to posit a Dutch origin for the words putt (from putten, "put into a hole") and bunker (a possible back-formation of bancaert kolve).

However, the source most likely to tip the scales in favour of a Dutch origin is a phrase booklet written by a Dutch schoolmaster, Pieter van Afferden, or Petrus Apherdianus (1510-80). The book, Tyrocinium latinae linguae ( Recruits' Drill in the Latin Language; 1545), was intended to impart a knowledge of Latin in everyday situations by matching Latin phrases with Dutch ones. This source predates the earliest Scottish description of golf-the 1636 Vocabula by Scotsman David Wedderburn-by almost a century. Its remarkable feature, however, is that in a chapter titled "De Clauis Plumbatis" ("On the [Game with the] Leaded Clubs") it is much more explicit than other early sources. In the Tyrocinium the club is indeed called a kolve, and the game as such is referred to as kolven (the infinitive of a verb used as a noun). This confirms that the Scots word golf is indeed based on kolve or kolf. In the course of a dialogue in this text, the fictitious players also give the first indication of the existence of rules. For instance, a golfer who misses the ball is said to lose the right to strike (wastes a stroke); to step onto the teeing ground before it is one's turn is against the rules because a certain order of play has to be adhered to; a player must be allowed to swing freely, necessitating that other players step back; a golfer is not allowed to stand in the light of his partner; and, lastly, in order to putt, the ball has to be struck-merely pushing it is forbidden and is called a knavish trick. The hole, however, is called not a put but a cuyl. Generally speaking, then, the Tyrocinium proves that, by the middle of the 16th century, golf in the Netherlands was a firmly established and rather sophisticated game.

Golf in Scotland

Despite the likelihood of a continental origin of golf, King James IV, who had prohibited the hockeylike game of golf earlier (in 1491), nevertheless became the first authenticated player of "real" golf. That royalty were the leaders of this new sporting fashion is to be expected. The route of transmission to Scotland was likely to have been Flemish traders and craftsmen who had found employment at the Scottish court.

The lord high treasurer's accounts for the years 1502, 1503, and 1506 include payments for the king's "golf clubbis and ballis" and other equipment during stays at Perth, Edinburgh, and St. Andrews. In addition, the entry for the year 1506 specifies the amount of three French crowns lost by the king in a golfing bet (betting on the outcome of games was widespread in the Middle Ages).

The Stuarts also gave the game its first woman golfer- Mary, Queen of Scots, who was charged with playing in the fields beside Seton only a few days after the murder of her husband, Lord Darnley. The contemporary account of the queen's misconduct also makes it clear that at the time a golf club was still called a golf in Scotland. The fact that in Scotland golf counted royalty among its followers and the fact that the first pictorial representations of the game are to be found in books of hours owned by members of the continental high aristocracy suggest that from the middle of the 15th century there are two games to distinguish: one was kolve/ kolf, a variety of hockey that was popular with townspeople and the peasantry, and the other was golf, the preserve of the upper crust of society. However, there is no evidence of the existence of the latter in Scotland much before the 16th century.

Development of golfers' associations

Early British societies

There is another provenance story that says James I introduced golf to Blackheath in 1608, long thought to be the year the historic royal Blackheath Golf Club was founded. Although King James and his courtiers played golf somewhere in the vicinity, it is doubtful whether any organized society then existed, and research has set the earliest date of such a society nearly two centuries later. W.E. Hughes, editor of the Chronicles of Blackheath Golfers, ascribes the club's foundation to 1787.

The oldest club with documentary proof of its origin is the Gentlemen Golfers of Leith, now the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, whose modern home is at Muirfield in East Lothian. Its genesis was a move by a group of players to hold a competition or tournament. In 1744 "several Gentlemen of Honour skillful in the ancient and healthfull exercise of Golf" petitioned the Edinburgh city council to provide a silver club for annual competition on the links of Leith. The Society of St. Andrews Golfers, now the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews (R&A), Scotland, was formed in 1754 by a group of 22 golfers who played there. The rules that the society adopted were almost identical to the Edinburgh Gentlemen Golfers' rules. These two clubs played major roles in the development of the game in Scotland. Eventually the R&A became, by common consent, the oracle on rules. In 1919 it accepted the management of the Open Championship (also known, particularly in the United States, as the British Open) and the British Amateur Championship. The R&A thus became the governing body for golf in the British Isles and throughout most of the Commonwealth.

With the birth of the Royal North Devon Golf Club in 1864, golf took a firm foothold in England. The Devon club was the first course on seaside links outside Scotland. The Royal Liverpool Golf Club was established in 1869 on a rabbit warren at Hoylake. In its infancy players simply cut holes with their penknives and stuck feathers in them for the guidance of those who were coming behind. The rabbits were the greenskeepers. By 1870 the club was fairly established, and members played matches against players from clubs such as Blackheath and the Royal North Devon Club at Westward Ho!. The Royal Liverpool Club hosted Great Britain's first Amateur Championship in 1885 and the first English Amateur Championship in 1925. The first Scotland-England amateur match was organized in 1902, and it was at Hoylake in 1921 that an unofficial contest between British and U.S. players, a curtain-raiser to the Amateur Championship, was played and served as the genesis of the Walker Cup series.

The following advertisement, which appeared in James Rivington's gazette in New York on April 21, 1779, clearly refers to golf:

To the GOLF PLAYERS: The Season for this pleasant and healthy Exercise now advancing, Gentlemen may be furnished with excellent CLUBS and the veritable Caledonian BALLS, by enquiring at the Printer's.

The South Carolina and Georgia Almanac of 1793 published, under the heading "Societies Established in Charleston," the following item: "Golf Club Formed 1786." The Charleston City Gazette and Daily Advertiser of September 18, 1788, reported: "There is lately erected that pleasing and genteel amusement, the KOLF BAAN." However, this perhaps pointed to the existence of an indoor facility for the Dutch game of kolf, a variety of the French jeu de mail mentioned above. Later notices dated 1791 and 1794 referred to the South Carolina Golf Club, which celebrated an anniversary with a dinner on Harleston's Green in the latter year. Although these fragments constitute the earliest clear evidence of golf clubs in the United States, the clubs appear to have been primarily social organizations that did not survive the War of 1812.

The first permanent golf club in the Western Hemisphere was the Royal Montreal Golf Club, established in 1873. The members played on Fletcher's Fields in the city's central area until urban growth compelled a move of some miles to Dixie, a name derived from a group of Southern refugees who arrived there after the U.S. Civil War. The Royal Quebec Golf Club was founded in 1874; the Toronto and Niagara, Ontario, clubs in 1876; and the Brantford, Ontario, club in 1879. In the meantime, golf was played experimentally at many places in the United States without taking permanent root until, in 1885, it was played in Foxburg, Pennsylvania. The Oakhurst Golf Club in West Virginia, which later became the Greenbrier Club, is said to have been formed in 1884; and the Dorset Field Club in Dorset, Vermont, claims to have been organized and to have laid out its course in 1886, although in both instances written records are lacking. The Foxburg Golf Club has provided strong support for the claim that it was organized in 1887 and is the oldest golf club in the United States with a permanent existence. Foxburg also claims the oldest American golf course.

Golf as an organized game in the United States, however, usually is dated from the founding of the St. Andrew's Golf Club at Yonkers, New York, in 1888. Its progenitor was John Reid, a Scot from Dunfermline who became known as "the father of American golf." Reid, on learning that fellow Scot Robert Lockhart was returning to the old country on business, asked him to bring back some golf clubs and balls. This done, Reid and his friend John B. Upham tried them out on February 22, 1888, over an improvised three-hole layout. That fall, five men formed the club, and in the spring they moved to a course in an apple orchard. There, it is said, they hung their coats and a jug of good Scotch whisky in a convenient apple tree, and they subsequently became known as the "Apple Tree Gang." The club made its final move in 1897 to Mount Hope in Westchester county, New York.

Other early courses included Newport, Rhode Island (1890); Shinnecock Hills on Long Island (1891); and the Chicago Golf Club (1892) at Wheaton, Illinois. The Tuxedo Golf Club in New York, founded in 1889, met the Shinnecock men in 1894 in what has been assumed to be the first interclub match in the United States. The Newport club staged an invitational tournament for amateurs in September 1894, and in October the St. Andrew's club promoted a similar competition. These were announced as championships, but that was questioned because the events were each promoted by a single club and on an invitational basis. It was from the controversy roused by these promotions that the United States Golf Association (USGA) was instituted in 1894. Its aims were to organize the U.S. Amateur and Open championships and to formulate a set of rules for the game. The founding fathers, two from each club, were from St. Andrew's, Shinnecock Hills, Chicago, the Country Club at Brookline, and Newport. The U.S. national championships-the Amateur, the Women's Amateur, and the Open-were inaugurated in 1895.

Other countries

Before organized clubs had been established in North America, colonies of British settlers, merchants, and civil servants carried golf with them. India has the oldest club outside Great Britain; the Royal Calcutta Golf Club was founded in 1829, and the Royal Bombay Golf Club came about 12 years later. The Royal Calcutta initiated an amateur championship for India, and the two clubs paved the way for many in East Asia. The Royal Bangkok Golf Club (1890) was first housed in an ancient temple. Golf came to China when the Shanghai Golf Club was formed in 1896, until which time the game was apparently unknown outside Hong Kong. The Japanese a few years later constructed a course at Kōbe. The Tokyo Golf Club was founded in 1914. With the boom in the popularity of the game in Japan after World War II, players came to be numbered in the thousands, despite the fact that the shortage of open land made the game enormously expensive to play. The first club in Australia, the Royal Adelaide Golf Club, was formed in 1870, and it is believed that the game was played in Melbourne in 1847 but went into abeyance for nearly half a century, the gold rush having taken priority over golf for the settlers. New Zealand origins have been dated from the formation of the Christchurch Golf Club in 1873. South Africa's first course was at the Maritzburg Golf Club in Natal in 1884, though the Royal Cape Golf Club (1885) has been rated as the country's senior club.

On the European continent the first golf course was laid in France at Pau in 1856. Until 1913, when the count of Gallifet was admitted as a member, the club "Golf de Pau" remained the preserve of Scottish residents at the foot of the Pyrenees, some of whom were descendants of Wellington's army. Biarritz Golf Club came into being in 1888, and Cannes Golf Club was founded by the "King of Cannes," the Russian grandduke Michael, in 1891. The French golf federation, the Union des Golfs de France, was inaugurated in 1912. In Germany, golf was first played by English tourists in spas such as Bad Homburg and Wiesbaden. The first golf club in Germany, Berlin Golf Club, now Golf- und Landclub Berlin-Wannsee, was founded in 1895 and run by Anglo-Saxons. The German Federation (Deutscher Golfverband) was established in Hamburg in 1907. In Switzerland the first golf course, in Davos, was planned in 1895 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who after its completion was annoyed by the fact that cows enjoyed chewing up the red flags that marked the greens.

Development of equipment

How the ball is hit and directed is the essence of golf. The changing story of the ball's manufacture falls broadly into well-defined phases, beginning with the "feathery," which was used for centuries until it was superseded by gutta-percha.

The history of the golf ball

For many years golf balls were made from wood, but in the early 17th century feather balls were introduced and were hailed as an advance. "Featheries" were manufactured by compressing boiled feathers into the pieces of stitched leather that composed the cover. For stuffing in the feathers a wooden tool was first used, after which the stuffing iron had to complete the job. When the leather case was crammed beyond increase, the hole was stitched up and the case left to dry; then the ball was hammered and made as round as possible and painted white. The whole process was so slow that the maker did well to finish four balls in a day, so that they cost as much as five shillings each. Although the feathery could be hit a long way, it became sodden and disabled in wet weather and was destroyed by hacks from iron clubs, and thus the balls were short-lived as well as expensive.

Gutta-percha, the evaporated milky juice or latex of various South American and South Pacific island trees (especially those of Malaysia), is soft and impressible at the temperature of boiling water but becomes hard and nonbrittle and retains its shape when cooled. It is not affected by water except at boiling temperature. In the mid-1840s it was discovered to be a substance ideal for the easy and efficient manufacture of golf balls; the manufacturing process consisted simply of boiling a strip of gutta-percha, molding it into a spherical shape, and allowing it to dry.

It took a few years, however, for the potential of the "gutty" to be realized. The first prototypes were smooth as billiard balls; they were difficult to get airborne and tended to duck (drop) quickly in flight. It was soon discovered that ball flight improved tremendously once the ball acquired the nicks, cuts, and scuff marks that resulted from a round of play. Ball makers learned to mold balls with raised or indented surface patterns, thus ensuring proper flight.

The emergence of the gutta-percha in 1848 brought about a revolutionary change in the game. The professionals had divided views, however. At St. Andrews Allan Robertson, a leading manufacturer of feather balls, would have nothing to do with gutties at first; but "Old Tom" Morris, who was then his assistant, wisely foresaw the possibilities of the new ball, and on this issue the two actually parted company in 1852, Morris going into business on his own (he returned to St. Andrews in 1859, after the death of Robertson). The ball was heartily welcomed by the golf community, not least for its economy (cost: one shilling each), and its coming immediately swelled the golfing ranks.

The beginning of the 20th century introduced a new ball and a new era. The U.S. patent of the three-piece rubber ball-the invention of Coburn Haskell, a golfer from Cleveland, and Bertram G. Work of the B.F. Goodrich Company-involved a tension-wound rubber thread around a solid rubber core. The new design allowed for a ball that flew and rolled farther than a gutty; it was also easier to hit and gave its striker a greater sense of power. Older men found it easier to play, and hosts of women and children were drawn into the game. Early concerns as to the controllability of the rubber ball were quelled when the 1901 U.S. Amateur and the 1902 U.S. Open and Open Championship (British Open) were won by players using the Haskell ball, defeating opponents playing gutties.

Early rubber balls were covered with a layer of gutta-percha molded into a pattern of bumps (called a "bramble pattern") that covered the entire surface. The Spalding company introduced a ball covered with balata, a natural rubber, in 1903; it proved more durable and easier to control than gutta-percha. Experiments with ball design also revealed that balls with indentations produced better results than balls with bumps (in that they reduced the drag on a ball's surface by increasing turbulence in flight), and in 1905 the dimpled cover was patented by England's William Taylor. A number of ball varieties then appeared from manufacturers catering to the golfer's desire to hit the ball farther. Length was the lure, and the trade race upset the design of courses. Championship and other tees had to be sited farther back.

Another factor that greatly increased the popularity and playability of golf was the introduction of the golf tee, patented in 1899 by George F. Grant, one of the first African American golfers. Previously players forged a tee from a pinch of wet sand or used other early tees made from cardboard, rubber, or steel. Grant's invention increased the average player's chances of getting the ball airborne.

The 1.62 formula

Shortly after World War I the R&A enacted what is called the "1.62 formula"-that the ball should have a maximum weight of 1.62 ounces (45.93 grams) and a minimum diameter of 1.62 inches (4.11 cm). For two years the USGA tried a ball which weighed 1.55 ounces (43.94 grams) and was 1.68 inches (4.27 cm) in diameter, but in 1932 it reverted to a weight of 1.62 ounces while retaining a diameter of 1.68 inches. This larger-sized American ball was ruled mandatory by the British Professional Golf Association in 1968 and replaced the smaller ball throughout the world by 1980.

By the turn of the 21st century, golf balls still conformed to the above standards, although a host of new designs were available. Traditional three-piece balata-covered balls were still popular, but golfers could also choose from two-piece balls (with a solid core and a hard Surlyn cover), two-piece "performance" balls (with thicker cores and thinner covers, allowing for the feel and control of a three-piece ball), and three-piece double-cover balls (consisting of an inner core covered by two layers of varying hardness). Experiments in the size, depth, and arrangement of dimples have also produced balls with longer flight and a higher degree of backspin. Modern golf balls can have anywhere from 324 to 492 dimples arranged in sophisticated patterns, such as multiple triangular or pentagonal groups.

A major challenge for ball manufacturers is to produce improved products that still conform to USGA standards. A ball that would travel 600 yards (550 metres) is more than possible, but such a ball would not conform to the USGA's edict of 1942, which limited the velocity of a golf ball to 250 feet per second at impact. Nevertheless, ball makers have great flexibility in terms of materials used, dimple patterns, and size and weight (providing this design conforms to the standards of size and weight) and are free to design any ball that takes advantage of such leeway.

The history of the club

Early clubs

Early specimens of clubs with lead-alloy shells, as described by Pieter van Afferden in the 16th century ( see above), came to light in 1970 when the Dutch East Indiaman Kennemerland, sunk off the Shetland Islands in 1664, was excavated. Previously the oldest clubs known were discovered in a house in Hull, England, along with a newspaper carrying a date of 1741.

In the British Golf Museum at St. Andrews there are specimens of ancient clubs including two woods and an especially notable putting cleek-i.e., a putter having an iron head on a wooden shaft-made in the second half of the 18th century by Simon Cossar of Leith, club maker to the Company of Gentlemen Golfers. When Allan Robertson ( see above) of the R&A saw that golfing would not be ruined by the gutta-percha ball, he realized the value of iron clubs for approach shots and made a cleek for steadier putting. Other developments included "Young Tom" (son of "Old Tom") Morris's idea for the cup-faced niblick (what would be a nine iron in today's parlance) for playing the shorter approaches.

The club makers of outstanding repute in the early 19th century were Hugh Philip at St. Andrews and the McEwan brothers of Musselburgh, notably Douglas, whose clubs were described as models of symmetry and shape. They were artists at a time when clubs were passing from "rude and clumsy bludgeons" to a new and handsome look.

Manufacturing methods

The hickory shafts of the woods-the play club (modern driver), the spoons, and the brassie-had been spliced to heads of apple or beech faced with horn. The harder rubber ball, however, brought about the use of persimmon wood and, later, laminated club heads. Hard insets appeared in the faces. Increased demand led to the adaptation of shoe-last machine tools for the fashioning of wooden club heads. Sockets were bored in the club heads, and shafts were inserted rather than spliced. Drop-forging completely replaced hand forging in the fashioning of iron clubs, and faces were deepened to accommodate the livelier ball and were machine-lined to increase the spin on the ball in flight. Composition materials were developed as an alternative to leather in grips, and the grip foundations were molded in so many ways that they were regulated in 1947. Inventive minds created novel clubs, not only centre-shafted and aluminum putters and the sand wedge but also types that were such radical departures from the traditional form and make that they could not be approved by the USGA or the R&A. In its revised code of 1908 the R&A ruled that it would not sanction any substantial departure from the traditional form and make of golf clubs. This principle has been invoked many times since then.

Improvement of the shaft was accompanied by the general introduction of numbered, rather than named, clubs and by the merchandising of matched sets rather than individual clubs. Clubs had become more numerous and more finely graduated than the names that traditionally had been applied to them (brassie, spoon, niblick, mashie, etc.), and shafts could be manufactured to specifications for flexibility and point of flex. Whereas formerly a golfer seeking new clubs went through a rack of mashies until he found one that "felt right" and then tried to find other clubs of similar feel, he later bought a whole set manufactured to impart the same feel. The merchandising opportunities inherent in the numbered and matched sets were carried to an extreme, and in 1938 the USGA limited the number of clubs a player might use in a round to 14. The R&A concurred in a similar edict the next year.

Experiments with steel shafts went through several phases. In 1924 the Union Hardware Company of Torrington, Connecticut, U.S., drew a seamless shaft of high-carbon steel that could be heat-treated and tempered. It was approved by the R&A in 1929 and substantially replaced hickory in the early 1930s. In the 1960s aluminum shafts had a brief spurt of popularity; shafts of fibreglass, graphite, and titanium were introduced into the game in the decades thereafter. By the 1970s the technique of investment casting, a method of casting rather than forging to enhance the perimeter weighting of iron clubs, was commonplace, and a decade later "woods" made of metal were in widespread use by tournament professionals. The stainless-steel club heads of the 1980s gave way to titanium (a lightweight, extremely hard metal) heads in the 1990s. By the turn of the 21st century, the conversion to metal-head "woods" was near-complete. Virtually all touring professionals used them, and the term metals was gradually replacing woods in golf parlance.

Players and tournaments

There is no doubt that the development of golf as an organized sport was distinctly British, and Britain produced the first great players of the game. As the early golfing associations, or clubs, became established in Scotland and then England, there emerged a group of professionals who made golf balls, fashioned and repaired clubs, laid out and maintained courses, and gave lessons. Many of them were outstanding golfers and would take on all comers in the popular stakes (money) matches of the day. Allan Robertson of St. Andrews, for example, was regarded as the greatest golfer of his time and, according to legend, was never beaten in a stakes match played on even terms (that is, without giving his opponent a handicap). The British professionals and their amateur counterparts represented the best golf in the world from the second half of the 19th century, when the sport began to gain some world prominence, up to about the 1920s, when American players began to excel. With the tremendous increases in financial rewards to be gained in golf during the latter half of the 20th century, especially on the U.S. professional tour, and with the great mobility provided by jet transportation, golfers from other countries (e.g., Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, Fiji, Spain, and Argentina) began to appear in the top tournaments.

The premier championships

The most prestigious tournaments for nonprofessionals are the British Amateur Championship and the United States Amateur Championship. For professionals the coveted Grand Slam tournaments are the Masters, the U.S. Open, the Open Championship (British Open), and the Professional Golfers' Association (PGA) Championship. The Players Championship has also steadily gained in popularity and prestige, to the extent that it has earned the unofficial designation of a "fifth major." The Walker Cup for amateurs and the Ryder Cup for professionals are important team golfing tournaments that have pitted American golfers against those of Europe.

British tournaments and players

The Open Championship of the British Isles, which the British like to call "the Open" to emphasize the tradition and priority of the event begun in 1860 (but which is also known as the British Open), was the concept of the Prestwick Club in Scotland, whose minutes recorded a proposal that all clubs should contribute to raise a fund for a trophy for professional competition. Their hope, however, was badly disappointed, and the offer of support was so meagre that Prestwick decided to go it alone and spent 30 guineas on the ornamental challenge belt to be awarded to the champion. The early championships were dominated by Willie Park, "Old Tom" Morris, and his son, "Young Tom," who retired the belt by winning it three times in succession, 1868-70. In the absence of a prize, there was no championship in 1871; but the next year a cup, which has been in competition ever since, was put up.

At the end of the 19th century, England was producing great players. John Henry Taylor and Harry Vardon, together with James Braid, a Scotsman, among them won the Open Championship 16 times between 1894 and 1914. These three supreme golfers were known as "the great triumvirate" and were primarily responsible for the formation of the Professional Golfers Association in 1901. This body is responsible for professional tournaments in Great Britain and for the biennial Ryder Cup match (for professionals) when it is played there.

The British Amateur Championship was started in 1885 after the Royal Liverpool Golf Club at Hoylake had proposed a tournament "open to all amateur golfers." The tournament attracted nearly all the best amateurs of the time, but it was not immediately recognized as the championship. The following year the Royal Liverpool suggested to the R&A that the tournament be established as the Amateur Championship, and 24 clubs joined together to purchase a trophy and manage the event. Among British players who won the Amateur Championship at least two times before the series was interrupted by World War I were H.G. Hutchinson, John Ball (who won it eight times), J.E. Laidlay, and H.H. Hilton. The interwar years were marked by many outstanding players, including Cyril Tolley, Amateur champion in 1920 and 1929; Roger Wethered, Amateur champion in 1923; and Scots Hector Thomson, Jack McLean, and A.T. Kyle.

The Ladies' Golf Union in Britain was formed in 1893. The first Ladies' British Amateur Championship was held that year on the old St. Anne's course in England. One of the first outstanding woman golfers was Dorothy Campbell, who won the Ladies' British Amateur Championship in 1909 and 1911 and was runner-up in 1908. She won the U.S. Women's Amateur Championship in 1909, 1910, and 1924 and the Canadian championship in 1910, 1911, and 1912. Among the many notable women who played championship golf between the wars were Joyce Wethered (Roger Wethered's sister) and Cecil Leitch, each of whom won the Ladies' British Amateur title four times.

U.S. tournaments and players

The first official U.S. Open, Amateur, and Women's Amateur championships were held in 1895. Walter J. Travis was the first great American golfer. He proved his ability as a golfer by winning the U.S. Amateur (1900-03) and the British Amateur (1904, the only year he entered this event) titles. Jerome D. Travers, the next great American champion, was a player with indomitable courage and nerve that rarely failed him. He won the U.S. Amateur Championship (1907-08, 1912-13) and the U.S. Open title (1915).

After World War I the influence of the many Scottish golfers who had emigrated to the United States became evident. American golfers virtually monopolized the Open Championship in Britain until the mid-1930s. From the 1920s into the 1980s American teams dominated the Walker Cup and Ryder Cup matches, as American women golfers did the Curtis Cup tournament from its inception in the 1930s.

American golfers had begun to show their prowess in 1913, when Francis Ouimet became a national hero by defeating Vardon and Edward Ray, two of the best British professionals, for the U.S. Open. Also notable was Charles ("Chick") Evans, who was the first golfer to win the U.S. Open and Amateur in the same year (1916). But Bobby Jones has been regarded as the greatest amateur golfer of modern times. His career was brilliant from his debut in national competition in the U.S. Amateur of 1916 until his unparalleled performance in 1930 of winning all four of the world's most difficult titles-the British Amateur, the Open Championship (British Open), the U.S. Amateur, and the U.S. Open.

The popular appeal of the U.S. Amateur Championship has been seriously weakened by departures to the professional ranks, however, and it has become exceptional for an Amateur champion to resist the lure of tournament money. In the late 1930s the professional circuit, underwritten by civic and club organizations throughout the country, began putting up major prize money for the experts. In 1936 aggregate prize money totaled $100,000. By 2000 the PGA was offering more than $135,000,000 in prizes annually.

The first outstanding American professional golfers were Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen. Hagen, a colourful and stylish player known as "The Haig," is credited with raising the social standing of golfers. His record of 11 major tournament victories ranks second on the all-time list. Sarazen attained a career Grand Slam; that is, he won the U.S. Open, the Open Championship (British Open), the PGA Championship, and the Masters Tournament during the course of his career. (It should be noted that when Bobby Jones won a Grand Slam during the 1930 season, the four tournaments that constituted the Grand Slam were different; the British Amateur and U.S. Amateur tournaments would be supplanted by the PGA Championship and the Masters.) Dominant players of the 1940s included Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, and Jimmy Demaret. Snead, one of golf's most humourous and ingratiating players, was recognized for the easy grace of his natural, self-taught swing. His 81 PGA Tour victories still stand as the all-time record for men ( Kathy Whitworth holds the record for the most tour wins, with 88 in the Ladies Professional Golf Association). Equally dominant was Hogan, who in many ways was the polar opposite of Snead. An aloof, intense player nicknamed "the Hawk," Hogan possessed a swing regarded as technically perfect and almost machinelike in consistency. Critically injured in an auto accident in 1949, Hogan was not expected to walk, let alone play golf, again, but he adhered to a rigorous exercise program and returned to the game within a year. His fragile legs allowed him to play only a limited schedule, but many feel that Hogan played his best golf after his comeback. In 1953 he became the first player to win three major tournaments (the Masters, the U.S. Open, and the Open Championship [British Open]) within a single season.

Golf steadily increased in popularity throughout the 20th century, becoming something of a worldwide phenomenon in the late 1950s and early '60s. The catalyst for this was Arnold Palmer. Handsome, charismatic, and possessing an exciting, go-for-broke style of play, Palmer was the perfect star for the new age of television coverage in golf. A major drawing card at tournaments, his legions of fans became known as "Arnie's Army." He became the first player to win four Masters Tournaments, which he accomplished in every even-numbered year from 1958 to 1964.

His popularity was such that many resented the arrival of the comparatively dour Jack Nicklaus, who turned professional in 1962 and was soon to dominate the game. In time, however, Nicklaus captured the hearts of golf fans throughout the world and came to be regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the game. A career Grand Slam winner, Nicklaus holds the all-time record of 18 victories in the major professional tournaments. He achieved his final major victory at age 46 in the 1986 Masters, regarded as one of the most memorable and emotional moments in golf history.

Also dominant during the 1960s and '70s were the South African Gary Player (another career Grand Slam winner) and the Americans Billy Casper and Lee Trevino. Other outstanding players of these and the following decades included Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, Chi Chi Rodriguez, Raymond Floyd, Hale Irwin, Greg Norman, Seve Ballesteros, José Maria Olazabal, Davis Love III, and Vijay Singh.

By the 1990s it seemed inconceivable that any single player would come along to challenge Nicklaus's dominance, Palmer's popularity, or Hogan's precision. The inconceivable happened in 1997 with the emergence of Tiger Woods. Heavily touted in the press for years as a child prodigy (he is reported to have shot 48 for nine holes at age three), Woods at age 21 fulfilled his promise by winning the 1997 Masters with a record score of 270 and by a record margin of 12 strokes. At his young age he was already one of the most powerful and disciplined players in golf history, his game exhibiting no weaknesses in any area. Woods went on to achieve within the next four years what many top golfers can only dream of accomplishing within a lifetime. At age 24 he utterly dominated the U.S. Open and Open Championship (British Open) tournaments of 2000 and became the youngest player to achieve a career Grand Slam. He scored his second Masters victory in 2001, thus becoming the first to hold all four major professional titles simultaneously, an accomplishment regarded as one of the great feats in the history of professional sports. Before Woods's arrival, it would have seemed absurd to tout so young a player as the greatest in the game's history, yet he has been afforded such praise by the likes of Nicklaus, Snead, and other veteran players. That he is of African American and Asian descent is also significant in that, within a few short years, he almost single-handedly transformed a game that once seemed the domain of white males into one that is now enjoyed by all ethnic groups. He is perhaps the perfect embodiment of golf's potential in the 21st century.

Several professional tournaments for women were staged during the 1920s and '30s; important players from this era include Glenna Collett from the United States and Joyce Wethered of Great Britain. It was not until the 1940s that efforts began in earnest to form a professional golf organization for women. The first, the Women's Professional Golf Association (WPGA), was chartered in 1944. Standout players soon emerged, including Patty Berg, Louise Suggs, Betty Jameson, and, especially, the multisport legend Mildred ("Babe") Didrikson Zaharias. Even Zaharias's popularity, however, could not ensure success for the WPGA, which folded in 1949. Nevertheless, it proved within its brief existence the need for a professional women's organization.

The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) was incorporated in August 1950 by the aforementioned golfers plus eight others. Funding for LPGA tournaments was at first so poor that golfers themselves performed many of the organizational tasks and course maintenance chores. Soon, however, the introduction of the Weathervane series of tournaments (a series of four 36-hole tournaments that offered a $3,000 prize for each tournament and a $5,000 prize for the overall winner of the four) proved sufficiently popular to sustain the organization throughout the decade.

The play of such outstanding golfers as Kathy Whitworth, Mickey Wright, Carol Mann, Sandra Haynie, and Sandra Palmer helped maintain a reasonable level of popularity for the LPGA throughout the 1960s. Star players who emerged during the following decade include Jan Stephenson, Jo-Anne Carner, Amy Alcott, and Judy Rankin. The most notable player to emerge during the '70s was Nancy Lopez, who, by winning nine tournaments (including a record five straight) during her first full season on the tour (1978), was a major force in increasing the popularity and prestige of the LPGA.

Pat Daniel, Betsy King, Patty Sheehan, Juli Inkster, and Laura Davies were among the top players of the 1980s and '90s. By the turn of the century, when the annual purse for LPGA events had increased to more than $37 million per year, the tour was dominated by such players as Karrie Webb, Annika Sörenstam, and Pak Se Ri. Sörenstam made headlines in 2001 by becoming the first female golfer to score 59 in competition and by becoming only the fourth player in LPGA history (after Whitworth, Wright, and Lopez) to win four consecutive tournaments.

International competition

Matches and tournaments

The first organized series of regular international matches were between Great Britain and the United States. The amateur team match between the two countries for the Walker Cup was inaugurated in 1922, and the professional team match for the Ryder Cup in 1927. The women's amateur team match for the Curtis Cup began in 1932. Although the competition in all these contests has often been close, the U.S. teams managed to win the cups with great consistency. In an attempt to bring parity to the Ryder Cup, the format was changed in 1979 to broaden the British team to include continental European players as well. This strategy has proved successful, and subsequent Ryder Cup matches have been fiercely contended, with both teams exhibiting excellent play. Between 1979 and 2000 the United States won six times and Europe four times, while one match (1989) ended in a tie.

Circuits

The coming of jet transport stimulated competition. Ocean hopping became routine, enabling outstanding players from such places as South America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Fiji, Spain, Japan, and Korea to compete in the premier championships in Great Britain and the United States and on the lucrative U.S. PGA Tour. Since being launched in 1971, the PGA European Tour has grown in terms of prestige and prize money to the extent that American players are frequent participants. By the turn of the 21st century, professional golf was a worldwide phenomenon, with players of various nationalities competing on multiple international tours.

Golf was included in the program of the Paris 1900 Olympic Games, the second modern Olympic Games. That competition consisted of a 36-hole stroke-play event for men and a 9-hole event for women. A men's team event replaced the women's competition for the 1904 St. Louis Games, but afterward golf was discontinued as an Olympic sport for over a century. In 2016 golf returned to the Olympics as a 72-hole stroke-play event for men and women.

The Senior PGA Tour

Begun in the early 1980s, the Senior PGA Tour (later renamed the Champions Tour) quickly became popular. Designed for golfers 50 years of age and up, its total purse was $10 million within a few years of its creation, and it had swelled to some $50 million by 2000. Although veterans such as Nicklaus, Palmer, Trevino, Rodriguez, and Irwin were no longer competing with the young men of the PGA Tour on a daily basis, they extended their competitive careers into the 21st century with this tour, demonstrating some excellent golf in the process.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Golf | History, Rules, Equipment, Majors, & Facts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
golf, a cross-country game in which a player strikes a small ball with various clubs from a series of starting points (teeing grounds) into a series of holes on a course. The player who holes his ball in the fewest strokes wins.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Golf Span - Golf Tips and Equipment Reviews

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If you don't understand the highlights of the main championships in golf, you'll be left out of the fun when watching golf with your buddies.

Keep reading to learn about some interesting facts, history, rules, and more.

1. The Masters

The Masters tournament is the year's first and most prestigious golf major. My favorite Masters moment was in practice when Jon Rahm hit an incredible water shot.

Since 1934, it has been the only major held on the same course yearly. With the picturesque Magnolia Lane Driveway, the famously fast greens, the par-3 tournament that precedes the main event, and the Champions dinner first hosted by Ben Hogan in 1952 to honor past champions - the Masters tournament is like no other. Legendary golfer Bobby Jones and investment banker Clifford Roberts founded it.

Since 1949, the Masters has held a green jacket ceremony at the end for the winner, which is awarded alongside the trophy. The green jacket signifies that the winner has become an honorary club member. And the caddies also have a completely white signature uniform.

Sadly, Augusta is a private members' club. If you don't have the likes of Microsoft founder Bill Gates or former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who are both members) on your speed dial, then there is not much chance of getting to play the exclusive course. In 2024 they'll allow LIV golfers to play, but it won't be easy to qualify.

I have been fortunate enough to have attended the Masters every year since 2010, except for 2020 and 2021, when COVID restrictions were in place. While Masters tickets are some of the most difficult to get, but if you can get them, it's a dream come true. Seeing the Masters tournament live with all your favorite golfers is an absolutely amazing experience.

Brendon Elliott, PGA Professional and writer at GolfSpan.com

Read more: How To Qualify for the Masters
2. PGA Championship

If you have been asking, is the PGA championship a major? Yes, it is. Predominantly played on the East Coast, it has been held in New York 12 times. In 2024, it was played from May 18th to May 21st at the Oak Hill Country Club in Pittsford, New York.

It is the only major that doesn't invite leading amateur golfers to compete. The only option for them to secure a place is winning one of the other three majors or another PGA tour event through a sponsor's exemption.

The first PGA Championship was held in 1916 at Siwanoy Country Club in New York and was won by Jim Barnes. The prize money back then was $500, and the winner also received the main trophy which was donated by and named after the New York City department store magnate Rodman Wanamaker.

Today, the winner gets a replica of the original Wanamaker trophy, as the original is on show at the PGA Historical Center in Florida. They also get a smaller replica to keep forever.
Read more: Most Playoff Holes in PGA History
For me, it's hard to look past the moment when Rory McIlroy finished a 25-foot birdie putt at the PGA Championship in 2012 - what a moment.

3. U.S. Open

The United States Open Championship is the third major of the year, taking place in June on the same weekend as Father's Day. It is traditionally known as the toughest of all four majors.

It is the only major staged by the United States Golf Association (USGA) instead of the PGA, and the event sparks a lot of controversies. Many players believe that the course setup is often very difficult, resulting in the harshest test of all four majors for the players, and from what I've seen on TV, I would have to agree.

I think it's nice to see them struggle a little occasionally and welcome the more difficult course setup preferred by the event organizers.
Read more: World Golf Championships Recap
With the first U.S. Open being held in 1895, it makes it the oldest major to be held in the United States. In 2024, Wyndham Clark was the US Open winner at Los Angeles Country Club.

The best moment I have been around for was when Tiger Woods made a 12-putt birdie putt at Torrey Pines to force a playoff.

4. The Open Championship

The PGA Open Championship is just the Open or The British Open. It is the only major that is held outside of the USA, and it is also the oldest golf tournament in the world.

13 years ago, I remember Rory McIlroy showing us what he was all about by shooting the lowest opening round in the history of the Open - just incredible.
Read more: How Many Golfers Make the Cut?
Played on a rotation of 10 of the finest coastal links courses spread throughout the UK in Scotland, England, and Northern Ireland, it gets its name from the idea that the tournament is supposedly 'open' to all competitors, both professional and amateur golfers. However, this does not work in practice, as only a select few leading amateurs get invited to play their shots there.

The first American to win the Open was Walter Hagen.

The event's winner is classed as 'The Champion Golfer of the Year', a coveted title that is still in use today and very sought after by every professional golfer competing in the golf majors. It wasn't until 1872 that the famous Claret Jug was introduced as the trophy, along with the winner's medal. Both of these are still handed out to the winner today.

FAQs

Has Anyone Won All 4 Majors in One Year Golf?

In the modern era, no one has won all four majors in one year. Tiger Woods and Ben Hogan have come the closest, winning three majors in one year.

Only five golfers have won the "grand slam" of golf, winning all 4 majors. Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, and Gene Sarazen.

One familiar name who has come very close to all four majors is Phil Mickelson. He won three Masters titles, two PGA Championships, and one Open Championship but never won the U.S. Open.

Why Are There Only 4 Golf Majors?

There is no specific reason there are only four golf majors. However, all of the tournaments are historic in their own right, and having majors every month may take some of the sparks away from it. Additionally, the PGA Tour takes place during the rest of the year.

What's the Most Prestigious Golf Tournament?

The Masters, which is the first major of the year, is widely considered to be the most prestigious golf tournament. It has been around since 1934 and it is renowned for the green jacket ceremony to crown the winner.

Related Articles & Sources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The 4 Golf Majors: When, Where, & History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Do you know your major golf tournaments? Read on about 4 golf majors, when they are on, where they're played and whats up for grabs.

# data[].attributes.headline
Scottie Scheffler - #1 Player in the World

# data[].attributes.subject
Scottie Scheffler - #1 Player in the World

# data[].attributes.headline
Xander Schauffele - #3 Player in the World

# data[].attributes.subject
Xander Schauffele - #3 Player in the World