Scots Family History Articles

Golf - Scotland's Gift to the World

Alistair Macdonald

Dutch Origin?
"The myth of the Dutch origin of golf originated at the beginning of the golf boom in England. Too many travellers from this country, themselves but recently acquainted with golf, imagined themselves 'discoverers' of these paintings in the Dutch museums, and assumed without investigation that the Dutch pictures were older than the Scottish game. In fact the earliest of these paintings, a water-colour by Hendrick Avercamp, was painted about 1625, and could scarcely be evidence of Dutch origin for a game that had been played in Scotland nearly 200 years before that." ("A History of Golf", by Robert Browning 1955)

Pieces of History
The early history of golf is obscure and fragmentary. To the earnest student seeking clues to the origins of the game, the task is extremely frustrating as he winds his way along false trails ending up in blind alleys. Theories abound, and often national prejudice supersedes logic, but when information is so sparse, this is understandable if unfortunate. What we do know is that a form of golf, or, to be more precise, a game involving the propelling of a spherical object by hitting it with a bent staff, was played by the Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese and Romans, and perhaps other ancient peoples.

The Roman game, paganica, took the players across country smiting a leather ball stuffed with wool. It is not clear, however, if the objective was to hit a preselected target (a tree, a boulder or such like) or if , hockey-wise, there were two teams playing in opposite directions. This pastime, as with that enjoyed by other Mediterranean peoples, has, with rather a dismissive attitude, been written off as a fore-runner to the game of golf, but it could have been, it is claimed, the fore-runner to the game of hockey. Hold on to this thought, it will resurface.

We cannot leave the early days without giving some consideration to the game of chole, a fascinating game played in Northern France, probably in the early 13th Century, and perhaps nearer to the present game of golf than earlier "suspect" versions. In chole, one version (and there appears to be several) has a team playing three shots in the direction of a target which could be several miles away. Their opponents were then permitted to play one shot (same ball) in the opposite direction or in whichever direction they judged would give their opponents maximum problems. Not the kind of sport likely to cultivate friendship.

The French, forever inventive, played another game perhaps even more related to golf as we know it today - maille or paille-maille (once enjoyed by the English gentry in Pall Mall, hence the name). This pastime involved hitting a ball (probably wooden) the greatest distance for a fixed number of strokes. Again, without too much critical examination, there is a fair, but thin resemblance to to-day's game, but somewhere from the bones of paganica, chole and paille-maille, today's game may have found its roots.

There is a danger of distancing ourselves too far and too quickly from the supposed origins of hockey, for there is an undoubted link between the two forms of propelling a ball with a curved stick, and whether the ball is stationary or in motion the action is similar. There are links to be examined, and they will be.

There is little doubt that golf was not 'invented' in the sense or fashion of, say rugby or Monopoly. Golf evolved, but from what? Ask a German - Who invented the jet engine? Ask an American - Who invented television? A Frenchman - Who won the Battle of Waterloo? You may be surprised at the answers you get. However, ask a Scotsman - Who invented golf? and unless you are a Dutchman, you will not be surprised at his reply.

Thereby hangs a tale, or many tales, mostly supported by fact, but in its absence, filled in by hypothesis. Dutch historians certainly cannot be ignored and must be permitted a say in the debate. Here tribute must be paid to the researches of the late Steven van Hengel and J. A. Brongers, giants in their field of the history of golf. Naturally, both were indefatigable supporters of the 'Dutch Case' and it is fair to say that they have many supporters throughout the golfing world, for their arguments are very persuasive and supported by documentary evidence.

The Dutch, unlike the Scots, are well endowed with 'golf evidence' dating back to 1300 or thereabouts - documents, paintings and sketches abound. Literacy in Scotland was confined to a very small band of clerics, nor had that country any tradition of art. In Holland, the game took many forms, descriptions and titles, but without going into too much complex detail, the early Dutch game was variously played in the streets, in churchyards, on town ramparts or on ice, and latterly in prepared courts (as in bowling) under a roof. As for the names given to those pastimes, take your pick - spel met colve, kolven, kolf, colf, but no matter, you cannot fail to recognise the close resemblance to our own 'golf'. The Dutch evidence is strong, and compelling. Unfortunately there is a missing link in the historical tracts - where is the transition from streets, courtyards or ice to the present wide open spaces? This critical stage of development may be missing but that does not mean that it did not exist, even in well documented Holland. The Dutch have no records of their game being played on grass.

Their documentation starts in 1297 in the town of Loenan ann de Vecht, where it is chronicled that two teams of four, armed with wooden clubs, hit wooden balls over a 'course' measuring 4500 metres. The targets were doors of houses, and the objective of each team was to score a hit in the lowest number of strokes. That could well be the end of this treatise, but wait. Two quotes from van Hengel's "Early Golf" (he prudently resisted the temptation to call his book "Earliest Golf"): he writes "We must assume that golf was already a popular game"; and from the same pen "The mere fact that records of the game, or pictures cannot be found.... is, in itself, no evidence that the game was not played there". The significance of those two statements must not be allowed to slip by without comment 1) the "assumption" that in 1297 the game in Holland was already popular, and 2) the lack of evidence does not eliminate the possibility of the game being in existence. Both propositions will be referred to later.

Both van Hengel and his redoubtable contemporary Brongers, are very convincing in their assertions that the close trading ties between the west of Holland and the east coast of Scotland were instrumental if not the main factor in exporting and introducing the game from east to west. Stress is placed on the fact that, while records suggest the existence of a Scottish east coast game in the mid 15th century, no records appear on the game being played in the west of Scotland until 1589, some 140 years later. Why then only the east coast if not because of its close proximity to Holland? This argument is central to the Dutch claim of origination. It is significant that the possibility of the game having been introduced to Holland by visiting Scottish fishermen was not examined, or if examined, not presented.

Much is naturally made of the origin of the name 'golf' vis-a-vis Dutch 'kolf' or 'colf' and the Old German 'kolbe' a club. Etymologists generally agree that the word 'golf' derived from one or both of those Teutonic sources. Another convincing scoring point for the Dutch.

All in all, the Dutch claim to have originated the game of golf is strong. Just one niggling doubt. What do we mean today when we talk about golf? Certainly clubs and balls, but in the streets, on ice, hitting the ball for distance at every stroke (flag golf?) in a prepared courtyard, under a roof? Could golf as we know it today have developed from those unlikely forms, into the open air, green grass, bunkers, trees and the prime objective of sinking the ball in a hole in the fewest number of strokes? The question - did kolf take that gigantic leap forward from the constraints of the Dutch game as so carefully described, and suddenly golf was born? If so, where and when was the transition, or perhaps more to the point, was there a transition? Did the Dutch form of kolf die a natural death in Holland, never to be seen again? It is noted that by the 16th century, all Dutch published references to their game had ceased.

With due deference, and feeling somewhat of a pygmy among giants (van Hengel's researches reputedly took him 7000 hours) let me try to assemble 'The Case for Scotland'. So, poking my head above the parapet - Golf is essentially a links game, not of strength but of skill. A game, the sole objective of which is to hit a ball as far as possible, is not golf. It started, it is claimed, on links land, grassed and played three out of four seasons of the year (it could not be played when the sheep and cattle were not grazing). There were natural hazards, burns winding their way to the nearby sea, wheel tracks made by farm carts collecting seaweed, sheep folds (today's bunkers) and of course a lot of rough - heather, bracken and sea grasses. The target, a branch of a tree stuck in the ground with maybe a tuft of sheeps' wool tied to the top to make it more visible. Above all, an open natural terrain. That's golf!

We cannot, regrettably, go back as far as 1297. The first record of golf in Britain is contained in that much quoted, and often misquoted, 1457 Act of the Scottish Parliament when James II, somewhat miffed by the superiority of the English archers, ordained that archery practice was mandatory to the exclusion of time-consuming popular pastimes, thus:

Item 'It is decretyt and ordanyt yt wapinschawingis be halden be ye lordis and baronys spirituale and temporale four tymis in ye yeir. And at ye fut ball and ye golf be utterly cryt doune and nocht usyt ... and as tuichande ye fut ball and ye golf, we ordane it to be punyst be ye baronis unlawe ...'

The words are highly descriptive and require little translation. Suffice to say that "utterly cryt doune" means "banned". A previous order by James I in 1424 proscribes "ye fut ball" but not "ye golf" This led van Hengel to conclude "There are reasons to believe that golf was omitted because there was none". This proposition in direct contrast to his conclusion on the 1297 Dutch town of Loenan report, "We must assume that golf was then already a popular game" and "The mere fact that records of the game.... cannot be found.... is, in itself no evidence that the game was not played there". It is rather difficult in the absence of supportive evidence to reconcile these assumptions. A game in its infancy doesn't require a Royal Decree to forbid it.

However, mobilising other stalwart authorities and noted historians to the cause, Robert Clark in his "Golf: a Royal and Ancient Game" 1875, states with no little assurance - "In Scotland, a game of memorial antiquity. There is evidence early in the 15th century it (golf) was popular in such a sense . . . the obvious inference from this is that its origin lies very much further back".

Andrew Lang in his "History of Golf" (Badminton Library 1887) calls a mashie a mashie "Clearly golf is no more kolf than cricket is poker."

Garden Smith in his "World of Golf" 1898 pulls no punches "If the Dutch . . . play any game akin to ours, it seems more reasonable to suppose . . . . that their game was only a clumsy copy of what they saw at Leith and Musselburgh."

Returning to van Hengel, "The exact point of the origin of golf will never be found". We could close out at this point all square, or even admitting defeat, but let's have one more try, this time along a rather tenuous route which very broadly appears to offer some scope at least for plausible speculation. We left the Romans engaged in their pastime of paganica some 2000 years ago. That game, you will remember, was judged by some historians, along with other similar ancient ball and club sports to be the forerunner of hockey, and was therefore eliminated from the golf story. What then of an argument that golf developed directly from hockey, and the Dutch and French games found their origins elsewhere? Far fetched and contrived? Maybe so, but it is at least worthy of examination.

First of all, England. In the reign of Edward III (1312-1377) a popular game called cambuca was played with a "crooked club and ball" A contemporary illustration shows a figure armed with a club swinging at a ball while being observed by a companion (opponent?) holding a similar club. Little more is known, but while the sport may be neither hockey nor golf, it is certainly not cricket or poker.

Other historians take us over the water to Ireland to a period some 500 years earlier when a game called hurley was and still is very popular. Written in the language of the 7th century, an epic account of Cuchullain, one of the heroes of Ulster legend, describes him passing the time in this fashion: "The boy set out then, and he took his instruments of pleasure with him; he took his hurley of creduma and his silver ball . . . . and he began to shorten his way with them. He would give his ball a stroke of the hurley and drive it a great distance before him: he would cast his hurley at it and would give it second stroke. . . "

And again, a passage from an ancient Gaelic tale in which the hero goes out "to drive the ball" with his three brothers. The hero, we are told, "pitted himself against the three, and he would put a half shot down and a half shot in on them" which is taken to mean that he gave his brothers a handicap, in some sort of driving contest across country.

Robert Browning in his "History of Golf" 1955, suggests in the light of these tales that golf is possibly an offshoot of the Celtic/Gaelic hurley and may have originated in a form of practice indulged in by hurley players journeying across country to play an "away" match - a theory of considerable merit.

Before leaving the possible origin of the name golf - the Teutonic "Kolbe" to the later Dutch "Kolf" it is worth considering the common pronunciation in wide use in Scotland today, the word "gowf". In Old Scots, the word "gowf" or "gouf" means strike.

These ancient chronicles and locations have at least one thing in common - the Romans passed that way, not once but many times, even across the water in Hibernia. And perhaps even more significant, in the first century AD Agricola's legions, leaving behind them the safety of Hadrian's Wall, invaded Scotland, building a line of forts across the Clyde and Forth valley (the Antonine Wall) the right flank of which lay to the east of Edinburgh. It was an essential part of the Roman grand strategy to conquer and subdue the entire length and breadth of Britannia and so, from their base, the Antonine Wall, began the long and tortuous advance up the east coast of Scotland. The east coast, Mijnheer van Hengel.

The legions moved northwards, leaving behind the comfortable villages and hamlets, some as yet unnamed - Leith, Musselburgh, Muirfield, not five leagues distant from their Edinburgh base. Across the Forth and into Fife, they would, and in fact did, bivouac and later settle along the coast - Leven, Lundin, Elie, Crail, St Andrews, eventually reaching the Tay valley where another line of outposts was built. Their objective was the complete subjugation of Britannia, so ever onwards along the Angus coast, leapfrogging by sea and avoiding the Grampians, they would have encamped at Carnoustie, Montrose, Cruden Bay and Dornoch.

After over 80 years of uninterrupted occupation of Scotland, the Romans fell back to Hadrian's Wall, but returned periodically during the next two centuries. Is it stretching the imagination too far to suggest that during the first three centuries A.D. the Romans just might have left behind in their outposts of empire their sport, paganica? It would be truly astonishing if they hadn't.

In the beginning, and the Scots took it from there.

Another Version (Author unknown

. . . . . and after completing his labours of the fifth day, the Lord rested and contemplated the work for the sixth day.
. . . . . and He said unto himself "what can I devise before creating Man to remind him of his humilities and his inadequacies?" And so the Lord pondered this dilemma long into the night, and rested.
. . . . . and on the morning of the sixth day, the Lord rose early and first put together a ball, some sticks, lots of green grass and at the end a hole in the ground, and He named this creation "golf".
. . . . . and on the seventh day, His day of rest, the Lord, being weary of His labours of the sixth day, arose late, only to find He couldn't get a starting time.

© 2000 Origins.net and Alistair Macdonald

Scots Family History Articles