Risky Business - 24 Apr 04 - 11:35 AM

"What the heck is golf? Having read a vast amount of golfing history (nothing) I conclude that golf comes from Scotland. I know that land used to be important in Scotland. Maybe golf was a method of controlling land "I'm going to hit this very small ball with this very long and hard club with a knob on the end. Wherever it comes down is 'also' mine."

Maybe you should have read up a bit on it Risky, as should some of the others complaining about the waste of land, water, etc, relating to golf courses.

I believe that in it's original form golf was a winter game played, on ice, in the Netherlands. It was brought back to Scotland by the Calvinists/Scottish merchants/whoever, and adapted to a land based game. Well, Risky, you are right about land being important in Scotland, that is why the term "links" comes to be applied to a certain type of golf course. "Links Land" was regarded back in 15th century Scotland as being literally "useless" and it was just that type of land that was used to play golf on. The game increased in popularity and people inland also wanted to play, they didn't have sand dunes, sparsely covered with grass, so they opted to use "useless" exposed heathland. That takes us on to the clothes, Blackheath Golf Club (One of the oldest in England, if not the oldest) was such a heathland course and other people, non-golfers used to use wander about over it, so the rules of the newly formed golf club stated that those playing golf had to wear red jackets so that other members of the public could easily identify them and be aware that a ball might be headed their way. Been a long time, but I still believe when members paly Blackheath they are still required to wear red pullovers/polo shirts.