GolfPlus- Dec19 Digital Edition (Dec 19) | Page 46

From the Greens
GOLF ORIGINATED
AS AN INCLUSIVE GAME
by Wg Cdr Arun Kumar Singh (Retd)
President, GCS&MAI
rigins of the game of golf have always been a
debatable subject due to lack of any written
evidence. The credit for the evolution of the
modern game certainly goes to Scotland but
it is equally certain that they did not invent
the game from scratch as similar games
involving hitting a ball with a club to direct
it to a designated area existed earlier at other places.
Some historians trace the origin to ‘Paganica’ a game
played during the heyday of Roman empire and some
others think that the game came to Europe from China
where the game of Çhuiwan’ was played since the rule
of Ming dynasty. Chuiwan was certainly similar as it
involved hitting a ball with a crooked stick to put it in
a hole.
First available written reference (not pleasant) to
Golf is available in 1457 in the form of – ‘’The Black
Act of James II of Scotland’’ – speci¿ cally banning golf
as it interfered with national service! The edict was
meant to ensure that his people practiced Archery rather
than spending valuable practice time on playing golf.
Obviously, the game must have been very popular in
Scotland for the King to issue such an edict. Incidentally,
there’s a similar order in Indian Army which prohibits
of¿ cers (Army clubs are only meant for of¿ cers) from
playing golf while being posted in Kashmir and North
East.
Golf historians generally agree that there is
overwhelming evidence to show that a very similar game
‘Çolf’ was widely played in neighboring Netherlands
by end of 13th century and may have contributed to the
beginning of golf in Scotland. ‘’Çolf’’ in Netherlands
was played on ice and along the roads and had an indoor
shorter version too. The ball was made of leather and
stuffed with cow hairs and there was a thriving industry
of exporting these balls to Scotland. There was a reverse
trade of wooden clubs made in Scotland being exported
to Netherlands concurrently. The fact that the game
grew for many years only on the east coast of Scotland,
which though separated by North Sea was the closest
land from Netherlands, reinforces the Colf connection
with golf. It took at least another 200 years for the game
to move to west coast. Scots though can certainly be
credited with being the ¿ rst to play the kind of game
of golf which is played now even though other games
played with stick and ball existed earlier (including
Cambuc in England and Colven in Germany). A
spokesman of R&A did very correctly clarify few years
ago that – ‘’Stick and ball games have been around for
many centuries, but golf as we know it today, played
over 18 holes, certainly originated in Scotland’’.
Golf as a game did grow rapidly in Scotland but
no clubs existed for at least the ¿ rst 200 years despite
50 G o l f P l u s
DECEMBER
2019
’The Black Act of James II of Scotland’
it being an extremely popular game which
was played by both royalty and commoner
alike. The earliest club for which written
evidence exists was ‘Gentlemen Golfers
of Leith’ (later to become the Honourable
Company of Edinburg Golfers) and as
the name suggests, the ¿ rst seeds of
exclusivity were sown. The early clubs
in Scotland were as much the places
to eat and drink as much as to play golf
and it’s no coincidence that the winner at
the Open Championship (British Open)
is presented with a Claret jug. Come to
think of it, nothing much has changed in
300 years and the trend has become even
stronger in countries like India where not
many inexpensive places were available
to eat and drink in exclusive comfort. The
restrictive taxation and licensing policies
for serving alcoholic beverages made
the clubs even more attractive for these
purposes.
*ROI LQ ,QGLD East India Company
made its most pro¿ table foray in India
which soon became the Jewel in the Crown
of British empire and it was natural for the
game to begin in India. There was an even
more compelling reason though – 55% of
the of¿ cials in East India Company were
Scotsmen! And they obviously began by
playing golf in the trading hubs of Calcutta
and Bombay. Unfortunately, they did not