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May 29, 2012 · "Popular Science asked the question, Is Tiger Woods proof that golf is a sport, or is John Daly confirmation to the contrary?' and determined that the answer 'probably depends on whether...
- Golfdigest
- Golf fulfills the definition of a sport. According to Merriam-Webster, a sport is "a contest or game in which people do certain physical activities according to a specific set of rules and compete against each other."
- Golf is back in the Olympics. The Olympics is considered by many as the greatest sporting event on the planet. Therefore, golf, which returned to the Olympics in 2016 after more than a century absence, is aces.
- Tiger Woods solidified golf's sporting status. The way Tiger Woods played golf could be compared to the way Michael Jordan, Tom Brady or Derek Jeter defined their sports.
- Training is vigorous for those who want to play well. Forget the long-drive guys and gals, golfers on the professional tours train like never before. You might argue that they didn't do that in the old days, but I don't think Babe Ruth was hitting the gym all that hard either.
Apr 24, 2023 · Proponents say golf meets the definition of 'sport' and golfers are athletes. Opponents say golf better meets the definition of 'game' and the players are just that, not athletes. Explore both sides of the debate.
Jul 1, 2023 · Golf is a sport where players use different clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course with the goal of completing each hole in as few strokes as possible. It is overseen by the highest governing body in the sport.
- 7 min
- Overview
- Origins
- Scots as inventors: a popular fallacy
- Golf in Scotland
- Development of equipment
Shortly after World War I, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews enacted what is called the "1.62 formula". Regulation golf balls have a maximum weight of 1.62 ounces (45.93 grams) and a minimum diameter of 1.68 inches (4.27 cm).
Where did golf originate?
The origins of golf are obscure and much debated. Evidence suggests that golf, as we understand it today, was firmly established in the Netherlands by the middle of the 16th century.
What is the diameter of a golf hole?
A golf hole measures 4.25 inches (10.8 cm) in diameter and is at least 4 inches (10.2 cm) deep. It is set in an area of turf called a green, which is especially prepared and maintained and closely mowed for putting.
What is the average distance of an 18-hole golf course?
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”).
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A Hole in One
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.
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.
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).
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.
Aug 1, 2019 · The International Olympic Committee considers golf a sport. Professional golfers are considered athletes by mainstream media. College and university athletic departments classify golf as a sport. Sports agents, sponsors, and sporting goods manufacturers consider golf to be a sport.
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit a ball into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping with the varied terrains encountered on different courses is a key part of the game.
