History

Golf is usually regarded as a Scottish invention, as the game was mentioned in two 15th-century laws prohibiting the playing of the game of "gowf". Some scholars, however, suggest that this refers to another game which is much akin to shinty or hurling, or to modern field hockey. They point out that a game of putting a small ball in a hole in the ground using golf clubs was played in 17th-century Netherlands.

The term golf is believed to have originated from a Germanic word for "club", although an old wives tale states that golf was an acronym for "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden".

The first golf club established outside the United Kingdom was the Royal Calcutta in India in 1829. 1873 saw the establishment of the first North American golf club, Royal Montreal Golf Club in Canada.

The modern game evolved in the second half of the 19th century in Scotland. The rules of the game and the design of equipment and courses greatly resembled those of today. The major changes in equipment since the 19th century have been better mowers, especially for the greens, better golf ball designs, and the introduction of the metal shaft and the wooden golf tee in the 1930s. In the 1970s, the use of metal to replace wood heads began, and shafts made of graphite composite materials were introduced in the 1980s.