Golf historians claim to know a great deal about the origins of golf. Exactly how far back the great stick-and-ball games go will never be known. Maybe some day an archeologist will unearth the remains of a Pleistocene cave dweller clutching a tree branch with grooves on the face. Many civilizations and cultures take credit for the game's origins, and debate has raged for many centuries. It doesn't matter: the important thing is, golf thrives today and still can't be mastered.

Predecessors

Of course, Scotland has the most solid claim as the home of golf. But other societies have indulged in activities that resemble what today is called golf. In the third century BC the Romans played a game called pangea or paganica. Many historians prefer to regard pangea as an early form of hockey; at all events, it involved propelling a feather-filled ball with a bent stick.

The Chinese get in on the action with their game ch'ui wan which was first played around AD 950. Players attempted to advance their ball into a series of pits. Lies were tough back then. In Britain, cambuca was a popular pastime in which a wooden ball was knocked about at several targets. In Belgium they still play a game called chole. This, however, is played by two teams that attempt to strike a beech-wood ball toward a target across a field. The game spread to northern France, where it is called soule.

A few cross-country versions of stick and ball were popular around the 17th century. Jeu-de-mail has origins in Italy and France and in its first forms was played over some distance, the goal being to hit a far-away door or tree in fewer whacks than your opponent.

The English took it up as palle-maille (ball-mallet) and adapted it to be played in city streets or on purpose-built courts. Pall Mall, a famous street in the West End of London, is believed to have been built on or near the site of the first of these courts, close to St. James's Palace. Kolven is a Dutch game that old paintings often show taking place on a frozen lake or river. Players would attempt to strike their balls against a post or some other marker in fewer strokes than their opponents.

It is evident that there are many possible antecedents of what evolved into the modern game of golf. This is true of nearly every ancient game. There is little debate, though, that golf was formalized on the wind swept coastland of Scotland.

Revoking the Rite

In mid-15th century, an Act of Parliament in Scotland banned the playing of "Fute-ball, Golfe and uther sik unproffitabill sportis" for fear that they were luring men away from compulsory archery practice. (They were, after all, at odds with the English at this time.) This decree is the earliest known written mention of the sport. Of course, many golfers in Scotland must have been spending quite a bit of time on the links to warrant outlawing the game. Several more bans were attempted, but the country's fascination with golf would not be dampened. Archery and other forms of combat practice would have to wait.

Royal attitudes changed as early as the turn of the century, however, thanks to James IV of Scotland, who fell in love with the game. It is believed that James (of the family Stuart) commissioned a set of golf clubs from an artisan accustomed to fashioning bows and arrows for the soldiers. James obviously recognized the advantages of custom-made clubs: he later had a second set made especially for a match with the Earl of Bothwell. The Scottish royals supported golf for nearly two centuries following, the most enthusiastic golfing Stuart being Mary, Queen of Scots (whose third husband was grandson of the golf-playing earl).

In 1603 Mary's son, James VI, took the throne of England as James I and continued the royal promotion of the sport, although he insisted that no golf was to be played on Sundays until after church. It was during this time that he built a seven-hole course at Blackheath, then a small village a few miles east of London. (Royal Blackheath, founded in 1766, stands today as England's oldest golf club.) The first international golf match is believed to have involved the Scottish James II and a commoner partner against two English oyals.

The Committee

Throughout the 17th century and into the middle of the 18th, golf was popular but largely unorganized. The sport survived and thrived on wager and will. It was in 1744 that the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers came into being in Edinburgh, Scotland. With an eye toward creating an undisputed golf champion, the company put together the first set of rules, known as the Thirteen Articles. A few of the more quaintly phrased appear below:

Rule 5: If your ball comes among water, or any watery filth, you are at liberty to take out your ball and bringing it behind the hazard and teeing it, you may play it with any club and allow your Adversary a stroke for so getting out your ball.

Rule 10: If a ball be stopp'd by any person, horse or dog, or anything else, the ball so stopp'd must be played where it lyes.

Rule 13: Neither trench, ditch or dyke made for the preservation of the links, nor the Scholar's Holes or the soldier's lines shall be accounted a hazard but the ball is to be taken out, teed and play'd with any iron club. (This was a purely local rule to cover conditions peculiar to Leith links, then just outside the city of Edinburgh.)

These were the rules that governed match play. John Rattray won the inaugural competition and was awarded a Silver Club.

St. Andrews

Ten years after Edinburgh held its championship, the Society of St. Andrews Golfers was launched with a competition, the prize for which was a silver club. At that time golf was generally played on common (that is, public) land, and the number of holes varied considerably, depending on the space available. Until the 1750s it had been the custom at St. Andrews to play a round of 22 holes; but later a round there was fixed at 18 holes, and such was the prestige and influence of the St. Andrews club that this became the universally accepted number of holes for a round. The society eventually became the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, and today it is known colloquially throughout the golfing world as the "R&A".

Expansion

As the Scots scattered about the globe, so did golf. There are records of shipping orders out of Leith that call for several clubs and several hundred balls to be shipped to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1743. This suggests there was play on the Carolina coast long before it became the major golf destination it is today. There is also evidence of golf played in Savannah, Georgia, a little later. Both clubs are thought to have perished by or during the Revolutionary War.

British expatriates and soldiers formed golf clubs all over the world. Wealthy Brits who regularly wintered in south-west France founded mainland Europe's first club at Pau in 1856. Scots names featured largely in the list of members, as they also did in the founders of the Calcutta Club in 1829 (later to become Royal Calcutta) and Bombay in 1842. As the Empire took root in Asia, clubs were established in places like Hong Kong, Taiping (Malaysia) and Bangkok (Thailand). The first Japanese course was constructed only in 1901 near Kobe. The Southern Hemisphere was discovering golf about the same time, with the creation of Royal Adelaide in Australia in 1870 and South Africa's Royal Cape Club in 1885. The first recognized golf club in North America was the Royal Montreal Golf Club, which originated in 1873 and still operates today.

The 1890s witnessed a tremendous spurt in the construction of golf courses in Britain and in the United States as increasingly more expatriates crossed over and more Americans caught on. In 1888, the St. Andrew's Golf Course opened in Yonkers, New York. While golfers had been playing in various fields-such as John Reid's cow pasture-St. Andrew's is recognized as the first American golf club. (It was Reid and his "Apple Tree Gang" cronies who founded the club.) Herbert Warren Wind, perhaps the most distinguished American writer on golf, has suggested there were fewer than 12 golfers in the United States at that time. Six years later there were more than 80 courses, including historic sites such as Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on Long Island in New York, Newport Golf Club in Rhode Island, The Country Club at Brookline in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Chicago Golf Club in Illinois. As the millennium dawned, there were almost 1,000 clubs in America, which is more than there were in Britain.

On both sides of the Atlantic and elsewhere, golf was mainly a private affair reserved for the wealthy and the social elite. But in 1896-97 American commoners were given a break with the opening of Van Cortland Park in New York City-the nation's first public course. By 1927, there were 4,000 U.S. golf courses. There were 1,500 in Britain at that time.

The National Championships

In the British Isles, competition between the older clubs and between individual players intensified in the middle decades of the 19th century. The best player of the day was the Scot Allan Robertson (1815-58), who was the first man to break 80 at St. Andrews. Robertson, whose assistant was Old Tom Morris, was also the preeminent producer of feathery golfballs. What became the first British Open was held at Prestwick, on the Ayrshire coast, in October 1860 and was won by Willie Park of Musselburgh. That Open was the first true stroke-play championship ever held. In 1885 at Hoylake, near Liverpool, the British Amateur Championship was held for the first time, and was won by Allan Macfie-a feat not officially recognized until the event was taken over by the R&A 35 years later. The first U.S. Amateur

Championship was conducted in 1895 at Newport. The winner was Charles Blair Macdonald, of the Chicago Golf Club. In a completely anti-climactic tournament by today's standards, Horace Rawlins won $150 in the first-ever U.S. Open, which was held at Newport the next day, and for which there were less than a dozen participants. These four events would become golf's early majors.

Movers and Shakers

Macdonald, whose family came from Scotland, was as important to the development of the game in the United States as John Reid. Macdonald traveled overseas to school at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where he was introduced to golf by his grandfather. He is rumored to have bought his first set of clubs from Old Tom Morris and played against many of the best British golfers of the day. Upon his return to America, there was little opportunity to participate in the game. He solved this dilemma by designing the Chicago Golf Club and went on to design the National Golf Links of America, not far from Shinnecock Hills at Peconic Bay, Long Island, drawing much inspiration from his beloved Scottish courses.

Macdonald entered but failed to win either the U.S. Amateur or the U.S. Open in 1894, and was not happy about how it all played out. (These two inaugural occasions are not recognized today.) He told everyone who would listen that there needed to be a governing body for golf in America. Macdonald's protests, among other things, resulted in the formation that year of the Amateur Golf Association of the United States (AGA), which eventually became the United States Golf Association (USGA). Macdonald held court at the inaugural gathering of the AGA, which was hosted by its first secretary, Henry O. Tallmadge, and attended by its first president Theodore Havemeyer. The next year Macdonald won the Amateur. The association flexed its muscles in that tournament by refusing to allow entrant Richard Peters to putt with a pool cue; and thereafter quickly established itself as the world's equipment authority. Its responsibility in that regard is in effect to this day.

The USGA quickly moved to ally itself with the R&A, the world's governing body. It soon became apparent that the two organizations would clash. While both were interested in the same goal-to protect, preserve and benefit the game-the difference in Amecican and British cultures presented hurdles to be negotiated in the governing of golf. After more than century of operating with nearly, but not all, the same rules, the two authorities now abide by identical rulebooks.

As the popularity of golf soared in the U.S. over the first two decades of the 20th century, America began producing the majority of the world's best players. Until then, there is no question but that the golf elite had come from Britain. The American championships began attracting many of the top foreign players and the Yanks were traveling across the pond for the British events. The rivalry produced some terrific competition and ushered in a golden age for the game.

The Golden Age

It was during the early 1920s that the golf professionals as a whole established decisive superiority in skill over the amateurs, and this superiority gradually earned them increasing respect among the game's governing bodies. Before that time, in America, most of the pros were Scottish immigrants who, whatever their skill, were (fairly or unfairly) best known for their love of a drink. Amateur golfers, and especially club committee members, who regarded golf as a game suitable only for the "better" class of citizen, had looked down on the pros-who were not even allowed to step into the clubhouse.

The professional at that time was more often than not a former caddy-an occupation considered suitable only for the lower orders. Yet some of the greatest pros came up just this way: Walter Hagen, Sam Snead, Jimmy Demaret, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson all were exposed to golf very early as bag carriers and club repairers. By contrast, golf's supreme amateur, Bobby Jones, who never considered becoming a professional, was a Harvard-educated lawyer. Francis Ouimet, winner of the 1913 U.S. Open held at his local club at Brookline (Boston), was an exception to the rule. Ouimet was working as a caddy at the club when he beat the greatest golfer of the day, Britain's Harry Vardon; and the temptation to turn pro must have been extraordinary over the next few years. But Ouimet insisted on remaining an amateur, even when the USGA tried to rescind his status in 1917 after it discovered he was involved with a sporting-goods business.

There's a famous story about the flamboyant Walter Hagen at the 1920 British Open at Deal, in Kent. Hagen, upon learning he would not be allowed inside the clubhouse, hired a limousine to park right outside the front door and used his private transport as a luxurious locker room and cocktail bar. Hagen would become the first American-born player to win the British Open in 1922, and he won it again in 1924. The first U.S. Open at which pros were allowed inside the clubhouse was held at Inverness Club (Ohio) in 1920.

Hagen, along with his great rival Gene Sarazen, changed the way people looked at golf professionals in the United States. In Britain the Professional Golfers Association was formed in 1902. In 1916 the PGA of America was formed and now the pros had a voice. Today, the U.S. PGA represents nearly 24,000 men and women professionals around the country.

The Masses

Prosperity also had something to do with golf's growth through this era. The war was over and families had more money. More money meant more leisure time. Watching tournament golf became popular. The media fueled the game as well. Golf publications made stars out of the early heroes. British golfing legend Harry Vardon and fellow British star Ted Ray toured the States in 1913 and garnered much attention. Celebrities found golf attractive. Babe Ruth, Rosalind Russell and nearly every American president was swinging a club.

The Roaring 20s was a good time for golf and golf professionals. Tournament purses where increasing, relatively speaking, and there were events held in Florida, Texas and the West Coast. Tournament golf was spreading. The PGA TOUR was planting its seeds. By the mid-1920s, the total purse for all events was $77,000.

One man who would never see any of this money was the astonishing amateur Robert Tyre Jones, Jr. Jones was immensely popular. The World War II dampened golf's growth slightly. After the war, golf's new hero became the hardly comparable Ben Hogan. With the arrival of Arnold Palmer in the late 50s, golf was preparing for another huge boost.

Modern History

The first televised golf event was the 1947 U.S. Open in St. Louis. Although it was partially shown and only locally, golf would never be the same again. In 1953 ABC televised the Tam O'Shanter Open (it cost promoters $32,000 to hire them) to a national audience estimated at two million. In that tournament, Lew Worsham holed a 135-yard wedge shot for an eagle to take the title from Chandler Harper. The drama of that shot turned a few network executive heads-and the race was on. Television contracts sent tournament purses skyrocketing.

No one was more poised to benefit from the hype than Arnold Palmer. With his rugged good looks, rapport with spectators and adventurous approach to the game, Palmer became golf's first visual-media darling. He attracted legions of fans that came to be known as "Arnie's Army." The list of exceptional players from 1960 to the present would consume pages. But the one man who towered over the game for most of that period was, of course, Jack Nicklaus.

Ever since the end of World War II the gap between the golf professional-that is, the chap who served you in the golf club shop and gave you golf lessons-and the professional (tour) golfer had been steadily widening. It had become feasible now to earn a living playing on tour. Many of the pros vying for top prizes had never worked in a pro shop. In the United States they had gone to college, where they had been involved in intensely competitive amateur events that served to equip them technically and temperamentally for life on the pro tour.

Recognizing the fortunesbeing reaped by the U.S. PGA from commercial sponsorships of events and through television revenues, the touring pros felt they should be better rewarded. But it was only in 1967, after the players threatened to start their own tour, that the PGA agreed to their demands. A Tournament Players Division was formed and given full rein to run its own competitions. In effect, of course, this created two distinct tiers of professional players-and the club pros were not pleased.

The European PGA Tour began in the early 1970s, and while it breeds world-class golfers and attracts great interest of its own, it remains in the shadow of the U.S. PGA Tour. Many of Europe's best golfers aspire to play in America to be tested by the best, not to mention get in on some of the much greater prize money on offer at U.S. tournaments.

As would be expected, there is tremendous competition to become a U.S. PGA Tour player. In 1965, the first PGA Tour Qualifying School was held at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Would-be superstars must advance through excruciating regional events and the nerve-racking six-round final tournament to earn Tour cards. Many participants have expressed the conviction that there is more pressure in this competition than in many events on the Tour.

Ever-greater mountains of television money and sponsorship dollars continue to roll in. The first annual prize-money leader in professional golf was Paul Runyan with a 1934 take of $6,767. In the first four months of 1999, David Duval had already surpassed the record he set last year of nearly $2.5 million. Golf images are ever present now on television. In America, there is a 24-hour cable channel devoted to the sport. Office pools are run during major championships and there are even fantasy golf leagues. Golf equipment sales are astronomical and player-endorsement contracts obscene.