Without Links golf where would we be today?

[Paul Turner]

Tom

I'm pretty certain that Kolven goes back significantly further than Golf.  And that there's plenty of artistic evidence and early clubs to prove this.

Even the names are similar!

[Paul Turner]

Tom

Here's a link about the origins of the game and the different claims by various nations.

http://www.jakartagolfclub.com/AboutGolf/general.asp?file=history.htm

[TEPaul]

"I'm pretty certain that Kolven goes back significantly further than Golf.  And that there's plenty of artistic evidence and early clubs to prove this. Even the names are similar!"

Paul:

That's insane. Why do you insist it had to be a oneway street coming from Holland?

Most historians know that the great Scottish Warlord known as Rich the Concentrator to his clansmen and Rich the Oblivious to the roiling Huns of the Mid Continent of Europa attacked those Huns not long after Christ and begun what is now known as Holland.

So how could Kolven have preceded golf in Scotland or have been transported from Holland to Scotland before Rich the Oblivious created Holland in the first place?

And it's completely documented that Rich the Concentrator had been playing golf all his life. He was even known to have created this ridiculous handicap system know as CONGU! It never worked very well and was never really accepted because the name alone scared the shit out of most everyone who played the game on the linkland as early as 17AD.

Some even think Rich the Concentrator had Christ himself up to the north to play and he went back and started the Roman game pagancia. Others believe When Rich the Oblivious was organizing things around what became Holland some little French girl took advantage of him one night without him realizing it (Warlording can be very tiring) and from that tryst the genes were planted in what became France from which the French game of jeu de mail was born.

There's no question all this came from the linksland of Scotland.

[ForkaB]

Tom P

One of my ancestors was called Aethelred the Unready.  That is what I will call myself when I become king.

[TEPaul]

Rich:

Aethelred the Unready, even if due to name alone is one of the most famous rulers in the history of the world--so congratulations. If anyone wants to know why he was called "the Unready" it was because he was almost never on time for his tee times.

[Brian Phillips]

I have thought hard and long about this question and still haven't written anything on paper.  I have to get the essay in by Friday next week so I have a little while to go.

My thoughts are leaning towards that the game would have been invented or played anywhere eventually.  I also think that the game might have evolved quicker to the stage that we are at now.

The air game and target golf.  I would guess that more target golf courses are being built these days than those of the Sand Hills, Friar's Head and Wild Horse type.  

This is mainly because the ground that dictates a ground game needs to be dry to be able to hit a bump and run.  We don't get the chance to build courses on that sort of land that often anymore.  

Many courses are being built on farmland which is normally (in Norway) drained below the surface at about 60 - 70 cm every 5 metres.  Often it has a high clay content which is good for cation exchange but poor for keeping the soil dry.  We put in drainage which is usually not enough because the client would rather spend his money on some high tech irrigation.  The drainage helps to dry out the soil but nowhere near as much as a Links course is on a good day.

My next theory is that the ball would have evolved quicker if the game had been played inland.  The first balls apparently were useless in wet weather and therefore couldn't be used on inland areas.  The pros would have put more work into inventing a ball that could be used in the wet weather if golf had been played inland.  The ball didn't really evolve that quickly because it didn't need to on linksland.

The hardcore ball was was started to be used in 1900 and this coincides with the game moving inland.

So the game would have been invented and would have moved quicker towards what we have today.

no?

Brian.

[Slag Bandoon]

The ball would also have been larger methinks.  

And the bag may have been a modified quiver for arrows for hunting.  Perhaps there's an idea for a pentathalon - golf, archery, marathon, sheep shearing, and furrow digging.  Definitely no swimming.  

Aethered the Unready,  Kingbarns was built upon a layer of sand no shallower than about 6 feet thick, if memory serves. (b. Robert Price)

Reading Mark's post by Darwin and the quip by Hunter about pasture golf being the ruination of golf, it's too bad Hunter didn't live to see and play Wild Horse and Sand Hills.  

[TEPaul]

If the ball is part of the subject we should all remember that the original feathery ball was much lighter and much of the reason the ball had to be kept low (on the ground) and another factor in linksland golf way back is the winter was the best time to play it as the grass didn't grow (and they sure didn't cut it!).

[Forrest Richardson]

Again, "yes", the game would have been invented. The Het Kolven influence was very likely only to introduce sticks and balls. There not being too much ice near the coastal areas of Scotland it was only fitting that striking balls with clubs moved to grasslands and dry lands.

"Even the names are similar", said one of you. Bahhhh!

From "Routing the Golf Course", a book every man, woman and child should own...

The Word Golf:

...[W]hile many believe the connection between the words golf and kolf to be compelling, the spellings of golf through medieval times varied widely. It was not uncommon for words to have significant spelling differences, even within the same document. Gowffe, gouffe, and golfe are but a few of the many examples.

In The Story of Golf, From Its Origins to the Present Day (1972), author Tom Scott offers some interesting thoughts on where the Scots may have come up with gouffe. Besides discussing its possible roots in kolf, Scott points out an old Scottish word, howffe, which meant “meeting place.” He makes an excellent case that in a country of varied dialects, such as Scotland, such a progression involving the sounds of “h” and “g,” would not be too unordinary. Golfers, after all, had to have places to meet, and golf links could very well have been named for this big-picture need. Interestingly, Scott does not connect howffe to the Dutch word hof, a word for “courtyard.” Perhaps this would only add fuel to the Dutch argument that golf might have come from their game kolven. It is also quite thought-provoking of Scott to call attention to the Scottish word gulfe, which means “bay.” Could there be a connection between these words? It would have been quite logical for the word golf to have roots in a word that describes land along the coast where golf had become popular.

Golf has so much to do with the physical ground — the land, the course, and the meeting place — that it would make great sense if its name somehow stems from these elements.