I just got one of those emails with a bunch of trivia.  This one caught my eye:

"Many years ago in Scotland , a new game was invented. It was ruled "Gentlemen Only...Ladies Forbidden"...and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language."

 I had never heard that one.   Is that possibly true? If not, where did the name come from?

 2 cents from anothr site-

There is no universally accepted derivation for the word 'golf.'  One of the most common misconceptions is that the word GOLF is an acronym for Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden. This at least is definitely not true.

The first documented mention of the word 'golf'  is in Edinburgh on 6th March 1457, when King James II banned ‘ye golf’, in an attempt to encourage archery practice, which was being neglected.

Before the creation of dictionaries, there was no standardised spelling of any given word.  People wrote words phonetically.  Goff, gowf, golf, goif, gof, gowfe, gouff and golve have all been found in documents in Scotland.

Most people believe the old word 'gowfe' was the most common term, pronounced 'gouf'. The Loudon Gowf Club maintains the tradition of this terminology.

A minority of people hold the view that golf is a purely Scottish term, derived from Scots words 'golf', 'golfand' and 'golfing', which mean 'to strike' as in 'to cuff'.

It seems most likely that the terms golf, chole and kolf, which were the names for a variety of medieval stick and ball games in Britain and in continental Europe, are all derived from a common word of a pre-modern European language, following Grimm's grammatical law, which details the clear phonetic similarities of these words.

Golf (and chole and kolf) are all presumed to have originally meant 'club'. Golf has also been associated with the German word for club 'kolbe', (Der Kolben).  It is also probably related to the Dutch word and game 'kolven'.

In 1636, David Wedderburn used the word Baculus, which is Latin for 'club' as the title for his 'Vocabula', listing Latin terms for golf, which supports this derivation. The Vocabula contains the first clear mention of the golf hole, the essential element of modern links golf and is thus the first unambiguous proof of the existence of the game in Scotland.  More details are to be found on the page on Aberdeen.


It is therefore likely that all these terms including golf have a common origin and the Scottish use flowed from there.

Robert Browning and David Hamilton, who both researched this to a great depth, broadly come to the conclusion above in their golf books.

Jim,

The staggering amount of incorrect or misinformation on the web is staggering.

You wrote, "2 cents from anothr site... The first documented mention of the word 'golf'  is in Edinburgh on 6th March 1457, when King James II banned ‘ye golf’, in an attempt to encourage archery practice, which was being neglected."

That would be a tad bit difficult as King James II wasn't even born until 1633 in London. In addition, he wasn't named King until his brother Charles, while on his deathbed in 1685, declared that his brother James would succeed him on the throne.

It was a stormy 3-year reign until he fled to France in exile...

The answer to "Golf" as a name lies much further back in the mists of time...

Dan,

(in typical middle age fashion) I bow before you begging forgiveness for making an assumption that showed both my ignorance and arrogance in challenging your expertise inan area where you have shown yourself far more expert than I.

(in 21st century vernacular) Crap! I was wrong and you were right!  

Of course this also means that Martin Bonner will never share a pint of ale with me if ever I find my way across the pond once again!

Arnold Palmer pronounces it "goff," possibly from "gowfe," or possibly just the vestiges of his Latrobe, Pa., accent.

Wherever it came from, the game is called "goff" at my house.

This really is a pretty good site:
http://www.scottishgolfhistory.net/

It comes from the Dutch game Kolf which is like golf but with all courses are a Daly signature(Mile long holes!)

It comes from the dutch came Kolf which in golf but with all courses are a Daly signature.

Matthew,

Please try that again. What's the drinking age in the U.K?

Jeff,

The only thing that makes sence to me is in fact that the word "golf" derives from "kolf", "kolven" and the like. There are a number of references to games with names like these, played by the Dutch amongst others. One example included hitting a stationary ball with a club, but to different targets than holes in the ground. There were countless varieties. At least one of these games was played on ice.

I am not an expert in linguistics, but I have opened a book or two on the subject because I have become interested in the role of my native language (Icelandic) which is perhaps the least changed active language in Northern Europe for the last 1000 years. It is the closest we have today to Old Norse, that was spoken by the Vikings. They were extremely influential in the British Isles from, say, 1100 to 1300 and beyond in places. For example, if you walked the streets of Dublin in 1100, chances are you'd be hearing Old Norse on the streets.

At least in Icelandic, a "club" is "kylfa". Therefore, I feel that the game of kolven was given a name based on the instrument used to strike the ball.

Now, St. Andrews and the East coast was the site of quite active commerce between the Dutch (simplifying it of course) and the Scots. I am going all over the place here, but I have for long been under the impression that the trade between these two groups led to some kind of a game involving a club and a stationary ball being played on available land (the poor soils of the links, in which farmers were not interested) on the East coast of Scotland, but the tricky thing is that we do not have a written reference of a stationary ball being played into a hole until 1687, in Kincaid's Diary. So is that golf? What was the golf that James I referred to? Nobody seems to know?

I agree with Dan and Hamilton re: the theory that golf was a "common" game in the 15th century.  There were very few noblemen who would have played "futbol" or be required by the King to do archery practice.  Those were the avocations and vocations of the proles.

There is nothing but coincidence between "kolf" and "golf" in my opinon. Linguistics and other factors — spelling for example — pretty much divorce the two, although I admit the two modern spellings and pronunciations are very close.

In Routing the Golf Course, I cover the subject as follows:

While 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.