How did the game of golf emerge

The game of golf today is globally popular and watched by millions on television. The origins of the sport may go back to ancient periods, but most historians trace the definitive beginning of the sport to Medieval Scotland and/or the Netherlands. However, it was in the 19th century that the sport emerged as both a modern one and started to become a global phenomenon.

Early History

The origins of golf are not universally agreed upon and there are disputes on when exactly the ancestors of the game emerged. There are records of a game called Paganica that comprised of a ball stuffed with feathers and hit with wooden sticks. While the game is very different from today's golf, the sort of game may have inspired later Medieval memory and reemergence of a similar game that then led to golf.

One possible origin is in Medieval Netherlands, where the term "golf" seems to have a Dutch origin. The game of kolven involved sticks or bats, perhaps similar to a shepherd's hook or stick, but the game may have not contained holes. The earliest records that depict golf come from Medieval paintings in the 15th century and the first book, called Tyrocinium linguae latinae, talks about daily life in the Netherlands where people played a game with sticks and at this points holes seem to have been utilized, where balls were hit into the holes.