HOW GOLF BEGAN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3529, 26 August 1926, Page 4

HOW GOLF BEGAN.

If there was one country which distinguished itself more than another it was Scotland, which, if it did not win the cup, at least did most of the running up, says the “Morning Post,” commenting on the result of the British amateur golf championship. Some of these all but successful golfers were young and unknown; they were lads who had no doubt played golf since they had worn breeks or before it, and they serve to remind us that in Scotland golf, like porridge, is ( a popular institution which has no limitations of class or wealth. The fact that a great crowd actually paid at the gates show’s what an irresistible pull go'lf has" upon the Scottish people. These observations lead the “Morning Post” to relate “the true story of the origin of the game.” Golf, as everybody knows, began in Scotland about the time of the Reformation. John Knox, as is also wellknown, had sadly discomforted the Evil One, who up to that time had had dt very much of his own way in that country. When the Prince of Darkness discovered that the Sabbath was kept with an iron strictness, that gaming and cockfighting had gone altogether out of fashion, and that even swearing was practically unknown, he bethought himself seriously of some method by which to reintroduce original sin into Scotland. He discovered that the professors and undergraduates of St. Andrews, who had once been his boon companions, now walked straightly and sedately along the links by the sea-shore, where they supposed themselves to be beyond the reach of temptation. It was then that he cunningly insinuated into their minds a new use for their walking-sticks, which was something so diabolically calculated between chance and skill, so alluring and baffling, so tempting and so disappointing, so exalting and yet so shattering to human pride, so vexatious and so provocative that within a week it had drawn an oath from a Professor of Divinity. Thus the Devil squared the match against John Knox, on the Old Course, at St. Andrew’s, and he was never, they say, been quite out of business since.