ORIGIN OF GOLF.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 377, 30 April 1910, Page 10

ORIGIN OF GOLF.

2Tow that the changed conditions of our climate have made golf, which was formerly confined to the three other seasons, almost as much a winter game (says an English ipaper), it is rather curious to remember that in Holland, where many people think golf came from, it was only played in winter. All the literary and pictorial records of Dutch golf represent it as a winter pastime and played on the ice, and there is literally no evidence that the Dutch ever played on dry land. There is a miniature in a Book of Hours in the British Museum which shows some children playing at a hole in the ground, but is is Flemish, not Dutch. The Dutch game, indeed, has little resemblance to our golf, except that the weapons are similar. The Dutchman played at an upright mark, a post or stone or door, instead of a hole. Golf as -we know it is more akin to the ancient French game of Jeu de Mail, which is still played in the South of France in the neighborhood of Montpellier, and it seems probable, if golf is not a purely Scotch creation, that it is a modification of the old French game. There was much intercourse between France and Scotland all through the Stuart period, while there is practically no trace of Dutch influence on anything Scottish.

It is possible, however, that the Scottish form of golf club was taken from the Dutch. So far as can be judged from the old pictures the Dutch clubs were identical in form and construction with the old makes of Scottish clubs. Of course it is equally possible that the Dutch copied the clubs from the Scotch and as a matter of fact there is an old Dutch poem in which a "Kolfer" is described as using a "Schattse clerk," or Scottish club. But however that may be, the old Dutch clubs would pass the rules of golf committee to-day as "legitimate" weapons, whereas it Is 10 dc feared that the weapons used in the French "jeu de mail" would be condemned as croquet mallets.

Whether the Dutch or the French are our golfing ancestors is perhaps doubtful, but it is certain that at the present day they are our golfing children, for the golf now played in Holland and France is the true Scottish variety directly imported. In Holland the game appears to languish, but in France its progress is nothing less than astonishing.