ORIGIN OF GOLF.
Now that the changed conditions of our climate have made golf, which was formerly practically confined to the three other seasons, almost as much a winter game, 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 an:J pictorial records of Dutch golf represent it as a winter pastime and played on the ice, and there is literally no evidence thatthe Dutch ever played on dry land. There is a miniature in a "Book of Hours" in tha British Museum which showa some children playing golf at a hole in the ground, but it is Flemish and not Dutch. The Dutch game, indeed, has little resemblance to our golf, except that the weapons are similar. The Dutchmen 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 \a still played in the South of France in the neighbourhood of Montpellier, and it seems probable, if golf is not a purely Scottish creation, that it is a modification of the old French game. There was much intercourse between France and Scotland all through the Stuart period, and the French influence on Scottish manners and customs, and even on the language, was very gieat. On the other hand, althDugHolland had much trade with Scoth
land at the sama perod, there is practically 1:0 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 trie Dutch clubs were identical in form and construction with the uld mala sof 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 "Schottse cleik," or Scottish club. But however that may be. the old Dutch clubs would pasd the rules of golf committee to-day as "legitimate" weapons, whereas it is to be 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 i thaD astonishing."
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Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9995, 16 March 1910, Page 7
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445ORIGIN OF GOLF. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9995, 16 March 1910, Page 7
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