History of Golf

Rather than simply repeat the history of golf as found on dozens of sites, we're doing our own research to uncover the origins of golf in America. The following are the earliest known articles to appear in the New York Times including the word 'Golf'. Check back for updates and if you know of an earlier article, please contact us.

New York Times, August 13, 1876 —

Golf was a Scotch game, introduced perhaps by the Forty-second Highlanders during the war. It was a common game in Soctland, in which clubs are used for striking balls, stuffed very hard with feathers, from one hole to another. He who drives his ball into the hole with fewest strokes is the winner. An old statue of James II., 1547, during Murray's administration, when Knox set his face against all diversions, classes golf as a game to be "utterly cry'it down and not be usit," Jamison, good Scotch authority, says that it was derived from the Dutch game called kolf, and describes it as played in an inclosed area with clubs and balls. In this area two circular posts are placed, each of them about eight or ten feet from each end wall, and the contest is who shall hit the two posts in the fewest strokes, and make his ball retreat from the last one with such an accurate length as that it shall be nearest to the opposite end wall of the area. The newspapers of New-York give only one solitary notice of the old game, which may be better known as that of bandy-ball. It was quite fashionable among the English nobility at the eginning of the seventeenth century, and was a favorite exercise of Prince Henry, the sone of James I.

New York Times, May 20, 1877 — GOLF STORIES

Golf Stories — The first event in the anecdotic history of the game of golf, is that Charles I. was playing on Leith Links when a courier arrived with tidings of Sir Phelim O'Neal's rising in Ireland. No doubt Dr. Dryasdusts shake their heads at this, but golfers believe it, and Sir John Gilbert has immortalized the incident — so, what more could one want? However, no one doubts the authenticity of the account of that celebrated "four-some," the Duke of York and John Patersone, shoemaker, against two Englishmen. In 1681-2 the Duke was Commissioner for the King to the Scots Parliament, Two English noblemen of his suite were one day debating the question with the Duke whether golf was an English or a Scotch game. To settle the point it was proposed to get up a match, the two officers against the Duke and the best Scot he could get. The story is well known how the best player of the day was Patersone, who, after some hesitation, agreed to play; how the Duke and he won easily, and how, with his share of the stakes, Patersone built a house. No. 77 in the Canongate of Edinburgh, putting on an escutheeon the arms of Patersone, and anagrammatic motto — "I hate no persone." Perhaps the most remarkable match at golf ever played was the one Mr. Wheeler gives, in his Sporlascrapiana, in the words of that veteran sportsman, Capt. Horatio Ross. The match, Capt. Ross says, was got up at the race ordinary at Montrose, by Mr. Cruickshank, of Langley Park, and Lord Kennedy — both very good players. "They got up a match of three holes for L500 each hole, and agreed to play it then and there. It was about ten or half-past ten P.M., and quite dark. No lights were allowed, except one lantern placed on the hole, and another carried by the attendants of the player, in order that they might ascertain to whom the ball struck belonged. We all moved down to the golf-course to see this curious match. Boys were placed along the course who were quite accustomed to the game, to listen to the flight of the balls, and to run to the spot where a ball struck and rested on the ground. I do not remember which of the players won the odd hole; the match was won, I know, by only one hole. But the most remarkable part of the match was that they made out their holes with much about the same number of strokes as they usually idd when playing in daylight. I think, on an average, that they took about five or six strokes in daylight, and in the dark six or seven. They were, however, in the constant habit of playing over the Montrose course." On one occasion, at the antipodes, skill at golf was of great service. The rains had so swollen an Australian river that the man could not venture across. By no means could a rope be got across to pull the letters over. Guns, slings, arrows were tried, but all failed, much to the disappointment of the crowd waiting for the news from home that lay in the bags on the other side. At last a Scot, a keen and earnest golfer in the old days at home, volunteered to try what he could do with the clubs and ball he had carried with him to his new home. A long string was attached to the ball, which was carefuly "tee'd;" then, with a long, steady "swipe" of his supple driver, the Scot sent the ball curving into the air, till it landed on the opposite bank, and re-established the broker communication. — Belgravia.

Links to some popular Golf Channel programming online:
 • History of Golf — Part I - The Beginnings (by George White)
 • History of Golf — Part II - The Early Years (by George White)
 • History of Golf — Part III - The 18th and 19th Centuries (by George White)
 • History of Golf — Part IV - The First Heroes (by George White)
 • History of Golf — Part V - America and Golf (by George White)