Golf Facts You Should Know

1. Golf is the 10th most popular sport in the world with 450 million fans. During the 2020 PGA Championship round, 6.873 m viewers tuned in on CBS to catch the action on the greens.

2. The modern game of golf can be traced to Scotland during the 15th century. Although the ancient origin of the game is not clear, historians believe that golf may be associated with paganica, an ancient Roman game that involved hitting a leather ball using a bent stick. It may also be rooted in the Chinese game called chuiwan, wherein a stick is used to hit a small ball to sink it into a hole in the ground.

3. Golf is a ball game that does not have a standardized playing area or court. The playing field consists of golf courses that feature a series of holes located in different terrains. The difficulty of the game increases or decreases depending on the layout and arrangement of the terrain.

4. Golfers have to contend with different forms of terrain in a course. These include the fairway, the long-grass rough, the sand traps or bunkers, and hazards such as rocks and water. The courses with the best designs feature holes with a unique layout.

5. The term golf originated from the Netherlands. The Dutch word for club is “kolve” or “kolf”. The Dutch likely introduced the word to the Scots through trading during the 14th until the 17th centuries. Due to linguistic differences, the Scottish dialect modified the pronunciation and the terms became “gouff” and “goff”. In the 16th century, the term became, simply, golf.

6. The oldest known golf course in the world is The Old Course at St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland. It is called the Home of Golf and is treated as a pilgrimage site by fans and players of the game.

7. Golf may be an elite sport now but it was originally simply a game that shepherds played to pass the time. They hit rocks using sticks during breaks. Scotland’s geographical landscape was – and still is – ideal for playing the game.

In the past, a golf course may consist of 5 holes, 12, 15, 23, and so on. By the time 1754 rolled around, St. Andrews’ course had 12 holes. Golfers played 10 of these holes twice, which means that a round of golf at the time consisted of 22 holes.

9. Before 1764, The St. Andrews Old Course had 22 holes. The 18-hole courses common today came about when golfers agreed to combine certain holes to make 18 holes. The change in the layout was recommended by William St. Clair who was the then-captain and winner of the last game using the 22-hole configuration.

10. Most golf courses consist of 18 holes. These are divided into the front 9 and the back 9. Tournaments generally have a playing format of 18 holes.

11. The first golf courses in Scotland were village greens and cattle pastures. This is due to the wide expanse of space that was available to play the game. When the sport came to the U.S., Americans also began using pastures and meadows.

12. The first balls used in playing golf were made from leather balls stuffed with bird feathers. These balls could travel longer distances than other types of balls that were made after. They were last used in the mid-1800s.

13. The next batch of golf balls was made from wood – specifically, beech. Since they were hand-carved, the balls were not perfectly round, which made them more difficult to play with because they were unpredictable.

14. The first golf balls that were mass-manufactured were made from the sapodilla tree sap. The sap was heated and dried in a round mold. These balls were called gutties and were simply reheated and re-molded when they lost their shape.

15. The nicked and banged up gutties were the inspiration for the modern golf balls. Since the small nicks stabilized the ball’s flight path, golf ball manufacturers began to carve and etch textures into the surface of the balls.

16. The modern golf ball is made of urethane and has 300 to 500 dimples. The average depth of these dimples is around 0.010 inch. The dimples are typically round but other shapes are used as well. Callaway’s HX golf ball, for example, has hexagonal dimples.

17. To meet regulation standards, golf holes must have a diameter of 4.25 inches and a depth of 4 inches. Any more or less will make the hole non-regulation. Holes are cut into the ground using special hole cutters that remove the soil in the shape of a cylinder in just one pull.

18. Golf holes actually do not stay in one place and are moved regularly. This is to keep the condition of the greens in top shape. Moving holes is important especially during busy days when the greens are at risk of being worn out.

19. At one point in its history, golf was actually banned in Scotland by King James II. In 1457, Scotland was at war and needed to focus on military training. Golf was so popular that it distracted even the military, prompting the king to prohibit the sport. The ban was largely ignored by the Scots.

20. Royal approval of golf after the ban was cemented by King James IV (still of Scotland). The king became a fan of the sport and was an enthusiastic golfer himself. His endorsement is the reason why golf became popular among the royals.