Did You Know?

excerpt from the Soil Report Newsletter of Soilmoisture Equipment Corp.

How did the game of golf (the subject of our cover article) get started? Nobody knows. Some trace it back to early Roman times and a country game called paganica. A ball or stone was hit with a stick toward a goal. That would seem to be forerunner of field hockey. What makes golf distinctive is putting the ball in a hole. Everyone agrees that originated in Scotland, but no one knows how. One theory is that fishermen going from boat to village amused themselves by hitting a stone with a stick. Who could hit the farthest? When the stone fell into a rabbit hole or depression made by a sheep's hoof, the game started again. Soon, holes were being deliberately made, the scooped out sand being used as a tee next to the hole. There were no courses. Golfers simply played out in the field. The caddy's task was to scare away the rabbits and passersby. The first course wasn't built until 1754, St. Andrew's in Scotland. For a long time the ball in use was a leather pouch stuffed with wet feathers and called a "feathery". It was replaced in 1848 by the butta-percha, so named for an elastic Malaysian gum. The rubber-cored ball was invented in 1901 by one Coburn Haskell. It drove so far some wanted it declared illegal. Whatever its origins, golf has been played a long time. A stained glass window in Gloucester Cathedral, dating from 1350, shows it being played. In 1450, after the Scots lost a battle to the British, the king forbade the playing of golf in favor of archery. It didn't work. Many a modern "golf widow" would probably like to do the same, only she doesn't have archery in mind. And it probably won't work either.