Golf is played by people all around the world, and millions tune in to watch the sport’s biggest tournaments on TV every year. However, not many people know much about the game’s long history, which took place over hundreds of years and across multiple countries.

Most people who know anything about golf will tell you that it was first played in Scotland, but that’s only part of the story. While the modern version of golf is firmly rooted in Scotland, there’s evidence that earlier versions of the game were imported to the British Isles by other Europeans.

One of the biggest clues to golf’s origins comes from the name of the game itself. The word “golf” is a corruption of the medieval Dutch word “kolf,” or club. Most evidence suggests that golf developed from the stick and ball games played by continental Europeans from France, Germany, and the Low Countries during the Middle Ages.

Golf may not be a purely Scottish invention, but that doesn’t mean the Scots weren’t invaluable to its development. In fact, the first historical references to golf come from Scottish sources, when King James II of Scotland banned the game in 1457, believing that it was distracting the country’s men from their archery training.

Despite the ban, which was renewed by James III and IV, golf continued to grow in popularity in both Scotland and England. Love of golf connected both the upper and lower classes of the two countries; records show that both Mary I of Scotland and James I of England were big fans of the game, as were many commoners.

Scotland’s main claim to creating golf comes from 1774, when a group of men from Edinburgh formed the first official golf club. As part of the club’s creation, the newly formed Company of Gentlemen Golfers also created the sport’s first known rulebook, Articles and Laws in Playing Golf.

• The earliest known golf balls were made of wood, most of which were imported to Scotland from Holland (another clue that points to the game’s continental origins).

• Eventually, players switched to balls made of leather and feathers. The price of these balls was the biggest obstacle for most people; one craftsman could only make 4 or 5 a day, making them expensive for common people to buy.

• The Gentlemen Golfers used clubs of wood and iron, similar to today. At the time, however, iron clubs were only used for getting out of difficult spots, not for approaches like they are today.

In the 19th century, a new type of golf ball was introduced: the gutta-percha ball, or “guttie,” made from the rubbery sap of the Malaysian sapodilla tree. The new ball would eventually lead to a famous conflict between the era’s two greatest ball makers and players, Allan Robertson and Tom Morris, whose friendship and business partnership eventually dissolved over the rivalry.

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1. http://golf.about.com/cs/historyofgolf/a/hist_golfbegin.htm

2. http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/golfhistory.html

3. http://digital.nls.uk/golf-in-scotland/rules/index.html