Michael Owens age 15, of McAllen, Tex., for his question
WHO ORIGINATED GOLF?
Most historians agree that the game of golf was devised by the Scots in the 14th or 15th century. The game became so popular in Scotland that in order to keep people from playing golf and football during time that should have been employed in practicing archery, a military necessity, the Scottish parliament in 1457 passed a law prohibiting both games.
The Scottish people largely ignored the ban on golf and early in the 16th century James IV, King of Scotland, took up the game. His granddaughter, Mary, who later became Mary, Queen of Scots, took the game to France, where she was. educated.
The young men who attended Mary on the golf links were known as "cadets," or pupils. The term was adopted later in Scotland and England, becoming caddy or caddie. Caddies were once an integral feature of the game but have now been largely superseded by golf carts and buggies.
In the 18th century, the first golf associations were established. They included the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers (1744) the Saint Andrews Society of Golfers (1754), which in 1834 took its present name, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews; and the Royal Blackheath (1766) near London, where according to tradition golf was introduced to England in 1608.
The first golf club established in the western hemisphere was Canada's Royal Montreal Golf Club, founded in 1873.
It is believed that golf was played in America during the colonial period, but no documented proof of this has been advanced. In 1888 the St. Andrews Golf Club of Yonkers, N.Y., was established. Some authorities say this is the oldest golf club in the United States with a continuous existence.
The popularity of golf in the United States and Great Britain reached great heights by the 1920s and has steadily increased in recent years, fostered by television.
Today in the United States alone, 12,894 golf courses serve over 13 million people who play golf at least 15 times each year.
Golf is also very popular in Canada, South Africa and Australia and since the end of World War II has enjoyed phenomenal growth in Japan.
Golf was originally played with a ball made of feathers tightly packed in a leather cover. About 1850 a bail made of gutta percha came into use. Gutta percha is the milky juice of various Malaysian sapotaceous trees that has been used in the arts, as a dental cement and for insulating electric wires.
About 1901 a ball with a rubber core enclosed in gutta percha, similar to the ball in use today, was developed.
The pitted surface of modern golf balls acts to stabilize flight. Most golf balls today have a center small sac filled with a liquid substance, usually castor oil and liquid silicone; about 30 yards of rubber thread wound around the sac under tension; and a rubberlike cover .