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Golf as we know it today originated from a game played on the eastern coast of Scotland in the kingdom of Fife during the 15th century. Players would hit a pebble around a natural course of sand dunes, rabbit runs, and tracks using a stick or primitive club. 

Some historians believe that Kolven from Holland and Chole from Belgium influenced into Scotland in 1421.However while those games and countless others are stick and ball games, they are missing that vital ingredients that is unique to golf -the hole. Whatever the argument, there can be no dispute that Scotland gave birth to the game that we know today as golf. In the 15th century, King James 2 ban golf. The ban was reaffirmed in 1501.
 In 1503 with the treaty of Glasgow the ban was lifted with King James lV, he loved the sport. Golf's popularity quickly spread throughout the 16th century due to its royal endorsement, King Charles l popularized the game in England and Mary Queen of Scots who was French, introduced the game to the French while she was studying there.

 The Gentlemen Golfers of Leith was the first club and was formed to promote an annual competition with a silver golf club as the prize. The club was later renamed the Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers with a club house erected in 1768. In 1754 the St. Andrew  Society of golfers was formed to complete in its own annual competition using Leith's rules. Stroke play was  introduced in 1759 and in 1764, the 18-hole course was constructed which has of course become a de-facto standard. 
 The first women's golf club in the world was formed there in 1895. Of course, by this time golfers were using proper clubs and balls. Club heads  made from beech or the wood of fruit trees such as apple. Some club heads for were made from hand-forged iron. Shafts were usually ash or hazel. Balls made from tightly compressed feathers wrapped in a stitched horse hide sphere.

 The sport was somewhat exclusive due to the expense of the hand crafted equipment. After 1826 perimmon and hickory were imported from the USA to make club heads and shorts respectively. Today these antiques are highly prized by collectors. The first golf clubs formed outside Scotland was Royal Black health in 1766. However golf is believed to have been played here since 1608. The Victorian Industrial Revolution brought with it many social and economic changes.
 For the first time, ordinary people could explore the country and as day-trippers or weekend visitors. Golf clubs popped up all over the country and people could enjoy the challenge of playing a different one every weekend. Once metal club heads and shafts and gutta percha balls (1848) began rolling off the production lines, the average person was able to afford to play golf. The growth of golf as an organized competitive sport in the United Kingdom was paralleled abroad in India and the USA.  

 Gate receipts were used as prize money for the first time in 1892 in Cambridge, England. The first international golf tournament was the Amateur Golf Championship of India and the east in 1893. In 1894, the United States Golf Association (USGA) was  established to regulate the game in the USA and Mexico. Besides rules it manages the handicapping system and conducts research into grass. 
 The US Open Ladies Amateur Open were inaugurated in 1895. By 1900 there were more than 100 golf clubs in the USA. Chicago was the first to have 18 holes. Significantly  american golf courses were usually  landscaped parklands unlike those in the United Kingdom which were typically links courses. The game attracted the attention of the media and business sponsorship which raised its profile enormously. In 1897 the first monthly magazine, Golf, was published in the USA. Golf was confirmed as a global sport when it was made an Olympic sport in 1900. the dawn of the 20th century brought with it several technological innovations. The first was the Haskell one piece rubber cored ball of 1900, which practically guaranteed an extra 20 yards. Grooved-forced irons were introduced in 1902. Steel shafted clubs was introduced in 1910. The Professional Golfers Association (PGA) of America was formed in 1916 and initially consisted of a winter calendar. However by 1944 the tour was played throughout the year and consisted of 22 events.   

 In 1921 the R&A imposed a limit on the size and weight of the golf ball. Perhaps the greatest player of the pre-war period was the American born Bobby Jones. Great Woman of the time were Joyce Wethered and Glenna Conen Vare. In 1933 Augusta opened. The first US Masters was played there in 1934. The Ladies PGA was formed in 1951 and replaced the Women's Professional Golf Association.
 The First Woman's Open was held in 1946. The 1960's brought with it something special in the guise of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Gary Player. They dominated the game into the 1970's . In 1961, the PGA withdrew it's "whites-only" rule. Charlie Sifford was the first black golfer to contest a PGA event and Lee Elder was the first to contest the Masters in 1975. 

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