The Gentleman's GAme. Review on Golf

Golf is usually regarded as a Scottish invention, as the game was mentioned in two 15th-century laws prohibiting the playing of the game of ''gowf''. Some scholars, however, suggest that this refers to another game which is much akin to shinty or hurling, or to modern field hockey. They point out that a game of putting a small ball in the pocket in the ground using golf clubs was played in 17th-century Netherlands. The term golf is believed to have originated from a Germanic word for ''club''. Many old wives tales state that golf was an acronym for Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden.

The first golf club established outside the United Kingdom was the Royal Calcutta in India in 1829. The modern game evolved in the second half of the 19th century in Scotland. The rules of the game and the design of equipment and courses greatly resembled those of today. 1873 saw the establishment of the first North American golf club, Royal Montreal Golf Club in Canada. The major changes in equipment since the 19th century have been better mowers, especially for the greens, better golf ball designs, using rubber and man-made materials since about 1900, and the introduction of the metal shaft beginning in the 1930s. Also in the 1930s the wooden golf tee was invented. In the 1970s the use of metal to replace wood heads began, and shafts made of graphite composite materials were introduced in the 1980s.

The major championships are the four most prestigious men's tournaments of the year. In playing order they are:

The Masters

U.S. Open

The Open Championship (referred to in North America as the British Open)

PGA Championship

At the top level of the professional game the number of major championships a player accumulates in his career has a very large impact on his stature in the sport. Jack Nicklaus is widely regarded as the greatest golfer of all time, largely because he has won a record 18 professional majors, or 20 majors in total if his two U.S. Amateurs are included. Tiger Woods, who is possibly the only contender to Nicklaus' record, has won ten majors, all before the age of thirty. Woods also came closest to winning all four majors in one season (known as a Grand Slam) when he won them consecutively across two seasons: the 2000 U.S. Open, Open Championship, and PGA Championship; and the 2001 Masters. This feat is now known as a Tiger Slam.

Prior to the advent of the PGA Championship and The Masters, the four Majors were the U.S. Open, the U.S. Amateur, the Open Championship, and the British Amateur. These are the four that Bobby Jones won in 1930 to become the only player ever to have earned a Grand Slam.