Bangkok 1998

The Early Romans played a game very similar like golf by hitting a feather-stuffed ball with club-shaped tree branches. Pictures in books also show the Dutch playing a similar type of game on their frozen canals during the 1500's. Cross-country versions of the game were also popular in France and Belgium.

It is interesting to note that even though Scotland is the father and mother of the game of golf, it was also banned there for a time.

this ban was in place during the middle part of the fifteenth Century when Scotland was preparing to defend itself against an English invasion.

History tells us that many people in Scotland became so obsessed with golf that they neglected the military training that would be required if the English were to be driven back so the Scottish Parliament of James II quite literally banned the game.

Although the ban was reintroduced in 1470 and 1491 its popularity continued to grow - the Scots simply ignored the ban Scotland is the home of the world's oldest golf course, St. Andrews, which was used as early as the sixteenth century. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews, the birth place of golf, was founded in 1754.

Golf became firmly established in Great Britain by the 17th century when James VI of Scotland, later James I of England, started to play the game During the 1800s the gutta-percha ball, or "gutty," replaced the feather-filled ball that had been used for hundreds of years.

In 1860 the 1st British Open was played at Prestwick, Scotland. The competition was opened to both professionals and amateurs the next year.

St. Andrews, one of the oldest golf clubs in the USA, was established as a 3-hole layout in 1888 at Yonkers, N.Y. Its founders were known as the "Apple Tree Gang" because of the many apple trees on their course, which was extended to 6 holes on a cow pasture Golf was an Asian Games event 1982 in New Delhi, India.

List of events

• men

  1. TEAM

  2. INDIVIDUAL

• women

  1. TEAM

  2. INDIVIDUAL