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Since I picked up my first golf club a year and a half ago, I have become fascinated and totally addicted to the game. Unfortunately my handicap still remains golf, but eternal hope resides within. When I cannot get to the course, my golfing addiction is fed by reading various golf magazines and coffee table books. This morning I picked up "The Complete Golf Chronicle", a book which has been sitting on the shelf for a few weeks. On the second page I stumbled across one of the most interesting things I have ever read regarding the game. It would appear that Leith Links, not St. Andrews, was the first ever official golf course, and with the local Scottish populace taking to the game, had become really popular - so much so that money was being put on games, and the original unscrupulous golfer was born. In 1744, the original rules of golf were drawn up, and I suspect that the wording of these rules will illustrate just what I mean by "unscrupulous golfer". 1. You must tee your ball within a clublength of the hole. (???) 2. Your tee must be upon the ground. (I don't think the aliens had invented the now-famous "hover-tee" yet) 3. You are not to change the ball which you strike off the tee. (a rule which still irks me today) 4. You are not to remove stones, bones, or any break-club for the sake of playing your ball, except upon the fair green, and that only within a club-length of your ball. (Bones???) 5. If your ball comes among water or any watery filth, you are at liberty to take out your ball and throw it behind the hazard six yards at least; you may play it with any club, and allow your adversary a stroke for so getting out your ball. (Even in Scotland water gets filthy) 6. If your balls be found anywhere touching each other (wide stance now boys!), you are to lift the first ball ball until you play the last. (hmmm) 7. At holing you are to play your ball honestly for the hole, and not to play upon your adversary's ball, not lying in your way to the hole. (See what I mean about the tactics employed?) 8. If you should lose your ball by its being taken up or any other way, you are to go back to the spot where you struck last and drop another ball and allow your adversary a stroke for the misfortune. (There come these aliens again, "taking up" golf balls.) 9. No man at holing his ball is to be allowed to mark his way to the hole with his club or anything else. (I hope the "anything else" is a stick) 10. If a ball is stopped by any person, horse, dog, or anything else, the ball so stopped must be played where it lies. (Dog's and horses get special mention - how times have changed) 11. If you draw your club in order to strike and proceed so far with your stroke as to be bringing down your club, if then your club should break in any way, it is to be accounted a stroke. (There are far easier ways of saying this I am sure.) 12. He whose ball lies farthest from the hole is obliged to play first. (This has spawned the worst words a golfer can ever hear - "Still you.") 13. Neither trench, ditch, or dike made for the preservations of the links, nor the Scholar's holes, nor the Soldier's lines, shall be accounted a hazard, but the ball is to be taken out, teed, and played with any iron club. These rules were created by the Honourable Company, in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Royal & Ancient took as their guide most of these rules when creating the official rules, as we know them today. I copied the rules as shown above (without the comments afterwards) from The Complete Golf Chronicle, by Ted Barrett. Article from Trivia Quiz and Games
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