Straight and True
There is a famous saying about Marmite spread – ‘you either love it or hate it’! The same could be said of golf – just speak to a ‘golfing widow’ or to someone who has just played the perfect shot … swish, click, a bounce on the green and you have a happy golfer. Where it began is debatable – France, the Netherlands, China, Persia and England are all possibilities but the earliest claim is back to the Romans in the first century BC. The game was called ‘Paganica’ and involved players using a bent stick to hit a stuffed leather ball. However, the modern game of golf originated in 15th-century Scotland where the first written record of golf is James II’s banning of the game in 1457 as an unwelcome distraction to learning archery. James IV lifted the ban in 1502 when he became a golfer himself. The aim of golf is to be able to hit a ball straight and true but, like life itself, it takes lots of practice.
- ‘Golf is the closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; you get good breaks from bad shots – but you have to play the ball where it lies’ – Bobby Jones