Scotland, a country measuring just 441km from top to bottom, is responsible for golf, a sport that is now played by 60 million-plus people on all seven continents.
\n\nLegend has it that as far back as the 12th century, shepherds were wandering the wild lands on the edge of Scotland’s North Sea (land now known as links) using their crooks to knock stones into rabbit holes. But the first hard evidence comes from 1457 when King James II of Scotland passed a law banning his people from playing golf in order to stop the sport interfering with military training.
\n\nSt Andrews, a Scottish town now synonymous with golf, was home to the first known course. In 1552 the town’s Archbishop signed a charter recognising the right of the people to play golf on the links. King James IV of Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots were some of the early practitioners.
\n\nThe sport spread quickly via the trade-hungry British, with the first recorded reference to golf in the USA dating to 1729. But it was back to Scotland for the first set of rules, laid down by the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers in 1744.
\n\nThe first Open Championship, one of the four major championships contested annually by today’s elite male golfers, followed in 1860 at Prestwick Golf Course, located in Scotland.
\n\nThe first British Ladies Amateur Championship took place in 1893 at Royal Lytham & St Annes, outside Liverpool, in England.
\n\nThe competition format and rules have remained largely unchanged since the first staging of these major competitions, with stroke play continuing to form the basis of elite-level golf.
\n\nAccording to a report by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews (the R&A) – who, along with the United States Golf Association (USGA), administer the rules of golf – there were 38,864 courses (including 18-hole, 9-hole and 6-hole courses) as of year-end 2018, upon which more than 60 million golfers play each year.
\n\nWhile almost half of these courses are in the USA (16,752), golf is a genuinely global game with 209 countries boasting courses of some description.
\n\nThe PGA TOUR and the European Tour are the most prestigious tours in men’s golf. The men’s game’s four major championships are the Masters Tournament, the U.S. Open, the Open Championship, and the PGA Championship.
\n\nThe best female players tee off in five majors per year: the ANA Inspiration, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, the U.S. Women’s Open, the RICOH Women’s British Open and the Evian Championship.
\n\nTiger WOODS (USA) dominated the men’s game in the late 1990s and the 2000s, winning 14 out of a possible 48 major championships between 1997 and 2008. WOODS then went through a decade-long drought as a group of younger players took over, but triumphantly returned to major championship glory in 2019 by winning the Masters. This was his first major title in 11 years and his 15th major championship victory, which put him second of all-time in major championship wins, only behind the legendary Jack NICKLAUS (USA).
\n\nIn the women’s game, the Republic of Korea has dominated in recent years, claiming the most Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour wins since 2019. After a 2019 season in which three of the five majors were won by golfers from the Republic of Korea, led by KO Jin-young’s two majors wins at the ANA Inspiration and the Evian Championship, 2020 followed the same course. With the cancellation of the Evian Championship, four majors were held during the 2020 season, and three were won by the Republic of Korea, including KIM Sei-young’s first major and 11th tour win at the KPMG Women's PGA Championship. Among those who are challenging their dominance are the 2017 LPGA Championship winner Danielle KANG (USA) and a rising young star in Nelly KORDA (USA).
\n\nPrior to Tokyo 2020, golf had been played at three Olympic Games: Paris 1900, St. Louis 1904, and Rio 2016. There were men’s and women’s events at Paris 1900, with Charles SANDS (USA) emerging from a 12-man field to triumph and compatriot Margaret ABBOTT (USA) edging out nine others to win gold.
\n\nA 10-man team competition replaced the women’s event at the St Louis 1904 Games. The USA was once again dominant, claiming five of the six medals on offer, including a team gold and individual silver for Henri Chandler EGAN (USA). Canadian George LYON prevented the clean sweep by winning the men’s individual gold.
\n\nAt Rio 2016, Justin ROSE (GBR) won gold in men's individual, and PARK Inbee (KOR) won gold in women's individual. Athletes from Sweden, the USA, New Zealand, and China rounded out the medal podium, highlighting sport’s global reach.
\n\nGolf was introduced to Japan in 1901 by a British man named Arthur Hesketh GROOM. GROOM built a four-hole golf course in Mount Rokko, Hyogo, to allow him to play the sport he and his friends loved back home in Great Britain.
\n\nGolf as a competitive sport began in 1907 with the Japan Amateur Golf Tournament. The Japan Golf Association (JGA) was founded in 1924 in Komazawa, Tokyo. In 1953, the first Japan Women’s Amateur Golf Tournament was held.
\n\nGolf became more popular after 1954, when the Kasumigaseki Country Club, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic golf venue, hosted the Canada Cup, a tournament now known as the World Cup of Golf. The 1954 Canada Cup was the first time that golf was televised in Japan. The Japanese pair, NAKAMURA Torakichi and ONO Koichi, won the tournament for the nation’s first success in the event.
\n\nWomen’s professional golf began in 1967 with the introduction of an ability test for women to become professional golfers. The following year, the first annual Japan Ladies Professional Golf Association (JLPGA) Championship and TBS Women’s Open were held.
\n\nGold is now hugely popular in Japan, with an estimated eight million people playing the sport across the country’s 2,300 courses.
\n\nFor further information, please consult: www.igfgolf.org
\n\nUpdated in November 2020
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