Golf: An Illegal Sport in the Middle Ages

Ball and stick games have been around for centuries in such diverse places as France, the Netherlands, and China and a game similar to our modern game of golf was being played in Scotland as early as the 15th century. We know that golf was played in Scotland before that time, however, and that it was relatively popular because the first written record of the game is a prohibition against playing it. Like soccer, golf was highly discouraged by many Scottish and later English kings because of fear that the game’s popularity was endangering the security of the kingdom!

Legend says that the first golfers were shepherds in the hills of St. Andrews who passed the time by hitting rocks into rabbit holes with their crooks. While it is difficult to determine whether this story is true, it seems a plausible explanation for the origins of the golf. Of course, it means that the precise dates of those origins are equally difficult to determine. However and whenever golf was invented, it had taken a form fairly similar to the game we play today by the 15th century. There were no greens, but players hit leather balls packed with feathers with wooden clubs into holes wherever the ground was flat enough to play.

By 1457, the game was evidently quite popular because it was in that year that James II of Scotland issued an order banning golf along with football. The king believed that the two relatively new sports were distracting men from their archery practice. Since having skilled archers was key to maintaining national security in the era before the proliferation of firearms, many considered his ban quite reasonable. After all, the more time citizens “wasted” on golf and soccer, the less they would spend on archery. Indeed, many Scottish and English Kings including Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV, and James IV issued similar prohibitions on the game.

Fortunately for golfers around the world today, golf was not universally condemned. Even a few members of the nobility quickly fell in love with the game. Legend says that Marcy Queen of Scots was an avid golfer. Whether or not that is actually true is difficult to determine, but we do know that James I of England (James VI of Scotland) was extremely fond of the game. In fact, the first golf club maker of whom we have written record was employed by the court of James I. When James became king of England, he brought his love of golf from Scotland. This made the game popular throughout the island and although laws prohibiting golf stayed on the books for a long time, they were largely ignored by the growing number of golf enthusiasts.