HISTORY AND THE WORLD OF GOLF
The game of golf attracts massive galleries of spectators, mesmerized by a pastime in which a player hits a tiny ball across great distances, sometimes over 500 yards, into a little hole. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries people played a number of different club and ball games. By the fifteenth century golf was been played in many parts of Europe and had become so popular in Scotland that in 1457 King James II was forced to ban his archers from playing the game that was keeping them from performing their proper duties. Such prohibitions, however, failed to curb the growing popularity of the game, which teed off officially in 1860 when the thirst Open Championship was held at the tiny fishing village of Prestwick on the West Coast of Scotland. From then on the game didn't look back. J H Taylor, James Braid and Harry Vardon, playing on the turn of the century, put golf firmly on the British map. In 1916 the US PGA was formed, and Walter Hagen, Bobby Jones ( famous for his 1930 ' Grand Slam ' ), Henry Cotton and Ben Hogan continued to woo the masses with their exhilarating play. By 1960s and 1970s three names dominated the game - Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus. Together they revitalized the Open, 'creating' a new ' Grand Slam ' that consisted of the US Masters, the British Open and the US PGA Championship. By the 1980s the game had become truly international, with Seve Ballesteros from Spain, Bernard Langer from West Germany, Greg Norman from Australia and Tommy Nakajima from Japan thrilling millions of golfing fans around the world. The game of golf has evolved over the years into not only a multibillion-dollar industry, but also a sport accessible to many more people than ever before. Despite its attractiveness to large corporate sponsorships and the associated commercialism and hype, golf has been able to retain the traditions and the spirit that make it unique. It is the only ball sport were the action on the ball is dependant on one thing - the human being in control of the club that hits the ball. Unlike a game such as tennis, where a player has to react to a moving object hit by an opponent, a golfer has, comparatively speaking, all the time in the world to decide how to launch the ball in the direction of the hole. It is perhaps for this reason that golf is both the most satisfying - and the most frustrating - game known to man. As any golfer will know, once the "bug" bites, it is very difficult to consign the clubs to the scraphead and walk away from the game. Golf becomes an addiction - perhaps a haelthier one than others - but difficult to give up.
THE FIRST LADY GOLFER
The first recorded lady golfer, 1563, was Mary, Queen of Scots, who played at St Andrews and in Edinburgh. Helen Hicks was among the first women to become a professional golfer in the year 1934. Former rookie of the year Sally Little became the first female of South Africa to be inducted into the South African Hall of Fame. Little burst onto the LPGA tour in the early 1970s. little won 15 times on Tour including two major championships.
SHORT HISTORY OF THE GOLF BALL
The first golf balls from the 14th Century were made out of wood, specifically beech, by carpenters using hand tools. They weren't perfectly round. The 17th Century saw the slight design improvement of the featherie, a leather ball stuffed with bird feathers and stitched shut. But these things took forever to make, behaved differently when wet versus dry, and were also not perfectly round. In mid 1800s, Robert Adam Paterson made the first molded ball. He discovered that the sap from a sapodilla tree, native to Malaysia, could be heated up, placed into a round mold and would then dry hard. Called the " guttie " these were the first golf balls with mass-manufacturability, and with the added bonus that they could be reheated and re-molded if they went out-of-round. Then an interesting discovery was made. If you owned a guttie for a while, it got nicked and banged-up guttie versus a brand one, the roughed-up guttie balls actually had a more consistent flight path. By the late 1800s, a new type of ball had been created, by accident, by a visitor to B F Goodrich's rubber goods manufactory. A guy named Coburn Haskell had a golf date with Bertram Work, a Goodrich superintendent, and while Haskell was waiting for his buddy in the factory, he idly wound a bunch of rubber bands into a ball shape-and by bouncing it, discovered it contained a high amount of potential energy. Work and Haskell subsequently skinned the invention with the sap from a Balata tree, and the guttie became obsolete. Up until the early 1900s, all golf balls were patterned with raised protrusions. But then an anonymous inventor discovered that surface indentations were the way to go. By the 1960s Balata and rubber was done away with and replaced with urethane skins and synthetic resin cores.
THE MODERN GOLF BALLS
* Distant Balls
* Spin Control Balls
* The 2-piece ball-best for beginners and intermediate players.
* The 3-piece ball-best for more experienced players.
* The 4-piece ball-best for stronger players.
GOLF BALL COVER
Surlyn Cover: Surlyn is an extremely durable, but slightly harder cover material. Surlyn withstand nicks and cuts better but offers less feel.
Urethane Cover: Typically softer and offers greater feel and control over the ball.
Balata Cover: All but gone. But up until about 25 years ago these were the only balls that top players used due to their soft feel.
PAST HISTORY OFF DIFFIRENT TYPES BALLS
1 Rock
2 Wood
3 Featherie
4 Gutta Percha Ball
5 Rubber-Wound Ball
6 Modern Golf Ball
MYTHICAL ORIGINS OF THE GOLF BALL
The popular story goes, that the first golf ball was a simple rounded stone that was hit by a bored shepherd using his crook. By pure luck, the stone ended up in a hole in the ground, encouraging the shepherd to repeat his "success" by trying to hit more stones in the hole. Unfortunately, there is no historical evidence for this story and we will probably never know who invented the game of golf and when golf was invented.
FACTS of GOLF BALLS:
How many Dimples On a Golf Ball?
The truth is, there is not a single answer to how many dimples are on a golf ball. That's because the number of dimples varies depending on the model and manufacturer. Most often, the number of dimples per golf ball falls between 300 and 500.
Why Do Golf Balls have Dimples?
Golf manufacturer don't put dimples on golf balls because it looks good. There is real science behind their use. A flat or irregular object moves through the air in an inconsistent, fluctuating manner because of how air flows over it. So golf balls without dimples would travel unpredictably through the air. Essentially, golfers would have little hope controlling a smooth golf ball.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE GOLF CLUB
Since the inception of the game of golf, players have continually tried to improve upon their equipment. The earliest golf clubs were initially carved by the golfer themselves and typically out of wood. The first record of commissioned golf clubs was by King James IV of Scotland, who hired a bow-maker, to craft him a set of clubs and made him the Royal Club Maker. With the introduction of the " featherie " golf ball in 1618 golf clubs continued to be made with wooden heads. The wooden clubs were expensive due the time and effort that went into making them and they were prone to brake. Around 1750 the first clubheads made of iron began to emerge from local blacksmith shops, used for " niblicks " or wedges. In 1826 , a club-maker in Scotland, started to use imported hickory from America to make club shafts. The first few decades of the 1900s saw a lot of experimentation and innovation in the club design. Around 1925 the steel shaft was introduced. There was little development and advancement for the next few decades. After World War II. In 1963 the casting method of manufacturing club heads was introduced, making clubs more affordable. In 1973 the graphite shafts was introduced which provided more rigidity, lightness and increased strength over the steel shaft. Taylor-Made was the first company to produce metal club headed woods. The popularity of metal club heads over persimmon club heads didn't become prolific until Callaway introduced the Big Bertha in 1991.
NAMES OF GOLF CLUB PARTS:
GRIP: Grip is made of synthetic rubber composite.
HOSEL AND FERRULE: The shaft is inserted into the hosel, which look like the neck of the club head.
CLUB HEAD: Club heads as designed with either titanium, steel, tungsten or a combination of those metals.
CLUB MONIKERS: THEN AND NOW
Modern Old
1 Wood Driver
2 Wood Brassie
3 Wood Spoon
4 Wood Wooden Cleek
1 Iron Driving Iron
2 Iron Mid Iron
3 Iron Mid Mashie
4 Iron Mashie Iron
5 Iron Mashie
6 Iron Spade Mashie
7 Iron Mashie Niblick
8 Iron Lofting Iron
9 Iron Niblick
Putter Putting Cleek
5 Fun Facts About Golf
# 1: Longest Recorded Drive Was 515 yards
# 2: First 18 Hole Course Was on a Sheep farm
# 3: Golf Balls Were Originally Made from Wood
# 4: Other Golf Balls was made of Feathers
# 5: Golf was Played on the Moon
SOUTH AFRICAN OPEN
The South African Open is one of the oldest golf championships, dating to 1903. The South African Open is the flagship event of the Sunshine Tour.
EVERYONE'S FAVOURITE GOLF POEM
In my hand I hold a ball,
White and dimpled, and rather small.
Oh, how bland it does appear,........
This harmless looking little sphere.
By its size I could not guess
The awesome strength it does possess.
But since I fell beneath the spell,
I've wondered through the fires of hell.
My life has been not quite the same
Since I chose to play this stupid game.
It rules my mind for hours on end;
A fortune it has made me spend.
It has made me curse and made me cry,
And hate myself and want to die.
It promises me a thing called par,
If I hit it straight and far.
To master such a tiny ball,
Should not be vary hard at all.
But my desires the ball refuges,
And does exactly as it chooses.
It hooks and slices, dribbles and dies,
And disappears before my eyes.
Often it will have a whim,
To hit a tree and take a swim.
With miles of grass on which to land,
It finds a tiny spot of sand.
Then has me offering up my soul,
If only it would find the hole.
It's made me whimper like a pup,
And swear that I would give it up.
And take to drink to ease my sorrow,
But the ball knows.....I'll be back tomorrow.
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