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“No woman has ever entered the club, and, thank God, no woman will ever enter,” was the statement made to the press by the secretary of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club in 1946. Moreover, by that time the sports skyline had already seen the ladies, not inferior to men, and sometimes surpassed them in results. Much has changed since then. There are neither class nor sexist restrictions, big girls are united into teams, and women’s teams compete in championships and the Olympics.
From the Royal Fields
History says that golf was played as far back as Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland, the same one who was later executed. Various sources refer to her as the first woman golfer. It is believed that it was at Mary’s behest that the famous golf course at St. Andrews was built. She also introduced the term “caddy” (short for “cadet”), calling her assistants by that name.
With one of them Mary once appeared on the field. The young French courtier was dragging a weighty bundle of august clubs. All this happened just days after the death of Mary’s husband, Lord Darnley, in 1567. This fact was remembered and used by the queen in her trial in 1587.
According to other reports, the first mention of such a game appeared as early as in “The Odyssey,” the plot of which is that Princess Nausica plays with a ball on the beach with other girls. Interestingly, the poem was written between 750 and 650 BC, after the first Olympic Games.
In the mid-nineteenth century, women’s sporting events were held mostly as a game or pastime. Golf was no exception. It began to gain popularity in the United States on the eve of the twentieth century. But restrictions on the part of men made themselves felt.
For example, one of the sport’s leading figures, Lord Moncrieff, said that women should not hit the ball further than 60-70 yards (60 yards is 54.8 meters). “We cannot afford to dictate terms, but it should be noted that the body position and gestures necessary for a full stroke are not particularly graceful when the player is dressed as a woman,” he explained.
There is a version of deciphering the word Golf as Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden, “Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden.”
Other sources say that the word “golf” is derived from goulf (“to hit” in Scottish).
The term was first mentioned in writing in 1457.
By the way, it was in Scotland in 1867, appeared the first women’s golf club in the world – Ladies Club of St. Andrew’s.
In those years, most of the clubs were owned by men. Even the successes, the players’ undoubted victories in the sporting field, were not an argument to invite their wives to the walls of the club. Nevertheless, in 1891 the prestigious Long Island Shinnecock Hills Golf Club opened its doors to women.
Within two years there was a separate nine-hole women’s course (the standard number of holes is 18). This is not accidental, since Long Island, as a prestigious district of New York City on the Atlantic Ocean, is the traditional home of the “rich and famous.
Ladies with a club on their backs
The Women’s Professional Golf Association (WPGA) was founded in 1944. It was later renamed the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) and is still going strong today.
Golf was included in the program of the modern Olympics in 1900 and 1904, then after a long pause was re-entered in 2016 (Rio de Janeiro).
In 2020, the golf world switched to the new World Handicap System (WHS). Until recently, with unified rules, there were at least 6 systems developed in different countries. To explain: a handicap is a numerical measure of a golfer’s playing ability.
The system allows players of different levels to compete on a level playing field. This is relevant because golf is originally a club game, bringing together players of different strengths. That is, the athletic result depends on which of the participants was able to play better or worse than his normal level.
Nevertheless, the basic principle of the game remains unchanged – to put 9 or 18 balls into the holes (depending on the number of balls on the course), while making the minimum number of strokes with the club.
