A golf ball lying near the tree with the pin and a golfer in the background
5 November 2020
The word golf is of unknown origin. There are a number of hypotheses as to its origin, floating about, but none seem likely.
We do know, however, that the game is Scottish in origin and dates to at least the mid fifteenth century. An act of the Scottish parliament under James II in 1457 outlawed the game, along with football, because it was thought to distract from military training and readiness. In other words, young men should be practicing archery and swordsmanship rather than playing games. The law was promulgated in two versions. The more complete one reads:
ITEM, It is decreeted & ordained, that the weaponschawings be halden be the Lords and Barronnes Spiritual and Temporal, foure times in the zeir. And that the fute-bal and golfe be vtterly cryed downe, and not to be vsed.
A weaponschawing, literally weapons-showing, is an archaic Scots term for a military readiness review. To cry down is to condemn or make unlawful.
And a second reads more succinctly:
And as tuichande þe futball and þe golf we ordane it to be punyst be þe baronys vnlawe.
How similar the 1457 version of golf (and that of football as well) is to the present-day game I cannot tell you. I’m an expert on language, not a sports historian.
As to the hypotheses, the leading one seems to be that it comes from the Dutch kolf, meaning club, and the Dutch word is used in a number of ball and stick games. But in Dutch, the game is called kolven, and kolf is not used for the game itself. Furthermore, there is no evidence of the game ever being called by a word with an initial /k/ in Scots.
A second hypothesis is that it comes from the Scots gowf, meaning a blow or strike, and indeed the game is sometimes called this in Scotland. But this word isn’t attested until the eighteenth century, far too late for it to be the origin.
Sources:
The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. 2. Edinburgh: 1814, 48. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Dictionary of the Scots Language (DSL), 2002, s.v. wapynschawin(g, n., gowf, n.1, v.1., gowf, n.2, v.2.
The Lawes and Actes of Parliament, Maid Be King James the First and His Successors Kinges of Scotland. Edinburgh: Robert Waldegrave, 1597, 41. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. golf, n.
Photo credit: Shawn Carpenter, 2010, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.