Page 30 - Blue Valley Issue 4 2020 print.pdf

HUMOUR

THE OLDEST GAME ON EARTH

By James Clarke

olf is an exceptionally ancient game. “Hey this is fun,” said Og. “But how about a Certainly the Scots turned the game around
It goes back well before Gary Player. game in which teams kick a big leather ball. by using softer balls made of skin and twine
GIn fact it goes back to the time of the We could call it soccer?” and aiming for holes somewhat smaller
knuckle-dragging man-apes. than warthog burrows. They also turned the
“It’ll never catch on,” said Ug. name around – ‘flog’ was spelt backwards to
Three or four million years ago our ancestors become ‘golf’. It’s amazing how few people
were forced out of Africa’s receding forests And so a kind of game was born. It was, at know this.
and on to the plains. To see over the top of the first, no more than ‘hunt-the-stone’ and it From here on the history of the game is
grass they were compelled to stand upright - sometimes entailed flattening the veld by more accurately documented. Encyclopaedia
the first step towards being able to play golf. flogging the eye-level grass using these funny
sticks. The game became known as ‘flog’. Britannica says that by the mid-1400s James II
decreed that “Golfe be utterly cried down”
Their only weapon in this new landscape If, of course, a stone went down a hole, then because it was rivalling archery as an outdoor
which, as one can imagine, was picked over quite often, there it had to stay. The floggers pastime and archery was necessary for the
by some pretty mean creatures, was a club. A defence of the realm.
club: the second step had been achieved. soon realised they needed lots of little white
stones. This now became the job of the Some say the game originated in Holland
women because, after all, collecting little
One day a man-ape, Ug Blainkenthorpe (not white stones was, strictly-speaking, ‘gathering’ or Belgium and grew out of the game of
his real name) picked up a stick intending and, therefore, in this hunter-gatherer society chole. Chole was a cross-country game in
to use it as a club for hitting small mammals it fell into the women’s department. which opposing sides set off to hit the ball
and people he didn’t like. However, it was too across many kilometres to a target such as a
whippy for hunting. But he liked the stick and church door. After one side had played three
One day Og said to Ug, “Maybe it will be more strokes the other side had the right to hit their
he pondered over it for some time before an fun if we deliberately aim for holes to see who
idea struck him. opponents’ ball into the nearest hazard - even
can sink their stone in the least number of over a cliff.
strokes.”
He used it to hit small, round, white stones. He This, today, could result in temper tantrums.
watched in fascination as the stones flew off Flog, when all is considered, has not improved
into the distance. much beyond this although cutting the grass It might be significant that the Scots bought
was a useful step. their balls from Holland until James II curbed
Then he and his friend, Og Willisden, (as an the trade because ‘no small quantitie’ of gold
historian I must warn some authorities say his Sports historians - ignorant of the foregoing and silver was being spent on their purchase.
name was spelt Willisdon), spent many hours - generally believe that it was the Scots who
hunting for these beautiful pebbles and, invented the game around the 1300s. That is I gave up golf many years ago after the
being hunters, they enjoyed this immensely. what is written in some history books. primeval thrill of hunting for balls grew thin.
BV

28 • Issue 4 2020 • BLUE VALLEY NEWS