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Humour

the OlDest GAme ON eARth

BY JAMES CLARKE

Africa’s Largest Selection of Patio Furniture & Accessories

olf is an exceptionally ancient about a game in which teams kick a big holes somewhat smaller than warthog
game. It goes back well before leather ball. We could call it soccer?” burrows. They also turned the name
GGary Player. In fact, it goes back “It’ll never catch on,” said Ug. around – ‘flog’ was spelt backwards to
to the time of the knuckle-dragging And so a kind of game was born. It was, become ‘golf’. It's amazing how few
man-apes. at first, no more than ‘hunt-the-stone’ people know this.
Three or four million years ago our and it sometimes entailed flattening the From here on the history of the
ancestors were forced out of Africa’s veld by flogging the eye-level grass using game is more accurately documented.
receding forests and on to the plains. To these funny sticks. The game became Encyclopaedia Britannica says that by
see over the top of the grass they were known as ‘flog’. the mid-1400s James II decreed that
compelled to stand upright - the first If, of course, a stone went down a hole, “Golfe be utterly cried down” because
step towards being able to play golf. then quite often, there it had to stay. The it was rivalling archery as an outdoor
Their only weapon in this new floggers soon realised they needed lots pastime and archery was necessary for
landscape which, as one can imagine, of little white stones. This now became the defence of the realm.
was picked over by some pretty mean the job of the women because, after all, Some say the game originated in
creatures, was a club. A club: the second collecting little white stones was, strictly- Holland or Belgium and grew out of the
step had been achieved. speaking, ‘gathering’ and, therefore, in game of chole. Chole was a cross-country
One day a man-ape, Ug Blainkenthorpe this hunter-gatherer society it fell into game in which opposing sides set off to
(not his real name) picked up a stick the women's department. hit their ball across many kilometres to
intending to use it as a club for hitting One day Og said to Ug, “Maybe it will a target such as a church door. After one
small mammals and people he didn't like. be more fun if we deliberately aim for side had played three strokes the other
However, it was too whippy for hunting. holes to see who can sink their stone in side had the right to hit their opponents'
But he liked the stick and he pondered over the least number of strokes.” ball into the nearest hazard - even over
it for some time before an idea struck him. Flog, when all is considered, has not a cliff.
He used it to hit small, round, white improved much beyond this although This, today, could result in temper
stones. He watched in fascination as the cutting the grass was a useful step. tantrums.
stones flew off into the distance. Sports historians - ignorant of the It might be significant that the Scots
Then he and his friend, Og Willisden, foregoing - generally believe that it was bought their balls from Holland until
(as an historian I must warn some the Scots who invented the game around James II curbed the trade because ‘no
authorities say his name was spelled the 1300s. That is what is written in some small quantity’ of gold and silver was
Willisdon), spent many hours hunting history books. being spent on their purchase.
for these beautiful pebbles and, being Certainly, the Scots turned the game I gave up golf many years ago after the
hunters, they enjoyed this immensely. around by using balls made of skin and primeval thrill of hunting for balls grew We are located in Centurion at the N1 Samrand off-ramp
“Hey this is fun,” said Og. “But how twine, which were softer, and aiming for thin.
www.patiowarehouse.co.za | Centurion: 012 657 9400
24 • Issue 10 2020 • The Villager