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Waterfall Humour

THE OLDEST GAME ON EARTH

By James Clarke

G olf is an exceptionally “Hey this is fun,” said Og. “But how Certainly, the Scots turned the game

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

36 Waterfall Issue 9 2020