Scotland Travel & Tourism

Golf is one of the oldest ‘stick and ball’ games still practiced today. It has become an international enterprise, with its own stars, politics, sponsors, and intrigue, yet if you set all of the pastel polos and pleated khakis aside, you’re still left with the stick and ball. The sport, as we’ve come to know it, with pars, birdies, greens, and eighteen-hole courses originated some time in 13th century Scotland, though its first documented mention didn’t come about until the mid-15th century, when King James II of Scotland passed an act in parliament prohibiting the practice of ‘gowf’ and football, as they distracted from military archery practice.

So even since the Medieval Ages, golf has served to healthfully distract and preoccupy the layman and the professional alike. Nowadays, courses are obsessively groomed and trimmed, and you can find luxury courses on every continent of the world. But the true golfer – the most dedicated – hasn’t played golf until he or she has played on the greens of Scotland.

The word ‘golf’ likewise finds its roots in old language. Often spelled by the Scots as goulf, gouf, gowf, and other variants, the verb itself means ‘to strike.’ Alternately, the word is also similar to the Dutch ‘kolf,’ which suggests a type of bat. Either way, it was the Scots who popularized the game.

In Scotland you will find some of the oldest, most beautiful, and in some cases, the most challenging courses in the world. Aberdeen, in North-East Scotland, has over fifty different clubs in the region, from the Aboyne Golf Club, with its swooping parkland for the front nine and a hilly heathland back nine, to the exceptionally challenging and respectable Royal Aberdeen Golf Club, which was founded in 1780.

The golf clubs of Scotland not only offer beautiful and challenging courses to the touring golfer, but they also showcase the long-reaching history of the sport. Every good golfer has to make it to Scotland, if only to experience the courses for him or herself.