The origins of golf are unclear and much debated. However, it is generally accepted that modern golf developed in Scotland during the Middle Ages. The game did not find international popularity until the late 19th century, when to the British Empire and the United States.

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A golf-like game was played in Holland around 1297 with a stick and leather ball. The winner was whoever hit the ball with the least number of strokes into a target several hundred yards away. Some scholars argue that the game of putting a small ball in a hole in the ground using golf clubs was also played in 17th-century Netherlands and that this predates the game in Scotland. There are also other reports of earlier accounts of a golf-like game from continental Europe.

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The modern game of golf is generally considered to be a Scottish invention. A spokesman for the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, one of the oldest Scottish golf organisations, said "Stick and ball games have been around for many centuries, but golf as we know it today, played over 18 holes, clearly originated in Scotland."

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The oldest surviving rules of golf were written in 1744 for the Company of Gentlemen Golfers, later renamed The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, which played at Leith Links. Their "Articles and Laws in Playing at Golf", now preserved in the National Library of Scotland, became known as the Leith Rules and the document supports the club's claim to be the oldest golf club, though an almanac published about a century later is the first record of a rival claim that The Royal Burgess Golfing Society had been set up in 1735. The instructions in the Leith Rules formed the basis for all subsequent codes, for example requiring that "Your Tee must be upon the ground" and "You are not to change the Ball which you strike off the Tee".

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The 1744 competition for the Gentlemen Golfers’ Competition for the Silver Club, a trophy in the form of a silver golf club provided as sponsorship by Edinburgh Town Council, was won by surgeon John Rattray, who was required to attach to the trophy a silver ball engraved with his name, beginning a long tradition. Rattray joined the Jacobite Rising of 1745 and as a result was imprisoned in Inverness, but was saved from being hanged by the pleading of his fellow golfer Duncan Forbes of Culloden, Lord President of the Court of Session. Rattray was released in 1747, and won the Silver Club three times in total.

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In the 1850s Queen Victoria and Prince Albert built Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands. The railways came to St Andrews in 1852.  By the 1860s there were fast and regular services from London to Edinburgh. The royal enthusiasm for Scotland, the much improved transport links and the writings of Sir Walter Scott caused a boom for tourism in Scotland and a wider interest in Scottish history and culture outside of the country. This period also coincided with the development of the "Gutty" a golf ball made of Gutta Percha which was cheaper to mass-produce, more durable and more consistent in quality and performance than the feather-filled leather balls used previously.

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Golf began to spread across the rest of the British Isles. In 1864 the golf course at the resort of Westward Ho! became the first new club in England since Blackheath, and the following year London Scottish Golf Club was founded on Wimbledon Common.

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In 1880 England had 12 courses, rising to 50 in 1887 and over 1000 by 1914. The game in England had progressed sufficiently by 1890 to produce its first Open Champion, John Ball.

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The game also spread further across the Empire. By the 1880s golf clubs had been established in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. Singapore followed in 1891. Courses were also established in several continental European resorts for the benefit of British visitors.

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Golf also became popular in the USA and Japan. Hugh Edward Richardson introduced golf to Tibet, although he noted that the ball "tended to travel 'rather too far in the thin air'!!"

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The history of golf is preserved and represented at the British Golf Museum in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, which is the home of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.

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Mr P. Gallwey playing golf at Tramore Golf Club in 1901.

Royal and Ancient Golf Club, Clubhouse, St. Andrews

Photo: Optograph • Licensed for reuse under CC-BY-SA-3.0

In the bunker!

Golf course on the coast.

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