Ep 13: The Brief History of Golf w/ Kurtis Rogers

This week we take a glimpse in to sports history with Kurtis Rogers discussing golf. As a golfer himself, he takes us on a journey from its inception to modern day golf, highlighting important figures, the equipment used and fun facts. This episode is perfect for any golfer, new or veteran, and for anyone who is interested in sports history.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hello everyone and welcome back to the History Over Coffee podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Leonard, a Marshall Master's history student, and today we are joined by once again Curtis Rogers. If you don't mind, in case people didn't hear your previous episode, introducing yourself and what topic you'll be discussing today.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Hello, my name's Curtis Rogers. Um I'm like a past historian. I do like public history and whatnot, but I'm an avid golfer, and I think it'd be pretty interesting to talk about the origins of golf and the history around that and some odd and weird things about it.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Alright, so since we're talking about the origin, why don't you take us to where either the first semblance of golf started or where like the golf that we know today kind of started?

SPEAKER_00 0:54

So the origins of golf started in the 1400s in Scotland. That's where it originated from. Basically, they're just goofing off playing golf. So it was banned. So yeah. Super super interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

So does that mean that golf is a Scottish, like it it was it always called golf, or is that derived from another word?

SPEAKER_00 2:04

No, I think it's always been called golf. Um, I mean, obviously they probably I forgot like the actual language. It's probably goes into something else, but yeah, golf is like what I can kind of scrounge around to see like that is the name. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Gotcha. So how did if you know any specifics, how did golf look differently back then as opposed to like the holes they were shooting into? What type of like clubs were they using?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

So it was so everything that was like really substantial was in and like that we can kind of originate from is from St. Andrew's, which is like the most popular golf course in the whole entire world. That's where like the bird their birthplace of golf. Um used to be 22 holes, now it's about down to 18. Um, so golfers, and it used to be just like kind of like I wouldn't say lords and stuff like that, but definitely like higher ep uh echelon of individuals from the circles around Scotland. Um it'd be 22 holes, you would do 11 and 11, kind of like the front nine and back nine that we currently have today. Um so like equipment-wise, like everybody knows, like if you like look at it, like an old golf club, it's like that is the hickory um woods that and that's why it's called woods um for golf clubs. Um that's what it used to be. So it's like hickory back in like I mean heck we used to have that until like the 60s and 70s here. So, but golf balls also were different, so they used to be wooden, so you would just be hitting wooden balls uh between the 1400s and 1600s, and then uh there's these things called featheries. That is the next evolution of golf ball from the 1600s to the 1800s, and that was just a leather pouch fold uh filled with goose feathers. I don't know why, you know, interesting. Uh, but it was like super difficult to manufacture, and it was just fragile. I mean, you can imagine if you're just hitting like a hacky sack, yeah, like real hard, as hard as you can, it's gonna like just bust. So um, and then there were these things called gouda percha balls, uh, and they're just like balls of wax made out of like tree sap. I had a little I look I did a little bit of researching house. I have never heard of that, but that seems like super interesting. That hey, we're just gonna make a golf ball out of wax or sap.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Super interest. So it sounds like to me that at least throughout the the life of golf, the clubs have been a little bit more reliable than the balls they were using or the things they were choosing to use.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Yeah, it seems like to me, at least like golf balls are just like, let's just throw some stuff on a wall and see what sticks. You know, it's just like wooden balls, I guarantee you, probably like hurt somebody's hand because you're just hitting wood on wood. You have the hickory clubs and then the back like the hickory, I mean the balls, and then goose-feathered fill, I mean the goose-feathered balls, that's also just why. Um, and then tree sap. Probably not the best, but but yeah, that's like what how equipment is evolved. So it went from 22 to 18 holes, weird, um uh weird equipment that is just spanned from wood to sap. Um, and everything derived, everything's pretty much derived, everything modern day today has been through St. Andrews. There's probably like everything in history, there's somebody actually invented the game, but some like high hoity-toity people from St. Andrews were like, hey, we're just gonna we're gonna actually make this professional.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

So and is that a golf course that's still used today?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

It is still is the most played guy, like it is if if you go across the pond, you want to go play St. Andrews.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

So I know you've been you've been to Scotland, correct? Or is that Ireland that you've been to?

SPEAKER_00 6:39

I'm in Ireland, yeah. But Scotland's on the bucket list and St. Andrews is also on the bucket list.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

So makes sense. Um before switching off of the golf balls themselves, I'm not very familiar with golf. Um, do the divots on the golf ball make them more aerodynamic?

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yes, that's like the whole reason why there's dimples on the balls. Because you'll see like the very early iterations of golf balls, even like in the 40s and 50s, like there's like a post-World War II era of golf. Like you have like the actual manufacturer, like the large-scale manufacturing of golf equipment that changes everything, and that's where you see like the dimples on the balls and stuff like that, and like that's where you see what is that one golf movie with uh Shiloh Buff in it? He's like super young. You probably don't know it. Um, but yeah, that that that movie, I wouldn't say it's like very historically accurate, but it is a pretty good depiction of like golf coming to America and like the uh Ryder Cup uh kind of stuff. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Um, as far as the clubs go, have there always been the distinction between like irons, wedges, putters?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yeah, I mean, like if you look at like anybody that's listening, you're like, I wonder what a 19, like an 18th century golf club looks like. And then I would just say, go take out a butter knife and just like that. Is what the head looks like of like it's just super straight and narrow. Um, there it golf was super hard. I wouldn't want to play it. I I don't know who would actually want to play that game at the very early iterations of it, because it's just like why? It just seems impossible. Because I mean, you also have to think about the golf courses too. It's like, okay, did they mow it down? Um, is there like actually clear designations? Like it what does it look like? Um, but yeah. Uh but golf equipment is definitely changing.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

You talking about the greens themselves, kind of wanted me to ask if you knew of why bunkers are used. Is it was it always specifically? You gotta make it challenging.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Yeah, you gotta make it challenging. And then you also have to like think about like the um there's things called like wastes. So there's a really popular golf course around here, North Carolina, um, Tobacco Road, and it's like all wastes. And it's just you have your clear designated uh fairways, and then there is there are like uh sand everywhere. So you also have to think about like in the US there was manufactured and like man-made bunkers and stuff like that, but if you watch a YouTube channel or anybody like, hey, I'm gonna go play at St. Andrews, or I'm gonna go play in Ireland, um the topography and the soils and stuff like that, it kind of that was just something that was there predetermined. But yeah, like the architecture of golf, like there's several different arch uh like golf course golf uh golf course architecture. Like you have Tom Morris, Donald Ross, Alistair McKenzie. Um, those are ever old old Tom Morris is like the um he's the architect in Scotland uh that kind of like created all of these um early iterations of golf courses. Um and then like um Donald Ross, he's the one that created number two, uh, which is in Pinehurst. Um, and then you have like Pete Dye, too. There's only like a handful of like really, really popular golf golf architects. Um because honestly, the sport of golf is still relatively new in the US. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Is there a widely agreed upon sort of like hardest course or most difficult course to play on golfers?

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Uh Beth Page Black. It's up in New York, I think. Um that is by far the hardest golf course that is remains to the public, open to the public. Um, golf, very elite sport, uh high entry point to get into. Uh it's seen as like a social kind of thing that people do that you don't really have to be good at it. It's just hey, we're just gonna like talk and play and whatnot. But Beth Page is probably one of the hardest golf courses in the US. Um, and people actually camp out since it's public, you can't get a tea time, so it's like a first come, first serve kind of thing. So people will camp out like the day before or get there at like three o'clock in the morning and go get their tea time and then go back, like go stay back at their hotel or whatever. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Was it was it purposely made hard, do you think, or is it just because of like the terrain in New York?

SPEAKER_00 11:56

You're creating something that you want it to be hard, and you're like, oh, okay, I've achieved it. I'm like, it's like the number one golf course in the US. Um, but yeah, that is probably the hardest one.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

So an element kind of switching over to what we see in professional golf. Uh were caddies always around, and were they sort of like the elite servants? Were they sons of the elites?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Do you know where caddies kind of caddy came it from a French word, it derives from cadet. Um so from our perspective, from the US perspective, it's just from a royalty perspective, let's just go back to there. It would definitely be, I don't know the history surrounding caddies, and that would be an interesting book. Do you know how like could you think about like you're just like King James II, you're just like, yeah, I'm just I'm just a caddy for him, and just like the most like heinous stuff that you could probably think of. And it's like that would be that would be such an interesting story that to be told. And I wonder if it has been, honestly, because that would be pretty interesting. But in the US, it is just seen but caddies are an integral part of professional golf. Um professional golf caddies themselves are basically I wouldn't say the assistant to the prof to the profession the golf professional, but he is or they are. I would say they're just they craft everything for. If you if you hit a T shot, they're like, okay, you need to hit a T shot three hundred so three hundred and twenty-some yards. Okay, great. You meet it this part, and they study these courses for months, years. So they know everything about these courses. But yeah, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

So something else that you see a lot on golf courses, golf carts, uh that obviously were was not around at the invention of golf. Do you think that they were walking these courses, or is there any history of them riding horses from hole to hole or anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Honestly, I don't know, but that'd be a s that would be. I mean, you have to think about it, would probably be more work to dismount and get back on a horse every single shot. Yeah. So I would say probably not, and plus also like the mess, but between horses and the weight of horses, um, probably weigh in on the grounds themselves. Golf carts are definitely an American thing. If you go talk to a European, it is definitely the mindset of um golf cards are an American mindset. Um, if you talk to a European, they walk. Like I have a push cart and they all have pushcarts. They'll they just push a little cart around, just has their it just has everything they need. It's good at exercise, but Americans and also our golf courses are a little bit bigger. Because like sometimes I'll walk a golf course and it's like I'll walk seven miles. Um, so it just really depends. But you know, golf courses, I mean, golf carts are an American thing.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yeah, I was gonna ask buggies when I mentioned that. Um based off of the material materials they were using for golf balls before settling on the one we know today, were the holes like closer together?

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Or yeah, yeah, they were always closer together. I mean, if you look at the just like in the recent iterations of golf, like you look at David, uh you know um DeChambeau, like he can drive a golf ball almost 400 yards. I mean, there's law long driving competitions that um they can hit like these just absolute beasts just hitting a ball as fast as possible, like as hard as possible. Um, so but there has been an actual serious conversation in golf, like the PGA, the actual official association, about golf course architecture because all these golf courses around, like especially like around here or around the US in general, are it would cost a ton of money and a ton of time if the PGA was like, we need you all to at least have like par five to be 600 yards. That's not a thing, you know. It's that it would be it would cost golf courses a lot of money, and golf courses don't make money. I mean, they do, but it's not like a business adventure, like, oh, I'm gonna go build a golf course. Like, no, they don't really make that much money, and you have to think about the land and the actual like the land acquisition, prepping the land. That's just a ton of work, and it's like, okay, what are you charging like 50, 60 bucks to go play? But it's just like a ton of land. And golf is like behind besides the history portion of it and like the current state of affairs. I hate to say it, but golf is not a very environmentally friendly sport. Yeah. I mean, golfers can just uh automatically just say, hey, I'm sorry, but the amount of fertilizer and the amount of chemicals that go on golf courses, and they're usually next to some body of water.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

But um, but yeah. But there's um golf has like some really interesting I'll there's some some interesting facts about golf. Kind of history-wise. Thought I'd kind of maybe read a few. Okay. So golf was actually played on the moon in 1971. Did you know that? I did not know that. Alan Shepherd hit two golf balls during the Apollo 14 mission. Isn't that interesting? One of the popular myths, because I also looked this up just to make sure I have my facts correct. So why do you think we have 18 holds now? Like, why do you think golf is 18 holds in regulation?

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Um I would think that the belief is there's some sort of significance behind the number, but I'm not sure what the significance is.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

There's not really one. Um, but the popular myth is eight there are 18 holes because there's 18 shots in a bottle of whiskey. One shot per hole. That's the myth. I don't see how.

unknown 18:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Do you think that came about because there was the belief that people were taking shots in between each hole, or that it was just a convenient measurement?

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Maybe. I mean, I could see like not St. Andrews, like the like the mecca of golf, but like some random golf course like in northern Scotland or something like that. Was like, oh yeah, let's just make it 18 holes. Because I mean, like, hey, I have this bottle of insert name here. Blues. Let's just do that. I mean, let's just see how far we let's see how how many holes we can play until this is done. Now, is that a fun kind of like uh that's a funny version of like why golf it? Yeah, sure. That's great. But no, less anticlimatic than that.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

I did have one more we talked a little bit about professional golf, and I was curious, it sounds like the sort of American craze for golf, and maybe the start of the professional tournaments kind of came about in the 50s through the 60s. I was wondering if you knew of when like tournament golf kind of started in the US.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Tournament golf, like professional like US golf. Um Gwenties, 30s around there. Um, the first, I mean, heck, I mean, the women's first uh amateur women's golf tournament was in the 1890s. So honestly, pretty progressive. Um but there's like this era in golf, it's called like the big three. You have like Ben Hogan, Sam Sneed, and Arnold Palmer. Arnold Palmer, and then you also have Jack Nicholas. So that's whenever like golf became like super, super, super um, and it was televised. Um, but that's like the after World War II era. It's like you have this golden era, a golden era between like the like pre pre uh or no post-World War II and like industrial like industrial kind of industrialization, and then you have like the Tiger Wood, the Tiger Woods era. I mean, I'm a big Tiger fan. I mean, like, hey, he's a problematic figure, you get it.

unknown 21:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

But anyways, uh he dominated the league the forever. Yeah. And in golf, I mean, if you look at the history surrounding golf, the historians that actually focused on golf, golf is uh has its troubled history, um, segregation. Uh I mean, if you go to Augusta, I don't even think Augusta had their first member that was African American or even a person of color, was I believe in let me make sure. Wait a minute. I remember I looked that up before this, but. It had to be in the sixties. Or maybe in the eighties, honestly. Um but yeah. Oh no, no, no, no, no. 1990 is when they first had their f uh member, first black member, Ron Townsend. But until 1975, there were you could not if you were a person of color, you could not even uh attempt to play a tournament.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Because they were barred.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

You mentioned you mentioned, and this is my lack of golf knowledge as well, but you mentioned women's golf. Um and I was curious, does the PGA encompass women's golf?

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Do they have tournaments LP L PGA? Um that is like the subsector of the PGA. And do they have their own separate tournaments? They yeah, it's a whole separate thing.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Do you have a prominent female golfer that you know of right now or in the past who's gone on to do really well?

SPEAKER_00 23:15

I mean, honestly, if you were an actual if you you would relate more it just because like you have the monsters in like the PGA that like the Scotty Schefflers, the Sheep D Chambeaux, um, that like hit it 400 yards almost or 350, and it's just straight, dead, straight, and then it's just just impossible to like even mimic. And this is not to undermine like women's sports whatsoever, but like women's golf is far more enjoyable to watch. Just because it's like a little bit more like the yardage, it's like, oh yeah, I can't hit this ball, like even female, like female golfers, like they can hit like 260, 280. Yeah, so it's like and I and a lot of people actually do like watching female golf more because it's like a little bit more approachable, and it's and I like it in general. But yeah, um, there's a few people, um, women's uh uh women's golf. Um the founders in the 1950s, because the 1950s is when the L L DGA started. Um, and one of the founders, which makes sense, uh they won a gold Olympic gold medal. So um, but yeah. Uh there's there's a few uh right now, like women's golf, I think it's still not at its like apex of like popularity, but I mean it just takes like you it like you look at the Caitlin Clark like phenomenal phenomena, and like but golf is just hard to do that. It's just like what I mean. Do you just want uh two players just to go out there and like start fighting with each other about like all you feel me? No, like golf is not like that aggressive, but that's why like YouTube golf is like so popular, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Alright, so to wrap up here, I have two final questions for you. Go for it. One, what do you think the hardest part about golf is, or like the hardest thing that you've had to like master or at least learn? And then secondly, what's the best score you've gotten in golf?

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Um, my it's all it's a mental game. Like if I that's the hardest thing, because like you're playing 18 holes and you're like, okay, I want to like actually score playing this because you can like play with your buddies and you can like kind of do whatever you want to do, but like the mental gymnastics of golf, because and it's like an everyday thing, too, because like one day I can go out there and like just absolutely bomb a drive, like 280 yards, and then the next day I hit everything to the far right, and then I it's I only goes like 160 and I lose like 16 balls. Yeah, uh it's a mental gymnastics. I mean, you to you talk about like anybody that plays professionally, yeah. You can be a really good player, like your swing can be beautiful, but it's the mental fortitude. Because you like you play so much like if you're a professional, you play so much golf. Um but yeah. And then my best score I've ever shot was a 75. That's the best I've ever shot. And I would say the majority, and then like anybody that wants to get like if anybody's listening that plays golf or is getting into golf, average score is like 120. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, if you're ever wanting again golf and you're like, dang, I'm not that good. Honestly, don't keep score. And second, everybody sucks, you know?

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Yeah, I'm sorry about it. I've I've tried it a couple of times myself, and I've never been very good, but also I don't take time to practice or anything like that. You don't if you don't practice, then well, I appreciate your time today, and I appreciate you kind of giving us a glimpse into the history of golf. Is there anything else you would like to add?

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Um, go play golf. Uh, it's fun. The history surrounding golf. I'm gonna have to now I hope this also everybody kind of takes like an inward look about like sports history. Sports history is like super, super like I think underrated, and it's something that connects everybody together, like culturally, like nationally, internationally. It's just a cool phenomena like humans have made, and it's just a good connecting tool. But yeah, go play, go play sport, go study it, go hang out, play with your buddies, whatever. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Awesome. Well, I appreciate your time. And for those listening, you can listen to our other episodes we have uploaded. You can find more information about medieval and Norse history on the Norse by God website at NorsebyGod.com or our Instagram and Facebook page at Norse by God. Thank you all for listening, and we will see you next week.