The club history - A glance on the past

Everything has a history of its creation, discovery or invention. How the idea came into mind how was it put to reality and how did people responded to it. The golf history is yet somehow very controversial. Everyone agrees on the point that the golf started to become popular in Scotland in fifteen century but from where it began is very much debatable even after a lot of discussions. Many point out its origin back to Rome but some say China was the first one where the game very similar to golf was played first.

There are many historians who lead the trail back to France and some of them say that it started in Persia but in the end all the similar games played in these countries back in old times lead every historian back to Scotland and it is confirmed that the game became illegal their as the allegation against it was that it was a distraction from archery.

Golf clubs were first just made of wood and their shaft was very risky. In the beginning there was no shaping of the golf club and branches from trees were used as golf clubs, gradually these branches were formed into wooden clubs where the shaft bending was secured by making the shaft a little thick. This was before the origin of iron clubs or steel clubs when Persimmon wood was used to make them. The hickory wood was also used for making shafts and before it the woods of lancewood, lemonwood, ash, greenheart, purple heart, orangewood and blue-mahoo were used to make shafts. The wooden shafts required a lot of skill to give right spin to the ball without breaking the club but mostly players ended up breaking the clubs.

With the passage of time as the game evolved the golf clubs were introduced in many types for different conditions and modes of the game. The golf club became the golf club set which included woods, hybrids, irons, chippers, wedges and putters. Each category of clubs varied in sizes of the shaft and was known as the set of their own .i.e. a set of woods, set of hybrids etc. The golf which was illegal in Scotland became so popular that soon it was considered the game of rich people as all honorable families adopted it. It was a skillful sport and only intellectual people could learn to play it. A modern golf set consists of 14 golf club having 3 or 4 woods, maximum 9 irons, one or maximum 3 wedges and a single putter. Woods are used for long distances, Irons are the most various in style and are used for many different shots, Hybrids are the combination of wood and iron and are being used by many people and are still gaining more popularity, and Putters are used to roll the ball from the grassy areas inside the cup.

The Loft is the most important variation in the golf clubs. It is the angle between the vertical plane and club face. Similarly the grip has undergone a lot of changing in styles. They can be of rubber or of leather. Their shape can vary from a swollen grip to the shaft handle for placing fingers. Many various golf clubs are introduced with the passage of time by the golf equipment making companies e.g. the latest Ping G20 Irons and TaylorMade R11S Driver are being presented in the market nowadays.