Did China invent golf? The truth is we don't care

Funny, but I've never heard of a 700 year old golf course in China.

Hooey on historical grounds, too. Even if Chuwian were identical to golf, the fact that it bore no influence (at least no recorded influence) on the Scottish game means that it could not be the "Mother" of golf, as the Chinese claim.

Should evidence arise that Scottish sailors returned home from China in the 1500s and ONLY THEREAFTER began to play golf, well then that would be an interesting dsicovery.

All sorts of human inventions have sprung up independently in diverse cultures throughout history (eg, Native American sweat lodges and Finnish saunas). But to claim that an earlier innovation is the "mother" of a later innovation requires that the earlier actually influenced the latter.

It appears Mr. Wolfrum's latest Michelle Wie post, "Korean Golfer Michelle Wie shows charity in her homeland" has been removed in good taste.


Apparently after finishing with his bashing of Koreans and their culture, Mr. Wolfrum now finds it time to attack other Asian cultures and the beliefs they hold.

The Chinese had a vibrant and modern culture when Mr. Wolfrum's ancestors were afraid to take baths and still wiped their butt with bare hands before eating.

It is easy to see Mr. Wolfrum hasn't evolved much beyond the level of his ancestors.

Funny they'd claim it now. 50 years ago golf was a 'bourgeois' sport of despots, a western evil. Anyone with clubs would have been introduced to an enlightenment camp. Probably there was a game similar to golf, but separate origins.

They did invent gunpowder, pasta, and were great mechanical engineers. Westerners took it much further. Sort of like the Japanese - they didn't invent electronic or robot technology, but look what they did with it.

When I look at those paintings, they are very similar to golf. Also the rules to play Chuwian are very similar to modern golf. Is this a co-incident or what? Give credits for where it's due and stop making excuses.

It looks like golf to me. The manuscripts they found also talked about the use of undulating landscapes.

Their 700 years old painting claim that golf is similar to their ancient game Chuiwan. It might be true that Chuiwan is similar to golf but that doesnt mean that golf is decendent from China. Let them live in their imaginary world.As u say we don't care.

Golf comes from Scotland and Chuiwan comes from China. Chuiwan does not come from golf and vice versa. It's not even a debate.

Nonetheless, Golf needs China for it to grow as a sport. I recently came from Asia; and you hardly get to see good golf coverage. It is at most 1/2 hour of a tournament, tape delayed. In contrast they show live soccer tournaments from Europe at 1 or 2am in the morning. China with its growing economy is crucial for golf to make inroads especially with the sinking tv ratings in the US; and fewer rounds being played in American golf courses.

Marco Polo did visit China in 1271 with his father and uncle. The emperor Qubilai Khan made him an emissary and was sent throughout China on his missions. He had plenty of opportunity to witness a game of Chuiwan by then.

Let's see -- 2006 minus 1271 equals 735 years. As Wolfrum points out, those paintings were dated around 700 years old. Hmmmm...

It is a little known fact that Marco took a Scottsman on his travels as an accountant for the expedition.

John McDivot fell into some misfortune during his trip to China and lost a toe and a finger to frostbite. This skewed the books a little bit after he no longer had at his disposal ten toes and ten fingers to count with. This may explain how the Scottish version of Chuiwan was developed with only eighteen holes instead of the Chinese standard of twenty holes on the course.

Ken, you're so right about that electronic stuff. Here is an amazing video of a robot you can sit on and climb the stairs with. Great for the disabled or the lazy couch potatoes.

Comment from: One-Putt [Visitor]
It appears Mr. Wolfrum's latest Michelle Wie post, "Korean Golfer Michelle Wie shows charity in her homeland" has been removed in good taste.

*****************************
Hey,
really, Wolfrum, what happened to that "Korean golfer Michelle Wie...." article ???
You don't just remove an article you write for no good reasons, did the editorial board call it 'bad taste', or did someone(Vito?)'make an offer you couldn't refuse' ?

My bet is, that article from the newspaper translation into English was not accurate to begin with. BJ would have to be a moron to say things like that. You need to get the facts straight before you write about it.

Wayne, since I fall in the latter category, I'm putting in my order right away...

Comment from: One-Putt [Visitor]
---It is a little known fact that Marco took a Scottsman on his travels as an accountant for the expedition.

John McDivot fell into some misfortune during his trip to China and lost a toe and a finger to frostbite. This skewed the books a little bit after he no longer had at his disposal ten toes and ten fingers to count with. This may explain how the Scottish version of Chuiwan was developed with only eighteen holes instead of the Chinese standard of twenty holes on the course---

Good god man, you keep up this kind of fairy-tale and you'll be hired by Baldy as a ghost writer for his next epic! Definitely worthy of at least 3 stars in the regular Travelgolf.com blogs. And every bit as plausible as WKW, Tim or Baldy would write.

I'm surprised China hasn't made the correlation between Marco Polo's journey and the recently discovered chinese golf paintings. They were both made some 700 years ago. Marco Polo spent 17 years as emissary to the emperor in China. His missions took him all throughout China. He later spent the rest of his life back in Europe. It'd be easy for him to recount a game of Chuwian played by the rich chinese folks he encountered; how they used clubs to hit the ball into a hole in the ground.

The Chinese gave up the game of Chuiwan after the courses made the holes longer, green fees increased by a thousand percent and the final straw was when it took over four hours to play a round.

Wayne,

Polo spent most of his life in Italy, mainly Venice. He died in Venice. Did he ever get to Scotland? I doubt it....

I know that, but are you telling me that any of the people he talked to were homebodies? The last time I checked Scotland is still a part of Europe. They even wrote a book about Marco Polo and even Christopher Columbus took a copy with him in his own journeys. His book became the bible of the sea-wanderer. You'd be amazed at how far or fast news travel -- even if it's before the Internet.

One more thing, since there were no photographs at the time, wouldn't it be prudent for Marco Polo to be collecting paintings (not unlike the ones at the exhibit) or gifts (jewel encrusted Chuiwan clubs perhaps) from his many travels in China? He was reported to have shown people who didn't believe him jewels he got from China.

I saw a little bit of that Wie article written by Wolfrum--
something about Michelle's agents and not Michelle donated the money to disabled children in Korea.

That is beyond classless-- lower than low --I'm glad Wolfrum's conscience got the better of him because that was just plain sick to post.

"One of the early forms of golf were all missing one important ingredient to their games to truly make the game golf and that was the hole. Scotland is widely believed to be the first country to put all the ingredients together and actually start a primitive form of the great game of golf.

Yes, this will always be a disputed point, who actually invented the game of golf. If you believe some of the claims that the game they were playing was golf and they didn’t have a hole, then you could take this same game and turn it into the origin of many games we still play today. I believe the hole is what separates all the early claims to who originated the game of golf."

If you check the link above, you can clearly see the proverbial hole in the ground.

Here's another good link: http://www.scoregolf.com/articles/xx-column-hal-quinn/Claiming-the-Game.cfm

Yep it looks like a two ball putter to me.

Wayne--

Yes. All possible. I'm not convinced it's plausible, though. I've traveled from Scotland to Italy myself more than once in one shot, but that was via train. I've also been to the island off the Dalmation coast where Polo spent some time, and know that that region was politically fractured and unstable--Polo was captured by the Genoans and held prisoner for about 7 years. Information may have traveled fast, but people did not exactly tour from country to country. And although it was/is in Europe (though don't tell a Scotsman that), Scotland was about as far-flung as you could get at the time.

As I say: it would be interesting if true, but whetehr we're talking sports, food, or languages, most of the time commonalities between far-removed places end up being coincidence. Hitting a ball with a stick--with or without a hole--is hardly a bizarre sort of past-time. It's not like it would take a genius to come up with it.

[Basing this latest claim to the game’s origins on the Dongzuan Records compiled between 960 and 1279, Prof. Hongling cites descriptions (and illustrations) of a game called chuiwan with ‘chui’ meaning to hit and ‘wan’ meaning ball.

It gets worse for the R&A. The Records are supposedly so detailed that they describe the game as being played with 10 clubs including the cuanbang, and fairway woods pubang and shaobang. As described, it was an elitist game (never!) as the “purposely crafted sticks” were adorned with jewels.

Imagine spending a lot of money on clubs!

In any case, the Scots have long deflected claims of origin by saying that it was on the links that all the far flung and rudimentary aspects of stick and ball games came together as golff, the forebear of the game as we know it, including the first use of holes as the ultimate goal.

Prof. Hongling, however, says he also has the notes of a magistrate in the 937 to 975 era instructing his daughter to: “to dig holes in the ground so that he might drive a ball into them with a purposely crafted stick.”]

Kiel, be that as it may, the Scots can't claim that they were the first to come up with it. Anyways, I still believe that Marco Polo and his party were responsible for the initial dissemination of golf.

There are lots of ancient 'golf-like' games for which we have record. I read a book about such ancient games, but have since forgotten all the names given to the different variations.

Golf-like games have been played in Holland, China (of course), France, etc.

Indeed, a game which consists of hitting a spherical object with a stick isn't exactly one of those revolutionary inventions which can be fairly attributed to only one nation. Such games have been played throughout the world in ancient times, and the particular version played in Scotland evolved into what we now call 'golf.'

Dutch people have made similar claims to the Chinese that they invented golf. But their games were doubtless slightly different - in fact, one variation played in France and Holland used ice as a playing surface (usually a frozen lake). Another variation didn't use a hole as the target, but a building - or a series of buildings. I'm not sure of the details of the Chinese stick-ball game

It probably just never occurred to the Chinese that it is pretty unreasonable to claim that THEY invented a sport which actually started in SCOTLAND. Sure, they hit a ball with a stick, but it wasn't golf. Scotland had their own ball-stick game, as did many other nations.

Golf started in Scotland.

David, you should have taken the time to read the previous posts for more details of the Chinese chuiwan game.

Keep in mind that the link I provided above was written before the recently uncovered chinese golf paintings and manuscripts. The author talks about the many variations of "stick-ball" you were talking about.

I am Chinese, and I can't help but laughing. Yes, we chinese have invented many things a loooooooooooooong time ago but never put it to good use.
now the Koreans are claiming they invented everything, including the Chinese language. I guess we Chinese just don't care as much as some people do. If the science really trace Chuiwan to eurpoe, that is great, if not, we are certainly not going to say that the Scots stole it from us. There is some deep grace in a nation's mentality, I can't help but wonder why the Chinese civilization lasted so long while most others disappeared. There are people of wisdom, then there are people thinking that they are smart. Who last, only history will tell.