Did China Invent Golf?

It may not be the most important international dispute of our time, but a storm is brewing over which country — China or Scotland — invented golf. From the International Herald-Tribune:

Did the Chinese invent golf and export it westward centuries before any Scottish shepherd ever thought of making a game out of his forlorn fate?

Say something quickly in a lilting brogue. “It kinna’ be,” for instance.

That is, roughly speaking, the Scottish position on the matter: It cannot be.

But the Chinese have a compelling argument that it was they, indeed, who first played the game, and a museum in Hong Kong now plans to display the evidence in an exhibition that is to open in a few weeks’ time.

“The Autumn Banquet” is a Ming dynasty scroll that shows a member of the imperial court swinging what looks like a golf club at what looks like a golf ball with the apparent object of putting the ball-like sphere into what looks like a hole in what looks like a green.

The Ming painting, rendered in mineral pigments on silk by one Youqiu, has the Chinese playing chuiwan – literally “hit ball” – as early as 1368. Up at St. Andrews Links, they say the first recorded mention of golf was in 1457, when it was banned by an act of Parliament under James II.

[snip]

Along with the wall painting comes a book, “Wan Jing”, or “Manual of the Ball Game,” which was published in 1282 and stands as the first known guide to the game that seems a lot like golf. Apart from various rules and regs – “the playing surface must not be flat” – “Wan Jing” notes that certain Song and Jin dynasty emperors liked “hit ball,” which moves the date back to the early 12th century.

What’s next? Whisky, drink of fine Southern gentlemen everywhere? Oh, wait…