 Golf is an outdoor sport in which a player attempts to hit a small hard ball into a hole in as few swings as possible. Players use different long slender golf clubs in different situations and for different distances. The origins of golf are dubious, but some trace it back to the Roman game paganica, played in the streets with a bent stick and a leather ball. Others believe that golf has a Dutch origin with the game het kolven. Still others believe the origins to lie in a Belgian game called chole, a French game called jeu de mail, and an English game called cambuca, but most believe the game to be of Scottish origin.
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| The game enjoyed growth from 1900 to 1920 for both men and women. In 1922, the winner of the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship was Gene Sarazen and Walter Hagen won the British Open. The same year the Masters Tournament (started in 1934) and the U.S. Women's Open (started in 1946) did not exist. In fact the Lady's Professional Golf Association (LPGA) was not created until 1946, but women's events still existed such as the Women's Amateur Tournament. Professional golf has been changing to match the times such as golf for television, when it first aired in the 1960s. Now golf is growing as young superstars such as Tiger Woods emerge. Other prodigies, such as Jack Nicklaus, transformed the game into a calculating sport. Heroes, such as Arnold Palmer, charged the game with excitement and passion. Others, such as Ben Hogen, transformed golf into a game of skill and practice.
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| Jordan Baker is a woman golfer living in New York during the Roaring Twenties. She is almost a national superstar. Her disposition is cold and calculating. She has little love for others and would rather not fall in love or have a husband. Although there was proof of her cheating, Jordan Baker was only accused and not proven to have cheated. Golf does not play an important part of the novel, The Great Gatsby, but Baker does bring it into the plot. Nick Carraway, the narrator, finds that Jordan is a chronic liar and suspects that Jordan did cheat in the 1921 U.S. Women's Amateur Tournament.
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| Golf has always been a popular sport. It has grown to engender more than 12,000 golf courses to be built in the United States. Many of them are privately owned, but almost 2,000 courses are publicly owned. Many people also attend the tournaments of the Professional Golf Association (PGA) and LPGA to watch the players. Golf is one of the only world wide tournaments. In fact, the PGA, the United State's dominant tour, includes the British Open. It is a sport more and more people are adopting. Recently, the baby boomer's move to middle age has increased the traffic on golf courses. The future of golf is limitless and exciting!
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~The Best Sport~