History of golf instruction
A few authorities have credited any number of peoples - Celts, Romans, Huns, or a band of leisure loving Visigoths - with the invention of golf in its earliest form. But the story of golf instruction begins rightly in the medieval era (no later than 1353), when golfers adopted the principle of allowing each team to hit a second uninterrupted shot. Previously, teams of players would alternate hitting a ball back and forth across a field. Strategy and technique went no further than devising the most efficient means of bashing a ball over the heads of the opposition, preferably in the direction of the goal line, or at least into some abyss from which the other team could not extract itself.
With the adoption of the second shot, and with the principle of each team playing its own ball, this primeval game became golf and at the same time acquired a strategy, something that its medieval rival, football, did not until the invention of the scrimmage in the 19th century. It also rapidly acquired such a popularity, which so utterly eclipsed the sport of archery (which was vital to Scotland's preparation for national defense), that playing golf in Scotland was made a criminal offense punishable by hanging. No idle threat that, for at least one poor golfer did pay this sorry price for his round - but ultimately a peace with England was achieved and the Scots devoted their renowned intensity to the study of what would become their national game.
Since that time, there doesn’t seem to be any aspect of ball-striking or mental technique that hasn’t come under scrutiny, particularly in our own highly scientific 21st century. Stance, grip alignment, swing plane, waggle, wrist cock, shoulder turn, and angle of attack have all been addressed by the parade of teachers, visionaries, kinesthetic, scientists, engineers, mystics, duffers, and well-meaning Uncle Bobs who have over the past 600 years plunked a ball on the turf and offered the magic phrase "let me show you…"
History of golf instruction:
» 19th Century
» Twentieth century
» Today
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