Category Archives: Holland

The History of Golf

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I am having so much fun learning how to play golf. I started taking lessons last year with a good friend and we have been really “at it” this summer as well. We are constantly amazed at all of the rules, etiquette and in general how to hit the ball where you want it to go!

I wanted to know some of the history and this is what I found:

The modern game of golf is generally considered to be a Scottish invention. A spokesman for the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, one of the oldest Scottish golf organisations, said “Stick and ball games have been around for many centuries, but golf as we know it today, played over 18 holes, clearly originated in Scotland.”The word golf, or in Scots gouf, is usually thought to be a Scots alteration of  Dutch”colf” or “colve” meaning “stick, “club“, “bat“, itself related to  *kulth- as found in Old Norse kolfr meaning “bell clapper”, and the German Kolben meaning “mace or club”.The Dutch term Kolven refers to a related sport.

The first documented mention of golf in Scotland appears in a 1457 Act of the Scottish Parliament, an edict issued by King James II of Scotland prohibiting the playing of the games of gowf and football as these were a distraction from archery practice for military purposes. Bans were again imposed in Acts of 1471 and 1491, with golf being described as “an unprofitable sport”. Mary,Queen of Scots was accused by her political enemies of playing golf after her second husband was murdered in 1567. It has been written that she had been playing “sports that were clearly unsuitable to women”. Golf was banned again by Parliament under King James IV of Scotland, but golf clubs and balls were bought for him in 1502 when he was visiting Perth, and on subsequent occasions when he was in St Andrews and Edinburgh.

The account book of  a lawyer  records that he played golf at Musselburgh Links on 2 March 1672, and this has been accepted as proving that The Old Links, Musselburgh, is the oldest playing golf course in the world. There is also a story that Mary, Queen of Scots, played there in 1567.

In April 2005, new evidence re-invigorated the debate concerning the origins of golf. Evidence unearthed by Prof. Ling Hongling of Lanzhou University suggests that a game similar to modern-day golf was played in China since Southern Dang Dynasty, 500 years before golf was first mentioned in Scotland.In this source, Dōngxuān Records  from the Song Dynasty (960–1279) describe a game called chuíwán and also includes drawings of the game. It was played with 10 clubs including a cuanbang, pubang, and shaobang, which are comparable to a driver, two-wood, and three-wood. Clubs were inlaid with jade and gold, suggesting chuíwán was for the wealthy. Chinese archive includes references to a Southern Tang official who asked his daughter to dig holes as a target.Ling suggested chuíwán was exported to Europe and then Scotland by Mongolian travellers in the late Middle Ages.

– excerpts from Wikipedia

Bridal Shower History

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Having just given a bridal shower for a very dear friend’s daughter this weekend with a couple of friends and the bride’s sister,I started wondering what the history is of bridal showers. This is what I found out:

Bridal showers in the earlier eras were very different from what they are today. The modern-day celebration of this old custom is marked with fun, fiesta, food and favors, and sums up as one complete farewell bash for the bride. However, bridal showers weren’t one such gala affair in the past.
This custom, which traces its roots and origin back to 16th century Holland, was initiated as an alternative to the dowry system, where friends and families brought small favors for the bride to help her begin with her married life. If the mother of the bride was too poor to afford a dowry, or if the father was opposed to the alliance, then the friends of the bride would bring her small gifts to make up for the dowry and help her walk down the aisle with the man of her choice.
In fact, there is a very interesting Dutch legend on bridal showers, which narrates the story of a young Dutch girl of high standing who fell in love with a miller’s son. She was so smitten by the young lad that she wanted to marry him, even though her family was opposed to the alliance owing to the boy’s poor standing. Her father wanted her to marry a wealthy pig farmer and threatened to withhold her dowry if she disobeyed him. However, when her friends and the village folks learned about it, they insisted on bringing her gifts to fill in for the dowry and help her begin her married life. It’s said that the father of the bride was so touched by this sweet gesture that he agreed to the marriage and also dished out a hefty dowry to bless the new couple. Since then, it has been a custom for the would-be-brides family and friends to shower her with gifts before she embarks on a new journey, namely -marriage.
Bridal showers became a part of elite United States culture in the late Victorian Era, when ladies of high social standing organized bridal showers to fete would be brides. These ladies held bridal showers, regardless of the need of the bride, to gather and gossip and exchange thoughts, ideas and have fun. Plus, the brides didn’t mind getting a few special items to mark off their new roles as wives either.
Although a bridal shower was an alien custom to the English, it became quite a rage in USA during the 1930s. The bridal showers of the early to mid 20th Century were simpler affairs as compared to their modern day avatars. Gifts were more modest and usually included a collection of kitchen implements, a single plate, table linen etc.

Keukenhof in Holland

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Probably one of the most famous gardens in the world,the Keukenhof is now in full bloom.I always regret that we didn’t get there when we visited a good friend near The Hague during the years we lived in Zurich, but I have thought about it every April since! Here is some history:

The land in the 15th century was originally hunting grounds.It was then owned by several families, one of them was Jacoba van Beiren Keukenhof.
After Keukenhof died, the land became the property of Baron and Baroness Van Pallandt who invited landscape architects J.D. and L.P. Zocher, designers of the Amsterdam Vondelpark, to make a design for the garden around the castle. This design, in the English landscape style, has always been the basis of Keukenhof.
At the moment, the estate belongs to a Foundation. On the initiative of the Lisse Mayor of that time and a number of leading flower bulb growers and exporters, an open air flower exhibition was organised here for the first time in 1949. This expanded to an annually recurring event that has always drawn great numbers of visitors from all over the world. This is how Keukenhof became the park that we now know. The park is filled with blooming tulips, hyacinths, daffodils and other spring bulbs.