Geoff Shackelford

Thanks to reader Chris for the heads up on the response in the British Isles to recent claims that China was the home of golf, not Scotland.

Now it seems Roman soldiers invented a form of golf that the Scots formalized, sending HBO and the BBC back to the storyboards for a revamp to season two of Rome.

Jim McBeth writes:

THEY came, they saw, they played a neat chip shot onto the edge of the green. More than a millennium before golf is said to have been invented in Scotland, Roman soldiers were playing the game, according to experts.

Trumping recent claims that the game was being played in China in AD943, academics have chipped in with a theory that the game was actually imported to Scotland by the foot soldiers of Emperor Severus.

The Roman version of golf was called paganica, and was first recorded in 30BC as a generic ball game. However, by the time of the Roman invasion of Scotland, it was played with a curved stick used to strike a feather-filled leather ball. The ball was hit towards a predetermined target such as a tree, the aim being to strike the “mark” in the fewest strokes.

Michael Whitby, a historian at Warwick University, said: “Legionaries were in Scotland from the AD140s. The Emperor Severus was on the Fife Peninsula and, significantly, there was an important marching camp near St Andrews.

“A legacy of games, such as paganica, would have been left. The roots of golf would have passed through the 8th century to the medieval university folk and aristocrats.”

Malcolm Campbell, a leading golf writer, agreed: “Paganica is the earliest form of a game we could recognise as golf. After the Romans left, it evolved and in the 15th century the Scots uniquely formalised it. The game was truly ‘invented’ in Scotland, with a little help from the Romans.”

Richard Starnes in the Ottawa Citizen writes:

A leading academic says he has proof golf was played in China 500 years before it was first reported in Scotland, which is widely acknowledged as the game's home.

Professor Ling Hongling of Lanzhou University says he has unearthed clear references to golf in a book called the Dongzuan Records, which were compiled during the Song Dynasty (AD 960-1279). There are even sketches.

Ling says the book also refers to a prominent Nantang Dynasty magistrate (AD 937-975) who told his daughter "to dig goals in the ground so that he might drive a ball into them with a purposely crafted stick." The fact the "sticks" were jewel-encrusted suggests the game was for the nobleman, not the commoner.

Jewel-encrusted sticks. A game for the nobleman. So now we know: blame the Chinese.

Thanks to reader Al for the heads up.