Does Golf Take a Swing at Women?
“I just wondered,” writes an anonymous emailer, “if you had any insight on the word ‘golf.’ I heard the other day that it stood for ‘Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden.’ Perhaps an ‘urban legend’ by an anti-duffer?” Phew! For a minute there I thought you had written “any insight on golf.” I’d be the last person on earth to provide that insight, as anyone familiar with my slices, hooks and whiffs will attest. The sport of golf may, regrettably, have been associated with exclusionary sexism through the centuries, but the notion that “golf” is an acronym for “Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden” is indeed what I call a “verben legend,” a concocted etymology with no basis in fact. Perhaps the acronymic explanation would have less appeal if we knew the true origin of “golf,” a term that first appeared in print in 1457. Some say it’s derived from the Dutch “kolf,” a club used in hockey and croquet. Because the Scots imported their best golf balls from the Dutch, some believe the sport actually be
