As all golfers know, there are really only two golf stories. The first relates how, after a disastrous tee-shot, the teller rescued the situation with a brilliant second shot. The other story relates how, after a brilliant tee-shot, he screwed it up with a lousy second shot.

But now comes a third story — that the Chinese invented golf! Here’s an excerpt from the Times report…

More than 400 years before Scottish shepherds began tapping a ball across the grass at St Andrews, the Mongol emperors of China were swinging their clubs in the game of “hit ball”, the Chinese Golf Association announced yesterday, in a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People where China’s leaders receive visiting heads of state and the parliament gathers once a year.

Experts from the Palace Museum, China’s most prestigious, and from Peking University were on hand to reveal their findings after more than two years of research. To back up their case, they showed off a replica set of clubs, re-created from ancient paintings that show the emperor at play…

Hoots, mon!

The nicest book of golf stories I’ve come across, btw, is John Updike’s Golf Dreams.