Holland. A frozen lake. At one end … a pole. At the other end …
another pole. A ball the size of a grapefruit. Weight: 2 pounds. A
club. Purpose of the game … hit the opponents pole … hitting the
ball with the club … using the minimum number of strokes. The name
of the club used: A Kolf. The players would presumably be called
Kolfers. Yessiree ladies and gennulmen. This medieval Dutch pastime
was the early forerunner of the game of golf.
Of course … there are those who would say that the origin of golf
was a Chinese game called Chiuwan dating back to roughly A.D. 943
during the Sung Dynasty. Personally … I like the Dutch version.
By the fourteenth century … golf had migrated to Britain where it
was first sorely disapproved of because it often interfered with
archery practice needed for civil defense. However … it wasn’t
long before it became Scotland’s national sport. Which brings us to
the military before it brings us to the jeweler.
Year: Unknown. The troops are at the firing lines. The commander of
the troops yells: 'Ware Before! What this means is that the first
line troops might find it prudent to kneel in order to avoid having
their heads blown off by the second line troops. Eventually … in
the interest of economy … 'Ware Before was shortened to just plain
“Fore” which then … by some mysterious route known only by the
world’s intelligencia … segued to the world of golf. Fore! …
which means duck lest the fool behind you slices the ball and knocks
your block off.
Then there’s the folklore which also comes before the jeweler. Never
clean your ball once the game is in play. Never change clubs once
you’ve removed the one you’ve chosen from the bag … for if you do
you will muff your shot. And then there’s the folklorish statement
supposedly uttered by Ulysses S. Grant who said … and I
paraphrase: That looks like good exercise … but what’s the little
ball for. A man after me own heart … as I tend to be more of a
Tenniser than a Golfer.
And so now that you’ve all learned all you ever wanted to know about
golf and maybe even more than you ever wanted to know … I bring
you to our diamond pav� golf brooch. It’s a golfer in full swing …
pav� with diamonds and set with calibr� rubies. Value is around
$1200.00. Go take a look. He almost looks alive.
For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits…may I
direct you to my home page at www.tyler-adam.com where you will
scroll down the left side menu till you get to the area that says
Tidbits Graphics … and then click on the link that says: Golfer
… where you’ll see an image of aforementioned brooch.
And there ya have it.
That’s it for this week folks.
Catch you all next week.
Benjamin Mark
-- http://www.tyler-adam.com --