Golf was banned in England in 1457 because it was considered a distraction from the serious pursuit of archery.
Good Lord!! They were playing golf in 1457???
I don't find it quite as hard to believe that they were playing golf in 1457...but rather that they took archery seriously...but of course this is England we're talking about...a breed of people with a sense of humor 2nd to none...if it were any drier it'd be a desert...here's the problem...I have done both...shot a bow and arrow...and played golf...alot more golf than archery in all honesty...and I dare say golf requires a bit more of a serious pursuit than archery to master...it doesn't take alot of physical conditioning and practice to conquer the complexities of the bow and arrow...you slide the little notch on the back of the arrow into the little string thing of the bow...you pull the string thing and the arrow back as far as you can...look down the sight to the target and release the damn arrow...if you miss the target...repeat the above steps...adjust aim...and Ta-Da...eventually...depending on your level of education...you will hit the target...hell people have taken the oh so difficult sport of archery and raised the difficulty thru the added inventions of trickery...blindfolds are even used to make this mundane exercise seem somehow dangerous...try blindfolding a golfer and getting them to land a ball on a green anywhere near the damn hole...not quite so easy is it...William Tell didn't take a whack at a golf ball to knock the apple off his son's head now did he??? Hell no!!! Because if he had...chances are 99.99% certain his kid woulda been walkin around with a dimpled white ball lodged in an eye socket...no siree golf is not the type of serious pursuit you'd want to take chances doin trick shots with...as a matter of fact the only person in the history of golf who seemingly mastered golf and all of its intracacies to the point of skillfully attending the notions of trick shots...was Kevin Costner in the movie Tin Cup...archery...a more serious pursuit than golf...leave it to the English to speculate what's gonna be a big hit and what's not...fox hunting...another huge hit...soccer...really...this is a game in need of a serious overhaul...add a few Lions on chains...sprung from hidden underground chambers...and soccer gets some much needed Gladiator type respect...no my dear friends the English wouldn't know a serious pursuit if it came in the form of a month long Blitzkreig...unless of course you make hiding in underground subways waiting for the Americans (a group of people which includes ancestors from England who couldn't stand it's political view or it's Monarchy, so much so they left and kicked your ass when you tried to come rein them back into the realm) to come save your sorry stodgy asses!!! Maybe if their little archery experts had been a little more serious in their pursuit they coulda won a battle that mattered...now their only hope is to field somebody gifted enough in their serious pursuit of golf to keep an outsider from winning the British Open!!! Archery...a serious pursuit...didn't work out so well for the British...or the Native Americans...apparently golf and casino building woulda been the better options when considering serious pursuits!!!
