The Game That's Possibly The Father Of Golf

It is widely held and well-known that the Scots invented the game of golf as we know it today.   In every corner of the history of the game, you’ll find stories of its Scottish lineage, starting with shepherds knocking rocks about in the links – the parts of the seashore between the sea and the arable land where they would tend their flocks – in between their regular working duties.

There’s little to doubt about those well-documented stories.  After all, the game sprang from there and evolved into the sport we know it as today.  Still, a question begs: where did the Scots get their inspiration, and was the idea wholly of their invention?  Some say the answer is no.  In some corners of the world, the games that may well have inspired the global sport of golf are still played.

Before Golf, In France There Was a Game Very Much Like Golf

In 14th century France, a game called chole, or sometimes referred to as chole, choulette, jeu de crosse or crosse-golf, became quite popular.  In fact, in the  border region of Hainaut (Henegouwen), especially in the towns of Mauberge, France and Mons Belgium, not only is the game still played rather spiritedly, it is also thought of by its players as the original form of golf.

Chole season starts post-harvest in the autumn, and is played across a course of nine holes.

Chole has almost always been played with iron-headed clubs and a wooden ball, called a choule (drunk one) or choulette. Holes can be rather long – anywhere from a "short" five hundred meters to just short of two kilometers – about a mile using the English measurement system.  The target is not a hole in the ground, but instead a planche, which measures 2m in height by 20cm in width.

The player is attempting to hit his choulette to the planche in a minimal amount of strokes, but here is where the differences between modern golf and chole start becoming apparent: unlike golf, chole allows your opponent to play defense.  You start by guessing how many shots it will take to hit the planche, and you start off a hole by whacking your ball in that direction.  Your rival, however, can then whack it as hard as he or she likes in the opposite direction.  That maneuver is called a le dechole, and no doubt gives rise to a great deal of competition.

Golf, by the way, had a period when you could play your opponent’s ball.  In the rules of the game between 1851-1856, if you deemed your ball was unplayable, you could play your opponent’s ducat.

Most chole players have five clubs, called crosse.  While it resembles a modern golf club in passing, it is a two headed monster: one part, le plat, is akin to our modern irons and designed to move the choulette upwards and onwards.  The other end of this strange stick, however, has a function too: it is called le pic, a sharply curving bit designed to move a ball from an unplayable lie.

In chole, few lies are unplayable – if your choulette comes to rest on an animal dropping, so be it, play on.

So how do the modern game of golf and chole possibly relate?

Chole was first played in 1353 in what is modern-day France, and it is widely believed that both working-class and  royal Scots fought with the French against the British in the Battle of the Bauge in 1421 - a battle that dealt th4e English a nasty blow in the Hundred Years' War.   From there, it’s said that the Scots returned home and a few of them took a knowledge of chole with them, which they then adapted into their own game…the game we now call golf.  Instead of a planche, the Scots substituted a hole in the ground, and changed the ball to one that is wholly round – a choulette is oblong – and thus golf as we know it was born.

While the rules of the two games have diverged through the centuries, it is entirely plausible that chole is indeed the father of the game of golf — and that it may well have some bearing in lacrosse, soccer, hockey and other sports as well.  While it is indeed different than golf or those sports, it’s true that none of them existed at the time chole was taken up, and that when they came along later, they had much in common before they evolved into their own games entirely.  Given the crossing of the relevant cultures — the Scots and the French as allies in a battle long ago — it’s quite reasonable to say that golf is indeed an evolutionary species who owes thanks to the diaspora of the older game of chole.

Thanks to: Extreme Golf by Duncan Leonard and to the websites Le Choulette and Ancient Golf

Article originally appeared in Me and Old Man Par in 2009.