Players would hit a pebble around the sand dunes of the natural links lands using a stick.

Claims that the ancient Dutch game of kolven and the French game jeu de mail were actually forerunners of golf have been dismissed by historians.

Neither had the single, most important element which makes golf what it is - the hole!

How golf actually started isn’t known.

One of the most popular theories has it that fishermen on the east coast of Scotland invented the game to amuse themselves as they returned home from their boats.