Cleats by Bill Hinds for July 30, 2016

Basketball was originally played with peach baskets until they were replaced with metal hoops. But the name’s stuck.

Nah… the guy that named it was a dyslexic in a dungeon.

I’ve heard that “golf” is an acronym for <gentlemen only, ladies forbidden." I have my doubts about that. And there’s already a game called netball. But renaming American football “throw, catch and run ball” would avoid the perpetual confusion with association football (AKA soccer). But NTCRBL doesn’t roll off the tongue quite so easily as NFL, and is harder to fit on a logo.

When the Scots invented the game, it was strictly for males. G entlemen O nly L adiesF orbidden!

Acronymic etymologies for any word coined before the 20th century (the 15th, in this case) are invariably – invariably – complete horsepucky.The actual etymology derives from an old word meaning ‘club’.(And even if acronymic words ever happened in the 15th century, 15th century Scots would not be derived from 20th century English.)

I was right the original spelling was Flog,

“Golf” is “Flog” spelled backwards.

hausof7mauWell, there are certain backward elements to it: low score wins, clubs have minute differences in face angles (requiring a variety of expensive sticks, hardly consistent with Scot-Calvinist frugality), etc.

According to The Hobbit the origin of golf:The story has Bullroarer Took riding into battle on an actual horse, since he was 4 foot 5 inches tall, and taking out the goblin’s leader, by the name of Golfimbul with one blow of his club. Golfimbul’s head does fly 100 feet into the air and does land in a rabbit hole, and the story always ends with same duel results, the battle was ended with the death of Golfimbul, and the game of Golf was invented.

Actually, it was because all the other four-letter words had been taken…

Golf is a south wind in German, although I doubt it has anything to do with the game unless you drive a VW Golf to the course.