Sport: The Misty Birthplace of Golf

No one is exactly sure when or where golf was invented, and only God knows why. The Romans, the Dutch, the Chinese and a few others over the years have been willing to take partial responsibility, reasoning that any grassy place with shepherds and crooks might have done it. After all, what is more inevitable than a man lifting a club to vent some hideous rage on the most innocent object in his path?

The consensus is that it came from Scotland. So, whatever their ancestry, golfers are disposed to imagine that, in some essential way, they did too. As for...