The Great Game was a political and diplomatic confrontation that existed for most of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century between the British Empire and the Russian Empire over Afghanistan and neighbouring territories in Central and South Asia. It also had direct consequences in Persia and British India .
It was first used academically by Professor H.W.C. Davis in a presentation titled The Great Game in Asia (1800–1844) on 10 November 1926. The use of the term "The Great Game" to describe Anglo-Russian rivalry in Central Asia became common only after the Second World War .
However, it is generally accepted that modern golf developed in Scotland from the Middle Ages onwards. The game did not find international popularity until the late 19th century, when it spread into the rest of the United Kingdom and then to the British Empire and the United States .
The term "Great Game" is attributed to British intelligence officer Arthur Conolly and was popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his book "Kim" from 1904, wherein he plays up the idea of power struggles between great nations as a game of sorts.
" The Great Game " was a political and diplomatic confrontation that existed for most of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century between the British Empire and the Russian Empire, over Afghanistan and neighbouring territories in Central and South Asia.
The Great Game is said to have begun on 12 January 1830 when Lord Ellenborough, the president of the Board of Control for India tasked Lord William Bentinck, the Governor-General of India, to establish a new trade route to Bukhara.
Kipling's use of the term was entirely fictional, "...because the Great Game as it is described in the novel never existed; it is almost entirely Kipling's invention. At the time when the story is set (i.e. in the late Eighties), Britain did not have an intelligence service, nor an Ethnographical Department; there was only a governmental task force called 'Survey of India' that was entrusted with the task of charting all India in response to a typically English anxiety of control."
In 1869, when Clarendon proposed the Amu Darya river as the basis for a neutral zone between British and Russian spheres of influence, Alexander Gorchakov proposed Afghanistan as the neutral zone. Russia feared the influence that a Muslim power with British support might have on the other khanates in the region.
Allegation that "Britain had lost The Great Game by 1842". One author proposes that Britain lost The Great Game. "The Great Game was an aspect of British history rather than international relations: the phrase describes what the British were doing, not the actions of Russians and Chinese.".
In the historical sense the term dated from the mid-19th century. "The Great Game" is attributed to British Captain Arthur Conolly (1807–42) who had been appointed as a political officer.
The Great Game began on 12 January 1830 when Lord Ellenborough, the President of the Board of Control for India, tasked Lord William Bentinck, the Governor-General, with establishing a new trade route to the Emirate of Bukhara.
The Great Game — also known as Bolshaya Igra — was an intense rivalry between the British and Russian Empires in Central Asia, beginning in the nineteenth century and continuing through 1907 wherein Britain sought to influence or control much of Central Asia to buffer the "crown jewel" of its empire: British India .
The British Lord Ellenborough started "The Great Game" on January 12, 1830, with an edict establishing a new trade route from India to Bukhara, using Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan as a buffer against Russia to prevent it from controlling any ports on the Persian Gulf.
A golf-like game is, apocryphally, recorded as taking place on February 26, 1297, in Loenen aan de Vecht, where the Dutch played a game with a stick and leather ball. The winner was whoever hit the ball with the fewest strokes into a target several hundred yards away. Some scholars argue that this game of putting a small ball in a hole in ...
The modern game of golf is generally considered to be a Scottish invention. A spokesman for The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, one of the oldest Scottish golf organisations, said "Stick and ball games have been around for many centuries, but golf as we know it today, played over 18 holes, clearly originated in Scotland." The word golf, or in Scots gowf [gʌuf], is usually thought to be a Scots alteration of Dutch " colf " or " colve " meaning " stick, " club ", " bat ", itself related to the Proto-Germanic language *kulth- as found in Old Norse kolfr meaning " bell clapper", and the German Kolben meaning " mace or club". The Dutch term Kolven refers to a related sport where the lowest number of strokes needed to hit a ball with a mallet into a hole determines the winner; according to the "Le grand dictionnaire françois-flamen" printed 1643 is stated the Dutch term to Flemish: "Kolf, zest Kolve; Kolfdrager, Sergeant; Kolf, Kolp, Goulfe."
The evolution of golf can be explained by the development of the equipment used to play the game. Some of the most notable advancements in the game of golf have come from the development of the golf ball. The golf ball took on many different forms before the 1930s when the United States Golf Association (USGA) set standards for weight and size. These standards were later followed by a USGA regulation stating that the initial velocity of any golf ball cannot exceed 250 feet per second. Since this time, the golf ball has continued to develop and impact the way the game is played.
Another notable factor in the evolution of golf has been the development of golf clubs. The earliest golf clubs were made of wood that was readily available in the area.
The Royal Calcutta Golf Club (1829), the Mauritius Gymkhana Club (1844) and the club at Pau (1856) in south western France are notable reminders of these excursions and are the oldest golf clubs outside of the British Isles. The Pau Golf Club is the oldest in continental Europe.
The 1987 Resort Law that reduced protection on agricultural land and forest preserves created a further boom in course construction and by 2009 there were over 2,400 courses. The popularity of golf in Japan also caused many golf resorts to be created across the Pacific Rim.
In the 1261 Middle Dutch manuscript of the Flemish poet Jacob van Maerlant 's Boeck Merlijn mention is made of a ball game "mit ener coluen" (with a colf/kolf [club]). This is the earliest known mention in the Dutch language of the game of colf/kolf as played in the Low Countries.