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December 05, 2004

18 Holes, Why?

Here's a little slice of golf history that you might enjoy:

Why do golf courses have 18 holes -- not 20, or 10, or an even dozen?

During a discussion among the club's membership board at St. Andrews in 1858, a senior member pointed out that it takes exactly 18 shots to polish off a fifth of Scotch. By limiting himself to only one shot of Scotch per hole, the Scot figured a round of golf was finished when the Scotch ran out.

3 comments:

Erik J. Barzeski said...

Not true. And kinda funny since your quote is exactly the same as that posted on the page that says "FALSE" on it: at snopes.com.

And the word "scotch" doesn't even appear on the first link I got on Google when I searched for "does golf courses have 18 holes?."

A WALK IN THE PARK said...

I dont agree...I also heard that its 18 holes because of 18 JIGGERS in a bottle of scotch. Did the previous writer give you any reason otherwise? Has there been any further research on the issue? Anyway, please check out my golf travel blog at http://jayflemma.blogspot.com. I'm playing 250 of the country's highest ranked courses (I'm on 204...36 states visited) and writing a book about whicxh ones are worth the greens fees...also getting to interview cool architects and pros along the way. I'll trade you link for link on the blogroll if you like. Keep up the great writing and have a good holiday!
Jay

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