The game’s ancestry is obscure, but golf as we know it was first played in Scotland in the last half of the 15th century, although the Scottish Parliament by 1491 had passed 3 edicts ordering that it be banned, reasoning that interest in it kept people from more practical pursuits and interfered with military activities. Golf spread, nonetheless, and when native Scots emigrated to Canada, they took what came to be known as the “Royal and Ancient Game” with them.