A review was undertaken to assess the prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries in golf and to stimulate the discussion on possible injury mechanisms. The main conclusion of most published studies is that although professional and amateur golfers show a similar anatomical distribution of injuries by body segment, differences tend to be seen in the ranking of injury occurrence by anatomical site. This could be due to many things, including the player’s handicap, age, golf swing biomechanics, and training or playing habits. The impact of golf injuries deserves special attention due to the interaction of the nature of the injury, practice routines, amount of practice, handicap, and frequency of activity. Individual differences and clinical and coaching procedures deserve investigation. Other epidemiological information should be regarded as insufficient with respect to a full understanding of injury mechanisms, which can give us a better insight into the evolutionary nature of the injury. Also, a better understanding of golf swing mechanisms and individual neuromuscular aspects can help explain why some individuals are more injury-prone than others.

The connection between golf, businesspeople, and notions of class is common-place in the mass media, but a topic not yet explored in the social sciences. This paper seeks to historically and sociologically trace back the association between business and golf by looking at the history of this sport in three nations: Scotland, England, and the United States. I explore the creation of rules of etiquette, the introduction of the handicap, and the socioeconomic composition of golf clubs throughout the nineteenth and early-twentieth century. In theoretical terms, the article advances Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic capital and Michel Foucault’s idea of technologies of the self.

Between the 1890s and the 1960s, Jews faced significant levels of racial discrimination within British golf. Anti-Semitism originating from individuals, private clubs, the golfing press and golfing authorities was prevalent across large parts of the last century and was geographically widespread (affecting every sizeable Jewish community in Great Britain). Mirroring wider majority community discrimination towards the growing middle-class Jewish population, Jewish golfers faced racial hostility and exclusion within golf – a racism which was driven by crude stereotypes, snobbery, ignorance and a basic irrational fear of the ‘other’. Golfing racism was powerful and extensive within Britain, yet Jews did not simply accept the hostility they faced and cease playing the sport. Whilst this article will illustrate and analyse anti-Semitism within British golf, it will also highlight the response to discrimination taken by Jewish communities – large and small – across the country. Unwilling to allow anti-Semitism to prevent their participation in the sport, Jewish golfers strove to create their own clubs and courses. Symbolically, these ‘Jewish’ organisations remained open to all, regardless or race or creed. Jews not only protected their own sporting interests in the face of a non-organised form of anti-Semitism, but also provided a retort to golfing bigotry and racism.

Between the 1890s and the 1960s, sport had a distinctive and varied impact on the social, cultural, political and economic life of the British Jewish community. During this period, Anglo-Jewry developed a clear sporting tradition, in both a direct and indirect sense, and their participation in the world of British sport had a significant impact on processes and discourses surrounding integration, ethnicity and anti-Semitism. Through a broad analysis of archival materials, newspaper sources and oral history, this thesis seeks to examine the influence that sport exerted on the Jewish community – paying particular attention to the ways in which physical recreation affected the internal dynamics of the community and influenced Jewish relations and interactions with the wider non-Jewish population. As will be shown, whilst sport is a useful lens through which to view socio-cultural development within Anglo-Jewish history, evidence suggests that physical recreation also had a notable and noticeable direct impact on Jewish life within Britain. Although Jewish sport history is an expanding field in an international context, it has been largely ignored within British academic research. Within the historiography of Anglo-Jewry, little attention has been paid to the socio-cultural impact of sporting participation. Similarly, within research concerning British sport history, race and immigration are themes that have been generally overlooked. As well as redressing important historiographical gaps, this thesis will also help expand our knowledge of the process behind minority integration and will further demonstrate the wider social importance, and the extensive and varied applications, of the historical study of sport. This thesis demonstrates that sport has been a key area for the creation, maintenance and erosion of Anglo-Jewish identity and has been an arena for the development, reinforcement and undermining of Jewish stereotypes. Sport, effectively, assumed a central role in Jewish life throughout this time period and was a pivotal factor in many social, cultural and political changes affecting the Jewish community of Britain.