The firm
Jaques of London claims they "originated the popular garden game of Clock Golf in the mid 19th century." The
Oxford English Dictionary's earliest illustration of the use of the term dates from 1905. The wording on an early boxed set of equipment was "Clock Golf - A new game for the lawn - Interesting to golfers and a most popular amusement at garden parties." Metal roman numbers for clock golf have been made by F. H. Ayres of London and
Hamleys. The firm of
A.G. Spalding of New York manufactured a set using numbers 1–12 around 1900, and in the late 1920s, the firm of P.S.P. Inc. sold a stylish set of 1–12, painted alternately red and white, presented in a tin under the name "Round the Clock Golf." The game has often been offered to hotel guests as entertainment. A 1905 print of "Clock golf at the
Royal Palm [Hotel], Miami, Fla" is held by the
Library of Congress, and in 1909,
The New York Times reported that 30 guests, both ladies and gentlemen, had taken part in a clock golf tournament at the Pocono Mountain House hotel at
Mount Pocono. A 1925 advertisement for a hotel in
Bournemouth, England offers "Croquet, Clock Golf, Billiards, etc." while in 2016, a hotel in
Scarborough, England says that "the children's play area, clock golf and putting green, provide plenty of fun activities for children of all ages" and at one in
Silkeborg, Denmark, "You can also avail yourself of clock golf or the pétanque court." Clock golf was played during a tea party at
Donington Hall in October 1938, according to
Richard Williams' biography of race driver
Richard Seaman,
A Race With Love and Death. English novelist
E. F. Benson refers to clock golf in Chapter 8 of his novel
Lucia in London (1927) in the
Mapp and Lucia series. Daisy and Robert Quantock are playing the game on their lawn. British novelist
P. G. Wodehouse refers to country house lodgers playing clock golf in
Summer Moonshine (1937). Clock golf is played by the guests of Lord Emsworth in Wodehouses's novel,
Something Fresh.
Agatha Christie's novel
4:50 from Paddington (1957) features a (rusty) clock golf, and the game is played in her novel
The Seven Dials Mystery. Christie played clock golf at her
Greenway home in Devon. Clock golf was available to passengers on the promenade deck of the
Short S.23 flying boat. The first course in Denmark is said to have been at
Gråsten Palace, where
Queen Ingrid enjoyed playing with her family. ==Clock golf today==