Whilst golf can trace its origin back hundreds of years in the homeland of golf, Scotland, it was not until 1934 that the sport made its way to the Kingdom of Bahrain. The game was introduced by expatriate Workers who came over to Bahrain to work in the oil industry. They were based in the "Jabal Al-Dakhan" and built the first course near the oil wells in that area. The course was a 9-hole track and was mostly used by the expatriates in the evenings after working hours.

 

The first 18-hole course was built in 1937 near Awali village which still exists and is used by Awali Golf Club. It is a sand course, and today Awali Golf Club is considered as the Home of Golf in the Gulf region. When the course was built, the majority of the golfers were expatriates and the Bahraini players started taking up the game in the late 1950s.

 

In the early 1960s, competitive golf was not far away. In 1962, some of the Bahraini workers, supported by the oil company Bapco, built Bahrain's second sand golf course, a 9 hole course at Al-Honainia valley which is located between East Riffa and West Riffa.

 

Al-Honainia course was the venue for the first truly competitive golf match to be played in the Kingdom between teams consisting of Expatriates and Bahrainis representing Awali Golf Club and Bahrain Golf Club respectively.

 

A year later Awali Golf Club organized the first major tournament, The Bahrain Open Championship, which included a special tournament for Bahraini players. Ebrahim Salem, one of the pioneers of Bahrain golf in the early days, came top in the Bahraini category.

 

Bahrain golf really took off in the mid 1970s when Bahrain Golf Club was founded in 1974. Bahrain participated in the First Arab Championship which was held in Beirut in May 1975, and the Bahrain team finished a creditable fifth.

 

In 1983, the Kingdom of Bahrain hosted the 7th Arab Golf Championship at Awali Golf Club which marked the first time that the Arab Championship was held in the Kingdom. It was a double celebration as Bahrain finished on top for the first time in both team and individual categories, claiming unforgettable victories.

 

The Kingdom of Bahrain started becoming the focal point of Arabian golf when His Excellency Sheikh Abdulla Bin Salman Al Khalifa was selected as the President of the Arab Golf Federation (AGF) which resulted in re-locating AGF's headquarter in the Kingdom in 1987.

In the mid 1990s Bahrain began to dominate golf in The Middle East. The National Team of Bahrain won 10 Arab Golf Championships from a possible 14 championships played from 1995 and did not finish outside the top 2 teams. The National Team also participated in the first GCC Golf Championship played in Qatar in 1993, taking first place - the first of an astonishing run of 14 consecutive victories.

 

On the administrative front, the Bahrain Golf Committee, founded in 1995 (became the Bahrain Golf Association in 2001), oversaw Bahrain's application in 1996 to join the Asia-Pacific Golf Confederation and the International Golf Federation and also to affiliate to the R&A which paved the way for Bahrain to be represented internationally in golf competitions and events.