1. Sports  Golf Tees   2 of 6  Sand Tees and Earlier Golf Sand
Tees  A golfer in 1921 reaches into a "tee box" to retrieve a
handful of wet sand, which would then be shaped into a tee for
the golf ball.  Brooke / Topical Press Agency / Getty Images
Tools designed specifically for teeing a golf ball started
arriving on the scene in the late 1800s (although it's safe to
assume that individual golfers were experimenting with different
implements before that).  How did golfers tee up their golf
balls before the invention and manufacture of modern golf tees?
The earliest "tees" were just clumps of dirt. Golfers in the
ancient mists of Scotland would use a club or their shoe to stab
the ground, digging up a little mound of turf on which to set
the golf ball.  As golf matured and became more organized, sand
tees became the norm. What's a sand tee? Take a little wet sand,
shape it into a conical mound, place the golf ball atop the
mound, and you have a sand tee.  Sand tees were still the norm
into the early 1900s. G