A golf tee that never went into the ground.
An 1889 golf-tee patent shows a solution that looks unfamiliar today: a support resting on the turf, rather than a peg pushed into it. Bloxsom and Douglas were solving the problem of raising the ball without assuming that a tee needed a pointed end.
Why a tee still does not have to be a peg
Bloxsom and Douglas, 1889 patent; Wikimedia Commons
The surviving drawing identifies British patent 12,941 of 1889 and shows the ball supported above a base resting on the surface. Its shape makes the idea easier to appreciate than a modern description of a tee: it is a small rest for the ball, not a stake.
The Rules still allow that broader idea. Rule 6.2b permits a ball to be played from a tee placed in or on the ground. It also allows sand or other natural materials to be put in place beneath the ball in the teeing area.
That does not establish that this particular historical design would satisfy every modern equipment requirement. It does show why the familiar wooden or plastic peg is only one answer to the original problem. Raising the ball and piercing the turf were never the same task.
