Not the game, just the name of the game, and it CAN’T mean “gentlemen only ladies forbidden” - can it? 
HA! Shows how much you know. It was obviously named when Bullroarer Took swiped off the head of the Goblin King Golfimbul and it fell down a rabbit hole.
Silly Scotsmen just picked it up thereafter.
Check this link http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-gol1.htm to see what World Wide Words has to say about it.
Personally, I prefer the notion that it’s “flog” spelled backwards. But then, maybe that only applies to the way I play the game.
My dictionary says it’s from the 15th century and “perhaps from Middle Dutch colf, club”.
Thanks for the link Bindlestiff But
Things like "may be" and "it's similar to" and just
rejecting the origin out of hand saying it is unknown,
with out even telling us where you looked, just doesn't
cut here at the Straight Dope Boot Camp of fact!
Now if Cecil told me the origin is unknown I would
believe it (not only because I'm a chump) but he would
say where he looked, and quote other experts saying
they didn't know either - SO back to the trenches!I always just figured that all the other good four letter words were taken.
When in doubt, it’s probably safe to disregard anything anyone tells you about the origin of a word (unless very modern) deriving from some ostensibly-clever acronym.
Quoth one source, “There are probably no pre-twentieth century words with acronymic origins” – although as Mencken noted, “There is […] an unhappy tendency among amateur etymologists to derive words from the initials of proper names.” See generally http://www.wordorigins.org/errors.htm.
And yet another informative source
Actually, it was a cross-cultural misunderstanding:
Thank you all !
So (after reading the other links dug up** by Loopus**
and xcheopis) you might say, that in a way, golf
IS flog speeled backwards!
COOL! 