When was the curling iron invented? When was fire invented? When was cross-country skiing invented? When was the first gun invented? When was the first school invented? When was the surfboard invented? When was the toy car invented?
However, a Dutch origin of tee is still plausible, as a variation of the Flemish tese, meaning “target” (as in curling); the word originally referred to the hole but eventually came to mean a “pile of sand taken from the hole.” There are also good reasons to posit a Dutch origin...