The word "高尔夫" is a direct phonetic borrowing from the English word "golf". It is formed by selecting three Chinese characters whose pronunciations, when strung together, closely approximate the sounds of the English word: "高" (gāo) for "go", "尔" (ěr) for the "l" sound, and "夫" (fū) for "f". The characters were chosen solely for their sound, not their meaning, creating a compound that is essentially a sound-for-syllable imitation within the constraints of the Chinese phonetic system.