About Golf

This article is about the sport. For other uses, see Golf (disambiguation)

Golf is a precision club and ball sport in which competing players (or golfers) use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes. Golf is defined, in the rules of golf, as "playing a ball with a club from the teeing ground into the hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Rules."
It is one of the few ball games that does not require a standardized playing area. Instead, the game is played on a "course", generally consisting of an arranged progression of either 9 or 18 "holes". Each hole on the course must contain a "tee box" and a "putting green" with the actual hole, and there are various other standardized forms of terrain in between such as the fairway, rough, and hazards, but each hole on a course and indeed among virtually all courses is unique in its specific layout and arrangement.
Golf competition is generally played for the lowest number of strokes by an individual, known simply as stroke play, or the lowest score on the most individual holes during a complete round by an individual or team, known as match play. Stroke play is the most commonly seen format at virtually all levels of play, although variations of match play such as "skins" games are also seen in televised events.

Origin

While the modern game of golf originated in 15th century Scotland, the game's ancient origins are unclear and much debated. Some historians ^[3] trace the sport back to the Roman game of paganism, in which participants used a bent stick to hit a stuffed leather ball. One theory asserts that paganism spread throughout Europe as the Romans conquered most of the continent, during the first century BC, and eventually evolved into the modern game.^[4] Others cite Choi wan ("Choi" means striking and "wan" means small ball) as the progenitor, a Chinese game played between the eighth and 14th centuries.^[5] A Ming Dynasty scroll dating back to 1368 entitled "The Autumn Banquet" shows a member of the Chinese Imperial court swinging what appears to be a golf club at a small ball with the aim of sinking it into a hole. The game is thought to have been introduced into Europe during the middle Ages. Another early game that resembled modern golf was known as cambial in England and Cabot in France.^[6] This game was, in turn, exported to the Low Countries, Germany, and England (where it was called pall-mall, pronounced “pall mall”).^{[citation needed} Some observers,^[who?] however, believe that golf descended from the Persian game, changing. In addition, cloven (a game involving a ball and curved bats) was played annually in Leone, Netherlands, beginning in 1297, to commemorate the capture of the assassin of Flores V, a year earlier.
The modern game originated in Scotland, where the first written record of golf is James It’s banning of the game in 1457, as an unwelcome distraction to learning archery. To many golfers, the Old Course at St Andrews, a links course dating to before 1574, is considered to be a site of pilgrimage. Golf is documented as being played on Mussel burgh Links, East Lothian, Scotland as early as 2 March 1672, which is certified as the oldest golf course in the world by Guinness World Records The oldest surviving rules of golf were compiled in March 1744 for the Company of Gentlemen Golfers, later renamed The Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, which was played at Leigh, Scotland. The world's oldest golf tournament in existence, and golf's first major, is the open championship, which was first played on 17 October 1860 at Pare tic Golf Club, in Ayrshire, Scotland.

Golf course

A golf course consists of a series of holes, each with a teeing round that is set off by two markers showing the bounds of the legal tee area, fairway, rough and other hazards, and the putting green surrounded by the fringe with the pin (normally a flag stick) and cup.
The levels of grass are varied to increase difficulty, or to allow for putting in the case of the green. While many holes are designed with a direct line-of-sight from the teeing area to the green, some holes may bend either to the left or to the right. This is commonly called a "dogleg", in reference to a dog's knee. The hole is called a "dogleg left" if the hole angles leftwards and "dogleg right" if it bends right. Sometimes, a hole's direction may bend twice; this is called a "double dogleg".
A typical golf course consists of 18 holes, but nine-hole courses are common and can be played twice through for a full round of 18 holes.^[13][14]
Early Scottish golf courses were primarily laid out on links land, soil-covered sand dunes directly inland from beaches.^[15] This gave rise to the term "golf links", particularly applied to seaside courses and those built on naturally sandy soil inland.
The first 18-hole golf course in the United States was located on a sheep farm in Downers Grove, Illinois, in 1892. The course is still situated there today.