Golf

This article is about the sport of golf.

Golf is a outdoor game where each player has to play his own small ball into a hole using various types of clubs. The game is defined in the Rules of Golf: "The Game of Golf consists in playing a ball from the teeing ground into the hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Rules."

Table of contents

1 Play of the game
2 Clubs
3 The Majors
4 External links

Play of the game

Every game of golf is based on playing a number of holes in a given order. A round typically consists of 18 holes that are played in the order determined by the course layout. On a nine-hole course, a standard round consists of two successive nine-hole rounds.

The two basic forms of playing golf are match play and stroke play. In match play, two golfers (or two teams) play every hole as a separate contest against each other. The party with the lower score wins that hole, or if the scores of both players or teams are equal the hole is "halved" (drawn). The game is won by that party that wins more holes than the other. In stroke play, every player (or team) counts the total number of strokes for a set number of holes and the party with the lower total score wins. There are many variations of these basic principles, some of which are explicitly described in the "Rules of Golf" and are therefore regarded "official".

Clubs

There are three major types of clubs, known as woods, irons, and putters. A golfer usually carries a couple of woods, perhaps 10 irons, and a putter. The rules forbid the golfer to carry more than 14 clubs during the game.

The Majors

The four biggest tournaments in professional golf are called "majors" and they are played at roughly the same time every year. The four majors are:

The Masters
U.S. Open
The Open Championship (British Open)
PGA Championship