Golf: the sport

Golf is a sport in which players using many types of clubs including woods, irons, and putters, attempt to hit a ball into each hole on a golf course in the lowest possible number of strokes.

It is a game that requires patience, excellent body coordination, a fair degree of fitness and the ability to maintain concentration over several hours of play. Golf is one of the few ball games that does not use a standardized playing area; rather, the game is played on golf "courses", each one of which has a unique design and typically consists of either 9 or 18 holes. A good knowledge of the course and its structural quirks is therefore essential to a player’s tactical approach to the game.

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".

 

Golf competition is generally played as stroke play, in which the individual with the lowest number of strokes is declared the winner, or as match play with the winner determined by whichever individual or team posts the lower score on the most individual holes during a complete round.

A course consists of a series of holes, each with a teeing area, fairway, rough and other hazards, and the putting green surrounded by the fringe with the pin (flagstick) and cup. Different 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 tee-off point to the green, some of the holes may bend either to the left or to the right (“dogleg” left or right).

 

Every round of golf is based on playing a number of holes in a given order. A round typically consists of 18 holes. On a nine-hole course, a standard round consists of two successive nine-hole rounds. Playing a hole on the golf course consists of hitting a ball from a tee on the teeing box (a marked area designated for the first shot of a hole, a tee shot), and once the ball comes to rest, striking it again. This process is repeated until the ball is in the cup. Once the ball is on the green (an area of finely cut grass) the ball is usually putted (hit along the ground) into the hole.