1.
Golf
–
Golf is a club and ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not utilize a standardized playing area, the game is played on a course with an arranged progression of 18 holes. Each hole on the course must contain a tee box to start from, there are other standard forms of terrain in between, such as the fairway, rough, sand traps, and hazards but each hole on a course is unique in its specific layout and arrangement. Stroke play is the most commonly seen format at all levels, while the modern game of golf originated in 15th-century Scotland, the games ancient origins are unclear and much debated. Some historians trace the sport back to the Roman game of paganica, one theory asserts that paganica spread throughout Europe as the Romans conquered most of the continent, during the first century BC, and eventually evolved into the modern game. Others cite chuiwan as the progenitor, a Chinese game played between the eighth and 14th centuries, the game is thought to have been introduced into Europe during the Middle Ages. Another early game that resembled modern golf was known as cambuca in England, the Persian game chaugán is another possible ancient origin. In addition, kolven was played annually in Loenen, Netherlands, beginning in 1297, to commemorate the capture of the assassin of Floris V, a year earlier. The modern game originated in Scotland, where the first written record of golf is James IIs banning of the game in 1457, as an unwelcome distraction to learning archery. James IV lifted the ban in 1502 when he became a golfer himself, with golf clubs first recorded in 1503-1504, to many golfers, the Old Course at St Andrews, a links course dating to before 1574, is considered to be a site of pilgrimage. In 1764, the standard 18-hole golf course was created at St Andrews when members modified the course from 22 to 18 holes. Golf is documented as being played on Musselburgh 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 Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, Andrews Golf Club in Yonkers, New York. 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 dogs knee, the hole is called a dogleg left if the hole angles leftwards and dogleg right if it bends right. Sometimes, a holes direction may bend twice, this is called a double dogleg, a regular 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. Early Scottish golf courses were laid out on links land. This gave rise to the golf links, particularly applied to seaside courses
2.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
3.
Europe
–
Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
4.
Golf equipment
–
Golf equipment encompasses the various items that are used to play the sport of golf. Originally, golf balls were made of a hardwood, such as beech, beginning between the 14th and 16th centuries, more expensive golf balls were made of a leather skin stuffed with down feathers, these were called featheries. Recessed circular dimples were patented in 1910, but didnt become popular until the 1940s after the patents expired, the minimum allowed diameter of a golf ball is 42.67 mm and its mass may not exceed 45.93 g. Modern golf balls have a two-, three-, or four-layer design constructed from synthetic materials. The surface usually has a pattern of 300-450 dimples designed to improve the balls aerodynamics by reducing the balls drag-inducing wake, the method of construction and materials used greatly affect the balls playing characteristics such as distance, trajectory, spin and feel. Golf balls are separated into three groups depending on their construction, two-, three-, or four-piece covers, generally four-piece golf balls tend to be the most expensive, though price is no assurance of quality. A player usually carries several clubs during the game, there are three major types of clubs, known as woods, irons, and putters. Woods are played for long shots from the tee or fairway, wedges are irons used to play shorter shots. A new type of club called a hybrid combines the characteristics of irons with the easy-to-hit characteristics of higher-lofted woods. A hybrid is used for long shots from difficult rough. Hybrids are also used by players who have a time getting the ball airborne with long irons. Wedges are played from difficult ground such as sand or the rough, putters are mostly played on the green, but can also be useful when playing from bunkers or for some approach shots. Putters have minimal loft, forcing the ball to stay on the surface when struck. The most common clubs to find in a bag are the driver, 3-wood, numbered irons from 3 to 9, pitching and sand wedges. Players commonly also carry a 5-wood, and/or additional wedges such as a gap or lob wedge. When on the green, the ball may be picked up to be cleaned or if it is in the way of a putting line. In these cases, the position must first be marked using a ball marker. A tee is an object that is pushed into or placed on the ground to rest a ball on top of for a shot, however
5.
Golf ball
–
A golf ball is a special ball designed to be used in the game of golf. Under the rules of golf, a ball has a mass no more than 1.620 oz, has a diameter not less than 1.680 in, and performs within specified velocity, distance. Like golf clubs, golf balls are subject to testing and approval by the R&A and the United States Golf Association, and it is commonly believed that hard wooden, round balls were the first balls used for golf between the 14th through the 17th centuries. It is equally, if not more likely, that leather balls filled with cows hair were used, imported from The Netherlands from at least 1486 onwards, then or later, the featherie ball was developed and introduced. A featherie, or feathery, is a round leather pouch stuffed with chicken or goose feathers and coated with paint. The volume measurement for the feathers was a top hat full of feathers. The feathers were boiled and softened before they were stuffed into the leather pouch, making a featherie was a tedious and time-consuming process. An experienced ball maker could only make a few balls in one day, a single ball would cost between 2 shillings and 5 shillings, which is the equivalent of 10 to 20 US dollars today. There were a few drawbacks to the featherie, first, it was hard to make a perfectly round, spherical ball, and because of this, the featherie often flew irregularly. Also, when the featherie became too wet, its distance would be reduced, despite these, the featherie was still a dramatic improvement over the wooden ball, and remained the standard golf ball well into the 19th century. In 1848, the Rev. Dr. Robert Adams Paterson invented the gutta-percha ball, the guttie was made from dried sap of the Malaysian sapodilla tree. The sap had a feel and could be made round by heating and shaping it in a round mold. Because gutties were cheaper to produce, could be re-formed if they became out-of-round or damaged, accidentally, it was discovered that nicks in the guttie from normal use actually provided a ball with a more consistent ball flight than a guttie with a perfectly smooth surface. Thus, makers began intentionally making indentations into the surface of new balls using either a knife or hammer and chisel, many patterns were tried and used. These new gutties, with protruding nubs left by carving patterned paths across the balls surface, the next breakthrough in golf ball development came in 1898. Coburn Haskell of Cleveland, Ohio had driven to nearby Akron, Ohio for a date with Bertram Work. While he waited in the plant for Work, Haskell picked up some rubber thread, when he bounced the ball, it flew almost to the ceiling. Work suggested Haskell put a cover on the creation, and that was the birth of the 20th century wound golf ball that would replace the guttie bramble ball
6.
Tee
–
A tee is a stand used to support a stationary ball so that the player can strike it, particularly in golf, tee ball, American football, and rugby. The word tee is derived from the Scottish Gaelic word tigh meaning house and is related to the house in curling and this would make sense, as the first golf tees were within a circle of one golf club length round the hole. Nowadays, modern courses have separate, designated tee boxes for each hole, for example, the ninth hole of a course is played from the ninth tee to the ninth green, and similarly for the other holes. In golf, a tee is used for the first stroke of each hole. The area from which this first stroke is hit is in the known as the teeing ground. g. Under winter rules to protect the turf when it is unusually vulnerable, teeing gives a considerable advantage for drive shots, so it is normally done whenever allowed. However, a player may elect to play his/her tee shot without a tee and this typically gives the shot a lower trajectory. A standard golf tee is 2.125 long, but both longer and shorter tees are permitted, ordinary tees can be made from wood or from durable plastic. The development of the tee was the last major change to the rules of golf, before this, golf balls were teed up on little heaps of sand that were provided in boxes. This explains the historical name tee boxes for what is known as teeing ground. The earliest golf tees rested flat on the ground and had a portion to prop up the ball. The first patent for this kind of tee is dated 1889, the first known tee to pierce the ground was a rubber-topped peg sold commercially as the Perfectum. This was patented in 1892 by Percy Ellis of England, in 1899, an African-American dentist, Dr. George Franklin Grant, obtained a patent for an improved golf tee. This tee consisted of a cone with a rubber sleeve to support the ball. These and other failed to catch on, as most golfers—whether because of tradition, habit. It took a marketing effort by Dr. William Lowell. Sales of his Reddy Tee, a wooden peg with a flared top, took off after Lowell hired professional golfers Walter Hagen and Joe Kirkwood. It was copied around the world, and remains the most common type of golf tee, Tee Ball is based on baseball, with the main difference being the use of a tee in the place of a pitcher
7.
History of golf
–
The origins of golf are unclear and much debated. However, it is accepted that modern golf developed in The Netherlands during the Middle Ages. The game did not find international popularity until the late 19th century, when it spread into the rest of the United Kingdom and then to the British Empire and the United States. A golf-like game is, apocryphally, recorded as taking place on 26 February 1297, in Loenen aan de Vecht, the winner was whoever hit the ball with the least number of strokes into a target several hundred yards away. Some scholars argue that this game of putting a ball in a hole in the ground using golf clubs was also played in 17th-century Netherlands. There are also reports of earlier accounts of a golf-like game from continental Europe. In the 1261 Middle-Dutch manuscript of the Flemish poet Jacob van Maerlants Boeck Merlijn mention is made of a ball game mit ener coluen and this is the earliest known mention in the Dutch language of the game of colf/kolf as played in the Low Countries. In 1360, the council of Brussels banned the game of colf. wie met colven tsolt es om twintich scell’ oft op hare overste cleet. In 1387, the regent of the county of Holland, Zeeland and Hainaut, Albrecht of Bavaria, sealed a charter for the city of Brielle, one of the exceptions to this ordinance was den bal mitter colven te slaen buten der veste. In 1597 the crew of Willem Barentsz played colf during their stay at Nova Zembla, as recorded by Gerrit de Veer in his diary, Den 3. April wast moy claer weder met een n. o. wint ende stil, doen maeckten wy een colf toe om daer mede te colven, om also onse leden wat radder te maeckten, daer wy allerley middelen toe zochten. In December 1650, the settlers of Fort Orange played the first recorded round of kolf in America, the Dutch settlers played kolf year round. During the spring, summer and fall it was played in fields, in the winter it was played on ice with the same rules. On a Monday in December of 1650 a party of men came to his house to drink after having played a round of kolf for brandy. Sometime during the drinking session Teunis Jansz Seylemaecker accused Steven Jansz wife Maria of having wiped out two strokes at once although she had tapped two roamers of brandy, apparently the losers of the match were required to pay the wager to Maria upon arrival at the tavern. She then recorded the amount with chalk on a piece of slate as credit toward the brandy to be consumed by the winners, each stroke on the slate probably represented two roemers of brandy, or a round for the two men on the winning team. Eventually, the two of the men Philip Pietersz Lademaecker and Steven began fighting, the two players which included Gijsbert Cornelisz joined. Gijsbert and Steven ended up killing each other over the accusations, the modern game of golf is generally considered to be a Scottish invention
8.
Golf course
–
A golf course is the grounds where the game of golf is played. It comprises a series of holes, each consisting of a ground, a fairway, the rough and other hazards. A standard round of golf consists of 18 holes, most courses contain 18 holes, some share fairways or greens, and a subset has nine holes, played twice per round. Par-3 courses consist of nine or 18 holes all of which have a par of three strokes, many older courses are links, often coastal. Courses are private, public, and municipally owned, and typically feature a pro shop, many private courses are found at country clubs. Although a specialty within landscape design or landscape architecture, golf course architecture is considered a field of study. While golf courses often follow the landscape, some modification is unavoidable. This is increasingly the case as new courses are likely to be sited on less optimal land. Bunkers and sand traps are almost always artificial, although other hazards may be natural, the layout of a fairway follows certain traditional principles, such as the number of holes, their par values, and the number of holes of each par value per course. It is also preferable to arrange greens to be close to the tee box of the next hole, to minimize travel distance while playing a round. Combined with the need to all the fairways within what is frequently a compact square or rectangular plot of land. In complex areas, two holes may share the same tee box, fairway, or even green and it is also common for separate tee-off points to be positioned for men, women, and amateurs, each one respectively lying closer to the green. Eighteen-hole courses are traditionally broken down into a front 9 and a back 9. On older courses, the holes may be out in one long loop, beginning and ending at the clubhouse, and thus the front 9 is referred to on the scorecard as out. More recent courses tend to be designed with the front 9, a successful design is as visually pleasing as it is playable. Most golf courses have only par-3, -4, and -5 holes, typical distances for the various holes from standard tees are as follows. Terrain can also be a factor, so that a long downhill hole might be rated par 4 and this compensates for the generally longer distance pro players can put on tee and fairway shots as compared to the average bogey golfer. The game of golf is played in what is called a round and this consists of playing a set number of holes in an order predetermined by the course
9.
PGA Tour
–
The PGA Tour is the organizer of the main professional golf tours played primarily by men in the United States and North America. It is headquartered in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, a suburb of Jacksonville, the remaining events on the PGA Tour are run by different organizations, as are the U. S. -based LPGA Tour for women and the other mens and womens professional tours around the world. The tour began 88 years ago in 1929 and at times the tournament players had attempted to operate independently from the club professionals. With an increase of revenue in the late 1960s due to expanded television coverage, the tour players wanted larger purses, where the PGA desired the money to go to the general fund to help grow the game at the local level. Following the final major in July 1968 at the PGA Championship, several leading tour pros voiced their dissatisfaction with the venue, the increased friction resulted in a new entity in August, what would eventually become the PGA Tour. Tournament players formed their own organization, American Professional Golfers, Inc. independent of the PGA of America, the board consisted of four tour players, three PGA of America executives, and three outside members, initially business executives. Joseph Dey, the recently retired USGA executive director, was selected by the board as the tours first commissioner in January 1969 and he was succeeded by tour player Deane Beman in early 1974, who served for twenty years. The name officially changed to the PGA Tour in 1975, Beman was succeeded by commissioner Tim Finchem in June 1994. On January 1,2017, Jay Monahan succeeded Finchem as commissioner, in late August 1981, the PGA Tour had a marketing dispute with the PGA of America and officially changed its name to the TPA Tour, for the Tournament Players Association. The disputed issues were resolved within seven months and the name was changed back to the PGA Tour in March 1982. Without the tour players, the PGA of America became primarily an association of club professionals, both events are very important revenue streams for the PGA of America. Due to the multiplicity of names, there is confusion as to what the PGA Tour organization does and does not run. Of the events in the PGA Tour schedule, it not run any of the four major championships. The PGA of America, not the PGA Tour, runs the PGA Championship, the Senior PGA Championship, and co-organizes the Ryder Cup with Ryder Cup Europe, a company controlled by the PGA European Tour. Additionally, the PGA Tour is not involved with the womens golf tours in the U. S. which are controlled by the LPGA. The PGA Tour is also not the body for the game of golf in the United States, this, instead, is the role of the United States Golf Association. What the PGA Tour does organize are the remaining 43 week-to-week events, including The Players Championship and it also runs the main tournaments on five other tours, PGA Tour Champions, the Web. com Tour, PGA Tour Canada, PGA Tour China, and PGA Tour Latinoamérica. The PGA Tour operates six tours, three of them are primarily contested in the U. S. and the other three are international developmental tours centered on a specific country or region
10.
Hazard (golf)
–
A hazard is an area of a golf course in the sport of golf which provides a difficult obstacle, which may be of two types, water hazards such as lakes and rivers, and man-made hazards such as bunkers. Special rules apply to playing balls that fall in a hazard, for example, a player may not touch the ground with his club before playing a ball, not even for a practice swing. A ball in any hazard may be played as it lies without penalty, if it cannot be played from the hazard, the ball may be hit from another location, generally with a penalty of one stroke. The Rules of Golf govern exactly from where the ball may be played outside a hazard, bunkers are shallow pits filled with sand and generally incorporating a raised lip or barrier, from which the ball is more difficult to play than from grass. A bunker is a depression near the green or fairway that is filled with sand. It is difficult to hit the ball out of the bunker, a club called a sand wedge is designed for extracting the ball from a bunker, a process requiring well-developed skill. After a player is using the bunker, it is the job of either the player or that players caddy to rake the area of the sand disturbed during play. Specific rules of golf govern play from a bunker, for example, a player may not ground ones club in a bunker, that is, the club cannot touch the ground prior to the swing. There are three types of bunkers used in golf course architecture and all are designed to be impediments to the progress toward the green. Fairway bunkers are designed primarily to gather up wayward tee shots on par 4 and par 5 holes, greenside bunkers are designed to collect wayward approach shots on long holes and tee shots on par 3 holes, they are located near and around the green. Water hazards, like bunkers, are natural obstacles designed to add beauty and difficulty to a golf course. Water hazards are typically either streams or ponds, situated between the ground and the hole. Two types of water hazards exist, lateral water hazards and water hazards, lateral hazards are usually adjacent to the fairway being played, while water hazards generally cross the fairway being played forcing the player to hit over the water hazard. United States Golf Association - water hazard rules
