Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two opposing teams who take turns batting and fielding. The game proceeds when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball which a player on the batting team tries to hit with a bat; the objectives of the offensive team are to hit the ball into the field of play, to run the bases—having its runners advance counter-clockwise around four bases to score what are called "runs". The objective of the defensive team is to prevent batters from becoming runners, to prevent runners' advance around the bases. A run is scored when a runner advances around the bases in order and touches home plate; the team that scores the most runs by the end of the game is the winner. The first objective of the batting team is to have a player reach first base safely. A player on the batting team who reaches first base without being called "out" can attempt to advance to subsequent bases as a runner, either or during teammates' turns batting; the fielding team tries to prevent runs by getting batters or runners "out", which forces them out of the field of play.
Both the pitcher and fielders have methods of getting the batting team's players out. The opposing teams switch forth between batting and fielding. One turn batting for each team constitutes an inning. A game is composed of nine innings, the team with the greater number of runs at the end of the game wins. If scores are tied at the end of nine innings, extra innings are played. Baseball has no game clock. Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games being played in England by the mid-18th century; this game was brought by immigrants to North America. By the late 19th century, baseball was recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball is popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, East Asia in Japan and South Korea. In the United States and Canada, professional Major League Baseball teams are divided into the National League and American League, each with three divisions: East and Central; the MLB champion is determined by playoffs. The top level of play is split in Japan between the Central and Pacific Leagues and in Cuba between the West League and East League.
The World Baseball Classic, organized by the World Baseball Softball Confederation, is the major international competition of the sport and attracts the top national teams from around the world. A baseball game is played between two teams, each composed of nine players, that take turns playing offense and defense. A pair of turns, one at bat and one in the field, by each team constitutes an inning. A game consists of nine innings. One team—customarily the visiting team—bats in the top, or first half, of every inning; the other team -- customarily the home team -- bats in second half, of every inning. The goal of the game is to score more points than the other team; the players on the team at bat attempt to score runs by circling or completing a tour of the four bases set at the corners of the square-shaped baseball diamond. A player bats at home plate and must proceed counterclockwise to first base, second base, third base, back home to score a run; the team in the field attempts to prevent runs from scoring and record outs, which remove opposing players from offensive action until their turn in their team's batting order comes up again.
When three outs are recorded, the teams switch roles for the next half-inning. If the score of the game is tied after nine innings, extra innings are played to resolve the contest. Many amateur games unorganized ones, involve different numbers of players and innings; the game is played on a field whose primary boundaries, the foul lines, extend forward from home plate at 45-degree angles. The 90-degree area within the foul lines is referred to as fair territory; the part of the field enclosed by the bases and several yards beyond them is the infield. In the middle of the infield is a raised pitcher's mound, with a rectangular rubber plate at its center; the outer boundary of the outfield is demarcated by a raised fence, which may be of any material and height. The fair territory between home plate and the outfield boundary is baseball's field of play, though significant events can take place in foul territory, as well. There are three basic tools of baseball: the ball, the bat, the glove or mitt: The baseball is about the size of an adult's fist, around 9 inches in circumference.
It wound in yarn and covered in white cowhide, with red stitching. The bat is a hitting tool, traditionally made of a solid piece of wood. Other materials are now used for nonprofessional games, it is a hard round stick, about 2.5 inches in diameter at the hitting end, tapering to a narrower handle and culminating in a knob. Bats used by adults are around 34 inches long, not longer than 42 inches; the glove or mitt is a fielding tool, made of padded leather with webbing between the fingers. As an aid in catching and holding onto the ball, it takes various shapes to meet the specific needs of differ
Interstate 5
Interstate 5 is the main Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U. S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of California and Washington, serving several large cities on the U. S. West Coast, including San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento and Seattle, it is the only continuous Interstate highway to touch both the Mexican border and the Canadian border. Upon crossing the Mexican border at its southern terminus, Interstate 5 continues to Tijuana, Baja California as Mexico Federal Highway 1. Upon crossing the Canadian border at its northern terminus, it continues to Vancouver as British Columbia Highway 99. Interstate 5 was created in 1956 as part of the Interstate Highway System, but was predated by several auto trails and highways built in the early 20th century; the Pacific Highway auto trail was built in the 1910s and 1920s by the states of California and Washington, was incorporated into U. S. Route 99 in 1926.
Interstate 5 follows the route of US 99, with the exception of a portion in the Central Valley of California. The freeway was built in segments between 1956 and 1979, including expressway sections of US 99 that were built earlier to bypass various towns along the route; the southernmost point of I-5 is at the Mexican border at the San Ysidro border crossing, one of the busiest in the world. Beginning at the border in San Ysidro, part of the city of San Diego, as the John J. Montgomery Freeway, I-5 goes through the suburbs of Chula Vista and National City before reaching downtown San Diego, it parallels the Pacific coastline, going through the northern suburbs of San Diego, bisecting the University of California, San Diego campus, passing the I-805 merge, before passing through the 28 miles of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in northern San Diego County. Here I-5 is known as the San Diego Freeway. At Dana Point, I-5 turns inland and heads due north through Mission Viejo to the El Toro Y interchange in southeastern Irvine.
I-5 becomes the Santa Ana Freeway as it runs southeast to northwest, passing through major cities and suburbs in Orange and Southern Los Angeles counties. Southern Californians refer as the Santa Ana Freeway in the Los Angeles area. From this point, the San Diego Freeway continues northward as I-405; when the freeway reaches the East Los Angeles Interchange one mile east of downtown Los Angeles, I-5 becomes the Golden State Freeway. The route continues through the San Fernando Valley and crosses the Newhall Pass through the Santa Susana Mountains into the Santa Clarita Valley; the interchange with State Route 14 is unusual in that truck traffic is separated into its own lanes for both the mainline of the freeway and the transition ramps to and from SR 14. For about a four-mile stretch between Santa Clarita Valley and the Pyramid Lake, the northbound and southbound lanes separate and cross sides, with the southbound lanes running to the east of the northbound ones. At that point, the Golden State Freeway rises to the north through the Grapevine to reach the second-highest point of its entire length, the Tejon Pass.
Through the Tehachapi Mountains. Path 26 power lines follow the freeway along this stretch; the freeway descends for 12 miles at Tejon Pass to around 1,600 feet at Grapevine near the southernmost point of the San Joaquin Valley 30 miles south of Bakersfield and 4 mi south from where SR 99 splits away from it in Wheeler Ridge. From SR 99 to south of Tracy, I-5 skirts along the far more remote western edge of the great Central Valley, thus here is removed from population centers such as Bakersfield and Fresno; this part of I-5 is known as the West Side Freeway, is a major connector between the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California. I-580 splits from I-5 at a point south of Tracy as the West Side Freeway Scenic Byway, the last stretch of the West Side Freeway—providing a loop-route connection to the San Francisco Bay Area. East of Tracy, I-5 intersects with I-205, another freeway that links I-5 to the Bay Area and passes through Tracy. After passing Tracy, I-5 heads north through Stockton and Sacramento before turning west to Woodland.
At Woodland, the Interstate heads northwest again towards Dunnigan, where it converges with I-505. From Dunnigan, I-5 skirts north along the western edge of the Sacramento Valley to Red Bluff. I-5 enters the Shasta Cascade region, passing through Redding and Shasta Lake before climbing up to near the foot of Mount Shasta; the interstate travels to Weed and Yreka before reaching the Oregon border. About three miles north of the California border, the highway crosses 4,310 feet Siskiyou Summit, the highest point on I-5, drops down into the Rogue Valley through Oregon's southern mountains and towns such as Ashland and Grants Pass. Turning north across three passes to the Umpqua Valley and through Roseburg, the mountains tend to turn into hills, as it reaches Cottage Grove, the road enters the Willamette River Valley. At Eugene the highway intersects a short spur route into Downtown Eugene; some city highways intersect on I-5 in the Eugene Metro. The Interstate heads due north, skirting Albany and Corvallis, passing through Salem, crossing through Woodburn.
There were plans to build a spur, called I-305, into Salem. I-5 covers 308 miles in Oregon. Just north of Salem, between mile markers 259 and 260 just short of mile marker 26
Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, developed from roots in blues and ragtime. Jazz is seen by many as "America's classical music". Since the 1920s Jazz Age, jazz has become recognized as a major form of musical expression, it emerged in the form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all linked by the common bonds of African-American and European-American musical parentage with a performance orientation. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes and response vocals and improvisation. Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as "one of America's original art forms"; as jazz spread around the world, it drew on national and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation.
In the 1930s arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, a hard-swinging, improvisational style and Gypsy jazz were the prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music", played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines; the 1950s saw the emergence of free jazz, which explored playing without regular meter and formal structures, in the mid-1950s, hard bop emerged, which introduced influences from rhythm and blues and blues in the saxophone and piano playing. Modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music's rhythms, electric instruments, amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay.
Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Afro-Cuban jazz. The origin of the word "jazz" has resulted in considerable research, its history is well documented, it is believed to be related to "jasm", a slang term dating back to 1860 meaning "pep, energy". The earliest written record of the word is in a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times in which a minor league baseball pitcher described a pitch which he called a "jazz ball" "because it wobbles and you can't do anything with it"; the use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans was in a November 14, 1916 Times-Picayune article about "jas bands". In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, "When Broadway picked it up, they called it'J-A-Z-Z', it wasn't called that. It was spelled'J-A-S-S'; that was dirty, if you knew what it was, you wouldn't say it in front of ladies."
The American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz is difficult to define because it encompasses a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years, from ragtime to the rock-infused fusion. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, such as European music history or African music, but critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt argues that its terms of reference and its definition should be broader, defining jazz as a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of the Negro with European music" and arguing that it differs from European music in that jazz has a "special relationship to time defined as'swing'". Jazz involves "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role" and contains a "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician". In the opinion of Robert Christgau, "most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz".
A broader definition that encompasses different eras of jazz has been proposed by Travis Jackson: "it is music that includes qualities such as swing, group interaction, developing an'individual voice', being open to different musical possibilities". Krin Gibbard argued that "jazz is a construct" which designates "a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition". In contrast to commentators who have argued for excluding types of jazz, musicians are sometimes reluctant to define the music they play. Duke Ellington, one of jazz's most famous figures, said, "It's all music." Although jazz is considered difficult to define, in part because it contains many subgenres, improvisation is one of its defining elements. The centrality of improvisation is attributed to the influence of earlier forms of music such as blues, a form of folk music which arose in part from the work songs and field hollers of African-American slaves on plantations; these work songs were structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, but early blues was improvisational.
Classical music performance is evaluated more by its fidelity to the musical score, with less attention given to interpretation and accompaniment. The classical performer's goal is to play the composition. In contrast, jazz is characterized by the product of i
Sig Hansen
Sigurd Jonny "Sig" Hansen is an American captain of the fishing vessel Northwestern. Since 2006, Hansen has been featured in each season of the documentary television series Deadliest Catch, serving as technical advisor for the production. Sigurd Jonny Hansen was born the oldest of three sons of Sverre Hansen in Seattle, descended from a long lineage of Norwegian-ancestry fishermen, his father and grandfather pioneered opilio crab fishing in Alaska as a way of giving crab boats a chance to earn money year-round rather than in short-term or late-year seasons. He began fishing at age 14. After he graduated from high school, he began fishing year-round, spending on average 10 months per year in Alaska and the Bering Sea, he fished mackerel and cod in Norway during the summer. In his early years, he cut school. Hansen started as a deckhand on his father's boat before his teenage years, working his way up the ranks. At age 22, he became a “relief skipper”, relieving other captains on the Northwestern, as well as doing short-haul stints on other boats in the fleet.
By age 24, he began running the Northwestern full-time. Over the years, the boat has become a top producer with an excellent safety record. In 2005 for King Crab and 2006 for Opilio, the Northwestern won the final derby seasons, taking home the titles for both the highest poundage caught and the highest dollars earned between the featured boats in the Deadliest Catch; as of 2011, Hansen serves as the full-time captain during king and opilio crab seasons, as well as the pot cod fishery on the Northwestern. His younger brothers and Norman, are deck boss and deckhand, respectively. In March 2010, Hansen became a published author with the release of his book North By Northwestern: A Seafaring Family on Deadly Alaskan Waters, which reached the bestseller list of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. On April 29, 2010, Hansen was a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. During the show, he expressed his desire to be a contestant on the next season of the hit ABC reality television series Dancing with the Stars.
Leno's staff set up a Facebook page to gather support for him to be selected for the show. In September 2010, Hansen announced that he would not return for the seventh season of Deadliest Catch. However, on October 8, it was announced, he provided the voice of a boat named Crabby in the Disney Pixar film Cars 2. Hansen was a competitor in the 14th season of Donald Trump's reality game show The Celebrity Apprentice. In 2014, Sig Hansen was inducted into the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame, along with Tonight Show bandleader, Doc Severinsen, singer Bobby Vee. Hansen has two adopted daughters and Mandy, with his wife and lives in Seattle, he has a biological daughter, from a previous marriage. He is an alumnus of Shorewood High School. Like his brothers, he speaks fluent Norwegian, which he learned before English as his Norwegian parents spoke the language at home, he follows the "Norwegian Fisherman's Diet" while at sea: coffee and cigarettes. He is a supporter of the Seattle Mariners. In March 2016, Hansen suffered a heart attack, recorded and shown on Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch.
He returned to fishing the following season. He suffered a second heart attack in early October, right before the 2018 king crab season, he had to be medically cleared before he could return to film the show's 15th season. Seattle fishermen find riches and fame on "Deadliest Catch" Official homepage Official Discovery bio
Regeneron Science Talent Search
The Regeneron Science Talent Search, known for its first 57 years as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, as the Intel Science Talent Search from 1998 through 2016, is a research-based science competition in the United States for high school seniors. It has been referred to as "the nation's oldest and most prestigious" science competition. In his speech at the dinner honoring the 1991 Winners, President George H. W. Bush called the competition the "Super Bowl of science." The Society for Science & the Public began the competition in 1942 with Westinghouse Electric Corporation. In 1998, Intel became the sponsor. In May 2016, it was announced. Over the years, some 147,000 students have entered the competition. Over 22,000 have been named semifinalists and 2,920 have traveled to Washington, D. C. as contest finalists. Collectively, they have received millions of dollars in scholarships and gone on, in years, to capture Nobel Prizes, Fields Medals, MacArthur Fellowships and numerous other accolades.
Thirteen went on to receive Nobel Prizes, two earned the Fields Medal, eleven have been awarded the National Medal of Science, eighteen received MacArthur Fellowships. Entrants to the competition conduct original research—sometimes at home and sometimes by "working with leading research teams at universities and private laboratories." The selection process is competitive, besides the research paper, letters of recommendation, test scores, extracurricular activities, high school transcripts may be factored in the selection of finalists and winners. Each year 1,800 papers are submitted; the top 300 applicants are announced in mid-January and since 2017 each semifinalist and their school receives $2,000 from the title sponsor. In late January, the 40 Finalists are informed. In March, the Finalists are flown to Washington, D. C. where they are interviewed for the top ten spots, which have awards up to $250,000 The judges have included Glenn T. Seaborg and Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr.. All Finalists receive awards of at least $25,000.
Since the beginning of the competition, students from New York have done well in the Science Talent Search, although there have been finalists from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam. Certain high schools have been successful at placing semifinalists and finalists in the Science Talent Search. New York has had by far the most finalists in the competition, followed by California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida, Massachusetts and Ohio. Reliable online records of the high schools attended by semifinalists and finalists are only available since 1999, when Intel took over sponsorship of the Science Talent Search, although there are newspaper articles naming the finalists from earlier years. A small group of schools have produced a large number of the recent finalists. Four specialized STEM schools top the list, averaging more than 8 semifinalists per year: Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, MD, Stuyvesant High School in New York, NY, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, VA, Bronx High School of Science in Bronx, NY.
Many winners come from the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science in Denton, TX, the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, NC, the Bergen County Academies in Hackensack, NJ, the Illinois Math and Science Academy in Aurora, IL. Among high schools without selective admissions, New York public schools top the list, with Ward Melville High School in East Sautuket, Byram Hills High School in Armonk, Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington, Jericho High School among the top ten. Only one private school, The Harker School in San Jose, CA, is among the top schools. STS online entry system STS historical background
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball through the defender's hoop while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own hoop. A field goal is worth two points, unless made from behind the three-point line, when it is worth three. After a foul, timed play stops and the player fouled or designated to shoot a technical foul is given one or more one-point free throws; the team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but if regulation play expires with the score tied, an additional period of play is mandated. Players advance the ball by bouncing it while walking or running or by passing it to a teammate, both of which require considerable skill. On offense, players may use a variety of shots -- a dunk, it is a violation to lift or drag one's pivot foot without dribbling the ball, to carry it, or to hold the ball with both hands resume dribbling.
The five players on each side at a time fall into five playing positions: the tallest player is the center, the tallest and strongest is the power forward, a shorter but more agile big man is the small forward, the shortest players or the best ball handlers are the shooting guard and the point guard, who implements the coach's game plan by managing the execution of offensive and defensive plays. Informally, players may play three-on-three, two-on-two, one-on-one. Invented in 1891 by Canadian-American gym teacher James Naismith in Springfield, United States, basketball has evolved to become one of the world's most popular and viewed sports; the National Basketball Association is the most significant professional basketball league in the world in terms of popularity, salaries and level of competition. Outside North America, the top clubs from national leagues qualify to continental championships such as the Euroleague and FIBA Americas League; the FIBA Basketball World Cup and Men's Olympic Basketball Tournament are the major international events of the sport and attract top national teams from around the world.
Each continent hosts regional competitions for national teams, like FIBA AmeriCup. The FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup and Women's Olympic Basketball Tournament feature top national teams from continental championships; the main North American league is the WNBA, whereas strongest European clubs participate in the EuroLeague Women. In early December 1891, Canadian James Naismith, a physical education professor and instructor at the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School in Springfield, was trying to keep his gym class active on a rainy day, he sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied and at proper levels of fitness during the long New England winters. After rejecting other ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto a 10-foot elevated track. In contrast with modern basketball nets, this peach basket retained its bottom, balls had to be retrieved manually after each "basket" or point scored.
Basketball was played with a soccer ball. These round balls from "association football" were made, at the time, with a set of laces to close off the hole needed for inserting the inflatable bladder after the other sewn-together segments of the ball's cover had been flipped outside-in; these laces could dribbling to be unpredictable. A lace-free ball construction method was invented, this change to the game was endorsed by Naismith; the first balls made for basketball were brown, it was only in the late 1950s that Tony Hinkle, searching for a ball that would be more visible to players and spectators alike, introduced the orange ball, now in common use. Dribbling was not part of the original game except for the "bounce pass" to teammates. Passing the ball was the primary means of ball movement. Dribbling was introduced but limited by the asymmetric shape of early balls. Dribbling was common by 1896, with a rule against the double dribble by 1898; the peach baskets were used until 1906 when they were replaced by metal hoops with backboards.
A further change was soon made, so the ball passed through. Whenever a person got the ball in the basket, his team would gain a point. Whichever team got; the baskets were nailed to the mezzanine balcony of the playing court, but this proved impractical when spectators in the balcony began to interfere with shots. The backboard was introduced to prevent this interference. Naismith's handwritten diaries, discovered by his granddaughter in early 2006, indicate that he was nervous about the new game he had invented, which incorporated rules from a children's game called duck on a rock, as many had failed before it. Frank Mahan, one of the players from the original
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 and does not utilize a standardized playing area, coping with the varied terrains encountered on different courses is a key part of the game; the game at the usual level is played on a course with an arranged progression of 18 holes, though recreational courses can be smaller having 9 holes. Each hole on the course must contain a tee box to start from, a putting green containing the actual hole or cup 4 1⁄4 inches in diameter. There are other standard forms of terrain in between, such as the fairway, rough and various hazards but each hole on a course is unique in its specific layout and arrangement. Golf is played for the lowest number of strokes by an individual, known as stroke play, or the lowest score on the most individual holes in a complete round by an individual or team, known as match play. Stroke play is the most seen format at all levels, but most at the elite level.
The modern game of golf originated in 15th century Scotland. The 18-hole round was created at the Old Course at St Andrews in 1764. Golf's first major, the world's oldest tournament in existence, is The Open Championship known as the British Open, first played in 1860 in Ayrshire, Scotland; this is one of the four major championships in men's professional golf, the other three being played in the United States: The Masters, the U. S. Open, the PGA Championship. While the modern game of golf originated in 15th-century Scotland, the game's ancient origins are unclear and much debated; some historians trace the sport back to the Roman game of paganica, in which participants used a bent stick to hit a stuffed leather ball. One theory asserts that paganica spread throughout Europe as the Romans conquered most of the continent, during the first century BC, evolved into the modern game. Others cite chuiwan as the progenitor, a Chinese game played between the eighth and fourteenth centuries. 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 chambot in France; the Persian game chaugán is another possible ancient origin. In addition, kolven was played annually in Loenen, 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 II's 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: "For golf clubbes and balles to the King that he playit with". 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, 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 renamed The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, played at Leith, Scotland. The world's oldest golf tournament in existence, golf's first major, is The Open Championship, first played on 17 October 1860 at Prestwick Golf Club, in Ayrshire, with Scottish golfers winning the earliest majors. Two Scotsmen from Dunfermline, John Reid and Robert Lockhart, first demonstrated golf in the U. S. by setting up a hole in an orchard in 1888, with Reid setting up America's first golf club the same year, Saint Andrew's Golf Club in Yonkers, New York. A golf course consists of either 9 or 18 holes, each with a teeing ground, set off by two markers showing the bounds of the legal tee area, fairway and other hazards, the putting green surrounded by the fringe with the pin 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 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. 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, soil-covered sand dunes directly inland from beaches; this gave rise to the term "golf links" applied to seaside courses and those built on sandy soil inland. The first 18-hole golf course in the United States was on a sheep farm in Downers Grove, Illinois, in 1892; the course is still there today. Every round of golf is based on playing a number of holes in a given order. A "round" consists of 18 holes that are played in the order determined by the course layout; each hole is played once in the round on a standard course of 18 holes. The game can be played by any number of people, although a typ
