Golf Course

A golf course consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a teeing ground, fairway, rough and other hazards, and a green with a pin and cup, all designed for the game of golf. A standard round of golf consists of playing 18 holes, thus most golf courses have this number of holes. Some, however, only have nine holes and the course is played twice per round, while others have 27 or 36 and choose two groups of nine holes at a time for novelty and maintenance reasons. Many older golf courses, often coastal, are golf links, of a different style to others. For non-municipal courses, there is usually a golf club based at each course.

Teeing area

The first section of every hole consists of what is known as the teeing ground, or tee-box. There is usually more than one available box for a player to place their ball, each one a different distance from the hole. They are generally as level as feasible, and most are slightly raised from the surrounding fairway. The most common tee areas, in increasing order of length from the hole, are the ladies' tee, the men's tee, and the championship tee. Other common tee-boxes include the junior tee, closer to the hole than the ladies' tee, and the senior tee, generally between the ladies' tee and the men's tee. In tournaments, golfers generally tee off from the box one level further from the "normal" box for their class (men use the championship tee, ladies use the senior or men's tee, and juniors use the ladies' tee).

Each tee box has two markers showing the bounds of the legal tee area. The teeing area spans the distance between the markers, and extends from two-club lengths behind the markers up to the markers themselves. A golfer may play the ball from outside the teeing area, but the ball itself must be shot from within the area.[1] A golfer may place his ball directly on the teeing ground (called hitting it "off the deck"), a manufactured support known as a tee, or any natural substance such as sand placed on the teeing surface.

Fairway and rough

After teeing off, the player again hits the ball toward the green from where it came to rest. The area between the tee box and the putting green is called the fairway. The turf of the fairway is generally cut short and evenly and is an advantageous area from which to hit. The area between the fairway and the out-of-bounds markers and also between the fairway and green is the rough, the turf of which is cut higher than that of the fairway and is generally a disadvantageous area from which to hit. Par three holes expect the player to be able to drive the ball to the green on their first shot from the tee box. Holes longer than par threes are expected to require at least one extra shot made from the fairway or rough.

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. 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 vice versa; rarely, a hole's direction can bend twice, and is called a "double dogleg".

Hazards

Many holes include hazards, which may be of three types:
(1) water hazards such as lakes and rivers; (2) man-made hazards such as bunkers; and (3) natural hazards such as dense vegetation. 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 (or sand traps) 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. As in any hazard, a ball in a sand trap must be played without previously touching the sand with the club.

To be continue.....

Welcome to Golf Course!

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

The first game of golf for which records survive was played at Bruntsfield Links, in Edinburgh, Scotland, in A.D. 1456, recorded in the archives of the Edinburgh Burgess Golfing Society, now The Royal Burgess Golfing Society. The modern game of golf spread from Scotland to England and has now become a worldwide game, with golf courses in the majority of affluent countries.

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.

Golf as a spectator sport has become increasingly popular, with several different levels of professional and amateur tours in many regions of the world. People such as Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Lorena Ochoa and Annika Sörenstam have become well-recognized sports figures across the world. Sponsorship has also become a huge part of the game and players often earn more from their sponsorship contracts than they do from the game itself.