Golf's World

What is a Golf? A worldwide sport, leisure or just a hobby? As for me, I would certainly say that golf is a tremendous game, which includes leisure activity, hobby and sport all in one. The gameplay is adorable and with learning some tactics or strategy you can play quite good very fastly. Players, using many types of clubs including a driver, a putter, and irons, 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 term Golf was initially mentioned in writing in 1457 on a Scottish statute on forbidden games as gouf, possibly derived from the Scots word goulf that stand for "to strike or cuff". This word may, in turn, be derived from the Dutch word kolf, meaning "bat," or "club," and the Dutch sport of the same name. It is often claimed that the word originated as an acronym for "gentlemen only, ladies forbidden", but this is strictly a false etymology.

The originaly first Golf game 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 countries.

Golf competition may be played as stroke play, in which the individual with the lowest number of strokes is declared the winner, stableford points play (as devised in 1931 by Dr. Frank Stableford of the Wallasey & Royal Liverpool Golf Clubs), in which the individual with the highest points score 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. In addition, team events such as fourball have been introduced, and these can be played using either the stroke, stableford or matchplay format. Alternative ways to play golf have also been introduced, such as miniature golf, sholf and disc golf.

Golf has more and more turned into a spectator game, with a various different levels of professional and amateur tours almost all around the World. People such as Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Lorena Ochoa and Annika Sörenstam have become famous sports figures around the World. Sponsorship has also become a vital part of the game and players sometimes earn more from their sponsorship contracts than they do from the game itself.