Popular Fun Activities

Golf is an old game, with the most accepted theory suggesting it originated in Scotland in the 1100s.

Overall, it’s a difficult sport to master that requires power, skill, the ability to quickly measure distance and an understanding of the course, the weather elements and the spirit of the game. It’s a great game, though, around which to build a fun golf vacation – even while learning to play.

Though the rules of golf are over 100 pages long in booklet form, the basics of the game are actually quite easy to learn – with or without golf training aids. A new player can typically pick up the bare bones of what he or she needs to know after a single round, though it takes years to finally perfect and master your skill.

In this article, we’ll talk about the basics of a golf course and a rough outline of the rules. However, to really understand golf, you should either watch others first or play a round yourself.

Golf Course Basics

All golf must be played on a proper golf course that consists of either 9 or 18 holes. Each “hole” consists of a tee-off area, or starting point from which the golfers first hit their ball with a club that is called a “driver.”

After the tee is the fairway, a typically long and somewhat winding stretch of green grass peppered with golf hazards like sand traps and waterways.

The fairway is followed by the green, the area surrounding the hole, and then the actual hole or target. The hole is where players need to eventually sink their balls.

Typically, an 18-hole golf course covers about 100-200 acres, nicely landscaped, well maintained and has a balanced amount of golf hazards like trees, sand dunes and waterways.

Golf Basics

Golf can be played two ways – in match play or stroke play. The rules do not allow players to play both ways at once.

In match play golf, each hole is played separately and the golfer with the lowest score, or number of club strokes, on a particular hole wins that hole.

For example, if a golfer wins the first hole, then he is one up, while the golfer who loses it is one down. If they tie on the hole, then they are square. The golfer who wins the majority of holes wins the game.

The stroke play version of golf is about the total number of strokes over the course of an entire round of golf. At the end of the game the lowest score, or number of club strokes, wins the game.

Filed under: Recreation and Sports on February 24th, 2009