An outdoor sport in which individual players use specially designed clubs to propel a small, hard ball over a playing field called a course or links. The goal is to move the ball across the field in the fewest strokes possible.
Golf history
Golf origins
Some historians argue that golf originated in the Netherlands (the Dutch word kolf means ‘stick’), but the Romans had a game where they used a curved stick and a ball made of feathers, which could have been the original source. of the game. However, it has been well established that this sport , as we know it today, was invented by the Scots in the 14th or 15th century.
The game became so popular in Scotland that to prevent the population from playing golf and football during the time they had to spend practicing archery , a military necessity, the Scottish Parliament passed a law in 1457 prohibiting both games. The Scots, however, ignored this law, as well as others like it, and, in the early 16th century , King James IV of Scotland admitted the game of golf. His granddaughter Maria, future Maria I Stuart , brought the game to France, where she was educated. The young men who helped her on the golf course were known as cadets (‘students’); the term was later adopted in Scotland and England and became caddy or caddy (caddies, formerly an integral feature of the game, have been displaced by electric cars and cars).
In England, the game became very popular by the attention given King James VI of Scotland, later James I of England, and his son Carlos I . In the 18th century the first golf associations were established, such as the Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers ( 1744 ), the St. Andrews Society of Golfers ( 1754 ), which in 18 took its current name, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews and the Royal Blackheath ( 1766 ), near London , where it was agreed to fix the date of the introduction of golf in England to 1608 .
The first clubs to be established outside of England were the Calcutta Golf Club of East Indi ( 1829 ) and the Royal Bombay Club ( 1842 ). The first golf club to be established in the Western Hemisphere was Canada’s Royal Montreal Golf Club , founded in 1873 . It is believed that golf was played in the United States during the colonial period, but there is no documentary evidence of this fact. In 1888 the St. Andrews Golf Club of Yonkers was founded in New York . Some authorities say this is the oldest uninterrupted golf club in the United States.
In Spain , the first golf club was created in Las Palmas ( Gran Canaria ) in 1891 . The popularity of the game in the United States and Britain increased dramatically in the 1920s and has grown over the years, fueled by television broadcasts . In the United States alone there are more than 12,400 golf courses for more than 20 million players, who practice it at least once a year. Golf is also popular in several Western European countries , Canada, South Africa, and Australi , and underwent spectacular growth in Japan after the completion of theWorld War II in 1945 .
Remembered
A golf course is divided into 18 sections called holes. The usual route has from 5,900 to 6,400 m; the holes can vary in length from 90 to 550 m approximately. Each hole has at one end a point of departure known as a tee and at the other, embedded in the ground and marked with a flag, a cup or cylindrical container, called a hole, into which the ball must be placed to complete the game of each hole. The cup is made of metal or plastic, with a diameter of 10.8 cm and a depth of at least 10 cm.
The game begins at the first tee, a flat area of mowed grass, from where each player tries to hit the ball towards the fairway or main part of the course, a well-kept strip of land, 27 to 90 m wide, in which the grass has been cut so that the ball has a good surface for play.
On both sides of the fairway is the rough, which are areas of terrain covered with tall grass, bushes or trees and sometimes containing rough areas of dirt or mud (mud), so that players must use all their ability to play his blows; In the absence of natural obstacles, they can be built artificially, such as bunkers, also called sand traps, which are depressions made in the ground that are filled with fine sand; hills, embankments, and water obstacles such as ditches, streams, ponds or lakes are also created.
On the far side of the fairway, from the tee, is the green, an area of very short mowed grass that surrounds the hole, the surface of which is designed to facilitate the ball’s progress into the hole after it has been struck gently with a stroke called a putt.
Golf clubs and strokes
In addition to the putt, a special stroke used on the green, there are two main strokes to play each hole: the drive, which is a long stroke executed from the tee to the fairway, and the approach, or approach stroke to the green. Both types require great precision. Shots of different lengths are made with different clubs, depending on the distance to be covered and the lie or resting position of the ball. A standard game is played with 14 clubs (the maximum allowed in a tournament) that are divided into two main types: those known as woods, with wooden or metal heads, and the so-called irons, which have steel heads. forged and are usually chrome plated.
The rods of both types are usually made of metal or fiberglass, graphite or similar materials. Before, each suit was known by a name, but now most are designated by a number; only the putter, an iron, has kept its name. The woods are usually numbered from one to five (today there are also seven and nine), the irons range from one to nine. In addition to the numbered irons there are special irons, the sand wedge and the pitching wedge, which are used on short shots to get the ball high in the air and limit its roll when it hits the ground.
Attack angle
The clubs are used in various ways depending on whether you want to achieve distance, height or a precise placement of the ball; the angle at which the striking surface is positioned on the shaft of the club determines the trajectory of the ball. For teeing off and long shots on the fairway the woods of numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 and the long irons of numbers 1, 2 and 3. are used. For the initial shot of each hole, the The ball is placed on a wooden or plastic support, also called a tee, which players usually carry in their pockets and which raises the ball 1.3 cm above the ground, allowing the club head to hit the ball with maximum power.
To play long and low strokes on the fairway the number 2 wood is used, and for long and high strokes those of the numbers 3, 4 and 5 are used. irons. For approaches or shorter approach shots, known as chips, the same irons are used but with a shorter swing (striking style). The putter is only used on the green or on the collar of the green (ring of very short cut grass around the green).
Types of Competition
There are two basic forms of competition in golf: match play, or match play, and medal play, or stroke play (also known as stroke play).
In match play, the player (if there is more than one player, the team), who manages to get the ball into the hole (hole out) in the fewest strokes, wins the hole; the competition is won by the player or team that manages to win the greatest number of holes. If each player or team makes the same number of strokes on a hole, the hole is halved.
A final match play score of 9 and 8 means that the winner has a nine hole lead and only eight holes remain to be played, enough to end the match. When the match is tied until the last hole, the winning result is one up (1 up).
In medal play, currently the most popular form in major tournaments, the winner of the competition is the player or team that makes the total number of holes in the event in the least number of strokes. Although a round usually consists of 9 or 18 holes, the championships usually cover 18, 36, 54 or 72 holes. In medal play, ties are decided in play-offs, which can be settled in various ways: over a full 18-hole round; to a smaller number of holes, stipulated by the organizers of the event, or even to sudden death, the player or team that wins a hole first wins.
The term even is the one that is applied to the number of correct strokes, in which an expert player is expected to complete a particular hole, without any setback. The sum of the par of all the holes is the par of the course. Par is established, initially, by calculating the number of strokes required to reach the green plus two putts. The par for an individual hole ranges from three strokes for a hole less than 228 meters to five strokes for a hole over 428 meters. On some occasion on a par three hole, a player may hole in one, that is, propel the ball off the tee and hole in with a single stroke.
Statistically, it has been calculated that the chances of a player making a hole in one is 1 in 8,606 attempts. A score of ‘one under par’, that is to say, making one stroke less than par for the hole, is called a birdie; a result of two under par (for example, making a three on a par five) is called an eagle. Three strokes less than par is called an albatross or double eagle. One stroke over par is a bogey and two over par, a double bogey.
Claim and Claims
The rules for playing golf are very numerous and complex, and contain a code of etiquette for behavior on the course. Golf was originally played with a ball made of strongly pressed feathers and covered with a leather sheath. Around 1850 a ball made of gutta – percha , a milky liquid, derived from some Malay tree species, began to be used which hardens after boiling and cooling.
Around 1901 , a ball was created with a rubber core surrounded by gutta-percha, similar to the ball used today. The dimpled surface of modern golf balls acts to stabilize the flight. Golf balls used in the United States have a minimum diameter of 4.27 cm and weigh a maximum of 45.93 grams. The British generally use balls of the same weight but with a minimum diameter of 4.11 centimeters. In 1968 an attempt was made to establish the same specifications for golf balls. Today, in official tournaments, the regulation ball is the American one.
Governing Bodies
The organizations that establish the rules of golf in the world are: the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews and the United States Golf Association (USGA), founded in 1894 . Before 1913 , it was considered an elitist game in the United States . In 1913, however, after Francis Ouimet , who had been first caddy, won a victory over two fantastic British professionals, at the United States Open – open to professionals and amateurs – golf came to the attention of the public. general American public.
The Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA), an association of professional golfers, was organized in 1916 and the same year annual tournaments began to be held. Today, about 8,500 PGA members assist amateur players, most as club instructors, and each year several hundred professionals tour the country playing in major tournaments. The Ladies Professional Golfers’ Association (LPGA), an association of professional players, has about 550 members as club instructors and tournament players. The major circuits (major tours) are the PGA (for men), the LPGA (for women) and the senior (for players over 50 years old).
Tournaments
Every year many tournaments or championships take place. The most important for men are: the US Open (Open or United States Open, for professionals), the [[US Amateur, the Masters (an invitation tournament for professionals), the PGA Championship , the British Open (Open or Open Británico) and the British Amateur . The most important tournaments for women are: the British Ladies Amateur Championship , the US Women’s Amateur and the US Women’s Open .
International matches are also played, initially between teams from the United States and Great Britain, extended for years to teams from many countries. The Walker Cup Match (amateur) and Ryder Cup Match (professional) are for men. The latter is the most famous team tournament; it was played for the first time in 1927 between teams of twelve players from Great Britain and the United States. At present, it is held every two years and in 1979 the regulations were modified allowing it to be disputed between the United States and Europe . In 1997 it was held at the Valderrama golf course (Spain) and resulted in the triumph of the European team led bySeveriano Ballesteros .
The Curtis Cup Match (amateur) is for women. Some competitions on a global scale are: the Eisenhower Cup (amateur), the World Cup (professionals), the Shun Nomura Trophy and the Francis HI Brown International Team Match Trophy (senior). Among the competitions for women is the Espirito Santo Trophy .
One of the most famous events in the history of golf is the one that starred the American amateur player Bobby Jones who, in 1930, achieved the Grand Slam of golf, by winning the British Open, the British Amateur, the US Open and the US Amateur . One of the best players of all time has been Babe Didrikson Zaharias, an American who competed as an amateur and as a professional.
Other forms of golf
Because it is more of a game to practice than to watch, variations of the game are created from time to time so that it can be played indoors and even at night. The minigolf , a game in which only the putt is used to pass the ball through a fun tracks, became popular in the late 1930s . The greens and driving ranges combine training with fun. The pitch and putt is a short version of the game.