What is Golf?
Golf is a traditional and very old kind of sport. It is not fully clear since when golf is existing as the todays known sport. 1457 golf was mentioned expressly and in writing for the first time - and this publicly within a royal decree. However, the practice of sport was forbidden by the Scottish King James II. Fortunately that doesn't count anymore.
There are many more mentions and folk memories that are describing sports similiar to golf. These reach back until the 12th century. Officially still the early Scotland is regarded as the inventor of golf.
The target is in principle to hit a ball from the tee box to hole using different golf clubs with as few as possible strokes, in accordance to the official rules of golf. The different clubs differ in length and hitting behavior. A round of golf usually takes 9 to 18 holes which will be played each successively.
The clubs
First there are a Driver and Woods that are especially for long distances. Usually they are between 45 and 46 inches in length and mostly do have a bigger club head. The name "woods" or fairway wood comes from the older versions of drivers and long distance clubs, which were made of wood. In addition are hybrid clubs, which became a lot better throughout improvement of production systems. The advantages of those hybrids are the both advantages of iron clubs (accuracy) and wood (distance). With hybrids you are able to reach long distances even from bad locations. The distance varies by players skill. Average amateurs are hitting the ball round 200 meters with a driver. PGA-Professionals are hitting the ball up to 360 meters - when conditions are fitting.
The irons are the most famous and most used tools of a golfer. First every golfer starts training with these irons. All strokes between driver and putter are made with iron clubs. There are a lot of them in a bag. Starting with the longest irons (ususally a 3-iron) to the 9-iron followed by wedges. But there is more onto wegdes in the next paragraph. Irons are different in shaft length and loft of club head, which leads to different distances and also special use cases. An average amateur is hitting roundabout 130 meters with a 7-iron - a professional reaches easily 170 and more. The distance with a 5-iron for an amateur is therefor 150 meter against professionals with round about 200 meters. All these distances are dependent on skill and conditions.
Wedges belong generally to irons, too. But they are especially for the short game and are seperated in 4 types: Pitching Wedge, Gap Wedge, Sand Wedge, Lob Wedge These four types are different in loft and distance. A pitching wedge with a distance of 100 meter and 50 meter with a lob wedge, are wedges especially for the short game around the green. Is the ball located only a few meters away from the green it is easier to make a good approach shot or even a hole out. Within sand traps or bunkers the sand wedge is helping you to reach the hole.
Then there are Putter. These clubs are the mostly known to mankind from the game mini golf. Usually you are striking the ball with a putter on the green into the hole - in the best case. There are a lot of types of putter clubs which differ only in composition and weight.
Hitting distances
The different clubs in golf with their varying configuration options like loft and lie lead to different
distances and thereby to diverse use cases on the course.
More: Hitting distances in golf
The organisations of golf
Golf also have a umbrella organisation. The International Golf Federation (IGF) with its
headquarter in Lausanne. There are 143 member organisations from 138 countries in the world.
More on that: The organisations