The Golf Course and How Golf is Played

A golf course cover from 50 to 300 acres of ground, preferably on rolling terrain. It is a large grassed area, with obstacles - tall grasstrees, and bushes - called the rough, and hazards - sand and water - throughout. The course is divided into a series of holes, each representing a unit of competition in itseft, Some course have nine holes, but most have 18. A game, or round, of golf embraces 18 holes.

Each hole on the course has a teeing ground, or starting place; a green, or section that contains the target - a hole in the ground called a cup - ; a fairway from the teeing ground to the cup; and the rough and hazards, natural and prepared obstacles in or near the route to the green. The distance from a giving teeing gound, commonly called a tee, to a given cup may range from 100 yards to more than 600 yards. Tees and greens are numbered, and holes must be played in sequence - that is, from the first tee to the green, the second tee to the second green, and so on, until the round is completed on the eighteenth green.

The ground from which play for each hole begins is often somewhat elevated. The starting point is between two markers placed 5 yards or so apart. The player places his ball on a small wooden or plastic peg - also called tee - behind an imaginary line between the two markers. Most teeing gounds have three sets of markers: one at the back of the teeing ground, another about in the middle, and the third toward the front. The back markers are known as 'championship' tees; a playes who take his first stroke from a tee placed between these markers plays the full length of the course. The middle markers, which may make the course 300 yards or so shorter, are used by the average male golfer. The front markers are used by women.

The fairway extends in front of the teeing ground. This long stretch of turf is closely cropped to afford a fair lie, or posotion, for playing the ball. The fairway designates the preferred way of reaching the green, and golf shots are the easiest to play off this stretch. Considerably more difficult to play are shots from the rough, the area bordering the fairway. But the least desirable places for golf shots are the hazards. These include artificially built barriers, such as sand traps or bunkers and streams and ponds.

The green is area of finely tended turf over which the ball can roll unobstructed. On the green is the cup into which rhe ball must drop in order to complete the score for the hole. The cup is 4 1/4 inches in diameter and least 4 inches deep. A flagstick, or pin, centered in the cup displys the number of the green; it is removed when the golfer tries a putt for a cup.

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