History File

would like to learn how to play golf.

competing players use various clubs to hit balls into a

series of holes on a course using as few strokes as possible. 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."

not require a standardized playing area. Instead, the game is

played on a course, in general consisting of an arranged progression of either nine or 18 holes. Each hole on the course must contain a tee box to start from, and a putting green containing the actual hole. There are various other standardized forms of terrain in between, such as the fairway, rough, and hazards, but each hole on a course, and indeed among virtually all courses, is unique in its specific layout and arrangement.

golf courses per capita, starting with the best endowed were:

Scotland, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, Canada, Wales, United States, Sweden, and England . Apart from Sweden, all of these countries have English as the majority language, but the number of courses in new territories is increasing rapidly.

of golf in China. The first golf course in China

opened in 1984, but by the end of 2009 there were roughly 600 in the country. For much of the 21st century, development of new golf courses in China has been officially banned , but the number of courses has nonetheless tripled from 2004 to 2009; the "ban" has been easily avoided with the government's tacit approval simply by not mentioning golf in any development plans.
In the United States, the number of people who play golf twenty-five times or more per year decreased from 6.9 million in 2000 to 4.6 million in 2005,according to the National Golf Foundation. The NGF reported that the number who played golf at all decreased from 30 to 26 million over the same period.