Can you please describe the game of golf?


Answer: Golf originated in Scotland in the 15th century. It is mostly regarded as an "upper-class" sport reserved for members of private country clubs, but has gained a lot of popularity over the last few decades. As a result, golf has become more broadly accessible to the general public, and today the sport is enjoyed by tens of millions of people around the world. 

In golf, there are a total of eighteen stretches of grass, known as holes. Each hole is comprised of a tee box, where the golfer hits his or her initial shot, the fairway, and the green. Most holes also include deep grass that runs along the fairways, known as "the rough". For added difficulty, holes can also contain hazards like sand bunkers or bodies of water like ponds and creeks. A small circular hole is located on every green and is marked with a flag so that golfers can see it from far away. The objective is to get your golf ball from the tee box into that small hole in as few shots (known as "strokes") as possible. Golfers advance their ball by striking it with a golf club, and each ball strike is counted as a stroke. Golfers are allowed to use up to 14 golf clubs over the course of their round, each of which is used for different purposes, from different distances. Some clubs, like the driver, are used to hit the ball very long distances. In fact, most professional golfers are able to drive the ball over 300 yards. That's the length of three football fields! A combination of clubs called irons make up the majority of a set of golf clubs. They are are generally used to advance the ball to the green after the golfer hits his or her initial tee shot. The club face of each iron is designed with a different loft angle. Higher loft angles enable golfers to hit the ball higher in the air and shorter distances, whereas low loft angles produce lower trajectory shots that travel longer distances. The most frequently used club in the set is the putter, which is used to tap the ball from wherever it lies on the green into the hole. On average, most good golfers will putt the ball twice per hole, or approximately 36 times per round. 

Golf holes are designated as par 3, par 4, or par 5, depending on their length. These numbers are an indication of how many strokes it should take for a professional golfer to complete the hole. Par 3 holes are shorter, and should take a single stroke to get the ball from tee to green. Par 5 holes are longer, and should typically take three strokes to get from tee to green. Most golf courses have four par 3 holes, four par 5 holes, and ten par 4 holes, yielding an aggregate of par 72. At the end of a round of golf, players calculate their final score by aggregating their total number of strokes across all eighteen holes. Over time, the golfer's skill level is assessed by his or her "handicap", which is a system that reflects the average number of strokes over par that the player typically shoots. For example, if one's average round score is 79, their handicap is 7 because it's 7 strokes above par. The lower the handicap, the better the golfer.