Golf Kansas

The word golf was first mentioned in writing in 1457 on a Scottish statute on forbidden games as gouf, possibly derived from the Scottish word goulf (variously spelled) meaning "to strike or cuff". This word may, in turn, be related to the Dutch word kolf, meaning "bat," or "club," and the Dutch sport of the same name.

There is a persistent urban legend claiming that the term derives from an acronym "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden". This is almost certainly false as acronyms being used as words is a fairly modern phenomenon, making the expression more likely to be a backronym.

Golf is played professionally in many different countries. The majority of professional golfers work as club or teaching professionals, and only compete in local competitions. A small elite of professional golfers are "tournament pros" who compete full time on international "tours". The major championships are the four most prestigious men's tournaments of the year. In current (2006) chronological order they are:

The Masters

U.S. Open

The Open Championship (referred to in North America as the British Open)

PGA Championship

The fields for these events include the top several dozen golfers from all over the world. The Masters has been played at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia since its inception in 1934. It is the only major championship that is played at the same course each year. The U.S. Open and PGA Championship are played at various courses around the United States, while The Open Championship is played at various courses in the UK.

The number of major championships a player accumulates in his career has a very large impact on his stature in the sport. Jack Nicklaus is widely regarded as the greatest golfer of all time, largely because he has won a record 18 professional majors, or 20 majors in total if his two U.S. Amateurs are included. Tiger Woods, who may be the only golfer likely to challenge Nicklaus's record, has won twelve professional majors (15 total if his three U.S. Amateurs are included), all before the age of thirty-one. (To put this total in perspective, Nicklaus had won eight professional majors and two U.S. Amateurs at the same age.) Woods also came closest to winning all four current majors in one season (known as a Grand Slam completed first by Bobby Jones) when he won them consecutively across two seasons: the 2000 U.S. Open, Open Championship, and PGA Championship; and the 2001 Masters. This feat has been frequently called the Tiger Slam.

Prior to the advent of the PGA Championship and The Masters, the four Majors were the U.S. Open, the U.S. Amateur, the Open Championship, and the British Amateur. These are the four that Bobby Jones won in 1930 to become the only player ever to have earned a Grand Slam.

In 2005 Golf Digest calculated that there were nearly 32,000 golf courses in the world, approximately half of them in the United States. The countries with most golf courses in relation to population, starting with the best endowed were: Scotland, New Zealand, Australia, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Canada, Wales, United States, Sweden, and England (countries with fewer than 500,000 people were excluded). Apart from Sweden all of these countries have English as the official language, but the number of courses in new territories is increasing rapidly. For example the first golf course in the People's Republic of China only opened in the mid-1980s, but by 2005 there were 200 courses in that country.

The professional sport was initially dominated by British golfers, but since World War I, America has produced the greatest quantity of leading professionals. Other Commonwealth countries such as Australia and South Africa are also traditional powers in the sport. Since around the 1970s, Japan, Scandinavian and other Western European countries have produced leading players on a regular basis. The number of countries with high-class professionals continues to increase steadily, especially in East Asia. South Korea is notably strong in women's golf.

The last decade or so has seen a marked increase in specialized golfing vacations or holidays worldwide. This demand for travel which is centered around golf has lead to the development of many luxury resorts which cater to golfers and feature integrated golf courses.