First Time Out?

A golf game consists of 18 different holes. A golf course includes 18 big lawns, and each contains a small hole. Different with other games, it doesn't have a standard court. Actually golf course designers are trying to make every course different to give a unique experience to golfers. Variety of the courses is a great feature of golf.

We always heard that the No.13 "hole" of a course is hard, the No.4 is easy to get into water, or the No.8 green is very small. The "hole" here means the entire lawn instead of the hole golfers want to hit in, which includes the place you start to hit the ball to the small hole.

A typical hole contains:

Putting Green: The smooth ground surrounding the hole is called the putting green. The grass is cut very short and closely. Once the golf ball is inside the green area, only putting the ball is allowed instead of hitting it away.

Hole: The Hole is where you try to hit the ball into. There is a metal cup inside and you can hear a clank when the ball goes into the cup

Flag-stick: Every hole will have a flag-stick on it, so that even if you are far away from the hole, you know the hole position. When the balls are in the green area, the caddy would remove the flag-stick since the golfer can see the hole itself now. After the golfer hit the ball into the hole, the flag-stick needs to be returned to the hole.

Sand bunker: Most important hazard for golf course. If the golfer hits a ball into the sand bunker, they will need extra practice to learn how to get it out.

Rough: Maximum hazard in golf course. The rough area has longer grass than the fairway. Once a ball is inside the rough area, it will become harder to hit.

Water hazard: Important hazard. Once a ball is inside the water, the golfer takes a one stroke penalty according to the rules. Golfers don't want a ball to go into water.

Teeing ground: It's the area at the beginning of a hole from which the player's first stroke is taken. Usually a hole has a lot of different teeing grounds with different distances and colors(the closer to the hole, the easier to play). Professional golfers usually hit from gold or black, high level golfers, blue, normal golfers, white, and ladies/children, red.

Out of bounds: The sides of many holes are called out of bounds such as a fence. Once hit out of bounds, it has the same one stroke penalty as hitting into water.

Fairway: The fairway is the area left after removing the hazards, teeing grounds and the putting green. The grass in the fairway is cut even and short, and it's the ideal place to go after hitting. (Golfers always talk about fairway wood, which is the wood using on fairway, from No.2 to No.5, different with No.1 wood for teeing ground.

A standard golf course contains 18 holes. The total distance is around 5500 to 7000 yards. Most of the 18 hole golf courses are par 72, usually contains ten par 4, four par 3, four par 5. But it's not a rule to have par 72. It has a range from par 62 to par 74.