Target sports
Golf
Golf is an individual target game played across varied natural terrain, hazards, and putting surfaces. Club choice, trajectory, distance control, course management, and recovery skill matter across an 18-hole round.
At a glance
- St Andrews is presented as the symbolic home of golf.
- A player may carry no more than fourteen clubs.
- Match play and stroke play produce different strategic decisions.
Player profile. Golfers need repeatable mechanics, hand-eye coordination, mobility, touch, strategic patience, emotional control, and long-duration concentration. A full swing supplies distance, but approach and putting demand progressively finer control of trajectory and roll. Course management asks when to accept a longer next shot instead of challenging a hazard.
Where it happens
An 18-hole course normally contains teeing grounds, fairways, rough, hazards/penalty areas, bunkers, and putting greens; overall length and par vary by design. A round moves from teeing ground through fairway, rough, bunkers, and penalty areas to a closely cut green and 10.8 cm cup. No two holes need share a length, par, or route through those features.
- An 18-hole course normally contains teeing grounds, fairways, rough, hazards/penalty areas, bunkers, and putting greens; overall length and par vary by design. A round moves from teeing ground through fairway, rough, bunkers, and penalty areas to a closely cut green and 10.8 cm cup. No two holes need share a length, par, or route through those features.
What you need
- up to 14 conforming clubs
- conforming golf balls
- tees
- golf bag
- glove
- course shoes
- ball marker
How to play
- Tee off within the teeing area.
- Play the ball as it lies toward the green.
- Putt until the ball is holed.
- Complete every hole and total strokes or holes won.
The essential rules
- A player may carry no more than 14 clubs.
- The ball is generally played as it lies.
- The course is played as found unless a rule grants relief.
- A lost ball or out-of-bounds stroke normally requires stroke-and-distance relief.
- Penalty areas use specified relief options and penalty strokes.
- A player must not improve the line, lie, or intended swing area improperly.
- The correct ball must be identified and played.
- The ball must be holed on each hole in stroke play.
- Advice is limited to permitted partners and caddies.
- Lowest stroke total wins stroke play; most holes wins match play.
How the result is decided
Stroke play totals every stroke plus penalties; match play awards each hole, while par terms such as birdie and bogey describe relation to the hole standard. Stroke play counts every attempt and penalty across the round, while match play resets the contest at each hole. Birdie, par, and bogey describe performance against a hole standard rather than a separate scoring currency.
Fouls and penalties
- wrong ball
- out of bounds
- lost ball
- moving ball improperly
- grounding or improving prohibited area under applicable rules
- too many clubs
- outside advice
Techniques
- drive
- iron shot
- pitch
- chip
- bunker shot
- putt
- draw
- fade
Tactics
- choose club for distance and lie
- avoid high-cost hazards
- play to favorable angles
- manage risk by score situation
- read green speed and slope
Disciplines and variants
- stroke play
- match play
- team formats
- links golf
- parkland golf
Competition landscape
- The Open Championship
- Masters Tournament
- US Open
- PGA Championship
- Olympic golf
- Ryder Cup
Records in the reference
No stable record table is published here. Records change; use the current governing-body source before acting.
How the sport developed
The modern game was organized in Scotland, where long-established links courses shaped its rules and traditions. Scottish links helped organize the modern game around natural coastal terrain and an eighteen-hole round. Standardized balls and clubs later increased reach without removing the landscape as the central opponent.
- The cup is only a little over 10 cm wide, despite approach shots arriving from hundreds of meters away.
Play it in India
A dated public source documents an Indian federation, programme or centre for this sport. Current local intake, price and availability still require confirmation.
- Golf is the current organisation reference and is matched to a dated MYAS recognition source. This does not establish local intake, price, schedule or availability.
- Organisation reference
- Golf
- Recognition state
- MYAS recognition list matched
- SAI NCOE discipline rows
- No matching centre row found
- Khelo India discipline
- Not established
- Olympic programme
- Current · since 2016
- India Olympic medals
- No sport-level total in current sources
Evidence and currency
This is an original KhelPath explainer assembled from editorial research. It is orientation, not an authoritative rulebook.
Rules of Golf ↗ · observed 2026-08-28