Golf in the context of Rules of golf

In sports, an open tournament, or open competition, indicates anyone may enter the tournament or competition, especially without regard to their professional or amateur status. First used in golf, the term is now used in many different sports and in varying contexts, not always in reference to the amateur or professional status of the players. For example, it might indicate that the competition is "open" to international players. An open competition contrasts with closed and invitational competitions.

The term "open" is not always absolute. Minimum performance standards, or eligibility criteria, vary by sport and by individual tournament rules. For example, qualifier entrants to the 2025 U.S. Open golf tournament must have a USGA official handicap of 0.4 or less. Open competitions are also found outside of sports, such as open architectural design competitions.

The 2025 United States Open Championship was the 125th edition of the U.S. Open, the national open golf championship of the United States. It was a 72-hole stroke play tournament played from June 12–15 at Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont and Plum, Pennsylvania, suburbs northeast of Pittsburgh in Allegheny County.

J. J. Spaun won with a score of 1-under par, or 279 strokes total, to claim his first major championship victory.

The United States Golf Association (USGA) is the United States national association of golf courses, clubs and facilities and the governing body of golf for the U.S. and Mexico. Together with The R&A, the USGA produces and interprets the rules of golf. The USGA also provides a national handicap system for golfers, conducts 14 national championships, including the U.S. Open, U.S. Women's Open and U.S. Senior Open, and tests golf equipment for conformity with regulations. The USGA and the USGA Museum are located in Liberty Corner, New Jersey. In 2024, the USGA moved its Testing Center from Liberty Corner, New Jersey to Pinehurst, North Carolina. The Testing Center is where all golf clubs and golf balls manufactured in the United States and Mexico are tested for conformance to the Rules of Golf.  

A golf handicap is a numerical measure of a golfer's ability, or potential ability, that is used to enable players of different abilities to compete against one another. Better players are those with the lowest handicaps.

Historically, rules relating to handicaps have varied from country to country with many different systems in force around the world. Because of incompatibilities and difficulties in translating between systems, the sport's governing bodies, the USGA and The R&A, working with the various existing handicapping authorities, devised a new World Handicap System (WHS) which began to be introduced globally in 2020.

The 2016 Summer Olympics (Portuguese: Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 2016), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad (Portuguese: Jogos da XXXI Olimpíada) and officially branded as Rio 2016, were an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with preliminary events in some sports beginning on 3 August. Rio de Janeiro was announced as the host city at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 2 October 2009.

11,238 athletes from 207 nations took part in the 2016 Games, including first-time entrants Kosovo, South Sudan, and the Refugee Olympic Team. With 306 sets of medals, the Games featured 28 Olympic sports, including rugby sevens and golf, which were added to the Olympic program in 2009. These sporting events took place at 33 venues in the host city and at five separate venues in the Brazilian cities of São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Brasília, and Manaus.

A mountain resort is a place to holiday or vacation located in an elevated and typically at least relatively isolated area. The term resort implies integral hotel or inn accommodations, restaurants, and either or both sports facilities or scenic attractions like birdwatching. These can be part of a "destination resort" that provides accommodations and activities or a "resort town" that offers amenities near outdoor areas.

They include winter sports like skiing, snowboarding, and ice skating and summer activities such as hiking, golf, and tennis. Sightseeing and related activities, such as leaf peeping to appreciate fall colors, are also common where foliage turns.

Match play is a scoring system for golf in which a player, or team, earns a point for each hole in which they have bested their opponents; as opposed to stroke play, in which the total number of strokes is counted over one or more rounds of 18 holes. In match play the winner is the player, or team, with the most points at the end of play.

Although most professional tournaments are played using the stroke play scoring system, there are, or have been, some exceptions, for example the WGC Match Play and the Volvo World Match Play Championship, and most team events, for example the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup, all of which are in match play format.

Stroke play is a scoring system in the sport of golf. In the regular form of stroke play, also known as medal play, the total number of strokes is counted over one or more rounds of 18 holes. In a regular stroke play competition, the winner is the player who has taken the fewest strokes over the course of the round, or rounds. Other forms of stroke play include Stableford, whereby points are gained based on hole scores, maximum score, in which there is a limit to the number of strokes that may be taken on each hole, and par (or bogey), where holes are won or lost against a target score on each hole.

Although most professional tournaments are played using the regular stroke play scoring system, some notable exceptions exist. In match play, the player, or team, earns a point for each hole in which they have bested their opponents. Match play scoring is used in the WGC Match Play, the Volvo World Match Play Championship, and most team events, for example the Ryder Cup. A few tournaments such as the Barracuda Championship have used a modified Stableford system.

A golf club is a club used to hit a golf ball in a game of golf. Each club is composed of a shaft with a grip and a club head. Woods are mainly used for long-distance fairway or tee shots; irons, the most versatile class, are used for a variety of shots; hybrids that combine design elements of woods and irons are becoming increasingly popular; putters are used mainly on the green to roll the ball into the hole. A set of clubs is limited by the rules of golf to a maximum of 14 golf clubs, and while there are traditional combinations sold at retail as matched sets, players are free to use any combination of legal clubs.

The most significant difference between clubs of the same type is loft, or the angle between the club's face and the vertical plane. It is loft that is the primary determinant of the ascending trajectory of the golf ball, with the tangential angle of the club head's swing arc at impact being a secondary and relatively minor consideration (though these small changes in swing angle can nevertheless have a significant influence on launch angle when using low-lofted clubs). The impact of the club compresses the ball, while grooves on the club face give the ball backspin. Together, the compression and backspin create lift. The majority of woods and irons are labeled with a number; higher numbers usually indicate shorter shafts and higher lofts, which give the ball a higher and shorter trajectory.

A golf ball is a ball designed to be used in golf. Under the rules of golf, a golf ball has a mass no more than 1.620 oz (45.93 g), has a diameter not less than 1.680 inches (42.67 mm), and performs within specified velocity, distance, and symmetry limits. Like golf clubs, golf balls are subject to testing and approval by The R&A (formerly part of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews) and the United States Golf Association, and those that do not conform with regulations may not be used in competitions (Rule 5–1).

A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". The cup holds a flagstick, known as a "pin". A standard round of golf consists of 18 holes, and as such most courses contain 18 distinct holes; however, there are many 9-hole courses and some that have holes with shared fairways or greens. There are also courses with a non-standard number of holes, such as 12 or 14.

The vast majority of golf courses have holes of varying length and difficulties that are assigned a standard score, known as par, that a proficient player should be able to achieve; this is usually three, four or five strokes. Par-3 courses consist of holes all of which have a par of three. Short courses have gained in popularity; these consist of mostly par 3 holes, but often have some short par 4 holes.

The following is a glossary of the terminology currently used in the sport of golf. Where words in a sentence are also defined elsewhere in this article, they appear in italics. Old names for clubs can be found at Obsolete golf clubs.

The teeing ground is the area where play begins in a hole of golf. The terms tee, tee box, and "teeing ground" are synonymous. The name derives from the physical device used to elevate a golf ball before striking it to commence play.

The boundaries of the teeing ground are defined by a pair of tee markers. The front, left and right sides of the tee are denoted by the outer edges of the tee markers, assuming the perspective of a player standing in the teeing ground and facing the hole. The teeing ground is two club-lengths in depth. Playing from outside the teeing area or from the wrong tee is a breach of the rules of golf.

A hazard is an area of a golf course in the sport of golf which provides a difficult obstacle, which may be of two types: (1) penalty areas such as lakes and rivers; and (2) bunkers. A penalty area was previously referred to as a water hazard. Special rules apply to play balls that fall in a hazard. For example, a player may not touch the ground with their club before playing a ball, not even for a practice swing. A ball in any hazard may be played as it lies without penalty. If it cannot be played from the hazard, the ball may be hit from another location, generally with a penalty of one stroke. The Rules of Golf govern exactly from where the ball may be played outside a hazard. Bunkers (or sand traps) are shallow pits filled with sand and generally incorporating a raised lip or barrier, from which the ball is more difficult to play than from grass.

The United States Open Championship, commonly known as the U.S. Open, is the annual open national championship of golf in the United States. It is the third of the four men's major golf championships, and is on the official schedule of both the PGA Tour and the European Tour. Since 1898 the competition has been 72 holes of stroke play (4 rounds on an 18-hole course), with the winner being the player with the lowest total number of strokes. It is staged by the United States Golf Association (USGA) in mid-June, scheduled so that, if there are no weather delays, the final round is played on the third Sunday. The U.S. Open is staged at a variety of courses, set up in such a way that scoring is very difficult, with a premium placed on accurate driving. As of 2024, the U.S. Open awards a $21.5 million purse, the largest of all four major championships.

The men's major golf championships, commonly known as the major championships, and often referred to simply as the majors, are the most prestigious tournaments in golf. Historically, the national open and amateur championships of the United Kingdom and the United States were regarded as the majors. With the rise of professional golf in the middle of the twentieth century, the majors came to refer to the most prestigious professional tournaments.

In modern men's professional golf, there are four globally recognized major championships. Since 2019, the order of competition dates are as follows:

The R&A (or more formally, the R&A Trust Company (No. 1) Limited) is the collective name of a group of companies that together play a significant role within the game of golf. Historically, "the R&A" was a colloquial name for the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews; in 2004, the club spun off its previous governance and tournament organisation roles into the current R&A group, with the club itself reverting to a private members-only club. The R&A is based in St Andrews in Scotland. The R&A is the sole owner of three subsidiary companies: R&A Rules Limited, R&A Championships Limited, and R&A Group Services Limited.

R&A Rules Limited is one of the governing bodies of golf worldwide, alongside the United States Golf Association (USGA). The USGA governs in the United States and Mexico, and the R&A in the rest of the world. They both share a single code for the Rules of Golf, Rules of Amateur Status, Equipment Standards and World Amateur Golf Rankings.