Golf is one of the world's oldest sports dating back 500 years.  To be good at golf takes many skills.  Players need strength to hit the golf ball far, but also gentleness to sometimes hit the ball softly.

 

A golfer tries to hit the golf ball into a small cup in the ground several hundred yards away.  A yard is equal to 3 feet, or 36 inches.  Most golf courses have 18 holes.  The player who finishes the course with the least amount of hits on the ball (called strokes) is the winner.  

 

There are many parts of a golf hole.  At the start of each hole, a player places his or her golf ball on a tee.  To hit the ball, the golfer will use a golf club called a driver.  The golfer hits the ball off the tee down what’s called the fairway.  The golfer wants to hit the ball as far as possible to get it as close to the green as possible.  Watch out!  The player doesn’t want to hit the ball into a hazard such as a pond or sand trap because that means he or she will have to use more strokes to get the ball to the cup.

At the end of the fairway is the green.  The grass on the green is cut very short and it is as soft as a velvet rug.  The green is where the cup is.  It is marked with a flag on a pole.

 

Once on the green, the golfer tries to hit the ball gently into the cup.  To do this, the golfer will use a golf club called a putter.  It usually takes three or four strokes for a golfer to get the ball from the tee to the cup.  Sometimes the golfer hits the ball all the way from the tee into the cup!  This is called a hole-in-one.

 

Maybe you will have a chance to play golf someday.  It’s good exercise out in the fresh air!