Golf Compendium

Ruth Jessen was a professional golfer who won tournaments on the LPGA Tour from the late 1950s into the early 1970s. Her win total reached double digits even though her career was repeatedly interrupted by injuries and surgeries.

The Motor City Open was a PGA Tour tournament played intermittently in the Detroit area from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. Despite the instability of the tournament, its roster of champions is quite impressive.

Triples is the name of a golf game played by a group of three golfers. On each hole, each golfer earns points based on his or her score. The golfer with the best score of the three earns the most points; the golfer with the worst score of the three gets the fewest points. The way most groups pass out points works like this:

The Korn Ferry Tour is the developmental golf tour one level below the PGA Tour. Winning its Player of the Year award is a very good thing, not just because it means the winner was the best player on tour that year. Winning the award also means you've played well enough to earn a promotion to the PGA Tour.

The European Senior Tour — now known as the Legends Tour after a couple years named the Staysure Tour — was founded in 1992 as the top-level tour in Europe for 50-and-over male golfers. Not surprisingly, the list of yearly Order of Merit winners below includes many prominent names in European golf, golfers who played primarily on the European Tour before moving on to the senior circuit.

Blow-up holes are something every golfer, even the best golfers sometimes, occasionally suffer. Wouldn't it be great if you could just throw those holes out — not count them in your score?

Dick Mayer was a winner on the PGA Tour in the 1950s and 1960s who is best-remembered as a U.S. Open champion.

Polee is the name of a side bet within a group of golfers. But the exact meaning of the Polee bet differs depending on who is playing. We'll go over the four most-common ways golfers play the Polee bet. (And note that the spelling Poley can refer to a different game.)

Their Game Is Golf is the name of an early 1970s promotional film — it runs around 30 minutes long — produced by Sears to market the company's golf clubs and apparel. But it's so much more than that: It's a behind-the-scenes look at the LPGA Tour of that era, which is a pretty rare thing. There's just not that much video in existence of LPGA play from those days.

Below in the list of annual victory leaders on the Champions Tour; that is, the golfer who, each year, led the world's top senior golf tour in wins. You'll see many names that you probably expected to see. But perhaps a few surprises, as well.

The LPGA Takefuji Classic was a golf tournament on the LPGA Tour in the early 2000s, played first in Hawaii and then in Nevada. Although played only seven times, it produced an impressive list of champions.

Which golfers have gone the lowest on the European Tour? Below we see the European Tour records for lowest 72-hole stroke total and for most strokes under par over 72 holes. The record-low stroke total is 257, and the Euro Tour's 72-hole record for strokes under par is 29-under.

Joe Kirkwood Sr. was the first Australian winner on the PGA Tour and won more than a dozen times in the 1920s and 1930s. But his bigger claim to fame is probably that he was the first golfer to gain fame (and lots of money) by doing trick shots.

What, you just holed a shot from off the green? Oh, you nasty boy! That's how you win the golf bet that goes by the name of Nasties.

Trick question: Tiger Woods doesn't have a handicap. But if he did, it would be an amazingly low one, as we'll see below.

Below is the list of Rookie of the Year Award winners on the PGA Tour. The tour has given the award only since 1990, when Robert Gamez was its first recipient.

Below are the all-time leaders in earnings on the European Tour, the tour's career money list.

What is the lowest 18-hole score ever posted on the European Tour? It's not 58, like on the PGA Tour . And for decades after the tour's 1972 founding, it wasn't 59 like on the LPGA Tour . In European Tour history, no golfer broke 60 for the tour's first 46 years of existence. But finally, in 2018, the tour had its first 59. And that remains the European Tour scoring record.

The "cart fee" at a golf course is the amount of money the course charges a golfer for the use of a riding cart for one round of golf. But how much is that?

The Walker Cup is an international team golf tournament played every two years (in odd-numbered years). The event is played by amateur male golfers, and the two teams are the United States and Great Britain and Ireland. Twenty-six matches are currently played during the tournament (that number varies as you go back in the tournament's history), so 26 points are at stake.

"Invisible Man" is the name of a golf betting game that is a variation on a basic Skins Game. Who is the invisible man in the game? That's Old Man Par, and he wants a cut of your winnings.

A "wraparound schedule" (sometimes called a "wraparound season") is a pro golf tour schedule that begins in one year and finishes in the following year. Such a tour schedule or tour season wraps around from one year to the next.

You know what the Career Grand Slam is: Golfers who've won all four of the professional majors over the course of their careers. But what about the "Career Second Slam"? That refers to golfers who've finished second at all four of the majors. It is sometimes called the Runner-up Slam or Second-Place Slam. So far, nine golfers have achieved that feat in their careers. And it is a feat: You have to be a very good golfer, as the names below will show, to post a runner-up finish at all four majors during your career. Most golfers never finish second at even one major, after all. Interesting fact about the list of Career Second Slam winners: Only one of them (Jack Nicklaus) has also won the Career Grand Slam. The other Career Grand Slam winners, including Tiger Woods, did not or have not yet recorded a second-place in at least one of the majors. List of Golfers With the Career Second Slam Craig Wood Craig Wood was the first to achieve it, doing so when he ...

The Kroger Senior Classic was a golf tournament on the Champions Tour for senior (50-and-over) pros. It was played in Ohio, was three rounds (54 holes) in duration, and took place 15 times beginning in the early 1990s.

Allan Macfie was the winner of the first Amateur Championship (what Americans call the British Amateur) in 1885. Born in England, he played under the Scottish flag. His dedication to practicing his game rates him as the Vijay Singh of late 1800s.