Golf Compendium

Buzzard is a slang term in golf that means a score of 2-over par on a hole. Buzzard, in other words, is a synonym for a double bogey.

There are four, individual USGA championships for men that stand out from the rest, four tournaments that span a golfer's competition lifetime: the U.S. Junior Amateur, the U.S. Amateur, the U.S. Open and the U.S. Senior Open. Have any golfers won all four of these championships?

Ossie Pickworth was one of the winningest golfers in the Australian pro ranks in the late 1940s, early 1950s, but he almost never played outside of his home country. He was also one of the most colorful players, a super-fast-playing, smooth-swinging man from Manly with a cigarette dangling and a colorful (sometimes off-color) quip at the ready.

Bridge is the name of a golf game that, like the card game bridge, begins with an opening bid. There ends the similarity between card bridge and golf Bridge, however. In the golf game Bridge, golfers bid on the number of strokes they think they can play each hole in.

Who are the oldest winners in the history of the PGA Tour? So far, only eight golfers in tour history over the age of 50 have won an official PGA Tour tournament. There are several Hall of Famers on that list, too, and the oldest of them all was also one of the greatest of them all.

What was the golf club called a "brassie"? It was the equivalent of a modern fairway wood (most often associated with a 2-wood) that was used by golfers starting in the late 1800s.

Dawn Coe-Jones was a longtime member of the LPGA Tour and one of the leaders of a wave of Canadian golfers who arrived on the LPGA in the early to mid-1980s. She won multiple times on tour, but passed away in her 50s due to cancer.

"Bite! Bite!" Golfers sometimes yell that at a golf ball in flight. Or a television announcer might say, "She's going to have to get this one to bite fast if she's playing to that part of the green." What does "bite" mean in golf?

The Ampol Tournament was a men's professional golf tournament played annually (sometimes twice annually) in Australia from the late 1940s to the late 1950s. It was named for its title sponsor Ampol, a petroleum company.

"Best At Something" is the name of a points-based game for a group of golfers in which all the golfers are playing their own golf balls throughout. (It can't be played with, say, alternate shot.) The game awards points to golfers for positive achievements, and subtracts points for negative achievements.

Where is Sophie Sandolo today? Sandolo was a cast member on Big Break Ka'anapali , which was the ninth season of the Golf Channel series The Big Break . She made it all the way to the end, too, before losing in the championship match.

This edition of the Curtis Cup was originally scheduled to be played in 2020. However, it was postponed by one year due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. The 2021 Curtis Cup was the 41st time this competition between teams of amateur women golfers representing Great Britain & Ireland (GB&I) and the United States (USA) was played. Following Team USA's victory, the all-time standings were 30 wins for the United States, eight wins for Team GB&I, with three ties.

Bag Raid is the name of a game for two golfers who are playing match play, and it forces those golfers to get creative as clubs are removed from their bags. In short, in Bag Raid the golfer who loses a hole gets to remove one golf club from her opponent's bag.

Where is Kim Welch today? Welch was the champion of Season 9 of the Golf Channel series, The Big Break . That season, which was named Big Break Ka'anapali , ended with Welch winning the title in the 18-hole championship match.

Lou Graham was a steady if unglamorous golfer on the PGA Tour from the 1960s into the 1980s, with a game built around straight driving and course management. "If you try to fight the course, it will beat you," was one of his principles of play. And that served him well in one of the biggest tournaments in golf — the U.S. Open, which he won once.

Big Break Myrtle Beach was the 22nd season of the Golf Channel series The Big Break , in which a cast of golfers competed in challenges and matches, with one eliminated each week. Big Break Myrtle Beach aired late in 2014, with the series premiere televised on October 7, 2014.

The terms "back door" and "back door putt" refer to the back lip of the cup as you are putting toward the hole on the putting green. When a ball rolls toward the cup and falls in off the back edge, it went in the back door. The golfer who putted that ball just made a back-door putt.

The Ryder Cup has been around since 1927, pitting Team USA first again Team Great Britain, then Great Britain & Ireland, and today Team Europe. And this international match play extravaganza has visited many great golf courses around Britain, Europe and the United States.

"Fivesome" is a golf term that means five golfers are playing together as a group. Different golfers, and golf courses, have different attitudes about fivesomes. What is key to know about them is that many golf courses don't allow golfers to play in groups of five.

The Rubber City Open was a golf tournament played on the PGA Tour in the 1950s. It was played in Akron, Ohio, the city nicknamed "Rubber City" because it was the hometown of Goodyear and had a long history of rubber the automobile tire manufacturing.

Once upon a time, the USGA and the R&A, the two governing bodies of golf, had different rules concerning the sizes of golf balls. The USGA's mandated minimum size was ever-so-slightly larger than the R&A's mandated minimum size. So the USGA's ball was sometimes called the big ball, and the R&A's the small ball. More often, they were simply referred to as the American ball and the British ball.

On a golf course you'll often hear golfers ask, "Who's away?" or hear one say to another, "You're away." What does that mean, anyway? If you're a beginner you might not yet be familiar with the golf usage of "away." And here's what it means in that golf usage:

The United States Golf Association, or USGA, conducts many championship tournaments every year. Which golfers have won the most over their careers? Two legends share the all-time record with nine USGA championships each.

An "air shot" is something that no golfer wants, because if you just had an air shot, you missed the golf ball entirely. That's right, an "air shot" is a swing and a miss.

The U.S. Women's Amateur Championship, conducted by the United States Golf Association (USGA), is the pre-eminent amateur tournament in the United States for women golfers. It is also ranked by most golf observers as the most-important tournament for women amateurs (the British Women's Championship being the other "amateur major" for women) around the world. The U.S. Women's Amateur was first played in 1895, and the full list of champions appears below.

Tommy Horton was an English pro golfer who won tournaments before the creation of the European Tour, and also after. He was a Ryder Cup player and a respected and well-liked player behind the scenes of British and European golf for decades. He also was the first star of the newly created European Seniors Tour.

How low can they go? On the LPGA Tour they can go very low, indeed. The tour's all-time record for most strokes under par in a tournament is 31-under-par, established in 2018. Let's take a look a that record, plus the list of the lowest scores in relation to par in LPGA history.

Derby, also called Horse Race, is the name of a golf game in which 19 golfers tee off on the first hole, then one golfer per hole is eliminated. By the 18th hole, only two golfers will be left teeing off, and the one who wins that hole wins the Horse Race, or Derby.

Every other year at the Ryder Cup, the two team captains are helped by assistant captains of their own choosing. Those Ryder Cup assistants today are called "vice captains," and in recent Cups their ranks have swelled to around five per side.

Mary Lou Dill was a U.S. Women's Amateur champion from Texas who bypassed playing on the LPGA Tour to focus instead on being a teaching professional. In that role, she helped pioneer video instruction.

The list of Ryder Cup captains goes back to 1927, when the biennial tournament began. Every other year, the best male, professional golfers from Europe and the United States face off in this match play tournament, each team led by its captain.

The Daily Telegraph Foursomes Tournament was played in England in the late 1940s to early 1950s. It had an interesting format: a touring professional partnered with a top amateur.

Oozles are good and foozles are bad. That's the first thing you need to know about the golf betting game named Oozles and Foozles. It's a game that focuses on the golfer who is closest-to-the-hole, and who wins money — that golfer or the other golfers in the group — depends on whether that golfer gets in the hole in fewer than three putts, or in three putts or more.

Reg Horne was an English golfer who won tournaments in the 1940s and 1950s. He also came close to winning the British Open, finishing a stroke out of a playoff after late troubles in 1947.

In the history of the Ryder Cup, there are (so far) seven golfers who've each lost at least six singles matches. And the recordholder? That is Christy O'Connor, who, over the course of his long Ryder Cup career, lost 10 singles matches.

"Wow, you really foozled that one," is something no golfer ever wants to hear on the golf course. And most golfers probably haven't heard it — "foozle" has always been a golf slang term used more in some places than others, and it's not used anywhere today as much as it once was.

Johnny Goodman grew up in extreme poverty, learned golf in the caddie ranks, then rode his short, compact swing to glory: U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur victories. He was the last amateur golfer to win the U.S. Open (which he accomplished before he had even won the Amateur), and he first came to fame with a shocking, first-round upset of Bobby Jones.

The Patty Berg Classic was a golf tournament on the LPGA Tour in the 1970s that was played near St. Paul, Minnesota. The event paid homage to LPGA legend Patty Berg, who was born in Minneapolis.

Jerilyn Britz played the LPGA Tour from the mid-1970s into the late 1990s. And while she didn't win a lot, she did win the big one: Britz is a U.S. Women's Open champion.

Which golfer holds the record for most wins in singles matches at the Ryder Cup? The all-time Ryder Cup record for most wins in singles matches is six, and that record is shared by the seven golfers listed below.

The 2018 Ryder Cup was the 42nd time this match play tournament between teams representing Europe and the United States was played. Following the European victory, the all-time standings were 26 wins for Team USA, 14 for Team Europe, with two draws.

The 2016 Ryder Cup was the 41st time this match play tournament between teams representing Europe and the United States was played. Following the American victory, the all-time standings were 26 wins for Team USA, 13 for Team Europe, with two draws.

The Farmers Charity Classic (originally known as the Greater Grand Rapids Open) was a golf tournament on the Champions Tour. It took place from the mid-1980s into the early 2000s. It was always played in or near Grand Rapids, Michigan.

"Nike Tour" was the name of the PGA Tour's developmental tour (what today, at the time of this writing, is called the Korn Ferry Tour ) for much of the 1990s. The second-level men's professional golf tour in the United States had the name "Nike Tour" from 1993 through 1999.

Jesse Guilford was a star of American amateur golf in the 1910s and 1920s. He won a U.S. Amateur championship, played in several of the earliest Walker Cups, and was known as one of the longest hitters in the amateur game.

The 2014 Ryder Cup was the 40th time this match play tournament between teams representing Europe and the United States was played. Following the European victory, the all-time standings were 25 wins for Team USA, 13 for Team Europe, with two draws.

The Corpus Christi Civitan Open was a 54-hole, stroke-play golf tournament on the LPGA Tour in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was played in Corpus Christi, Texas.

You know those little movements of the golf club that some golfers make as they set up over a shot — the to-and-fro of the club, away from the ball, toward the ball, maybe away and back again? Those are waggles.

The 2012 Ryder Cup was the 39th time this match play tournament between teams representing Europe and the United States was played. Following the European victory, the all-time standings were 25 wins for Team USA, 12 for Team Europe, with two draws.

"Nationwide Tour" was the name of the developmental tour owned and operated by the PGA Tour (what is, at the time of this writing, now named the Korn Ferry Tour ) for about 10 years. The PGA Tour's feeder tour took on the name of Nationwide Tour in 2003, when Nationwide Insurance replaced Buy.com as the title sponsor.

George Bayer was a four-time PGA Tour winner in the 1950s and 1960s, but he was much more famous for his drives than his all-around game: He is considered one of the longest — perhaps the longest — drivers in PGA Tour history. He also once scored 17 on a hole after he chipped the ball down the fairway with a 7-iron.

The 2010 Ryder Cup was the 38th time this match play tournament between teams representing Europe and the United States was played. Following the European victory, the all-time standings were 25 wins for Team USA, 11 for Team Europe, with two draws.