Golf Compendium

Ross Somerville, often known by the nickname Sandy, was a Canadian amateur golfer who won many provincial and national titles in his home country from the 1920s into the 1960s. He has the distinction of being first at a couple notable achievements: Somerville was the first Canadian golfer to win the U.S. Amateur Championship; and he scored the first hole-in-one in the Masters Tournament.

Sam Snead has a special place in the history of The Masters Tournament: He was the first winner presented with the green jacket. And he won three Masters tournaments total. Below is the list of Snead's finishes every year he played the tournament.

Below you'll find the list of all the golfers who have earned low amateur honors at The Masters Tournament, one of the major championships of men's professional golf.

Augusta National Golf Club is a place, and The Masters Tournament an event, brimming over with history. One way to sift through some of that history is to look at the firsts — the important steps that have been taken in the evolution of the club and tournament.

What is the golf game named "Hogan"? It's a points game the rewards accuracy: hitting fairways, hitting greens, getting it close to the hole. And yes, of course, the Hogan game is named after Ben Hogan, who was a precise shotmaker tee-to-green.

Who is the youngest winner of The Masters in tournament history? And just how many youngsters (25 and under) have won this particular major championship over its history? It's time to find out.

Bob Ferguson was a Scottish golfer in the 1800s who won the Open Championship three consecutive years in the early 1880s. He played with and against the Morrises, among others, but his playing days were curtailed by health problems.

The 2013 Masters will always be about Adam Scott's victory, but also a little bit about the controversial Tiger Woods ruling . Woods took a bad drop and then, the following day, was docked two strokes for playing from the wrong place. He could have been disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard, but wasn't, thanks to a ruling by the Masters' rules committee, chaired by Fred Ridley. Ridley was all over TV on the Saturday of the tournament explaining and defending the ruling. Return with me now to the 1981 Masters to consider another Augusta National ruling on a bad drop.

Have any golfers won The Masters Tournament — one of the major championships of men's pro golf and probably the most famous golf tournament going — the very first time they played in the tournament? Yes.

How many times has a golfer won on the PGA Tour and Champions Tour in the same calendar year? And who did it first? The answer to the second question is: Raymond Floyd. As for the first question: Only three golfers have pulled off this feat.

Do par-6 holes exist on golf courses around the world? Yes, but they are not common. How long does a hole have to be to be called a par-6? Nearly 700 yards for men, nearly 600 yards for women — but there are other factors besides length that determine what the par rating of a golf hole is.

Paul Harney was, for a time in the mid-1960s and early 1970s, considered one of the best-playing club pros in the world. That's because he also played part-time on the PGA Tour (after beginning his career as a full-time player) and pulled off multiple victories.

When you see a local golf tournament called a Jack and Jill, that just means that it involves men and women partnering as teammates or team members.

How many golfers in the history of the Champions Tour have won the Senior Career Grand Slam? Not many! So far, only two. And one of those two golfers won five different senior majors, while the other only won four different senior majors.

You join up with a group of golfers on the first tee, and they tell you they are playing Greenies today. Do you want to join the game? Well, you better know what the Greenies side game or betting game is, then.

A score of 59 is no longer the record-low on the PGA Tour, but it remains a magical number in golf — playing a round in fewer than 60 strokes. So how do you think the golf betting game known as "59" works? Let's find out.

"Goat track" is golf slang for a poorly maintained (or minimally maintained) golf course. It is mostly used as an insult, but sometimes can be applied affectionately by golfers who aren't put off by rough conditions.

Margie Masters was a golfer who was a winner on the LPGA Tour exactly once. But she holds a significant place in the story of LPGA and Australian golf nonetheless: She has the distinction of being not only the first Australian winner on the U.S. LPGA, but the first golfer from Australia to be a member of the LPGA Tour.

If you signed up for a golf tournament called a Five of Clubs tournament, what would expect the format to be? You might guess that you'd be allowed to use only five golf clubs to play the tournament. And you'd be right.

Eliminator is a golf tournament format for 4-person teams, and is a best-ball format with a twist: As a player's score is used for the team score, he is eliminated from counting as the team score on ensuing holes, until only one player is left whose score is eligible to be used. Then the process starts over.

Arnold Palmer won 62 times on the PGA Tour in his long and glorious career, and more than one-quarter of those wins happened as a result of playoffs. Of course, Palmer lost in playoffs, too. So that's what we are going to examine: Arnie's playoff record.

You know what a hook shot is in golf, right? Well, a duck hook is a really bad hook. But that's glib, so let's go a little deeper.

When you hear the term "double cut" applied to a golf tournament — "This tournament has a double cut" or "uses a double cut" — what does that mean? It means that instead of having just a single cut, the tournament uses two cuts.

Sometimes a golf course will double-cut its putting greens. What does that mean? Well, it means exactly what it sounds like: cutting (mowing) the putting greens twice as often as normal. Which is to say: mowing the greens twice in the same day rather than just once.

The 2023 Solheim Cup was the 18th time the competition was played. It is a biennial, team, match play tournament between squads of professional women golfers, one for the United States and one for Europe. The 2023 match was halved, so Europe, as the defending champion, retained the Cup. That made the all-time standings 10 wins for Team USA, seven wins for Team Europe, with one tie.

"Daytona" is the name of a golf betting game for two teams of two players each (two vs. two). The key to Daytona (which is also known by the name Las Vegas) is on each hole, the two golfers on a side don't combine their scores together, but rather pair their scores to form a new number.

The Thunderbird Invitational was a golf tournament on the PGA Tour that was played seven times in the 1950s. It always took place at Thunderbird Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California.

A "daily fee golf course" (or just "daily fee course") is a golf course that is open to the general public but that is privately owned and operated.

Born in Scotland, Willie Anderson became the first golf star in the United States. From the late 1800s until his untimely death in 1910, Anderson won big tournaments and set new records. He was the first golfer to win the U.S. Open four times, and remains the only golfer who has won it three consecutive years. Anderson also was the first golfer to finish below 300 in a 72-hole pro tournament.

Has any golfer won four consecutive major championships? The answer is yes: Three golfers have achieved that feat. But none of them won the grand slam. The grand slam is winning all four professional majors in the same year. What we are talking about is winning four majors in a row, whether those wins happened in the same year or not.

What is a concession in golf? In match play (not stroke play) the option exists under the Rules of Golf for one golfer or one side to concede a putt, a hole or even a match to another golfer.

When golfers refer to the "grand slam," they are talking about winning all of the professional major championships in a single calendar year. But the meaning of "grand slam" has changed in the course of golf history, and there are other permutations of the term, too.

Which golfer, from age 30 through age 39, won the most golf tournaments on the PGA Tour? That's the question we answer here.

"Appearances" is the name of a side bet in golf that pays out to the golfer who tees off first on the most holes during the round. Teeing off first is determined by which golfer had the lowest score on the preceding hole.

Best Nines is the name of a golf game for two golfers playing one-on-one, or four golfers playing two-vs.-two. It is essentially three games (or three bets, if you want to phrase it that way) in one: the golfers or sides compete to win the front nine, to win the back nine, and to win the overall 18.

Jack Nicklaus had a good record in playoffs on the PGA Tour, as you'd expect. But some of you probably expect his playoff record to better than it actually was. In this article, we'll go over that record: every PGA Tour playoff Nicklaus played, who was in it with him, and the outcomes of them all.

Have you ever heard of an old golf club called the "mid iron" or "mid-iron"? It has nothing to do with the clubs that today we refer to collectively as the mid irons or middle irons — that grouping of several irons that falls in-between the long irons and short irons .

John Barnum was a part-time tour golfer in the 1950s and 1960s who, at a late age, finally won a PGA Tour tournament. And although that was his only win on the top-level golf tour, he set a tour record there and also achieved another notable first.

The Cajun Classic Open Invitational was a 72-hole, stroke play golf tournament that was part of the PGA Tour from the late 1950s to the late 1960s. It was played in Louisiana.

Which golfer has the distinction of being the oldest ever at the time he earned his first PGA Tour victory? And just how old was he? The answers to those questions are: John Barnum and 51 years old.

When you hear a golfer (or a golf announcer on television or streaming service) talk about the "high side" or "pro side" of the hole, what does that mean? We often hear the term as part of the expression "he missed it on the high side," or "if you're going to err, err on the pro side." So let's go into this a bit and explain how golfers use these terms.

Buddy Allin was a decorated soldier in the U.S. Army who returned home from war and went almost directly to the top golf tour. In the early to mid-1970s, he won five times on the PGA Tour.