Golf Compendium

The 2026 Curtis Cup Match will be the 44th time this tournament is played. The Curtis Cup is a team, match-play tournament contested by two squads of amateur women golfers, one representing the United States (USA), one representing Great Britain & Ireland (GB&I).

The Curtis Cup is one of the biggest events in women's amateur golf. Here, we'll list the largest margins of victory (which also means the worst losses) in the competition's history, for Team USA/Team GB&I, and also in the individual matches.

Which golf courses have played host to the Solheim Cup? The list of all Solheim Cup courses appears below. This event is played every two years between two squads of women professional golfers: One team represents Europe, the other the United States.

Gotchas (got you's) is the name of a golf game that is best played only by friends — especially the second, more, um, personally invasive version of the game. Basically, Gotchas gives each golfer in your group the right to try to disrupt your swing once or twice during the round.

Jock Hutchison was a two-time major championship winner in the first decade of the PGA Tour's existence. Born in Scotland, he was one of the best golfers in America in the 1910s and 1920s. And he became a naturalized citizen just in time to earn the distinction of first American winner of the British Open. Hutchison finished second in the first-ever PGA Championship, then a couple decades later won the first-ever Senior PGA Championship.

The LIV Golf League was launched in 2022 with eight tournaments. In seasons since, its schedule has included 14 tournaments. So the golfers who lead the tour in career wins so far are still on low numbers — they simply haven't had a lot of tournaments to play yet.

The Eastern Open Invitational was a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour in the 1950s and 1960s. It was played annually in Maryland, for the first nine years and last two years at Mt. Pleasant Municipal in Baltimore, and for three years in-between at Pine Ridge Golf Club in Lutherville, near Towson.

The 2026 Solheim Cup will be the 20th time this competition is played. It features two teams of women professional golfers from the LPGA Tour and Ladies European Tour, one representing the United States, the other Europe. The tournament is played every two years, currently in even-numbered years.

Low Ball-High Ball (also known as High-Low) is a golf format for groups of four golfers. It can played as a tournament format, but is more common as a 2-vs.-2 team game played within a quartet.

What is the tournament record for victories in the Women's British Open? Three. There are two golfers who share the record for most wins in this major championship with three victories each.

Matches at the U.S. Amateur Championship are either 18 holes or 36 holes in scheduled length, depending on the round being played. But which matches in the tournament's history have extended beyond that, into "extra holes," by the largest amount?

What does it mean when a golfer "squares the match," or when someone refers to a golfer "squaring the match" or says something along the lines of "if he wins this hole, he will square the match"? "Square the match" is a match-play term that refers to a tie score, or the act of tying the score in a match.

Low Ball/Low Total is the name of a golf format for 4-person groups that pair off into 2-person teams. On each hole, two points are at stake: one for the lowest individual score among the four golfers, and another for the lowest total score of the two teams.

What are the biggest blowouts in U.S. Amateur Championship history? In an 18-hole match at the U.S. Amateur, 9-and-8 is the largest margin of victory. In a 36-hole match, 14-and-13 is the largest winning margin. And in a championship match, the biggest blowout is a 12-and-11 victory — in the very first U.S. Amateur ever played.

Willie Hunter first became famous as an amateur golfer in his native Great Britain in the 1920s. Then he emigrated to the United States, where he became an influential club pro, serving nearly 30 years at Riviera Country Club. He defeated Bobby Jones in match play and also won a handful of PGA Tour titles in the 1920s and 1930s.

A funny thing happened on the PGA Tour in 2010: A loophole in the rules was discovered — remembered, actually — and a handful of golfers began using 25-year-old wedges in order to exploit it.

You've probably heard of the long-drive contest as a fund-raiser at charity golf events: Golfers buy the chance to take a swing or swings and the one who hits it the farthest is the winner. But those contests use golf balls. What would you call such a contest that substituted a marshmallow for the golf ball?

The West Virginia LPGA Classic was a professional golf tournament on the LPGA Tour in the 1970s and 1980s. Known as the Wheeling LPGA Classic in its early years, it was played 11 times.

You might have heard of golf games with names like Trash, Junk, Dots or Garbage. Those are catch-all games — games that combine many different side games, sometimes dozens of them, to be played simultaneously. Legends is a similar catch-all format, but one that is smaller in size: Legends combines side games that are named after golf greats.

Embed from Getty Images Bernard Hunt was one of the leading British pro golfers from the early 1950s through the early 1970s. He won dozens of tournaments, mostly in the U.K. but also in Continental Europe and elsewhere. And Hunt had a very good singles record in the Ryder Cup, which he played eight times as part of Team Great Britain & Ireland.

"Lagging" is the name of a golf game in which every golfer playing, no matter how much better or worse one might be than another, has a real chance at winning. Lagging is all about being closest to the pin on each green — but only after all balls are on the green.

Which golfers in the history of the Walker Cup won the most points for their team? Below is the list of all Walker Cup golfers with at least nine career points earned in the competition.