Golf Compendium

What is the longest, officially measured drive in PGA Tour history? What are the longest drives struck on the PGA Tour each year? We can answer those questions thanks to the tour's own shot-tracking system.

The golf game named "16 Points" is for a group of four golfers. On each hole, 16 points are divided among those four players based on their scores. (Note that this game is also sometimes called "Sixteen" or "Sixteens.")

Bob Rosburg played on the PGA Tour from the 1950s into the 1970s. He was known for a brilliant short game and for winning a major championship. Later, Rosburg became even better-known as a golf broadcaster. He pioneered a new role on golf telecasts, and ultimately appeared on golf broadcasts for 30 years.

What is the largest playoff that has ever taken place on the LPGA Tour? That is, the most golfers who participated in a playoff at one of the tour's official events?

The Jamie Farr Toledo Classic was a professional golf tournament on the LPGA Tour that was played over four decades. It was known by multiple names over that time, including Marathon Classic (full list of names below). Actor Jamie Farr's name was part of the tournament name for nearly 30 of those years.

If you play in a golf tournament that is a fund-raiser for a charity or cause, you might run into something called the Cone Game. It's a tournament add-on that is entirely optional for golfers, but that helps the tournament organizers increase the amount of money they can raise.

How do you sometimes feel at the end of a poor day of play on the golf course? Sometimes you just feel like packing it all in.

Some charity golf tournaments will include a "circle hole." What is that? The gist of it is this: On the one, designated hole, golfers will have a chance to buy extra strokes to try to get their ball within a circle drawn on the green around the flagstick.

The WGC Match Play Championship was a professional golf tournament played on the PGA Tour from the late 1990s into the early 2020s. It was the only match-play tournament on the PGA Tour during those years. This tournament was part of the World Golf Championships (WGC) series of limited-field events, and went by many different names over its lifespan. Those included:

If you are the chairman of the golf hole, and you win that hole, you also win points from each of the other three players in your group. But before you can win those points, you first have to win the right to sit "in the chair."

The Scrambling statistic in professional golf, also known as Scrambling Percentage, tells us how good golfers are at chipping it close and sinking the following putt. And the golfers on the following list are the ones who led the Champions Tour in Scrambling at the end of each season.

Bingle Bangle Bungle is the name of a popular golf game within a group of golfers, best for groups of four but playable by twosomes or groups of three, as well. On each hole, three points are at stake: the bingle point, bangle point and bungle point. So let's explain what those are and how to play the game.

Posting Top 10 finishes throughout the year on any golf tour is a sign of a golfer who is playing consistently well. And it's a great way to fill up a bank account. Below is the list of senior (50-and-over) golfers who have led the Champions Tour in Top 10 finishes each year since that tour's founding in 1980.

Cesar Sanudo was a professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour from the late 1960s into the 1980s. His competitive career was nondescript except for one big distinction: Sanudo was the first golfer from Mexico to win on the PGA Tour.

The BellSouth Senior Classic was a golf tournament on the Champions Tour (Senior Tour) played from the mid-1990s into the mid-2000s. It was played in Nashville, Tennessee.

A golf tournament's "cut" is the reduction in the number of players after (typically) two rounds of play. In other words, the golfers scoring worst after two rounds are cut from the tournament, with only the better-scorers to that point continuing to the tournament's finish.

Canadian Foursomes is the name of golf competition format for 2-person teams. It boils down to this: Canadian Foursomes is a scramble off the tee, then alternate shot into the hole.

We often, during broadcasts of professional golf tournaments, hear the announcers talk about "the cutline moving," or say that "the cutline just moved to ..." Do you understand what that means? We'll explain it here.

In the golf game called Bus Driver, the bus driver is the one you don't want to be. In this game, the "bus driver" is the golfer who tees off last on the ninth and 18th holes, and that is also the one who has to pay the other players in the group.

Jo Ann Prentice was a winner on the LPGA Tour in the 1960s and 1970s. One of her victories was in a tournament that later became a major championship. She was also involved in the longest sudden-death playoff in LPGA history.

Being selected as the site of a USGA championship tournament is a major feather in the cap for any golf course. And the USGA has its favorites, certain clubs and courses to which the organization has returned many times. That's what this article is about: those golf courses that have hosted the most USGA championships.