Know Your Golf Course

Almost all sports channels on the television set and the newspapers keep bombarding you with those lush green lawns and a solitary kind of game being played on them. You know the game is called golf. You know all about Jack Nicholas, Tiger Woods, and Jeeves Milkha Singh. And you'd like to know more about the game itself. You can begin with the golf course, the field on which the game is played. All amateurs start somewhere. Nowhere are you more comfortable then at your local golf course.

A golf course is usually between 4500-6500 m in length and is divided into 18 separate holes. Each one of these holes measures between 90-550 m. and has the following features:

• A flat ground from which the first stroke is executed.
• A fairway of grasses around 27-90 m wide and extending up to the green or brown grass area.
• Green or brown areas with a hole in each one of them. Each hole measures 108mm in diameter and is marked by a flag.

In addition, the architect who designs the course introduces features like streams, ditches, sand filled bunkers, ponds, trees, shrubs and other natural or created hazards offering a fair degree of challenge to golfers of every level of skill.

From the golfing point of view the architect should provide three or four par 3 and par 5 holes and the rest par 4s. These should be of varying lengths, running in various directions thereby subjecting the player to different wind conditions.

The distances for determining par are as follows:

1. Par 3 is around 228.6 m
2. Par 4 is 223-434.3 m
3. Par 5 is above 435 m

If you feel your local golf course is too easy, then venture to other golf courses to improve your skills.