The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of weekly golf tournaments for elite female professional golfers from around the world.
The United States Open Championship, commonly known as the U.S. Open, is the annual open national championship of golf in the United States. It is the third of the four major championships in golf, and is on the official schedule of both the PGA Tour and the European Tour. Since 1898 the competition has been 72 holes of stroke play, with the winner being the player with the lowest total number of strokes. It is staged by the United States Golf Association (USGA) in mid-June, scheduled so that, if there are no weather delays, the final round is played on the third Sunday. The U.S. Open is staged at a variety of courses, set up in such a way that scoring is very difficult, with a premium placed on accurate driving. As of 2022, the U.S. Open awards a $17.5 million purse, the largest of all four major championships.
The PGA Championship is an annual golf tournament conducted by the Professional Golfers' Association of America. It is one of the four men's major championships in professional golf.
Jack William Nicklaus, nicknamed The Golden Bear, is an American retired professional golfer and golf course designer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest golfers of all time. He won 117 professional tournaments in his career. Over a quarter-century, he won a record 18 major championships, three more than second-placed Tiger Woods. Nicklaus focused on the major championships—the Masters Tournament, U.S. Open, Open Championship and PGA Championship—and played a selective schedule of regular PGA Tour events. He competed in 164 major tournaments, more than any other player, and finished with 73 PGA Tour victories, third behind Sam Snead (82) and Woods (82).
Sir Robert James Charles is a New Zealand professional golfer. His achievements over five decades rank him among the most successful left-handed golfers of all time, being the first lefty to win a golf major, winning more than 70 titles, and beating his age twice during a tournament as a 71-year-old.
The European Tour, legally the PGA European Tour is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European Senior Tour and the developmental Challenge Tour; the second tier of men’s professional golf in Europe. The tour's headquarters are at the Wentworth Club in Virginia Water, Surrey, England. The European Tour was established by the British-based Professional Golfers' Association through the 1970s, and responsibility was transferred to an independent PGA European Tour organisation in 1984.
The World Golf Hall of Fame is located at World Golf Village near St. Augustine, Florida, in the United States, and it is unusual among sports halls of fame in that a single site honors both men and women. It is supported by a consortium of 26 golf organizations from all over the world.
Professional golf tours are the means by which otherwise unconnected professional golf tournaments are organised into a regular schedule. There are separate tours for men and women with each tour being based in a specific geographical region, although some tours may hold tournaments in other parts of the world.
The Ladies European Tour is a professional golf tour for women which was founded in 1978. It is based at Buckinghamshire Golf Club near London in England. Like many UK-based sports organisations it is a company limited by guarantee, a legal structure which enables it to focus on maximising returns to its members through prize money, rather than on making profits for investors. The tour is run by a Board of Directors and a Players' Council. Most of the players on the tour are European, with members from more than 40 countries internationally. The tour operates tournaments across five continents.
Amy Alcott is an American professional golfer and golf course designer. She became a member of the LPGA Tour in 1975, and won five major championships and 29 LPGA Tour events in all. She is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. She was a part of the architectural team that designed the golf course for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
A professional golfer is somebody who receives payments or financial rewards in the sport of golf that are directly related to their skill or reputation. Also a person who earns money by teaching or playing golf is traditionally considered a "golf pro," most of whom are teachers/coaches. The professional golfer status is reserved for people who play, rather than teach, golf for a career. In golf, the distinction between amateurs and professionals is rigorously maintained. An amateur who breaches the rules of amateur status may lose their amateur status. A golfer who has lost their amateur status may not play in amateur competitions until amateur status has been reinstated; a professional may not play in amateur tournaments unless the Committee is notified, acknowledges and confirms the participation. It is very difficult for a professional to regain their amateur status; simply agreeing not to take payment for a particular tournament is not enough. A player must apply to the governing body of the sport to have amateur status reinstated.
In professional golf, the term qualifying school is used for the annual qualifying tournaments for leading golf tours such as the U.S.-based PGA and LPGA Tours and the European Tour. A fixed number of players in the event win membership of the tour for the following season, otherwise known as a "tour card", meaning that they can play in most of the tour's events without having to qualify. They join the leaders on the previous year's money list/order of merit and certain other exempt players as members of the tour.
The Swedish Golf Tour (SGT) for men is a domestic professional golf tour, established in 1984 and operated by Svenska Golftourerna AB, owned equally by the Swedish Golf Federation and the PGA of Sweden. The tour is designed to help Swedish golfers to reach the standard of play needed to qualify for the European Tour or the Challenge Tour.
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
The PGA Tour is the organizer of the main professional golf tours played by men in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also known as the PGA Tour, as well as PGA Tour Champions and the Korn Ferry Tour, as well as PGA Tour Canada, PGA Tour Latinoamérica, and PGA Tour China. The PGA Tour is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, a suburb southeast of Jacksonville. Originally established by the Professional Golfers' Association of America, it was spun off in December 1968 into a separate organization for tour players, as opposed to club professionals, the focal members of today's PGA of America. Originally the "Tournament Players Division", it adopted the name "PGA Tour" in 1975 and runs most of the week-to-week professional golf events on the tournament known as the PGA Tour, including The Players Championship, hosted at TPC Sawgrass; the FedEx Cup, with its finale at The Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club; and the biennial Presidents Cup. The remaining events on the PGA Tour are run by different organizations, as are the U.S.-based LPGA Tour for women and other men's and women's professional tours around the world.
The Volvo Golf Champions was an annual 72-hole stroke play men's professional golf tournament on the European Tour. Following the inaugural tournament in the Kingdom of Bahrain in 2011, the 2012 event was moved to the Southern hemisphere and the Fancourt Golf Resort in South Africa. In 2013 and 2014, it was played at the Durban Country Club in Durban, South Africa. The tournament was a unique "Tournament of Champions" style event which saw European Tour winners compete together with leading amateurs on one day of the tournament.
PGA Tour Champions is a men's professional senior golf tour, administered as a branch of the PGA Tour.
Golf in the United States is played by about 25 million people, or 8% of the population.
The U.S. Senior Women's Open is one of fourteen U.S. national golf championships organized by the United States Golf Association. The newest USGA championship, it is open to women whose 50th birthday falls on or before the first day of competition and hold a handicap index not exceeding 7.4. It is part of the Legends of the LPGA Tour. The inaugural championship was held in 2018 at the Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton, Illinois.
