Golf

Golf is a club-and-ball sport. The modern version of the game had its origins in 15th century Scotland, in which players use various clubs to hit a stationary, ‘dimpled’ ball slightly more that 4 centimetres in diameter, into a series of holes, 11 centimetres in diameter, on a course in as few strokes as possible.

Typically, there are 18 holes on a golf course (smaller courses have only 9 holes which golfers go around twice) that has what is referred to as a ‘front nine’ and a ‘back nine’ representing the nine holes moving away from and returning to from the clubhouse respectively. While the balls are all of standard size and rests on a ‘tee’ before being struck or ‘driven’ as it is referred to in golfing parlance, the clubs, on the other hand can broadly be defined as ‘woods’, irons and putters.

A typical hole on a course has a tee-box, a fairway and a green (where the hole marked by a pin with a flag is located) which are interspersed with trees, shrubs, sand bunkers/traps and water hazards. Therefore, it can be quite a challenge to get the ball from the tee-box, through the fairway and eventually on to the green, where the hole is located, in what is called or ‘par’.

The shorter holes are ‘Par 3’ (typically 4 holes), followed by longer ‘Par 4’ (typically 10 holes) holes and then ‘Par 5’ (typically 4 holes) holes on a standard golf course. The terms often heard being used in golf like ‘eagle’ (two-under), ‘birdie’ (one-under) and ‘bogey’ (one-over) and, on very rare occasions, ‘albatross’ (three-under), refer to the number of stokes taken by the golfer over or below par or ‘regulation’ for the hole.

The Golf Section is one of the bigger Sections of the Club with more than 400 active Members participating in Section Events and Interclub Tournaments. The highlight of the SCC Golf calendar is the Annual Golf Tournament usually held on the third quarter of the year. Golfers are usually advised to sign-up for games and/or tours through email and the group WhatsApp.

View the 2020 Calendar for the Golf Section here.