Hitting a GOlf Balls is very important

To hit the ball, the club is swung at the motionless ball wherever it has come to rest from a side stance. Many golf shots make the ball travel through the air (carry) and roll out for some more distance (roll).

Putts and short chips are ideally played without much movement of the body, but most other golf shots are played using variants of the full golf swing. The full golf swing itself is used in tee and fairway shots.

A full swing is a coiling and uncoiling of the body aimed at accelerating the club head to a great speed. For a right-handed golfer, it consists of a backswing to the right, a downswing to the left (during which the ball is hit), and a follow through. The fastest recorded golf club head speed is 217 miles per hour (349 km/h).

The full golf swing is a complex motion that is often difficult to learn. It is common for beginners to spend some time practicing the very basics before playing their first ball on a course. Generally, even once a golfer has attained professional status, a coach is still necessary in order for the player to maintain good fundamentals. Every shot is a compromise between length and precision, and long shots are often less precise than short ones. A longer shot may result in a better score if it helps reduce the total number of strokes for a given hole, but the benefit may be more than outweighed by additional strokes or penalties if a ball is lost, out of bounds, or comes to rest on difficult ground. Therefore, a skilled golfer must assess the quality of his or her shots in a particular situation in order to judge whether the possible benefits of aggressive play are worth the risks.

Professioanl Golfers' Association (PGA)

Professional Golfers' Association, (with or without the apostrophe), is the usual term for a professional association in men's golf. It is often abbreviated to PGA. There are several PGAs around the world, including:

1. Professional Golfers' Association ( Great Britain and Ireland )

2. Professional Golfers' Association of America

The women's equivalent is Ladies Professional Golf Association, commonly abbreviated to LPGA. The USA association is called the LPGA. Other women's bodies have territorial designations in their names, eg LPGA of Japan, LPGA of Korea.

The organisations which run the world's two leading professional golf tours have the initials PGA in their names, but they are now independent of the Professional Golfers' Associations which established them:

• PGA Tour(which runs the PGA Tour, Champions Tour and Nationwide Tour)
• PGA European Tour (which runs the European Tour, Challenge Tour and European Seniors Tour)

Originally, PGA's were the central bodies for all forms of professional golf in their territories, but now some of them, including those of the United States and the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, are focused on the needs of the majority of professional golfers who work as club or teaching professionals, as opposed to being tournament professionals.

Colin Montgomerie one shot back at Hong Kong Open

HONG KONG (AP) — Louis Oosthuizen shot an 8-under 62 — one shy of the course record — to claim a share of the lead with English pair Oliver Wilson and Oliver Fisher and Thailand's Chawalit Plaphol after Friday's second round at the $2.5 million Hong Kong Open.

The 26-year-old South African moved to a two-round total of 8-under 132 after sinking eight birdies with no bogeys in the European Tour and Asian Tour event at the Hong Kong Golf Club.

"My iron shots were much better today and I got it closer, which made it easier to make the birdies," Oosthuizen said, adding that he's worked on his putting.

Wilson and Plaphol matched their 66s of the first round to stay even with Oosthuizen.

The 28-year-old Wilson has been on the cusp of success, shining in Ryder Cup play and notching eight second-place finishes on the European Tour. He lost a playoff against No. 2-ranked Sergio Garcia at the HSBC Champions two weeks ago.

"I'm on track. I feel like everything is moving forward, and one or two wins on my C.V. and I would feel pretty comfortable that everything is exactly where I want it," Wilson said.

Wilson's compatriot Fisher shot a second-round 65. The 20-year-old became familiar with the Hong Kong course by playing here as part of Nick Faldo's junior competition series.

Faldo himself, a six-time major champion, shot a 70 Friday to finish at 2-over, missing the cut which was set at even par.

Veteran Scot Colin Montgomerie shot a 65 and is one shot behind the co-leaders in fifth place, along with Italy's Francesco Molinari (67), Sweden's Johan Edfors (65), Australia's Marcus Fraser (66) and South African Richard Sterne (69).

Sterne was co-leader after the first round with China's Liang Wen-chong, who was two strokes further back after a 71 on Friday.

The 45-year-old Montgomerie said he is well suited by shorter courses like Hong Kong that value accuracy over power, compared to "these American-style bombers-type courses that we tend to play a lot of."

Pleased to be on the leaderboard, the eight-time European Tour Order of Merit winner said "it's been too long, and it's nice to see it there."

Lurking in the background at 5-under are two-time major winners John Daly and Bernhard Langer.

Langer, a two-time U.S. Masters champion, shot a 67 while Daly finished with his second consecutive 68 to qualify for what are becoming increasingly rare weekend appearances.

Defending champion Miguel Angel Jimenez and South African Rory Sabbatini just made the cut after shooting 69s in the 50th edition of the Hong Kong event.

Fresh from a win in Singapore that made him the first player to top $1 million in earnings on the Asian Tour in one season, Indian Jeev Milkha Singh also had an impressive round, shooting a 63 to move to tie for tenth place.

Former U.S. Open champion Michael Campbell dropped out before the second round with a lingering right shoulder injury.

Sorenstam has some work to do at ADT Championship

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Annika Sorenstam has enjoyed plenty of great rounds at Trump International, a course where she won three times in a four-year span earlier this decade.

If she doesn't rekindle that magic Friday, her storied career could come to an abrupt end.

Sorenstam shot a 2-over par 74 in Thursday's opening round of the ADT Championship, good for a tie for 23rd in the 32-woman event, her final LPGA Tour appearance before ``stepping away'' from competitive golf. The field gets trimmed to 16 after Friday's play, meaning Sorenstam has some work remaining just to reach the weekend.

``I was a little nervous. I feel like I'm playing good. I'm excited about the week,'' the LPGA and World Golf Hall of Famer said. ``But I'm telling you, nothing went my way today.''

Indeed, it was not a dominant round for the woman who once controlled her sport. She went barefoot into the water on the par-3 seventh to salvage a bogey and was 4 over through 10 holes, putting her into what seemed like a precarious spot.

But as she's done so many times throughout her 72-win career, she rallied.

Sorenstam put together consecutive birdies on the par-4 14th and par-5 15th to stop the bogey bleeding and eventually finished six shots behind Katherine Hull (68).

``I think she wants to win a few more,'' Hull said. ``But I guess time will tell.''

Time will also tell if she's figured out the ADT's unique double-cut, erase-the-scores format, which began in 2006. Sorenstam hasn't played past Friday in either of the first two years of the setup.

The scores are erased after Friday's play, then get wiped clear again after Saturday's round, after which only the top eight get invited back Sunday to play for the $1 million winner's prize.

``You can't really practice this format. It's once a year,'' said Sorenstam, who announced her plans to leave the game, start a family and tend to her business interests six months ago. ``You just have to go out and play your best golf and see where you stand.''

That's what Hull did.

One of the LPGA's hottest players over the last three months, Hull finished one shot better than Ji-Yai Shin and In-Kyung Kim. Three others - Ji Young Oh, Eun-Hee Ji and Na Yeon Choi - were two strokes back.

Oddly, little attention was paid to the top of the leaderboard.

Most of the star power was off the first page.

World No. 1 Lorena Ochoa, the defending champion, was 6 over during one rough eight-hole stretch and finished tied for 26th after a 75. Cristie Kerr, last year's U.S. Women's Open champion and a member at Trump International, was tied for 29th - last - after shooting a 78 and will play alone Friday morning. Inbee Park, the reigning U.S. Open winner, withdrew after starting a whopping 13 over through 14 holes.

``A few birdies will help,'' Ochoa said. ``I can do that.''

Paula Creamer, who could catch Ochoa for the money title if she wins this week, was tied with Karen Stupples and Christina Kim for seventh place, three shots behind Hull. Seven players, including hometown favorite Morgan Pressel, were four shots back after the opening round.

Pressel said she made ``less than nothing'' in her opening round, lamenting that she wasted plenty of chances.

``I think it's probably set up the easiest since I've played here,'' Pressel said.

Not everyone came away with the same assessment. Far from it, actually.

``I think this is probably the toughest the course has ever been set up for us,'' said Karrie Webb, who had two birdies in her final three holes to salvage a 73.

Hull, who won the Canadian Open to start a run of six top-10 finishes in her last nine events, made two bogeys on Thursday and answered each one immediately with a birdie.

``Just tried to execute the game plan and have fun,'' Hull said.

Hull said she won't play any differently Friday even though it would take a huge collapse for her to not qualify for Saturday.

Sorenstam, set to make her last start in three weeks in the Dubai Ladies Masters, won't change her approach either, even though she knows her spot in the weekend fields is hardly assured.

``You just have to be patient, just fairways and greens,'' Sorenstam said. ``It's worked in the past for me.''

Golf Courses

Golf is played in an area of land designated a golf course. A course consists of a series of holes, each with a teeing area, fairway, rough and other hazards, and the green with the pin (flagstick) and cup. Different levels of grass are varied to increase difficulty or to allow for putting in the case of the green. A typical golf course consists of eighteen holes, but many smaller courses have only nine.Early Scottish golf courses, and similarly designed courses, are mostly laid out on linksland, soil covered sand dunes directly inland from beaches.

This gave rise to the common description of a seaside course as a golf links. The turn of the 20th century, with its widespread use of heavy earth-moving equipment, saw a movement toward golf course design with an emphasis on reshaping the land to create hazards, and add strategic interest.Modern golf course design has seen a return to its roots. Architects appreciate once again how to maximize the subtleties in the existing land while tempering how much dirt they move.

Golf Tour

Such other sports, Golf has tour too. Never mind what you will get, I will try untill the end.

There are at least twenty professional golf tours, each run by a PGA or an independent tour organization, which is responsible for arranging events, finding sponsors, and regulating the tour. Typically a tour has "members" who are entitled to compete in most of its events, and also invites non-members to compete in some of them. Gaining membership of an elite tour is highly competitive, and most professional golfers never achieve it.

The most widely known tour is the PGA Tour, which tends to attract the strongest fields, outside the four Majors and the three World Golf Championships events. This is due mostly to the fact that most PGA Tour events have a first prize of at least USD 800,000. The European Tour, which attracts a substantial number of top golfers from outside North America, ranks second to the PGA Tour in worldwide prestige. Some top professionals from outside North America play enough tournaments to maintain membership on both the PGA Tour and European Tour.

The other leading men's tours include the Japan Golf Tour, the Asian Tour (Asia outside Japan), the PGA Tour of Australasia, and the Sunshine Tour (for Southern Africa, primarily South Africa). These four tours, along with the PGA and European Tours, are full members of the trade body of the world's main tours, the International Federation of PGA Tours. Two other tours, the Canadian Tour and the Tour de las Americas (Latin America), are associate members of the Federation. All of these tours, except for the Tour de las Américas, offer points in the Official World Golf Ranking to golfers who make the cut in their events.

Golf is unique in having lucrative competition for older players. There are several senior tours for men 50 and older, the best known of which is the U.S.-based Champions Tour.

There are six principal tours for women, each based in a different country or continent. The most prestigious of these is the United States based LPGA Tour.

All of the leading professional tours for under-50 players have an official developmental tour, in which the leading players at the end of the season will earn a tour card on the main tour for the following season. Examples include the Natiowide Tour, which feeds to the PGA Tour, and the Challenge Tour, which is the developmental tour of the European Tour. The Nationwide and Challenge Tours also offer Official World Golf Rankings points.

PGA schedule

The PGA Tour released its 2009 schedule on Tuesday for the regular season which features 25 tournaments with at least $6 million purses and a newly configured "Texas swing" of three events in the spring.

Still to be determined are details on a revamped FedEx Cup, and whether to take a week off before the Tour Championship.

Once that it is decided, the tour said it would release the rest of its Fall Series schedule.

By announcing the majority of the schedule, the tour put to rest speculation that some tournaments might be in jeopardy because of the economy. The title sponsors are under contract at least through 2010, and most of them have slight increases in prize money built into their agreements. Among those that kept prize money the same were the FBR Open and Travelers Championship, both at $6 million.

Not counting the four majors, prize money for the regular season is $222.9 million, up from $214.4 million in 2008.

"I'm delighted to say that the demise of the PGA Tour has been overstated considerably," commissioner Tim Finchem said Monday night at the World Golf Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

In a statement Tuesday, Finchem said the charitable giving for 2008 was expected to set another record at $123 million.

"The tournaments and their sponsors have worked extremely hard during this difficult economic time to sustain their significant charitable contributions," he said.

Based on the calendar, next season will start one week later — Jan. 8 — at Kapalua for the winners-only Mercedes-Benz Championship.

The Texas swing was created when the Valero Texas Open in San Antonio moved from the Fall Series to May 14-17. It will be followed by the HP Byron Nelson Championship outside Dallas and the Crown Plaza Invitational at Colonial in neighboring Fort Worth.

The World Golf Championships have raised their purses from $8 million to $8.5 million. Still to be determined is the prize money for The Players Championship, which was $9.5 million this year.

If it goes up to $10 million — it has increased each of the last two years — that would match the prize money for the Dubai World Championship that ends the European tour season and is billed as golf's richest event.

"Whether we go to $10 million has nothing to do with Dubai," tour spokesman Ty Votaw said. "It's whether it's right for the tournament and what we're trying to do with The Players. As Tim always does, he'll factor in all the issues that relate to that."

The PGA Tour policy board discussed a revamped points system for the FedEx Cup at its quarterly meeting Monday, although a decision is not expected until the week of Thanksgiving.

According to two officials at the meeting, the plan is not to reset the points until the FedEx Cup finale at the Tour Championship, although more weight would be given to the top performers. That would mean everyone at East Lake would have a chance to capture the FedEx Cup and its $10 million bonus, although the top eight or so would have the best chance.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release details of the meeting.

As for the other three playoff events, the tour is discussing whether to reduce the size of the field to 125 players at The Barclays, 100 players at the Deutsche Bank Championship and 60 players at the BMW Championship, which returns to Chicago.

Previously, the playoffs began with 144 players, then was reduced to 120 players and 70 players the following two weeks before 30 made it to the Tour Championship.

The tour had a two-week break this year during the playoffs because of the Ryder Cup. The Presidents Cup will be played next year in San Francisco after the FedEx Cup, although tour officials are sensitive to some players having to compete six times in seven weeks without a week off.

"We're listening to the players, who I think liked the week off in 2008," Votaw said. "We think that will help the overall presentation of the FedEx Cup, as well as complement the proposed changes."

Don't miss it..

Everybody is waiting your hits.

Golf Equipment : BALLS

Balls are the most important equipment in golf. It's better for you to know more about it.

The minimum allowed diameter of a golf ball is 42.67 mm and its mass may not exceed 45.93 g. The first type of golf ball was the featherie, made out of leather and feathers. Modern golf balls have a two-, three-, or four-layer design constructed from various synthetic materials. The surface usually has a pattern of 300-450 dimples designed to improve the ball's aerodynamics. The method of construction and materials used greatly affect the ball's playing characteristics such as distance, trajectory, spin and feel. Harder materials, such as Surlyn, usually result in the ball's traveling longer distances, while softer covers, such as Urethane, tend to generate higher spin, more "feel" and greater stopping potential.

Golf balls are separated into three groups depending on their construction: two-, three-, or four-piece covers. Generally four-piece golf balls tend to be the most expensive, though price is no assurance of quality. As of 2006 there are golf balls that utilize RFID technology, which allow golfers to locate errant shots easily using a handheld homing device. RFID transponders are also used in certain computerized driving ranges to calculate distance and accuracy of shots.

International Popularity

In 2005, Golf Digest calculated that there were nearly 32,000 golf courses in the world, approximately half of them in the United States.The countries with most golf courses in relation to population, starting with the best endowed were: Scotland, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, Canada, Wales, United States, Sweden, and England (countries with fewer than 500,000 people were excluded). Apart from Sweden, all of these countries have English as the majority language, but the number of courses in new territories is increasing rapidly. For example the first golf course in the People's Republic of China opened in the mid-1980s, but by 2005 there were 200 courses in that country.

The professional sport was initially dominated by Scottish then English golfers, but since World War I, America has produced the greatest quantity of leading professionals. Other Commonwealth countries such as Australia and South Africa are also traditional powers in the sport. Since around the 1970s, Japan, Scandinavian and other Western European countries have produced leading players on a regular basis. The number of countries with high-class professionals continues to increase steadily, especially in East Asia. South Korea is notably strong in women's golf.

In the United States, the number of people who play golf 25 times or more per year fell from 6.9 million in 2000 to 4.6 million in 2005, according to the National Golf Foundation. The Foundation reported a smaller decline in the number who played golf at all; it fell from 30 million to 26 million over the same period.

Golf have very good popularity now, Most people like playing golf when they have have rest time or in their holidays. But, golf players has increase in since last decade.

History of Golf

This is my first blog, I wanna tell you about a healthy activity. We all know that most people die because of sick. So, by this blog I want to invite you to life HEALTHY. Golf is the first subject of my blog. I don't know why I write about golf in the first of my blog. I just wanna to express myself. So, I hope you can enjoy my blog.

GOLF is a game the exact origins of which are unclear. The origin of golf is open to debate as to being Dutch or Scottish. However, the most accepted golf history theory is that golf (as practiced today) originated from Scotland in the 1100s.

Scholars have claimed references to a form of golf from hieroglyphs found on stone tablets dating to ancient Egyptian Pharaohs. A game somewhat similar to golf was first mentioned in Dōngxuān Records (Chinese: 東軒錄), a Chinese book of 11th century. It was also mentioned on 26 February 1297 in the Netherland in a city called Loenen aan de Vecht. Here the Dutch played a game with a stick and leather ball. Whoever hit the ball into a target several hundreds of meters away the most number of times, won.

Modern golf is considered to be a Scottish invention, as the game was mentioned in two 15th century laws prohibiting the playing of the game of gowf. Some scholars have suggested that this refers to another game which is more akin to modern shinty,hurling or field hockey than golf. A game of putting a small ball into a hole in the ground using clubs was played in 17th century Netherlands. Flourishing trade over the North Sea during the Middle Ages and early Modern Period led to much cultural and language interaction between Scots , Dutch and other languages (which is also evident in the history of curling). There are also reports of even earlier accounts of a golf like game from continental Europe.

However, these earlier games are more accurately viewed as ancestors of the game we call golf, as the fact remains that the modern game of golf we understand today originated and developed in Scotland: The first golf club memberships were formed in Scotland. The earliest permanent golf course originated there too, as did the very first written rules, as did the establishment of the 18-hole course. The first formalized tournament structures also emerged there and competitions were arranged between different Scottish cities. Over time, the modern game spread to England and the rest of the world. The oldest playing golf course in the world is The Musselburgh Old Links Golf Course. Evidence has shown that golf was played here in 1672 although Mary, Queen of Scots reputedly played there in 1567.

As stated, golf courses have not always had eighteen holes. The St Andrews Links occupy a narrow strip of land along the sea. As early as the 15th century, golfers at St Andrews, in Fife, established a customary route through the undulating terrain, playing to holes whose locations were dictated by topography. The course that emerged featured eleven holes, laid out end to end from the clubhouse to the far end of the property. One played the holes out, turned around, and played the holes in, for a total of 22 holes. In 1764, several of the holes were deemed too short, and were therefore combined. The number was thereby reduced from 11 to nine, so that a complete round of the links comprised 18 holes. Due to the status of St Andrews as the golf capital, all other courses chose to follow suit and the 18-hole course remains the standard today.

The major changes in equipment since the 19th century have been better mowers, especially for the greens, better golf ball designs, using rubber and man-made materials since about 1900, and the introduction of the metal shaft beginning in the 1930s. Also in the 1930s the wooden golf tee was invented. In the 1970s the use of steel and then titanium to replace wood heads began, and shafts made of "graphite" (also known as carbon fiber) were introduced in the 1980s. Though wooden tees are still most popular, various designs of plastic tees have been developed in recent years, and the synthetic materials composing the modern ball continue to be developed.

Golf balls are famous for "dimples". These small dips in the surface of the golf ball decrease aerodynamic drag which allows the ball to fly farther.Golf is also famous for the use of flags, also known as the "pin". These show the position of the hole to players when they make their first drive and are too far away from the hole to aim accurately. When all players in a group are within putting distance, the flag, or pin, is removed by a "caddy" or a fellow competitor to allow for easier access to the hole.