Golf Compendium

Sometimes in golf (well, often, actually), things don't go as planned. Such as when, with your golf buddies watching, you hit a terrible opening drive to the round. Luckily, in your group, mulligans are allowed off the first tee. So you hit your do-over. But, yikes, that one is terrible, too! Now what?

The Rainbow Foods LPGA Classic, as it was named when it was last played (it was the Northgate Classic at the beginning), was an LPGA Tour golf tournament during the 1990s. It was 54 holes of stroke play, and it was played in Minnesota.

The golfer who holds the record for most wins in WGC tournaments is, no surprise, Tiger Woods. But you might be at least a little surprised at just how far out ahead of all other golfers he is.

Mike Fetchick played on the PGA Tour in the 1950s, winning several tournaments including a playoff victory in one of the biggest non-majors. Decades later, he played the Champions Tour and set an age-related tour record that stood for more than 35 years.

Hitting the trifecta at the race track pays off for the bettor, and hitting the trifecta in the golf game named Trifecta pays off for the golfer. This is a game for golfers in a group in which three points are at stake for each on each hole of the game — and a golfer who earns all three points (who hits the trifecta) earns a bonus point.

The WPGA Championship of Europe, also called the Wales Ladies Championship of Europe, was a golf tournament played on the Ladies European Tour for about 15 years starting from the mid-1990s. (The tournament is also sometimes referred to as the Wales Ladies Open, although it never officially had that title.) Its roster of champions includes some of the LET's star golfers.

How many golfers have won The Masters Tournament wire-to-wire? That is, won it by leading after the first round, second round, third round and at the end? Not many! So far, only five golfers have won wire-to-wire in The Masters.

Don't worry, if the answer is no, you are not alone. There are many golfers who've never heard of the shiperio, either. What is it? Something related to a mulligan — or you can think of it as a type of mulligan, a mulligan with options.

If a golfer takes 25 putts in a round, that's a pretty good day on the greens. Four rounds of 25 putts is 100 putts. But the PGA Tour record for fewest putts in a 72-hole tournament is quite a bit lower than that. Two golfers have played a PGA Tour event in just 92 putts.

Felice Torza was a professional golfer who rarely played in tour events, dedicating most of his career to the club pro life. But he did come close once to winning a major championship, making it to the title match of a PGA Championship during that major's match-play era.

Has any golfer won consecutive Masters Tournaments? Yes, so far there have been three back-to-back winners (none of whom made it to three in a row). Not surprisingly, they are three of the best Masters players ever. But the first back-to-back Masters champion didn't happen until the tournament had been around for more than 30 years.

The Gleneagles Hotel Foursomes tournament was a match-play golf tournament in Scotland from the early 1950s through the mid-1960s. It paired a professional tour golfer with a top amateur player.

The terms "plus handicap" and "plus golfer" are ones that apply to very few golfers around the world — golfers who are so good and have handicap indexes so low that they have to give strokes even to a scratch golfer. A plus-handicapper or plus-golfer is a golfer whose handicap index is lower than zero.

The Walker Cup and Curtis Cup are, by far, the highest-profile competitions for male and female amateur golfers, respectively, in the golf world. Have a brother and sister ever both played in them? What about a husband and wife — are there any married couples in which the husband was a Walker Cup player and the wife was a Curtis Cup player? In both cases, the answer is yes.

What is the best score ever posted in The Masters Tournament for 72 holes? The lowest winning score ever is 268, and that total was recorded recently — breaking one of Tiger Woods' records.

Jerry Travers was one of the giants of the American golf scene in the first two decades of the 1900s. He won the U.S. Amateur championship four times, but also added a victory in the U.S. Open. His rivalry with Walter Travis was legendary in its time, and, in earlier times, Travers was often considered among the best-ever putters.

What is the best round ever scored at The Masters Tournament? Only two times in tournament history has a golfer scored 63 for 18 holes. So that is The Masters course record: 63. But we'll also take a look at how that 18-hole scoring record progressed over the years.

Imagine you are a golfer on the LPGA Tour and you win a tournament. Great! Congratulations! Your next win will hopefully come soon. But then it doesn't ... for a very long time. You do eventually win again, but only many years later. What is the longest such gap between wins? The longest span between successive wins on the LPGA Tour?

What are supplemental bets in golf? "Supplemental Bets" is actually an umbrella term for a whole group of side wagers that golfers can engage in during a round of golf. You can also think of "Supplemental Bets" as a synonym for more-commonly used terms such as Junk, Trash, Garbage, Dots — all names used by golfers for a collection of small side bets that are running concurrently during a golf game.

What is the PGA Tour record for largest margin of victory? A whopping 16 strokes. In the tour's history, which traces back to 1916, there are four golfers who won a tournament by 16 shots.

Winning The Masters Tournament is an achievement that brings the winner all kinds of prestige plus a place in golf history. But what about the more tangible benefits of winning The Masters — what about the prizes?

Johnny Farrell was a regular winner on the PGA Tour from the early 1920s into the mid-1930s, including one year with seven wins on tour. He's most-famous for beating Bobby Jones in a 36-hole playoff to win the U.S. Open. Farrell later became a very highly regarded teaching pro, working with celebrities, presidents and royalty. Throughout his golf career, he was known as one of the "nice guys" of the game.

The Portland Open Invitational was a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour that was played beginning in the last years of World War II and ending in the mid-1960s. It was played in Portland, Oregon, and was the site of some record-setting performances, plus one of Jack Nicklaus' earliest wins.

Where on Earth can you play golf where golf has been played the longest? Let's rephrase the question: What is the oldest golf course still in existence? The world-record holder for oldest golf course is — no surprises here — The Old Course at St. Andrews in St. Andrews, Scotland.

Like many recreational golfers, Jason always did one thing before attempting to play a shot over water: He switched to a water ball . He replaced the nice, newer ball he was using with a beat-up, older ball — a golf ball he didn't care about losing if he hit it into the water.

The Green Jacket is the most-famous prize handed out to the winner of The Masters Tournament , but the winner also receives a more traditional trophy. The Masters trophy, though, comes in two sizes: big and small.