Golf Compendium

The history of the Solheim Cup, the biennial competition between Team Europe and Team USA, dates to 1990. In that time, which golfer has earned the most points for her team? The record-holder is Laura Davies, with 25 points won. Davies barely beats out Annika Sorenstam for this record.

The Ryder Cup is one of the highest-profile events in professional golf. Every other year, 24 golfers (12 per team) plus two team captains and several more assistant captains per side gather for three days of intense, gritty golf. Do any of them get paid? Is there prize money at the Ryder Cup? The answer is no.

Who is the oldest golfer to play in the Ryder Cup? In the event's history, which dates to 1927, there have been three golfers aged 50 or over who've played. The oldest of them all was 51-year-old Raymond Floyd.

Charles Whitcombe was an English golfer with professional victories stretching from the early 1920s to the late 1930s. He never won The Open Championship, but was considered among the best of his era and was a prominent figure in the early history of the Ryder Cup. In his time, he was the best-known of the three Whitcombe brothers, who all posted multiple tournament victories and played in the Ryder Cup.

Who is the youngest golfer ever named to a Ryder Cup team? That golfer is Sergio Garcia, and he is also the only teenager to play in the prestigious biennial competition. But there have been a handful of other players younger than 21 in the tournament.

The namesake of the Walker Cup is George Herbert Walker. And the Walker Cup is just the third-most-famous thing named after him: His grandson and great-grandson were both named for him, and were both Presidents of the United States.

Do you know how to play the Shootout game? We should probably say "games," rather than "game," because there are several different formats golfers play or might encounter that go by the name Shootout. We explain three of them in this article.

The oldest golfer ever to play in the Walker Cup was in his mid-50s, and the youngest-ever Walker Cup golfer wasn't yet 17 years old.

Joyce Ziske was a professional golfer in the first decade of the LPGA Tour's history. Despite only playing from 1955-60, she compiled multiple wins including a major, and had a strong record overall in LPGA major championships . But she retired at the age of 26.

The Hershey Open was a pro golf tournaments in the 1930 and early 1940s that was part of the PGA circuit of the time and is today recognized as a PGA Tour event. It is most-famous as the site of Ben Hogan's first PGA Tour victory.

How many golfers have won both the U.S. Amateur Championship and the individual championship in the men's NCAA Division I tournament? That number currently stands at 14 golfers. But within that group of 14 there is a smaller set, just five, who won both those prestigious tournaments in the same year.

How many golfers have won the U.S. Amateur Championship back-to-back? That number currently stands at nine, although no golfer has done it since the mid-1990s. Only one golfer, though, has won the U.S. Amateur back-to-back- to-back : Tiger Woods.

Round Robin is the name of a golf game for a group of four golfers in which the golfers pair off on each hole to play 2-vs.-2. Who plays with who? That's the fun part of the game: Partners change every six holes, so that over the course of the 18 holes all four golfers get to partner each of the other three in the quartet.

What is the largest number of golfers ever to take part in a playoff at a PGA Tour tournament? The record is six golfers — a 6-man playoff has happened three times in PGA Tour history. Surprisingly, none of those three, 6-player, sudden-death playoffs lasted more than two holes.

Jim Simons was a PGA Tour player in the 1970s and 1980s who won several tournaments. He is best-remembered for two other things: He nearly won a U.S. Open while still an amateur; and he played a big part in popularizing metal woods when those clubs were still struggling to find a place in golfers' bags.

A golfer who wins one or the other of the U.S. Women's Amateur and the NCAA Division I Women's Championship is claiming one of the two biggest titles in American amateur women's golf. But a golfer who wins both? She earns a place on a very short list of golfers who've achieved that distinction.

In golf, "forced carry" is the term for when a golfer must play a stroke over an intervening penalty area (such as a body of water), bunker or other potential hazard in order to advance toward the green. There is no option to roll the ball through such a shot, or play around the problem area. In other words, the golfer is forced to carry the danger area in order to advance his or her golf ball.

The Chicago golf format starts each golfer with a negative amount of points, then awards points for positive achievements during the round. The object is to move from negative points into positive points (known as "clearing your hurdle") and the golfer (or team) who gets farthest into positive territory is the winner.

What is the largest margin by which any champion has won the Women's British Open? The overall record is 11 strokes, but the largest margin of victory during the tournament's major championship era is nine strokes.

The LPGA Tour record for most wins in a single season is 13, and the golfer who won those 13 tournaments in 1963 is Mickey Wright. In the LPGA's history, only a handful of golfers have reached double-digit victories in a single season.

Ramon Sota was from the generation of Spanish golfers that preceded Seve Ballesteros' arrival on the world scene. And, in fact, he was Seve's uncle. That's probably how he is most-remembered today, but Sota won multiple national opens on the European circuit that preceded the modern European Tour, and in some years was considered the best golfer from Continental Europe.

The Long Island Classic (also called the Commerce Bank Championship) was a golf tournament on the Champions Tour, the PGA Tour-owned senior circuit for golfers ages 50-and-over. It was played for two decades in the summer, typically coming in June or July on the senior tour schedule. The tournament was always played on Long Island in New York. It was the site of Gary Player's final win on the Champions Tour.

On a golf course, a "barranca" is a (usually) dry ditch, gully or ravine that is (often) littered with rocks and/or desert-type vegetation.

What are the lowest scores for a single, 18-hole round in the history of the PGA Tour? The current 18-hole scoring record is 58, and only one golfer so far has posted that score for an official PGA Tour round. There have also been 11 59s on the PGA Tour, for a total of 12 sub-60 scores.

"Bowmaker" is the name of a golf tournament format, a name that is much more commonly used in the U.K. than in the U.S. But golfers outside Britain probably are familiar with format, just under a different name.

What is the lowest score for nine holes in the history of the PGA Tour? The all-time record is 26, an average of less than three strokes per hole. And only one golfer so far has gone that low.