Golf Compendium

Ruth Jessen was a professional golfer who won tournaments on the LPGA Tour from the late 1950s into the early 1970s. Her win total reached double digits even though her career was repeatedly interrupted by injuries and surgeries.

The Motor City Open was a PGA Tour tournament played intermittently in the Detroit area from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. Despite the instability of the tournament, its roster of champions is quite impressive.

Triples is the name of a golf game played by a group of three golfers. On each hole, each golfer earns points based on his or her score. The golfer with the best score of the three earns the most points; the golfer with the worst score of the three gets the fewest points. The way most groups pass out points works like this:

The Korn Ferry Tour is the developmental golf tour one level below the PGA Tour. Winning its Player of the Year award is a very good thing, not just because it means the winner was the best player on tour that year. Winning the award also means you've played well enough to earn a promotion to the PGA Tour.

The European Senior Tour — now known as the Legends Tour after a couple years named the Staysure Tour — was founded in 1992 as the top-level tour in Europe for 50-and-over male golfers. Not surprisingly, the list of yearly Order of Merit winners below includes many prominent names in European golf, golfers who played primarily on the European Tour before moving on to the senior circuit.

Blow-up holes are something every golfer, even the best golfers sometimes, occasionally suffer. Wouldn't it be great if you could just throw those holes out — not count them in your score?

Dick Mayer was a winner on the PGA Tour in the 1950s and 1960s who is best-remembered as a U.S. Open champion.

Polee is the name of a side bet within a group of golfers. But the exact meaning of the Polee bet differs depending on who is playing. We'll go over the four most-common ways golfers play the Polee bet. (And note that the spelling Poley can refer to a different game.)

Their Game Is Golf is the name of an early 1970s promotional film — it runs around 30 minutes long — produced by Sears to market the company's golf clubs and apparel. But it's so much more than that: It's a behind-the-scenes look at the LPGA Tour of that era, which is a pretty rare thing. There's just not that much video in existence of LPGA play from those days.

Below in the list of annual victory leaders on the Champions Tour; that is, the golfer who, each year, led the world's top senior golf tour in wins. You'll see many names that you probably expected to see. But perhaps a few surprises, as well.