It is a precision club-and-ball
sport, in which competing players, using many types of
clubs, attempt to hit
balls into each hole on a
golf course while employing the fewest number of strokes.It is one of the few
ball games that does not require a standardized playing area. Instead, the game is played on golf "courses", each of which features a unique design, although courses typically consist of either nine or eighteen holes. Golf is defined, in the
rules of golf, as "playing a ball with a club from the teeing ground into the hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Rules."
It competition is generally played for the lowest number of strokes by an individual, known simply as
stroke play, or the lowest score on the most individual holes during a complete round by an individual or team, known as
match play.