Golf course

The famous 17th hole of the TPC at Sawgrass Stadium Course.

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 marked by two markers showing the bounds of the legal tee area, fairway, rough and other hazards, and the putting green surrounded by the fringe 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. While many holes are designed with a direct line-of-sight from the tee-off point to the green, some of the holes may bend either to the left or to the right. This is called a "dogleg", in reference to a dog's knee. The hole is called a "dogleg left" if the hole angles leftwards, and vice versa; rarely, a hole's direction can bend twice, and is called a "double dogleg". A typical golf course consists of eighteen holes, but many smaller courses may only have nine.

Early Scottish golf courses were are mostly laid out on links land, soil covered sand dunes directly inland from beaches. This gave rise to the term golf links, particularly applied to seaside courses and those built on naturally sandy soil inland.