2009 Major Golf Championships

The Major Championships, often referred to simply as the "Majors" are the four most prestigious annual tournaments in men's professional golf. The "majors" originally consisted of the (British) Open Championship , the British Amateur or The Amateur Championship, the US Open and the US Amateur. Bobby Jones completed the Grand Slam in 1930 when he won all four tournaments. It is difficult to determine when this changed to include the current four tournaments. It may have occurred as a result of heightened media coverage during the 1950s.

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The oldest of the majors is The Open Championship, which is often referred to in the United States as "The British Open". The other three majors all take place in the United States. The Masters is played at the same course, Augusta National Golf Club, every year, while the other three rotate courses. Each of the majors has a distinct history, and they are run by four different golfing organisations, but they are all recognized as official events of the world's two most prestigious men's tours, the PGA TOUR and the PGA European Tour.

In order of their playing date the majors are:

The Masters Golf

The Masters is one of four major championships in men's golf and the first to take place each year. Unlike the other major championships, the Masters is held every year at the same location, Augusta National Golf Club, a private golf club in Augusta, Georgia, USA. The Masters was started by Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones who designed Augusta National with legendary course architect Alister MacKenzie.

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US Open Golf

The United States Open Championship is an annual men's golf tournament staged by the United States Golf Association each June. It is one of the four major championships in men's golf and is on the official schedule of both the PGA TOUR and the PGA European Tour. The U.S. Open is staged at a variety of courses, and they are usually set up in such a way that low scoring is very difficult and there is a premium on accurate driving.

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British Open Golf

The Open Championship (sometimes referred to as the British Open to distinguish it from other national opens), is the oldest of the four major championships in men's golf. Each year the event is hosted by one of several prestigious golf clubs in Britain; however, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews (R&A) administers The Open regardless of its site. It is always played on a links course. The Open Championship is played in July.

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PGA Championship

The PGA Championship is an annual golf tournament, conducted by the Professional Golfers Association of America as part of the PGA TOUR. The PGA Championship is one of the four Major Championships in men's golf, and it is the golf season's final major, being played in August. It is an official money event on both the PGA TOUR and the PGA European Tour.

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Alongside the biennial Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup team competitions, the majors are golf's marquee events. Elite players from all over the world participate in them, and the reputations of the greatest male players in golf history are largely based on the number of major victories they accumulate. The top prizes are not actually the largest in golf, being surpassed by The Players Championship, the three individual World Golf Championships events, and one or two invitational events, but winning a major boosts a player's career far more than winning any other tournament. If he is already a leading player, he will probably receive large bonuses from his sponsors and may be able to negotiate better contracts. If he is an unknown he will immediately be signed up. Perhaps more importantly, he will receive an exemption from the need to annually requalify for a tour card on his home tour. Currently the PGA Tour gives a five-year exemption to all major winners, thus giving a tournament golfer some security in an unstable profession.

In recent years The Players Championship, which takes place two weeks before The Masters, has been begun to be boosted as "the fifth major" by elements of the media. This has not been publicly encouraged by the golfing authorities, but the tournament does attract the same strength of field, if not better than the majors. In addition, three World Golf Championship events were established in 1999, bringing to eight the total number of events in which virtually all of the world's top 40 players compete against other every year.

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GOLF History

Golf is usually regarded as a Scottish invention, as the game was mentioned in two 15th-century laws prohibiting the playing of the game of "gowf". Some scholars, however, suggest that this refers to another game which is much akin to shinty or hurling, or to modern field hockey. They point out that a game of putting a small ball in a hole in the ground using golf clubs was played in 17th-century Netherlands.

Primatively, the action of using a stick with a boxed attachment to hit stones close to a marked target, similar to that of bocce, originated in Italy. The term golf is believed to have originated from a Germanic word for "club". It has been hypothesized that golf is actually an acronym for gentlemen only; ladies forbidden, but this is believed to be an urban legend.

It is aother urban legend that golf courses contain 18 holes because that was the number of shots it took to polish off a fifth of scotch. According to the USGA however, this is incorrect. The links at St. Andrews occupy a narrow strip of land along the sea. As early as the 15th century, golfers at St. Andrews established a customary route through the undulating terrain, playing to holes whose locations were dictated by topography. The course that emerged featured eleven holes, laid out end to end from the clubhouse to the far end of the property. One played the holes out, turned around, and played the holes in, for a total of 22 holes. In 1764, several of the holes were deemed too short, and were therefore combined. The number was thereby reduced from 11 to nine, so that a complete round of the links comprised 18 holes.

The oldest playing golf course in the world is The Old Links at Musselburgh. Evidence has shown that golf was played on Musselburgh Links in 1672 although Mary Queen of Scots reputedly played there in 1567. The major changes in equipment since the 19th century have been better mowers, especially for the greens, better golf ball designs, using rubber and man-made materials since about 1900, and the introduction of the metal shaft beginning in the 1930s. Also in the 1930s the wooden golf tee was invented. In the 1970s the use of metal to replace wood heads began, and shafts made of graphite composite materials were introduced in the 1980s.

It was reported in January 2006 that recent evidence unearthed by Prof. Ling Hongling of Lanzhou University suggests that a game similar to modern-day golf was played in China at least 500 years before golf was first mentioned in Scotland. Archives called the Dongzuan Records from the Song Dynasty describe a game called chuiwan and also include drawings. It was played with 10 clubs including a cuanbang, pubang, and shaobang, which are comparable to a driver, two-wood, and three-wood. The archive also includes references to a Nan Tang Dynasty magistrate who asked his daughter to make "holes" for him to play, and describes his "tee" as being jewel-encrusted. There were further descriptions of clubs being inlaid with jade and gold, suggesting golf was for the wealthy. Hongling suggested golf may have been exported to Europe and then Scotland by Mongolian travellers in the late Middle Ages- although there is no evidence for this.