Golf in 1764: The 18-hole round

The objective of golf is simple to state and punishing to execute: move the ball from the tee into the hole in the fewest strokes, then repeat across eighteen holes. Each hole has a par of 3, 4 or 5, reflecting the strokes an expert should need, and a player's score is measured against that par. The two fundamental formats are stroke play, where every stroke across a round counts toward a total, and match play, where players compete hole by hole and the contest is decided by holes won rather than strokes.

A round proceeds hole by hole in a fixed order. Players tee off from the teeing ground, advance the ball down the fairway toward the putting green, and finish by rolling it into a 4.25-inch hole marked by a flagstick. The core principle is to play the ball as it lies and the course as you find it, altering neither. Penalty strokes are added for trouble such as water, out of bounds and unplayable lies, and the player or side with the lowest total, or the most holes, is the winner.

Each hole begins from the teeing ground, a rectangle two club-lengths deep between the tee markers, and the ball may be raised on a tee peg. Only here may a player improve the lie. Order of play matters: on the first tee the honour is decided by draw or ranking, thereafter the player with the lowest score on the previous hole tees off first. Through the green, the ball farthest from the hole, called away, is played first. In casual golf, ready golf is now encouraged to speed up play.