Courses · History · Countries · Tips
The stories behind golf, every number checked.
Why the Old Course closes on Sundays. Why the hole is 4¼ inches wide. Why a slice curves right. Each reel runs under a minute, and every line in it has a source.
Tips · on the range
The physics behind the shot.
Each target is a tip. Point at one to see its shot fly, click to watch why it flies that way.
All stories
Every reel so far
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Hit a driver off the toe and the ball curves back. -
The best putts roll 17 inches past the hole. -
On a good bunker shot, the club never touches the ball. -
Without dimples, a ball would fly about half as far. -
A tour wedge shot spins over 150 times a second. -
Into the wind, a ball loses more than it gains downwind. -
From 150 yards, tour pros miss by about 9 yards. -
Here, golfers carry their own grass. -
In Japan, golfers insure against a hole in one. -
One man golfed across Mongolia. -
Here a ball can land an hour before it was hit. -
Some golfers carried more than 25 clubs. -
The first golf shot on the Moon went about 24 yards. -
The Ryder Cup began with penny seed packets. -
Every hole in golf is 4¼ inches wide. -
In 1871, there was no Open. -
Golf's first rule said to tee up next to the last hole. -
In 1457, Scotland made golf illegal. -
Green speed is measured with a ramp and a tape. -
He needed a six to win the Open. -
This tee can only be reached by helicopter. -
At Merion, the flagsticks have no flags. -
The most famous course in golf is closed on Sundays. -
A slice is a clubface pointing right of the path. -
42% of the world's golf courses are in one country. -
In 1764, golf lost four holes. -
Around 100,000 balls a year end up in this lake.
How the facts are checked
No source, no line.
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Every line has a source
Each sentence in a reel is tied to a source, and the story's page lists them with the date they were checked.
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Old numbers stay dated
When the latest count of the world's courses is from the end of 2020, the narrator says so instead of calling it current.
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Legends get checked too
Old Tom Morris did not start the Sunday closure at St Andrews; church law did, centuries earlier. Where the research and the legend differ, the reel follows the research.