This article is about the sport of golf. For other meanings, see Golf (disambiguation). Putting can also refer to shot put.

Golf (gowf in Scots) is a sport where individual players or teams hit a ball into a hole using various clubs, and is one of the few ball games that does not use a fixed standard playing area. It 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."

Golf originated in Scotland and has been played for at least five centuries in the British Isles. The oldest course in the world is The Old Links at Musselburgh. Golf, in essentially the form we know it today, has been played on Scotland's Musselburgh Links since 1672, and earlier versions of the game had been played in the British Isles and the low-countries of Northern Europe for several centuries before that. Although often viewed as an elite pastime, golf is an increasingly popular sport that can be played for one's entire life.