18 holes in golf
Karen L Lingel
Why are there 18 holes in golf, and not some other, rounder number
like 20 or 15?
Glenn Channell
>Why are there 18 holes in golf, and not some other, rounder number
>like 20 or 15?
Cuz beer comes in six-packs...
--
*****************************************************************************
* *
* "The brain is a wonderful organ; Glenn M. Channell *
Michael David McCrea
Glenn Channell <chan...@aries.scs.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>k...@lns598.lns.cornell.edu (Karen L Lingel) writes:
>
>
>>Why are there 18 holes in golf, and not some other, rounder number
>>like 20 or 15?
>
>
>Cuz beer comes in six-packs...
>
It may have something to do with English royalty, since that was where the
game started, or at least I've heard...
Tom Weaver
Channell) wrote:
> k...@lns598.lns.cornell.edu (Karen L Lingel) writes:
>
>
> >Why are there 18 holes in golf, and not some other, rounder number
> >like 20 or 15?
>
Because there was room for 18 holes at the Old COurse at St. Andrew's in
St.
Andrew's, Scotland. No mystical magic number.
--
Tom Weaver
tom_w...@svos.stratus.com
Matt Brockman
>
>Why are there 18 holes in golf, and not some other, rounder number
>like 20 or 15?
>
course, having 20 holes would force all the golf courses
to build more holes or use holes twice in one game!
It is just convienient to use the 18 holes that are already there.
=============================================================================
Matt Brockman mbro...@ecn.purdue.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Employee of the Month isn't all hams and plaques."
"Never drink coffee that has been anywhere near a fish."
"I wouldn't give his problems to a monkey on a rock."
=============================================================================
Just kidding, of course. :)
It is an interesting question, though.
I hope someone knows.
Karen L Lingel
> k...@lns598.lns.cornell.edu (Karen L Lingel) writes:
>
>
> >Why are there 18 holes in golf, and not some other, rounder number
> >like 20 or 15?
>
>Because there was room for 18 holes at the Old COurse at St. Andrew's in St.
>Andrew's, Scotland. No mystical magic number.
They could have put 20 "smaller" holes. Or was a fixed hole "size"
established earlier?
Mark Vincent
>
>Why are there 18 holes in golf, and not some other, rounder number
>like 20 or 15?
>
According to _The World Atlas of Golf_, and other books I've read:
Up until 1764, the Old Course at St. Andrews had 22 holes, which one played
more or less in a straight line out from the clubhouse: 11 out, 11 back.
The course is set in a narrow strip of land next to the bay, with no room
for additional holes. In 1764 (10 years after the founding of the Royal
and Ancient Club, one of the oldest golf clubs in the world), the members
decided to combine two pairs of holes into one hole each, on both the out-
ward and inward halves. This dropped the number of holes from 22 to 18.
As the fame of the Old Course and the Royal and Ancient Club spread outward
from St. Andrews, other golf clubs adopted the 18-hole format for their
courses. One early course had only six holes, routed in such a way that
shots occasionally crossed from adjacent holes; in order to play a standard
round of golf there, one had to complete this dangerous loop three times!
Yours in trivia,
--Mark Vincent
--
"Not that there's anything wrong with that!"
--Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza
Jeff Shearer
Mark Vincent <vin...@lagrange.math.colostate.edu> wrote:
>In article <36pekl$p...@lns599.lns.cornell.edu> k...@lns598.lns.cornell.edu (Karen L Lingel) writes:
>>
>>like 20 or 15?
>>
>
>
>Up until 1764, the Old Course at St. Andrews had 22 holes, which one played
>more or less in a straight line out from the clubhouse: 11 out, 11 back.
>The course is set in a narrow strip of land next to the bay, with no room
>for additional holes. In 1764 (10 years after the founding of the Royal
>and Ancient Club, one of the oldest golf clubs in the world), the members
>decided to combine two pairs of holes into one hole each, on both the out-
>ward and inward halves. This dropped the number of holes from 22 to 18.
Sorry, but my math gives me 20 not 18. Four holes removed and replaced
by two. 22 - 4 + 2 = 20.
- Jeff
Peter Sala
Kristjan Gaukur Kristjansson
In article <36rtri$37...@yuma.acns.colostate.edu>,
>for additional holes. In 1764 (10 years after the founding of the Royal
>and Ancient Club, one of the oldest golf clubs in the world), the members
>decided to combine two pairs of holes into one hole each, on both the out-
>ward and inward halves. This dropped the number of holes from 22 to 18.
Sorry, but my math gives me 20 not 18. Four holes removed and replaced
by two. 22 - 4 + 2 = 20.
- Jeff
Well, my math gives eight holes removed and replaced by four.
A pair of holes is two holes. Two pairs equals four holes, and
that once for the outward and once for the inward halve gets it
up to eight holes that each make half a hole in the final result
getting it up to 18 holes total.
But then again, I might be wrong.
Gaukur.
Mark Vincent
>In article <36rtri$37...@yuma.acns.colostate.edu>,
>Mark Vincent <vin...@lagrange.math.colostate.edu> wrote:
>>In article <36pekl$p...@lns599.lns.cornell.edu> k...@lns598.lns.cornell.edu (Karen L Lingel) writes:
>>>
>>>Why are there 18 holes in golf, and not some other, rounder number
>>>like 20 or 15?
>>>
>>
>>decided to combine two pairs of holes into one hole each, on both the out-
>>ward and inward halves. This dropped the number of holes from 22 to 18.
>
>Sorry, but my math gives me 20 not 18. Four holes removed and replaced
>by two. 22 - 4 + 2 = 20.
>
>- Jeff
>
Well, I can't fault your math, but I can blame myself for not writing clearly.
Within the first half of the course (which then consisted of eleven holes),
two pairs of holes were each combined into one. This lowered the number of
holes on the outward half from eleven to nine. Since each of the two pairs
of holes on the outward half that were combined lay adjacent to a pair of holes
on the inward half, the corresponding pairs of holes on that half of the course
were also combined, lowering the number of holes on the second half of the
course to nine as well.
A total of eight holes were affected: on each half of the course, four holes
were made into two. That left eighteen holes in all.
Sorry for the confusion.
Pete Crosby
: In article <36rtri$37...@yuma.acns.colostate.edu>,
: - Jeff
I had the same problem with this calculation so I re-read the
description: they "decided to combine two pairs of holes into one hole
each, on BOTH the outward and inward halves." So they removed 2 holes
from the front nine and 2 holes from the back nine. 22-4=18.
--
--Pete C.
************************************************************************
* p...@atl.hp.com *
* Note: my comments are my own and do not reflect the views of my *
* employer or necessarily anyone else. *
************************************************************************
Michael David McCrea
Peter Sala <333...@edna.swin.edu.au> wrote:
>Yeah, and why are there 9 planets in our solar system. Why not 10?
>
>
Jupitercould have at one time been additiona planets, and that they were
simply absorbed into these larger planets' gravitiational fields.
Mike
No more Mr. Wizard!!!
D.J Bodycombe
1) Actually there is a little evidence to suggest there IS a 10th planet,
but it is very much further away than we thought.
2) There used to be 22 holes at St. Andrews, some of which were played in
both directions. However, as tastes changed for a more demanding game,
this was reduced to 18. St. Andrews being the world centre for the game
set the standard for the rest of the world.
David J. Bodycombe
Mark Brader
I realize this was a joke, but I thought I might as well point out that
the real answer is that the number 9 really is quite arbitrary. The
definition of the term "planet" has evolved quite a bit over time.
Originally a "planet" was simply any celestial body whose position varied
over time, against the seemingly fixed background of stars. In the ancient
Greek astronomy where the word originates, there were 9 of them originally:
one visible only in the daytime (Sun)
one visible day and night (Moon)
two visible only in the western sky after sunset (Mercury and Venus)
two visible only in the eastern sky before sunrise (Mercury and Venus)
three visible only at night (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn)
I give these explicit descriptions of when each object is visible by way
of pointing out that counting the Sun as a planet isn't as illogical as it
may seem to a modern reader. Mercury and Venus each originally had two
names; once it was realized that they were single objects -- this occurring,
as far as I know, without the realization that Venus is visible in the
daytime -- the list of planets came down to 7.
It should have been 10 originally and then 8, of course, since Uranus can
actually be seen without a telescope under good conditions. But the ancient
Greeks never noticed the motion of this very dim "star".
In Copernican astronomy, a "planet" was any body orbiting around the Sun.
The Earth was added to the list, the Sun and Moon came off, and then we
had 6 planets. The discovery of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, then raised
it to 9. When the Sun was realized to be just another star, the term
"planet" was extended to planet-like bodies (but not to other stars)
orbiting any star, but we can still say that 9 are known in this system.
However, there are other bodies orbiting the sun besides the 9 planets.
We call them asteroids, comets, meteoroids, and space probes -- the term
"planet" now being understood to exclude all of these. Originally an
"asteroid", for instance, was a body in a planet-like orbit to small to
show up in a telescope as more than a point of light. ("Natural" was
then implicit, since there were no artificial bodies in orbit... as far
as we know...) This definition can change when telescopes become better!
In fact, by that old definition Pluto was an "asteroid" from its discovery
until just a few years ago. It might have actually been called an
asteroid if its true size had been known.
Then, some of the larger satellites orbiting some of the planets are
larger than the smaller planets -- and they go around the Sun too, in
effect. In one case (the Moon) the path of the satellite is actually
concave to the Sun at all times; another (Charon) has something like
10% of the mass of the body it orbits (Pluto). Not calling these bodies
planets (or asteroids) is an arbitrary choice.
Just for fun, here is a list of the 34 largest objects in the solar system,
by diameter. (Different sources give different sizes, either because of
newer and better estimates, or because different definitions were used.
These are mostly from a 1992 reference, the Astronomy and Astrophysics
Encyclopedia edited by Stephen Moran, and converted from radius-in-km
figures actually given there; a few are from Van Nostrand's Scientific
Encyclopedia, 6th edition, from 1983.)
1. 1390000 km (863705 mi) Sun
2. 142600 km (88607 mi) Jupiter (planet)
3. 120200 km (74688 mi) Saturn (planet)
4. 51000 km (31689 mi) Uranus (planet)
5. 49600 km (30820 mi) Neptune (planet)
6. 12756 km (7926 mi) Earth (planet)
7. 12140 km (7543 mi) Venus (planet)
8. 6790 km (4219 mi) Mars (planet)
9. 5514 km (3426 mi) Titan (satellite of Saturn)
10. 5262 km (3269 mi) Ganymede (satellite of Jupiter)
11. 4850 km (3013 mi) Mercury (planet)
12. 4800 km (2982 mi) Callisto (satellite of Jupiter)
13. 3630 km (2255 mi) Io (satellite of Jupiter)
14. 3476 km (2159 mi) Moon (satellite of Earth)
15. 3138 km (1949 mi) Europa (satellite of Jupiter)
16. 2700 km (1677 mi) Triton (satellite of Neptune)
17. 2284 km (1419 mi) Pluto (planet)
18. 1600 km (994 mi) Titania (satellite of Uranus)
19. 1550 km (963 mi) Oberon (satellite of Uranus)
20. 1528 km (949 mi) Rhea (satellite of Saturn)
21. 1436 km (892 mi) Iapetus (satellite of Saturn)
22. 1192 km (740 mi) Charon (satellite of Pluto)
23. 1190 km (739 mi) Umbriel (satellite of Uranus)
24. 1160 km (720 mi) Ariel (satellite of Uranus)
25. 1118 km (694 mi) Dione (satellite of Saturn)
26. 1048 km (651 mi) Tethys (satellite of Saturn)
27. 950 km (590 mi) Ceres (asteroid)
28. 502 km (311 mi) Enceladus (satellite of Saturn)
29. 484 km (300 mi) Miranda (satellite of Uranus)
30. 460 km (285 mi) Pallas (asteroid)
31. 400 km (248 mi) Proteus (satellite of Neptune)
32. 394 km (244 mi) Mimas (satellite of Saturn)
33. 380 km (236 mi) Vesta (asteroid)
34. 340 km (211 mi) Nereid (satellite of Naptune)
> Actually, astronomers think that some of the larger moons...
In this article I've reserved the term Moon for the natural body orbiting
the Earth. "Satellite" is the traditional general term, which I'm using.
But this too is arbitrary -- some now prefer to reserve "satellite" for
*artificial* objects, and use "moon" for all of them. You won't catch
*me* doing that, though.
> Actually, astronomers think that some of the larger moons of Saturn and
> Jupiter could have at one time been additiona planets, and that they were
> simply absorbed into these larger planets' gravitiational fields.
I've never heard of this, and it seems highly unlikely. I think the
poster is confused. On the other hand, many of the *smaller* satellites
of Jupiter, and I think some of Saturn also, are believed to be captured
asteroids. A capture is not a "simple" event; it requires an interaction
with a third body, most likely the Sun (which is big enough that it just
has to be in the right direction at the right time, rather than close by);
and even when it occurs, the orbit reached may not be stable. In the
20th century at least 2 comets are known to have been captured by Jupiter;
one escaped after some years, and the other, of course, collided with
Jupiter this past July.
--
Mark Brader "For I do not believe that the stars are spread over a
SoftQuad Inc. spherical surface at equal distances from one center;
m...@sq.com I suppose their distances from us to vary so much that
Toronto some are 2 or 3 times as remote as others." -- Galileo
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