a game in which a players using long-shafted clubs attempts to hit a small ball into each of the 9 or 18 successive holes on a course with the object of taking as few strokes as possible
If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf — Bob Hope
[Middle English (Scots), perhaps from early Dutch colf, colve club, bat]