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The Major ChampionshipsThere are many prestigious tournaments played around the world each year but the Major Championships comprise of only four. The tournament schedule begins early in the year with the PGA events in the United States and the co-sanctioned European/Asian Tour events held in the Far East, leading up to the first of the Major Championships The Masters held during April at the Augusta National Golf Course. This heralds the beginning of the golf year with every professional golfer worldwide hoping for a chance to play on this superb course amongst a high class field. The winner of this event carries the incentive of being the only golfer who can attain the coveted Grand Slam of four Major Championship victories in one year. The next of the Major Championships, The US Open Golf Championship is held in June and, like all the other Major Championships, except for The Masters, is played on a different course each year, The USGA are renowned for setting up the US Open 18 Hole golf course with narrow fairways, deep rough and fast greens. Accurate driving and excellent putting techniques are a usual requirement in order to win this event. The army of golfers chasing an elusive Major Championship title then move across the Atlantic in July, to the United Kingdom, for The Open Golf Championship, perhaps the best known and most coveted of all the Majors. The Open is normally played on a Links course which is in stark contrast to the normal tour prepared courses of wide manicured fairways, short rough and receptive greens. The Links courses provide the professionals with the chance to test their skills on hard undulating fairways, firm greens and heavy rough coupled usually with high winds, changable in direction from day to day. Then it's back to the United States in August for the USPGA Championship the final Major Championship of the year. Every two years the top golfers of the United States and Europe have another event to look foward to in September, this being The Ryder Cup which switches venues alternately between Europe and The United States. This is the premier team golf event which stimulates interest in the preceding 12 months with golfers from the PGA Tour and European Tour vying to qualify for the event.
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