Yard

The yard (abbreviation: yd) is an English unit of length, in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement, that comprises 3 feet or 36 inches. It is by international agreement in 1959 standardized as exactly 0.9144 meters. A metal yardstick originally formed the physical standard from which all other units of length were officially derived in both English systems.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, increasingly powerful microscopes and scientific measurement detected variation in these prototype yards which became significant as technology improved. In 1959, the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa agreed to adopt the Canadian compromise value of 0.9144 meters per yard.

The term yard is also sometimes used for translating related lengths in other systems.

Name

The name derives from the Old English gerd, gyrd, &c., which was used for branches, staves, and measuring rods. It is first attested in the late-7th century laws of Ine of Wessex, where the "yard of land" mentioned is the yardland, an old English unit of tax assessment equal to ¹⁄₄ hide. Around the same time, the Lindisfarne Gospel's account of the messengers from John the Baptist in the Book of Matthew used it for a branch swayed by the wind. In addition to the yardland, Old and Middle English both used their forms of "yard" to denote the surveying lengths of 15 or 16 ¹⁄₂ ft used in computing acres, a distance now usually known as the "rod".

PGA Tour

The PGA Tour (officially rendered in all capital letters, as PGA TOUR) is the organizer of the main professional golf tours played primarily by men in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also known as the PGA Tour, as well as the Champions Tour (for golfers age 50 and older) and the Web.com Tour (for professional players who have not yet qualified to play in the PGA Tour), as well as PGA Tour Canada, PGA Tour Latinoamérica, and PGA Tour China. It is headquartered in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, a suburb of Jacksonville.

Originally established by the Professional Golfers' Association of America, it was spun off in December 1968 into a separate organization for tour players, as opposed to club professionals, the focal members of today's PGA of America. Originally the "Tournament Players Division," it adopted the name "PGA Tour" in 1975 and runs most of the week-to-week professional golf events on the tournament known as the PGA Tour, including The Players Championship, hosted at TPC Sawgrass, the FedEx Cup, with its finale at The Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club, and the biennial Presidents Cup. The remaining events on the PGA Tour are run by different organizations, as are the U.S.-based LPGA Tour for women and the other men's and women's professional tours around the world.