Professional Golfers' Association, (with or without the apostrophe), is the usual term for a professional association in men's golf. It is often abbreviated to PGA. There are several PGAs around the world, including:
- Professional Golfers' Association (Great Britain & Ireland)
- Professional Golfers' Association of America
The women's equivalent is Ladies Professional Golf Association, commonly abbreviated to LPGA. The United States association is called the LPGA. Other women's bodies have territorial designations in their names, like LPGA of Japan or LPGA of Korea.
The organisations which run the world's two leading professional golf tours have the initials PGA in their names, but they are now independent of the Professional Golfers' Associations which established them:
- PGA Tour (which runs the PGA Tour, Champions Tour and Nationwide Tour)
- PGA European Tour (which runs the European Tour, Challenge Tour and European Seniors Tour)
Originally, PGAs were the central bodies for all forms of professional golf in their territories, but now some of them, including those of the United States, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Ireland, are focused on the needs of the majority of professional golfers who work as club or teaching professionals, as opposed to being tournament professionals.
Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or association:
“We have been weakened in our resistance to the professional anti-Communists because we know in our hearts that our so-called democracy has excluded millions of citizens from a normal life and the normal American privileges of health, housing and education.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“They that have grown old in a single state are generally found to be morose, fretful and captious; tenacious of their own practices and maxims; soon offended by contradiction or negligence; and impatient of any association but with those that will watch their nod, and submit themselves to unlimited authority.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)