Professional Golfers Association (PGA)

PROFESSIONAL GOLFERS ASSOCIATION (PGA) -  

Professional Golfers Association, 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 and Ireland)
• Professional Golfers' Association of America

The women's equivalent term 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, Web.com Tour, Champions Tour, PGA Tour Canada, PGA Tour Latinoamérica, and PGA Tour China)
• PGA European Tour (which runs the European Tour, Challenge Tour and European Senior 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, 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.