par, birdie, caddy etc.

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The great irony of golf is that golfers aren’t do That’s what they play. You’ve probably been in a conversation where someone says, “I love golf,” or “I’m going to play golf today.” You understand one thing right away. The person missed the memo that using a word as a verb is like putting your fingernails on a chalkboard. I mean, does anyone “play tennis”?

It’s not enough to just take shots, you need to have a conversation, and that can sometimes be difficult in a game that seems to have its own language. Patois includes technical terms such as carry, fade, and even “moment of inertia.” that MOI. You have to take a divot on the dogleg and hit an explosion shot to the elevated green. In layman’s terms, you have to know what a breakfast ball is and a banana ball, and you have to have experience with both when you’re playing a better ball, but that’s not the same as better golf. You can also eat out cabbage and chili sauce dip, and sometimes a fried egg. When it comes to clichés, you’ve probably played cart golf, army golf, and even made the acquaintance of the ubiquitous blind squirrel at one time or another.

Being familiar with “golf speaking” shows you’re an insider, but don’t get too comfortable. Did you know that bogey once meant par and par and you should consult a financial advisor? “Curlew” and “whaup” probably aren’t in your dictionary, but trust me, you want to have one. The language of golf, like the game itself, is full of color and life, but both evolve. Consider a modification to match play slang. There, those whose mouths were tied on “All Square” were instead just tied, and anyone who didn’t like “Dormy” knew they couldn’t lose.

These changes to the vocabulary of match play were revealed by the 2019 Amendment to the Rules of Golf, which have played a role in shaping discourse about the game since they were first codified by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews in 1891.

“The widespread use of the language of golf coincided with the rise of print, which is why so many common terms emerged in the 1880s and ’90s, at the beginning of the industrial era when travel and broader communication became easier,” said Elizabeth Beeke, exhibition curator at the USGA Golf Museum in Liberty Corner, New Jersey.

Still, many golf terms date back centuries and their origins are debatable. What follows is an attempt to sort through competing etymologies, past reports, and academic speculation to uncover the history of golf’s most basic word. As for the Sandpiper and the Hoop, these are the names of European seabirds that were proposed and disposed of as stand-ins for hole-in-ones… producing an ace.

par

Like “cheating” and “gag orders,” par was popularized by journalists who twisted their words. In this case, Alexander Hamilton (AH) Doleman, a Scottish amateur golfer and author who played in the British Open at Prestwick in 1870, asked professionals Davy Straith and James Anderson to predict the winning score. After discussion, the two said a perfect out on a 12-hole course would be 49 times.

Par is of Latin origin and means “equality” or “equality.” At the time of the Championship, the British were using the term to describe the average performance of stocks. You can trade above or below that standard. A few days later, when young Tom Morris shot 149 over in three rounds of competition to win his third consecutive championship belt, Doleman wrote that he finished 2 over par. Doleman himself finished 20 strokes behind. That’s why his biggest contribution to the game is linguistic.

However, that success also took time. The first standardized course rating system did not appear until the 1890s, and par itself was officially recognized in 1911, when the USGA codified the rating standard as “perfect play, always allowing two strokes on each putting green, under normal weather conditions without any flukes.” The R&A followed suit in 1925.

bogie

Bogey originally meant today’s par, meaning the target score for a particular hole. This definition emerged in 1890 when Hugh Rotherman, secretary of England’s Coventry Golf Club, established scoring standards for clubs. He referred to the target total as a “ground score.”

For Scots, since the 1500s, a “bogey” has represented a devil or gremlin, leading to the term “bogeyman” and the popular 1880s song “Hush! Hush! Hush! Here Comes the Bogeyman.” By that time, the word meant an elusive figure who was difficult to catch, like modern-day Bigfoot.

As the concept of ground scores became widespread, golfers replaced the phrase with “bogey score” and adopted the idea of ​​chasing or competing with Mr. Bogey. A good player may be called a true “bogeyman”, and a player who fails to meet the standard may be called “lost to Mr. Bogey”. At the United Service Club, which is open only to military personnel, he changed his persona to Colonel Bogie, who has been guarding it for decades.

As equipment and courses improved, good golfers could easily beat the kernel, and “par” emerged as the target score for professionals and seasoned amateurs alike. It wasn’t until the turn of the 20th century that American golfers began using the term bogey to mean 1 over par, but back then it was just another reason for the game’s founders to hate Americans.

birdie

“Bird” was “lit” before it became a birdie, if that makes sense. The standard term for shooting one under par on a hole is purely American, coming from the early 1900s slang term “bird,” which meant anything good.

Legend has it that its specific application in golf dates back to the Atlantic City (N.J.) Country Club, where AB Smith, who designed Pine Valley Golf Club, and his brothers William and George Crump played the second hole. When AB hit his second shot in front of the par 4 and tapped it for a 3, he called it the “bird of a shot.” After that, the trio began calling such feats “birdies,” and it stuck. The club commemorated this event by erecting a plaque with the date 1903.

Americans aren’t finished with birds. Immediately after Birdie’s arrival, Eagle reached 2 under par with one hole, and AB Smith and friends once again took credit, although the term was not fully accepted everywhere until the 1930s. The logic was very simple. If a plain old bird is good, the symbol of the United States must be even better.

Smith and his associates used the double eagle at 3 under, but that nomenclature was largely overthrown by another bird, the albatross, which emerged as a preferred choice in the 1920s. Although the exact origin appears to be undocumented, this species is a majestic and extremely rare bird, so it provides a logical continuity.

caddy

Here, the game’s story takes a detour to France. In France, there are written references to the game of golf in the 1400s, and many believe that the word caddy comes from the French word cadet, meaning boy. The story goes that Mary, Queen of Scots, came across the word while traveling and brought it back to her homeland, where it came to refer to people who worked as porters and messengers. Eventually, he made the leap to golf.

This all seems clean enough, but there’s a problem. Other historians claim that the French were not playing golf at the time of Mary’s visit, but were playing a different game that involved only one club, so a caddy was not needed. Whatever the truth, Mary, like many nobles, spoke French, and “cadet” made its way to Scotland (as did “dormy” from the French word “daumir,” meaning “to sleep”), becoming “caddie” by the 1600s. Dictionaries tagged it as a golf-centric term by the mid-1800s.

Fore

I feel that “fore” is simply a shortened version of “foreword” and should be used as a general warning to those ahead. it’s not.

A more interesting possibility revolves around military history, especially formations of riflemen lined up in a line, one set kneeling in front of the standing set. “Beware the Preamble” served as a warning to the soldiers in front when the rear row fired, which, the theory goes, eventually morphed into the “front line.” We have a special relationship with Leith Links in Edinburgh, Scotland. Leith Links was built next to the fort and brought close contact between soldiers and golfers, but the warning there was related to a pair of cannons flanking the entrance. Either way, this makes the fear of small white spheres falling into reality.

The second option concerns the forecaddie, which was popular in the era of feathery balls because it was expensive and difficult to make. A forecaddy stood in the landing area to track the leather-wrapped projectile. Before hitting the ball, the golfer yells “forecaddie” to let his opponent know that the ball is coming in. In the end, the warning was shortened to “before.” As already mentioned, the words “caddie”, “forecaddie” and “fore” all appeared around the same time, so this has a certain logical appeal.

golf

They say success has 1,000 fathers, which may explain golf’s unresolved paternal roots.

Suggestions for the title include corfu, corfu, kole, kolbe, and kolben, all of which basically mean “club” and are associated with some type of game that involves hitting a sphere with a stick. Some historians trace them back to the ancient Greek koraphos, or the Latin collaps or corpas, meaning “to strike” or “cuff”. The game appears to have roots in Paganica, the Roman game of hitting a ball filled with feathers with a curved stick, and was spread throughout Europe by conquering legions.

Other experts suggest that corfu, a Dutch game played with sticks and balls in frozen canals and fields, may have migrated across the North Sea to Scotland. Of course, it doesn’t help that once this game came along, the Scots called it all sorts of names: Goff, Goyf, Golf, Gough, Gough, Glove, Gouf, Gough, Gowfe. In Gaelic, the word is golf.

The truth is elusive, but all that matters is that at some point the Scots began to play a game that is directly related to the current sport and agreed to call it “golf”. People may have played “golf” back then, but no one does that anymore. At least not if they really know what they’re talking about.

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