A brief history of golf’s most basic words: par, birdie, and more

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The greatest irony of golf is that golfers don’t Do It, they play it. No doubt you’ve been involved in a conversation where someone said, “I love golfing,” or “I was playing golf today.” You know one thing immediately: That person missed the memo, and using the word as a verb is like nails on a chalkboard. I mean, does anyone go “play tennis”?

It’s not enough to hit the ball, you also have to talk, which can be challenging at times for a game that seems to have its own language. These dialects include technical terms like entry and fade, and even “moment of inertia” Didi medium of instruction. You have to turf the doglegs and hit explosive shots to the elevated greens. In terms of slang, you have to differentiate between a breakfast ball and a banana ball, and you’ve seen both of these when playing better golf balls – which is different from better golf balls. You can even eat cabbage and hot sauce outside, and occasionally a fried egg. Speaking of clichés, you’ve probably played golf carts, Army golf balls, and been acquainted with the ubiquitous blind squirrel more than once.

Your command of the “language of golf” shows your internal status, but don’t get too comfortable. Did you know bogey once meant par and par meant you should consult your financial advisor? “Curlew” or “whaup” may not belong in your dictionary, but trust me, you’d love to have one. The language of golf is as full of color and life as the game itself, but both are constantly evolving. Consider this modification of match-play vernacular, those who were knotted by “all square” became a draw, and anyone who disliked “dormie” found they could not lose.

These changes to the vocabulary of match play stem from the 2019 revision of the Rules of Golf, which have played a role in shaping the discourse about the sport since they were first codified in 1891 at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.

“The widespread use of the language of golf coincided with the rise of the printed word,” said Elizabeth Beeck, exhibition curator at the USGA Golf Museum in Liberty Point, New Jersey. “That’s why so many common terms emerged around the 1880s and ’90s (the beginning of the industrial age), when travel and broader communication became easier.”

Still, many golf terms date back centuries, and disputed origins are common. What follows is an attempt to sort through competing etymologies, past reports, and scholarly speculation to tell the history of some of golf’s most fundamental words. As for the curlew and whaup, they are names for European seabirds that were proposed and treated as stand-ins for a hole-in-one… and the end result was ace.

Pa

Like muckraking and gag orders, par came into the world through journalists changing language. In this case, Alexander Hamilton (AH) Doleman, an amateur golfer and author from Scotland who was competing in the 1870 British Open at Prestwick, asked fellow professionals Davie Straith and James Anderson to predict the winning score. After consultation, both sides agreed that perfect play on the 12-hole course would extend to 49 holes.

Par is derived from Latin and means “equal” or “equal”. During tournaments, the British use this term to describe the average performance of a stock; one can trade above or below that standard. A few days later, when a young Tom Morris shot 149 in three rounds to win his third consecutive championship belt, Dorman wrote that he was two strokes “over par.” Dorman himself finished the 20-shot comeback, which is why his greatest contribution to the game was in words.

However, even this success takes time. The first standardized course rating system did not appear until the 1890s, and par itself did not receive official recognition until 1911, when the USGA established a rating standard that it described as “perfect play without flukes under normal weather conditions, with two strokes allowed on each green at all times.” The R&A followed suit in 1925.

bogey

Bogey originally meant the same thing as par today, i.e. it represented the target score on any given hole. This definition emerged in 1890, when Hugh Rotherman, secretary of the Coventry Golf Club in England, established scoring standards at his club. He calls the target total the “base score.”

For Scots, “bogey” has meant a devil or gremlin since the 1500s, giving rise to the term “bogey man” and a popular song from the 1880s, “Hush! Hush! Hush! Here comes the bogey man.” Back then, the word meant an elusive, elusive figure, much like the modern-day Bigfoot.

As the concept of ground scoring spread, golfers replaced the phrase with “bogey scoring” and embraced the idea that they were chasing or competing with Mr. Bogey. A good player may be called a true “Mr. Bogey,” while anyone who falls short is “lost to Mr. Bogey.” At the Joint Service Club, open only to the military, they changed the character to Colonel Bogie, who had been on guard duty for decades.

As equipment and courses improved, good golfers could easily beat the Colonel, and “par” became the target score for pros and skilled amateurs alike. As the 20th century progressed, American golfers began using bogey as a term meaning one shot over par, which at the time was another reason why the game’s founders disliked Americans.

birdie

“Bird” was “lit” before he became “birdie” if that makes sense. The standard term for scoring 1 under par on a hole is purely American, derived from the slang “bird” which in the early 1900s meant anything outstanding.

According to legend, its specific use in golf can be traced to the Atlantic City (New Jersey) Country Club, where AB Smith, his brother William, and George Crump, who designed Pine Valley Golf Club, were playing the second hole. AB hit his second shot near the par 4 and called it a “birdie” when he hit a 3. The trio then began referring to any such feat as a “birdie,” a term they still use today. The club commemorates the event with a plaque bearing the date 1903.

Americans are not tired of birds. Shortly after the birdie came an eagle on a hole that left him at 2 under, and AB Smith and his friends again claimed the honor, although the term was not fully accepted everywhere until the 1930s. The logic is simple – if an average old pigeon is good, then the symbol of America must be better.

Smith and company used a double eagle to denote three-under par, but that nomenclature was largely supplanted by another bird, the albatross, which became the go-to golf course in the 1920s. The exact origin does not seem to have been recorded, although the species brings logical continuity as it is a majestic and extremely rare bird.

caddy

This is where the game’s story takes a detour to France. Written references to “golf” in France date back to the 1400s, and many speculate that caddy comes from the French word “cadet,” meaning “boy.” The story goes that Mary, Queen of Scots, encountered the word during her travels and brought it back to her home country, where it referred to anyone who worked as a porter or messenger. Eventually, it crossed over into golf.

This sounds neat, but there’s a problem. Other historians say the French were not playing golf at the time of Mary’s visit, but instead played another sport that used only one club and therefore did not require a caddy. Whatever the truth, Mary, like many nobles, spoke French, and the word “cadet” made its way to Scotland (as did the “dormie” from French “dormir”, meaning “to sleep”), where it became “caddie” in the 1600s. By the mid-1800s, dictionaries labeled it a golf-centric term.

Fore

It feels like “preface” should just be short for “preface,” used as a general warning to those who came before me. It’s not.

One of the more interesting possibilities revolves around military history, specifically the formation of riflemen in a row, with one group kneeling in front of a standing group. The “preface with caution” was a warning to soldiers in the front row when the rear platoon was firing, and according to theory this eventually evolved into the “preface”. This has a special connection with Leith Links in Edinburgh, Scotland, which adjoins a fort, bringing soldiers and golfers into close contact, although warnings there relate to the two cannons flanking the entrance. Either way, it puts the fear of getting hit by a little white ball into perspective.

The second option involves ex-caddies, which were popular during the badminton era because they were expensive and difficult to manufacture. To track those leather-wrapped projectiles, the ex-caddie would stand at the landing zone. Before hitting the ball, a golfer will yell “Caddy” to alert his player that the ball is coming. Eventually, they shortened the warning to “fore.” As already pointed out, this has a certain logical appeal, since the words “caddy”, “forecaddie” and “fore” appeared around the same time.

golf

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

Contenders for this title include colf, kolf, chole, kolbe and kolven, all of which words basically mean “club” and are associated with some kind of game involving hitting a ball with a stick. Some historians trace it to the ancient Greek word kolaphos or the Latin word colapus or colpus, meaning “to strike” or “to cuff.” The games also appear to have originated from the Roman game of paganica, which featured beating feather-filled balls with a curved stick and spread throughout Europe through conquering legions.

Other experts suggest that the Dutch game of golf – a game played with sticks and balls on frozen canals or fields – migrated across the North Sea to Scotland. Of course, what’s worse is that as soon as the sport was introduced, the Scots gave it a variety of names, including goff, goif, golf, goiff, gof, glove, gowf, gouff and gowfe. In Gaelic the word is goilf.

The truth is elusive, but what is significant is that at some point the Scots began playing a game directly related to the current version of the sport and agreed to call it “golf”. Back then, they might have even “played golf,” but no one does that anymore. At least not if they actually know what they’re talking about.