First ever strokes competition

You're in a world of imagination conjured by your own subconscious. Beep beep beep. SNOOZE. The cycle repeats. You hit the snooze button once too often and now you are against the clock. You get up and grab a quick shower, and a slice of toast and a banana as you run out the door.

The local golf course is a 13 minute drive away, you arrive at 7:08 for your 7:10 tee time. What could possibly go wrong? You sign in, throw in for the 2s and make your way to the first tee with your laces untied. Your playing partners have just teed off and one of them says:

"Take your time"

What he means is "come on to fuck will ya!!" You quickly tie your laces, stick on a golf glove, grab a Titliest pro V1 and tee from your bag, pull the big dog or driver out and get ready for your first ever strokes competition. This was me many moons ago. Roy Keane's famous qoute about Ireland's shambolic preparation for the 2002 world cup in Japan and South Korea comes to mind:

"Fail yo prepare, prepare to fail"

So up I step driver in hand, two swift practice swings, then I unleash. Well not quite, I topped it into the water in front of the tee on the par 5 first. It is pretty intimidating first hole to be fair. I tee up again taking my 3rd shot now from the first tee. I try to compose my self with a couple of deep breaths. two swift practice swings, then I unleash again and you guessed it, I topped it straight into the lake on front of me again!!

Suddenly I'm wishing that I stayed in bed! I manage to get of the tee with my 5th shot but pull it to the right hand side and end up in a tricky position with a tough shot from the rough with trees to carry. The options were a 5 or 6 iron hit perfectly and threaded through a small window or a safe 9 iron over the trees to the fairway. I went with the safer option and to be fair it was the right decision, it just so happens I made a balls of it! I pulled it badly right and it went out of bounds, meaning that I had to play the shot again for my 8th shot 🙈

I hit a good 9 iron this time, but the damage was well and truely done. It took another two shots to get on the green and then I three putted and had to write a 13 on my card for the first time ever! You see in a strokes competition you have to count every shot, unlike stableford where you can scratch. That was a tough 7 minutes of golf and the worst possible start to a strokes competition, possibly even a record!! An Octuple-bogey on the first, if that's even a word. I finished out my card with a few pars, one birdie and a mix of bogey, double bogey and triple bogeys.

I've had many different numbers on my score cards over the years. Twos on par 4s, threes on par 5s, but never a 1 on a par 3. So there's been eagles, birdies, pars, bogeys, double bogeys, triple bogeys, quadruple bogeys, quintuple bogeys, sextuple bogeys and even an octuple bogey!! I've never had an albatross and frankly probably never will. Few amateurs have ever managed it. Where did all of these terms come from? That's what I want to tell you about today.

Bogey

I was surprised when I heard about this one. 'bogey' actually comes from a song that was popular in the 1890s, called "The Bogey Man". The protagonist of this popular little ditty was an elusive man hiding in the shadows: "I'm the Bogey Man, catch me if you can" was how the song went.

Golfers in Scotland and England equated the quest for the elusive Bogey Man with the quest for the perfect score on the fairways and greens of their local holf course. By the mid to late 1890s, the term 'bogey score' referred to the ideal score a good player could be expected to make on a hole under perfect conditions. It also came to be used to describe stroke play tournaments - hence, in early Rules books we find a section detailing the regulations for 'Bogey Competitions.' Another theory is it comes from the Scottish slang for goblins or devils. Either way, it was the Scots who came up with it. A Bogey means one over par.

Par

The next term we will look at is par. The score all of us high handicapper hackers love to see on our cards! Where did the term come from and when?
Well, it came after bogey anyway likely around 1910. The concept of 'Par' started to emerge in golfing circles at this time - this being the designated number of strokes a scratch player could be expected to take on a hole in ideal conditions. Did golfers invent the term and if so what is the back story? This one was not inspired by a song and was used in everyday parlance far before golf was first founded. The word "par" like many words in English and other languages can findvm its roots in Latin. It means "equal" or "equality," and dates back to the 16th Century. The term was adopted by golfers around 1910 and the expression par itself is a standard term in sports handicapping today, where it equates to 'level' or 'even.' It's the foundation of the beauty of golf where a 75 year old 22 handicapper can play against a young gun 6 handicapper on a level and fair playing field.

Birdie

Do par comes from latin. What about birdie? This one is more similar to the bogey story. It actually harks back to a golf match at Atlantic City Country Club in America around the turn of the last century.
Birdie comes from the American slang word ’bird’ which meant something great. Like par, the word birdie gained prominence around 1910 to mean one under the par for a hole in golf. And so started the tradition of naming golf scores after birds, which brings us nicely to the scoring term eagle.

Eagle

While bogey and par were given to us by the Scots, birdie was very much an American coining, and now on a roll they came up with word that golfers the world over use to describe a hole where they beat par by 2 strokes. The term is an Eagle and it came on the wings of a birdie and was likely chosen as it is the symbol of America and its national bird. I've been lucky enough to have five eagles in my golfing "career" to date. Four of them came on par 5s, 3 putts and one which was the best golf shot of my life, 140 yards into the wind on a severe uphill. I riffled it into the air, it stayed up there for ages, two bounces and in! The other one was a chip in on a par four in Newcastle, UK.

Albatross

This term means three under par. Some people call this a "double eagle" I would call it a dodo, it's so rare! It means three under par on a hole, meaning it's impossible on a par 3 for a start. It would be a hole in one on a par 4 or a two on a par 5! It is simply a continuation of the bird theme of good scores. The albatross is extremely rare, as is a three under par score on a hole. You won't ever see one in the flesh unless you are at a professional golf tournament most likely. Even then they are like hens teeth as we say here in Ireland. Here's a video with a few albatrosses from over the years:

Not all of the photos are mine. Three were sourced here:

https://www.youtube.com
https://carmentablog.com/
https://www.golfspan.com/golf-terms/bogey
https://thegolfnewsnet.com/golfnewsnetteam/2015/03/22/rare-albatross-double-eagle-golf-10311/
https://nationaltoday.com/national-american-eagle-day/
https://pressofatlanticcity.com/business/a-c-country-club-has-lots-of-history-and-now-lots-of-new/article_7e5aeaa8-107e-11e5-b8c6-7f16c6d86ccc.amp.html

Thanks as always for reading.

Peace Out.