By BILL PENNINGTON of the New York Times
Do you speak golf?
Do you play for Barkies? Or Arnies? Do you avail yourself of the breakfast ball and love a good game of Bingo, Bango, Bongo?
Have you found yourself dormie, stymied, plugged or in the cabbage?
Have you dubbed it, shrimped it, shanked it, dinked it or duck-hooked it? And do you know the difference? Have you hit a scooter? How about one in the side door?
Are you a sandbagger? A pigeon? A player? A hooker?
Do you know who lovingly called his putter Billy Baroo?
In other words, are you conversant in the dialect of golf? Do you not only play golf but also revel in all of its idiosyncratic, peculiar lingo?
I hope so. It’s the code of the tribe, sometimes the best part of being in the weird golf fraternity. Nothing can assuage the misery of a poor shot like a good, self-deprecating idiom for your idiocy.
Golfers could say, “Oh, that’s a bad shot.” But why, when they can say they chunked it, skulled it or smothered it?
And golf linguistics are not just for your bad shots. In fact, most of the terms deal with making fun of your partners’ shots. Because theirs are never simply in trouble, in a pond or out of bounds. They are in jail, rinsed or Oscar Bravo.
This vernacular is centuries old, passed on and continually abridged and expanded, especially with references that are amazingly relevant to pop culture. There are sayings linked to Rush Limbaugh and Nancy Pelosi (think of shots going right or left), Osama Bin Laden (think of all the bunkers on a golf course) and Paris Hilton (think of anything). O.K., many of these references are too risqué to be repeated here, but it makes me feel good that golf — a so-called stodgy game invented five centuries ago — can stay current.
It also proves to me something nongolfers often fail to grasp: old-fashioned golf is at its heart an old-fashioned social exercise.
“Golf lingo developed because the golf course is a place where people get to know each other, and the game is so hard it especially leads to teasing, joking and ragging on each other,” said Randy Voorhees, the author of “The Little Book of Golf Slang.”
“The lingo has persisted because golf is a game you play for a lifetime,” he said. “So parents pass the terms on to their children, or older players use this colorful vernacular around younger players, and it becomes a natural way of speaking on the golf course.”
The first time you hit a ball on the green and someone calls for it to “sit,” does that not perfectly describe what you want the ball to do? If you hit a ball in the water and someone says it is “wet,” does that not forevermore seem like the best portrayal of its position and your disposition?
“A lot of golf terms actually evoke an image of what is happening out there,” Voorhees said. “You can carve, feather or gouge a shot, and once you learn to perform those shots, they are words that exactly describe what you’re trying to do.”
The golf lexicon has not developed by accident. David Normoyle, the assistant director of the United States Golf Association Museum, cited three primary reasons.
“One, golf is played over such a vast, irregular surface, we need a myriad of descriptions for play on a golf course,” he said. “Two, golf is truly a global game and has many local variations and flavors. Lastly, and perhaps more than anything else, golf has had great poets, and they have tried to capture the essence of the game.”
Who knew that having “the shanks” was meant to be literature?
Now if you’re a beginner or a casual player, you may find golfspeak to be another intimidating barrier to feeling comfortable on the course — a verbal version of golf’s code of behavioral etiquettes. But don’t fret.
There are no secret passwords in the pro shop or trick questions posed on the first tee. People are engrossed in their own games. Don’t play slowly or throw your clubs, and no one will care much about your golf vocabulary.
“Keep your ears open; you’ll learn it all as you go,” Voorhees said. “Soon it will flow out of your mouth naturally.”
I would make one suggestion: visit the local municipal golf course. A lot about golf can be learned there in general, but without question, it is where you will hear the richest, most saucy golf phrases.
But please, don’t be a mute out there. You may come up with a new term for our treasured golf glossary.
Speaking of which, I don’t have time to give definitions for every piece of golf slang used in this article. If you really need translations, they won’t be too hard to come by.
But I can’t leave anyone hanging about Billy Baroo, because “Caddyshack” references are sacred in the cult. The great Ted Knight, as Judge Smails, called his lucky putter Billy Baroo. Years later, that commendation held such merit that it became the name of a line of real putters.
If you are new to golf, understanding the Smails character’s role in the American game is pivotal. Watch the movie some Saturday night after a great, or horrible, round. You’ll feel better — and understand the lingo a bit better.
It also may help explain why you’ve seen someone stand on the first tee and pause to announce, “Gambling is illegal at Bushwood, sir, and I never slice.”
Next time, you’ll be able to bet a hundred bucks they slice it into the woods.
In Layman’s Terms
NASSAU A group game with three bets: low score on the front nine, back nine and for the full 18 holes.
BARKIES A bet won for making par after hitting a tree.
ACEY DEUCEY A group betting game in which the low scorer on each hole (ace) wins money from the other three players and the high scorer (deuce) loses money to the other three players.
BINGO, BANGO, BONGO A points game awarding a point to the first player on the green (bingo), a point for being closest to the hole when everyone has reached the green (bango) and a point for being the first in the hole (bongo).
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