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Golf Dictionary what Golf terms really mean

E

Eagle - Unusually low score on a hole achieved by a golfer with an exceptionally good drive and one or two exceptionally good follow-up shots, or by a golfer with an exceptionally poor memory.

Equipment - According to the rules of golf, equipment is "anything that can be thrown, broken, kicked, twisted, torn, crushed, shredded or mangled; or propelled, driven or directed, either under its own power or by means of a transfer of momentum, into underbrush, trees or other overgrown terrain; or over the edge of a natural or artificially elevated area; or below the surface of any body of water, whether moving or impounded."

Etiquette - The rules of behaviour in golf. There isn't room here for a complete list, but a few of the more important ones are:

· Never put tees in your nose.

· Never sneeze into your glove.

· Never concede a chip shot.

· Never hold a ball for another player to hit.

· Never practice drives against a backboard.

· Never wear golf shoes to a dance.

F

Fade - 1. (Right-handed golfers) A shot that curves from left to right. 2. (Left-handed golfers) A shot that curves from right to left.

Fairway Wood - A club with a medium loft that is used to get a ball out of a good lie on the fairway and into position for a shot from a slope, a bunker, a water hazard or in back of a tree.

Fan To miss the ball completely. The air moves, but nothing else does.

Fat, hit it To hit the ground behind the ball first so that the shot has no spin and does not achieve the desired distance.

Feather To hit a controlled shot with a full swing. By slowing down the club-head speed, the golfer hits a shot that travels less distance than a full club would normally allow, causing the ball to land softly like a feather. The shot is popular in match play because it can confuse an opponent into thinking that more club is needed to hit a certain shot.

First-tee syndrome The fear of hitting the first tee shot of the day, a devastating malady known to overcome many amateur golfers. Also known as first-tee jitters.

Flagstick - Long, flexible metal pole with red-and-white markings along its length and a numbered flag at its top, which, had it not been left lying on the green by the previous foursome, would have indicated the position of the hole.

Flier A shot that flies farther than normal because of the way the ball is lying on the ground. Fliers often occur when the ball is sitting in light rough, where the blades of grass are growing toward the intended target, or when the ball is lying in clover, or when the ball is lying in wet grass. All of these scenarios eliminate backspin from the ball, thereby allowing it to fly through the air with less resistance. The term can also be used to describe the lie of the ball, as in a flier lie.

Fluff - A shot in which the clubhead strikes the ground behind the ball before hitting it, causing it to dribble forward one or two yards. A more widely used term for this type of stroke is "practice swing."

Flying elbow When the right elbow (for a right-handed golfer) is far away from the body on the downswing, usually meaning that the club is approaching the ball on an out-to-in path, thus causing the ball to slice. It was thought that anyone with a flying elbow could not play good golf until Jack Nicklaus flapped his way to being the greatest golfer in the history of the game.

Follow-through - The part of the swing that takes place after the ball has been hit but before the club has been thrown.

Fore - The first of several four-letter words exchanged between golfers as one group of players hits balls toward another in front of them on the course.

Four-ball - A match in which two pairs of players each play their better ball against the other. Additional golf matches include: best-ball, in which one player plays against the better ball of two or the best ball of three players; three-ball, in which three players play against one another, each playing his or her own ball; and no-ball, in which two, three or four players, all of whom have lost all their balls, go to the clubhouse and play gin rummy.

Four-putt - To take four strokes of the putter to put the ball into the hole after driving it onto the green.

Foursome - Four golfers playing a round together. Three golfers are a threesome, and two form a twosome. Four ladies playing slowly are a "gruesome." Four men playing after a long lunch at the 19th hole are a "fearsome." A single attractive woman playing alone is a "toothsome." A husband and wife playing together are a "quarrelsome." A group of golfers who give advice while watching another group tee off is a "meddlesome." A single player with a large number jokes is a "tiresome." And two younger men playing a fast, sub-par round are a "loathsome."

Fried egg A ball buried in the sand, with a ring around it created on impact. Too many fried eggs will make you lose your appetite for the game.

Front Nine - The first half of an 18-hole golf course. A golfer who, by the end of the 9th hole, has shot within a few strokes of par for 18 is entitled to skip the second half of the course and head directly for the 19th hole.

G

Gallery - The spectators at a golf tournament. Golf fans enjoy a much higher degree of participation in their favourite sport than their counterparts seated in stadiums could ever dream of: they get almost as much exercise as the players themselves, they can wear the identical playing outfits without the slightest embarrassment, they stand at least as good a chance of being injured during the course of play as even the top golfer in the country does, and they can enter upon and do serious damage to the playing field before and during the contest as well as after it is over.

Game - A competitive round of golf, but also a particular golfer's style of play. Over time, golfers tend to progress through several basic kinds of "game": great drives, poor approach shots and lousy putting; awful drives, foul approach shots and superb putting; perfect drives, rotten approach shots and dreadful putting; and ping-pong, bowling and croquet.

Get Up - The opposite of get down, an exhortation used to urge a putt or shot to travel farther toward the hole. Also used by Golfer A to urge Golfer B to regain consciousness after Golfer A has hit Golfer B in the head with an errant iron shot.

Gimme - A conceded putt, shortened from the phrase "Give it to me." Gimmes are the centre of many golfing controversies, especially among the ranks of amateurs who are always looking for an opponent to concede a putt, even if their ball is off the green.

Give - An agreement between a golfer and his opponent to give each other their next putt. Usually the result of two amateurs with a shared fear of the short game.

Goat track -A poorly maintained golf course.

Golf - The derivation of the word "golf 'from its Celtic and Middle English roots is obscure. Some possibilities are: gil f f (an incurable madness), gylf (a notorious liar), gullf (to beat a shrub with a short stick), golve (under; beneath; lost; blocked; submerged; stuck; obstructed), gellvo (horribly; terribly; hopelessly; awfully), galfa (my God!; oh, no!), goal fyl (to cry; to weep) and gael f (I quit).

Golf Accessories - Gadgets whose purchase improves players' games primarily by eliminating bulk from their wallets, thereby reducing excessive trouser friction and allowing a smooth hip movement in the swing.

Golf Bag - Portable container with compartments designed to hold clubs, balls and other golfing accessories. There are two basic types of golf bag, and serious players usually own one of each: an inexpensive canvas or nylon "carry" bag that would have been easy to tote around the home course if the shoulder strap hadn't broken on the 3rd tee, and a more durable vinyl or leather "travel" bag that would have been used on a golf trip if the airline had not sent it to a continent other than the one on which the course its owner planned to play is located.

Golf Cart - Two-wheeled bag carrier that decreases the exercise value of playing 18 holes of golf from about the level of two sets of doubles tennis to the equivalent of an hour and a half of shopping. With a four-wheeled electric cart, the physical demands of the game can be reduced even further to about the same as 10 minutes of rearranging sofa cushions, watering a dozen plants or one complete loading and unloading of a dishwasher.

Golf Club - 1. The basic implement in golf, which consists of along shaft on one end of which is the head, which is attached to the shaft at the heel and has on one side a distinct face. 2. A social organisation built around a golf course and composed of a number of heels, a membership committee head with two faces, and a long waiting list of people who are going to get the shaft.

Golf Glove - An unpleasant odour worn on the hand.

Golf Grippe - Mysterious ailment whose sudden but short-lived symptoms of violent coughing and sneezing usually occur on the tee or green. It can often be cured by pounding the sufferer vigorously on the back with a 5-iron.

Golf lawyer A player known for constantly citing the rules, usually to the detriment of your score. This character may sound versed on the rules of the game, but he's probably trying to take advantage of you. If you're playing with a golf lawyer, carry a copy of the Rules of Golf with you at all times.

Golf Shoes - There are two basic kinds of special footgear that golfers can choose from: traditional golf shoes with metal spikes and the newer rubber-studded models. There are a number of differences between the two designs, but the question of which type to select really boils down to whether you want a shoe that you can blame for spoiling your shot because its spikes caught in the turf during your backswing or one you can blame because its studs slipped in the grass during your downswing.

Golf Widow - Non-playing wife of an obsessive golfer. Just for the record, judges have consistently decided that although golf clearly is "extreme mental cruelty," it is not grounds for divorce since "the unspeakable sufferings are experienced exclusively by the player and not by the one abandoned as the result of such play" (Humphrey v. Humphrey). On the other hand, courts have been equally firm in throwing out wills altered in favour of favourite golf holes (Alexander v. Trust for the Mowing of the Rough on the Back Nine at Smokey Valley C.C.), bequests to dubious sporting foundations (Bennett v. The Society for the Perfection of the Backswing) and posthumous gifts for the care and preservation of treasured clubs (Howard v. Irons, Woods, et al.).

Golfing - A pastime that gives people cooped up in the office all week a chance to lie and cheat outdoors.

Golfing Vacation - Period of time spent playing golf in a place where the rain is warm or where notices indicating that a course is closed due to inclement weather are posted in a foreign language.

Green - A roughly circular area of smooth, lush grass whose verdant hue is the result of regular sprinkling and constant sobbing, bawling, blubbering and whimpering.

Greens Fees - The charge for playing a round of golf. When paying this fee, mediocre players should keep in mind the fact that whereas golfers who regularly shoot par are shelling out nearly a quarter for every shot they take, a hopeless duffer is paying a mere eight or nine cents a stroke.

Grip - The end of the club that slips, twists, rips or flakes, as distinct from the end of the club that rusts, splits, chips or cracks. See HEAD.

Grip it and rip it To forget about all those "swing thoughts" and take a healthy rip at the ball. This phrase became popular after the prodigious swinger John Daly and his Herculean drives, won the 1991 PGA title at Crooked Stick. When asked about his style, Daly said, "I just grip it and rip it."

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