Aphrodite Hills > Golf Trivia Home > Golf Dictionary S - T

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S

S-word - Ssssssh! This is a very bad word in golf. A shank is a shot that flies ninety degrees to the right after the ball has been struck. So devastating is this affliction that if you get the shanks, the best thing to do is leave the course immediately and seek professional help— from your bartender.

Sand Trap - A deep depression filled with sand filled with golfers in a deep depression.

Sandy - When you escape from a bunker to make birdie or par, you've made a sandy. One of many junk bets golfers make during a match. ,

Score - The total number of strokes needed to complete 18 holes or three times the caddy's tip, whichever is closest to 75.

Scorecard - A piece of paper on which a player's opening offer is written prior to the commencement of serious negotiations.

Scrape it around - To play spotty or inconsistent golf but still manage to post a good score. Great pros like Jack Nicklaus stay in tournament contention by scraping it around on days when they don't have their A game.

Scratch Term to describe a golfer who has a zero handicap; that is, he is starting from scratch. Dream on.

Scratch Player - A player with a handicap of zero; a par golfer; a rat; a louse; a stinker.

Senior - A golfer who attributes poor play to the fact that he or she lacks the physique of a younger player.

Set of Clubs - A collection of no more than 14 golf clubs, usually consisting of three or four woods, nine or ten irons, and a putter. The chief distinction among the types of clubs is that the woods make a sound like "speck" or "frop" when the ball is improperly hit, whereas the irons emit a sharp "jink," "fank" or "whenng" and the putter produces a soft "tilk."

Shank - The most dramatic and unsettling form of misplayed shot, in which, as the clubshaft vibrates violently, the ball flies off to the right at nearly a 90° angle, embarrassing the golfer and endangering his or her fellow players. Duffers who consistently shank their balls are urged to buy and study Shanks-No Thanks by R. K. Hoffman or, in extreme cases, M. S. Howard's excellent Tennis for Beginners.

Short Game - The short shots played around the green (chips, putts, pitches and sand trap blasts) and the cheap shots taken between the green and the next tee (quips, digs, cracks, slams and jests).

Short grass - Where you are when you hit the fairway with your drive.

Short hole - Term used to describe any par three.

Short stick - The putter, so named because it's the shortest club in the bag. You can make up for a lot of bad work with other sticks if you can handle the short stick.

Shotgun start - Some tournaments station players on each tee to start a round so that they can all finish at roughly the same time. This is called a shotgun start because the beginning of play was once signalled by a shotgun blast. Now they use a horn to signal the beginning of play—it's a lot safer.

Side - Each nine holes—front and back. Also each team in a competition.

Slice - A shot that curves to the right. The most common fault of amateur golfers, generally caused by an open clubface at impact.

Slick - Term used to describe fast greens.

Snake - A long putt that breaks in more than one direction. One of the most famous snakes ever holed was a sixty-footer by Ben Crenshaw on the tenth hole at Augusta National Golf Club during the 1984 Masters Tournament.

Sock - To hit someone under the chin or on the lower part of the face with a closed hand driven by a fast, upward-sweeping movement of the arm.

Spin - Professional golfers and other accomplished players can apply a variety of spins to the ball to make it curve around obstacles, turn into the wind or stop dead where it lands. These shots take skill and practice, but most beginners have a bag of tricks, too! For example, even the rankest of amateurs can amaze their playing companions and themselves by making a ball run right across the centre of the hole without going in, rise straight up into the air, execute unbelievably sharp left or right turns, travel sideways or even backwards, or disappear entirely.

Stance - The proper positioning of the feet for the golf stroke may seem a fairly complex matter, but there are really only a few basics to master: just remember to put the clubhead behind the ball with your left hand on the grip (some say the right hand), then step forward with your right foot (some say the left foot), bring up your left foot (or right) and grasp the grip with your right hand (or left). Now line up the ball with your left heel, your left toe, the inside of your left foot, or between your feet, with the left foot slightly forward, the right foot slightly forward, or both feet parallel. That's all there is to it!

Stroke - Any forward movement of the club that is made with the intention of hitting and moving the ball and is observed by another golfer.

Stymie - A ball whose path to the hole is blocked by another ball is said to be "stymied," and under current rules the impeding ball is marked and moved. At one time, such shots had to be played by making the ball hop over or curve around the impediment, but a notorious, deliberately laid stymie during extra holes of the 1951 English Amateur Championship led to a modification of the rule, first in Britain and then, a little later, in the U.S. Other important rule changes and the circumstances under which they were made:

LIMIT SET ON TIME SPENT SEARCHING FOR LOST BALL: "The Lang, Lang Combing of the Glen," 14th hole, Loath Links, October 11, 1871-April 8, 1872

UNORTHODOX SWINGS AND CLUBS DISALLOWED: Lacrosse player Francois Foisette wins the Canadian Open, 1899

"ELIGIBLE PLAYER" MORE FULLY DEFINED: Kabu, a chimpanzee, wins the Calcutta Open, 1901

PLAY STRICTLY PROHIBITED FROM LIES BEYOND THE BOUNDARY of A COURSE: "The Mashie Incident," British-Chinese border skirmish, Hong Kong, 1909

FOURTEEN-CLUB MAXIMUM ESTABLISHED: "Relatively Bloody Saturday," the Caddy Strike of 1926

DISCONTINUANCE OF TOURNAMENT PLAY PERMITTED: "The Battle of the Glorious Leg-of-the-Dog 15th," third round of the Spanish Open, Valencia, 1937

BALL REMOVED FROM COURSE BY DOG DECLARED UNPLAYABLE: A.S.P. C.A. v. U.S.P G.A., 31. U.S. 564, 1948

Sudden Death - Term for the situation that exists when a match is tied at the end of 18 holes and the player who feels the least amount of confidence about beating the opposition in extra-holes play suddenly remembers the death, earlier in the day, of a beloved aunt

Swing - A full golf swing consists of the backswing that carries the clubhead up to the topswing point, the downswing that brings the clubhead to the point of impact, and the follow through. If the ball dribbles a few feet forward or hooks or slices violently into the woods or rough, the follow-through can be extended into the foresling-a graceful, lateral motion that sends the club spiraling into the underbrush. Alternatively, the follow-through may be stopped and the club brought up sharply in a vertical arc until the clubhead is behind the back, pointing at the ground, then swept smoothly up into the more classic topfling, which combines the power and accuracy necessary to send even the heaviest club into a distant water hazard.

T

Take-away - The initial part of the backswing. The name derives from the fact that a properly executed, ground-scraping, slow, backward sweep of the club with the clubhead pressed firmly onto the ground will "take away" most impediments interfering with the lie.

Talk to it - Golfers are always issuing pleas or instructions to their ball. "Get up!" "Get down!" "Sit." "Bite." It's fun, and there's no rule against it, so go ahead and talk to it.

Tap-in - A short, easy putt that anyone can make.

Tap-in - A putt short enough to miss one-handed

Target Line - An imaginary line from a player's lie to the target which the ball would follow if an imaginary golfer hit it.

Tee - Small wooden peg on which the ball is placed for a drive from the teeing ground. The condition of the tee after the tee shot provides an indication of whether or not the ball was hit correctly. If the tee flips backwards and lands in one piece a few inches behind the place where it was inserted into the grass, the ball was probably hit well. If, on the other hand, the tee breaks into three or more pieces, is driven deeper than two inches into the ground, travels farther than the ball or catches fire, it probably wasn't.

Tee Off - To drive a ball off a tee. Players who have made their drives off a tee are said to have teed off, but at this point it is almost always also correct to say that they are teed off.

Teeing Ground - A clearly defined rectangular area 2 club-lengths in depth from which players hit shots 20 to 30 dub-lengths directly forward or 5 to 10 flub-lengths to either side.

Thin, hit it - To hit the ball in the centre with the club's leading edge, instead of sliding under it. Chances are your shot will fly lower and farther than you intended. This is still much better than hitting it fat.

Tight Lie - Poor playing position in which the ball is lying low in the grass or sitting on a bald or bare spot. Also known as a "close lie" or, more commonly, as an "original lie," "preliminary lie," "previous lie" or "former lie."

Timing - Precise control of the speed of movement in the swing to achieve the greatest possible power and accuracy. If a player's timing is off, then there is no way his or her shot will reach its . . .

Tip - A piece of advice, such as "You know, you need to work on your timing." . . . intended target.

Top - To hit the ball well above its centreline, causing it to hop or trickle a few feet forward. Topping the ball is a problem that usually afflicts only beginning golfers, and it is quickly left behind once a player has learned to master the hook, the slice, the shank and the airball.

Tossing balls An easy way to decide who will be partners during a competitive match between four players. One golfer takes a ball from each player and then tosses them all into the air simultaneously. Whoever owns the two balls coming to rest closest to each other are partners, as are the two remaining players. This expression is not to be confused with the dastardly act of freeing oneself from a bunker using the hand mashie. That act is known as cheating.

Touch - A player with an aptitude for playing short, delicate shots around the green has a deft touch. He is a touch player. Touch shots don't require strength, but call for a certain feel for how the ball will react when struck and when it lands on the green. Seve Ballesteros is one example of a great touch player. Unfortunately for Seve, he can no longer hit the planet with a tee shot, so his great touch does him little good.

Tournament - An elaborate, time-consuming but basically fair method used by many country clubs to decide which individual members will be stuck for the next 12 months with the job of polishing, dusting and displaying their huge collection of ugly silver trophies.

Trap - A geek's term for bunker. There are no such things as traps, only bunkers.

Triple Bogey - Three strokes more than par. Four strokes more than par is a quadruple bogey, 5 more is a quintuple, 6 is a sextuple, 7 is a throwuple, 8 is a blowuple, and 9 is an ohshutuple.

Trouble shot - Whenever you hit a shot into a place where you don't have an easy path to the green, you are in trouble, so your next shot will be a trouble shot. For hackers this constitutes every shot not played from the tee or the green.