It’s not clear whether the game started in Scotland or was adapted from the Dutch who frequently traded on the east coast of Scotland. The evidence for this is the word golf, which came from the medieval Dutch term kolf, meaning club or stick. However, most other golfing terms are Scottish, and it was the Scots who made the game as popular as it is today. They first started playing golf on the rough grassy area between sea and land, on the east coast, which they called the links. This comes from the Anglo-Saxon hlinc meaning ‘ridge’. Golfing terms feature often in our crosswords and puzzles. Have you spotted any of these?

Caddie, the golfer’s club carrier, comes from cadet, a military student. In the past, the caddies were often the younger sons of the aristocracy. As well as a caddie, a fore-caddie used to go ahead to spot the ball landing. One explanation of the warning “Fore!” is an abbreviation of ‘fore-caddie’ to alert the spotter that the ball was coming.

Bunker is a Scottish term for a hollow filled with sand, used as a hazard, possibly inspired by the quarry pits that lay on typical Scottish links. When courses were made inland, they retained this tradition and also the Water Hazard. The tee, which every golfer carries in his pocket, comes from the Gaelic word tigh meaning house, and was borrowed from the sport of curling.

The term par, meaning the number of strokes a first-class player should normally require for a particular hole or course, is derived from the stock exchange term that a stock may be above or below its normal or ‘par’ figure. Par means ‘equal’ in Latin. A bogey was once the same as a par but now means one over par. It derives from a bogeyman, a goblin or devil (from the Scottish goblin bogle) and supposedly someone who played supernaturally well. Birdie, meaning a score of one stroke under par comes from the 19th century American slang term ‘bird’ meaning anything excellent.

 

In keeping with this bird theme, an eagle became known as two under par or a really big birdie and an albatross as three under par – a rare score and a rare bird.