Morris on the words

Golf terms, in player words

121 words of the game, each one a link you can send to the friend who asked. Scoring, the course, the shots, the clubs, the rules, the formats and the slang, with where the word comes from when a source says so.

Short answer: par is the expected score on a hole; birdie, eagle and albatross are one, two and three under; bogey is one over. Tee, fairway, rough, green, bunker are the course; drive, approach, chip, pitch, putt the shots; slice and hook the misses. Everything else is below, in 7 sections.

By Morris, by Badgie Golf · Updated 9 October 2026

121 terms

Scoring

Par, birdie, bogey and the rest: what a score is called and where the word comes from.

Ace (hole-in-one): The tee shot goes in the hole. On a par 3 it is an eagle; tradition says the player buys the drinks.
Albatross: Three under par on a hole: a 2 on a par 5 or a hole-in-one on a par 4. Called a double eagle in the United States. Five points in Stableford.; Where the word comes from: A British term first found in 1929; a 1931 hole-in-one at Durban Country Club was reported as 'the first albatross'. Source
Birdie: One under par on a hole: a 3 on a par 4. Worth 3 points in Stableford.; Where the word comes from: American slang: 'bird' meant something excellent. A. B. Smith recalled a round at Atlantic City (1898/9; the club says 1903) where a shot 'was a bird' and the bet doubled for one under par. Source
Bogey: One over par on a hole. A double bogey is two over, a triple three over.; Where the word comes from: Originally the whole 'ground score' a good golfer should make, proposed by Hugh Rotherham at Coventry in 1890 and named after the 'Bogey man' of a music-hall song; 'Colonel Bogey' came from a Gosport club in 1892. It came to mean one over par in the mid-20th century. Source
Condor: Four under par on one hole: a hole-in-one on a par 5. So rare that most golfers will never see one, let alone make it.
Eagle: Two under par on a hole: a 3 on a par 5, or a 2 on a par 4. Four points in Stableford.; Where the word comes from: Followed the birdie in the same American group in the early 1900s; the term reached Britain by 1919. Source
Even par (level par): A score equal to par for the round or at any point of it. 'Two under' and 'three over' count from here.
Front nine, back nine: Holes 1 to 9 and 10 to 18. 'Out' and 'in' on a card come from links courses that went out along the coast and back.
Gross score: The strokes you actually took, before any handicap strokes are subtracted.
Net score: The gross score minus the handicap strokes you receive. Net competitions compare these.
Par: The score a good player is expected to make on a hole: two putts plus the shots to reach the green. Par 3, 4 or 5; the course's par is the sum.; Where the word comes from: First used in golf in 1870 by the writer A. H. Doleman for the score that would win the Open at Prestwick; the USGA set par by yardage in 1911. Source
Stableford points: Points per hole against your net par: 0 for net double bogey or worse, 1 bogey, 2 par, 3 birdie, 4 eagle, 5 albatross. Highest total wins.

The course

Tee to green: the parts of a hole and the things on it.

Bunker: A sand hazard. You may not ground the club in the sand before the stroke, but since 2019 you may remove loose impediments.
Course Rating: The score a scratch golfer is expected to shoot from a tee, to the tenth (72.3). Together with Slope it converts your Index to a Course Handicap.
Dogleg: A hole that bends left or right. 'Cutting the corner' is taking the short line over the bend.
Fairway: The short-cut grass between tee and green, where you want the tee shot to finish.
Flagstick (pin): The pole and flag in the hole. Since 2019 you may putt with it in.
Fringe (apron, collar): The ring of slightly longer grass around the green. Not part of the green under the Rules, so no marking and lifting.
Green (putting green): The closely mown area around the hole, where you putt. The Rules treat it differently: you may mark, lift and clean the ball there.
Hazard: An old word for bunkers and water. The Rules now say 'bunker' and 'penalty area'; golfers still say hazard.
Links: A seaside course on sandy, wind-blown ground between beach and farmland: firm, fast, few trees. Where the game grew up in Scotland.
Out of bounds (OB): Beyond the course's boundary, marked by white stakes or a line. Stroke and distance: replay from where you hit, with one penalty stroke, unless a Local Rule allows a drop for two.
Parkland: An inland course with trees, softer turf and defined fairways: most courses in Europe and the United States.
Penalty area: Water and other areas marked red or yellow where a ball can be played or dropped out of for one penalty stroke. The Rules' name since 2019 for what were water hazards.
Rough: The longer grass beside the fairway. Light rough costs a little; deep rough costs a club or a shot.
Slope Rating: How much harder a tee plays for a bogey golfer than for a scratch golfer, from 55 to 155; 113 is standard. Part of the Course Handicap formula.
Stroke index: The number 1 to 18 on the card that ranks the holes by difficulty for handicap purposes: you receive your strokes on the lowest indexes first.
Tee (teeing area): The area where a hole starts, between and behind two markers, two club-lengths deep. Different tees (colours) give different lengths and ratings.

Shots and ball flight

What the ball did and what the swing did to it.

Approach: A shot played to the green from the fairway or rough.
Bump and run: A chip played with a less-lofted club so the ball runs most of the way like a putt. The safe play on firm ground.
Carry: The distance the ball flies in the air before it lands. Total distance adds the roll.
Chip: A low short shot from near the green that flies a little and runs to the hole.
Draw: A shot that curves gently from right to left for a right-hander, on purpose. The uncontrolled version is a hook.
Drive: The tee shot on a par 4 or 5, usually with the driver.
Fade: A shot that curves gently from left to right for a right-hander, on purpose. The uncontrolled version is a slice.
Fat, thin: Fat (chunk, heavy): the club hits the ground before the ball. Thin (skinny): the leading edge hits the ball's equator. Both are a low point in the wrong place.
Gimme: A short putt your opponent concedes in match play. There are no gimmes in stroke play; hole everything.
Green in regulation (GIR): Reaching the green in par minus two strokes: one shot on a par 3, two on a par 4, three on a par 5.
Hook: A shot that curves hard left for a right-hander: the face closed to the path at impact.
Lag putt: A long putt played to finish close rather than to go in. Two putts from forty feet is a good result.
Lay-up: Deliberately playing short of a hazard or the green to leave a comfortable next shot.
Lip out: A putt that catches the edge of the hole and spins out. Everyone has a story.
Lob (flop): A very high, short shot with an open-faced wedge that lands softly. Pretty when it works.
Pitch: A higher short shot that flies most of the way and stops quickly, usually with a wedge.
Punch (knockdown): A low shot with an abbreviated finish, for wind or under trees.
Push, pull: A straight shot that starts right (push) or left (pull) of the target: the path is off, not the face.
Release: The unhinging of the wrists and rotation of the forearms through impact that squares the face and delivers the speed.
Sand save: An up and down from a greenside bunker: out in one, in with one putt. The stat that separates good short games from lucky ones.
Shank: The ball hits the hosel and shoots right at an angle. The one word golfers avoid saying out loud.
Sky (pop-up): A drive hit on the top edge of the face that goes very high and short, and leaves a mark on the crown.
Slice: A shot that curves hard right for a right-hander: the face open to the path at impact. The most common miss in golf.
Tempo: The rhythm of the swing, the ratio of backswing to downswing time. Most good players are close to 3 to 1.
Top: The club strikes the upper half of the ball, which runs along the ground. The beginner's miss.
Up and down: Getting the ball in the hole in two shots from off the green: a chip (or bunker shot) and one putt.

Clubs and equipment

The parts of a club and the words a fitter uses.

Blade (muscle-back): A players' iron with a solid, thin head: feel and workability, little forgiveness. Also a thin, traditional putter.
Bounce: The angle of a wedge's sole below the leading edge. High bounce glides through sand and soft turf; low bounce suits firm ground and shallow swings.
Cavity back: An iron with the back hollowed out and the weight moved to the edges, for forgiveness. The opposite of a blade.
Grip: The rubber handle of the club, and also how you hold it: overlapping (Vardon), interlocking or ten-finger.
Hosel: The socket where the shaft enters the clubhead. Hit the ball with it and you have shanked.
Hybrid (rescue): A club with a small wood's head on an iron's shaft, replacing the long irons for most golfers.
Launch monitor: A radar or camera device that measures club speed, ball speed, launch, spin and carry. What a fitting is built on.
Lie angle: The angle between the shaft and the sole at address. Too upright sends the ball left; too flat, right. Set in a fitting.
Loft: The angle of the face from vertical. More loft, higher and shorter: a driver has about 10 degrees, a sand wedge about 56.
Mallet: A large, stable putter head that resists twisting on off-centre putts; the alternative to a blade putter.
Offset: The face set back behind the shaft's line. Gives the hands more time to square the face: an anti-slice feature in forgiving irons.
Shaft flex: How much the shaft bends: ladies, senior, regular, stiff, extra stiff, matched to club speed. Not standard across makers.
Smash factor: Ball speed divided by club speed, a launch-monitor measure of strike quality. About 1.5 for a well-struck driver.
Sweet spot: The point on the face where a strike gives the most ball speed and no twist. Smaller than it looks.
Wedge: The high-lofted irons for the short game: pitching, gap, sand and lob, roughly 44 to 64 degrees.

Rules and handicap

The words the Rules of Golf and the handicap system use.

Course Handicap: Your Handicap Index converted to the tee you play: Index × (Slope ÷ 113) + (Course Rating − par), rounded.
Drop: Releasing the ball from knee height into the relief area. Before 2019 it was from shoulder height.
Handicap Index: Your portable measure of ability under the World Handicap System: the average of the lowest 8 of your most recent 20 Score Differentials, to the tenth.
Honour: The right to tee off first, which goes to the lowest score on the previous hole. Ready golf is encouraged in stroke play.
Local Rule: A rule the committee adds for the course or the day, like preferred lies or the two-stroke alternative to stroke and distance.
Net double bogey: The most a hole can count for handicap purposes: par + 2 + the strokes you receive on the hole. Pick up once you are past it.
Playing Handicap: The Course Handicap times the format's allowance (95% in individual stroke play), the strokes you actually receive in the competition.
Preferred lies (winter rules): A Local Rule letting you lift, clean and place the ball on closely mown areas when the course is wet.
Provisional ball: A second ball played when the first may be lost or out of bounds, to save walking back. Announce it before playing.
Ready golf: Playing when you are ready rather than strictly by distance from the hole, in stroke play, to keep pace. The Rules encourage it (Rule 6.4b).
Relief: Dropping the ball in a new spot as the Rules allow, free (from a cart path, casual water) or for a penalty (unplayable, penalty area).
Score Differential: What a round was worth on a standard course: (113 ÷ Slope) × (adjusted gross score − Course Rating − PCC). The number your Index is built from.
Scratch golfer: A player with a Handicap Index of 0.0: expected to shoot the Course Rating. 'Plus' handicaps are better than scratch.
Stroke and distance: The penalty for a lost ball or out of bounds: one stroke and replay from where you last played.
Unplayable ball: You may declare any ball unplayable anywhere except a penalty area: one penalty stroke and a drop within two club-lengths, back on the line, or where you last played.
World Handicap System (WHS): The single handicap system of the R&A and the USGA since 2020, with the Handicap Index, Course and Playing Handicap.

Formats and games

The ways a round can be played and scored.

Four-ball (better ball): Two pairs, everyone plays their own ball, the better score of each pair counts on each hole.
Foursomes (alternate shot): Pairs play one ball, alternating shots, and alternate tee shots by hole. The Ryder Cup's morning format.
Greensomes: Both partners drive, choose the better drive, then alternate shots from there.
Match play: Hole by hole against an opponent: win, lose or halve each hole; most holes wins. '3 and 2' means three up with two to play.
Nassau: Three bets in one round: front nine, back nine and the 18, usually at match play.
Scramble: A team plays from the best ball after every shot. The charity-day format.
Shotgun start: Every group starts at the same time on a different hole, so the field finishes together.
Skins: Each hole is a skin to the lowest unique score; ties carry over to the next hole.
Stableford: Points per hole against net par, a blow-up hole costing only a zero. The club golfer's format.
Stroke play: Count every stroke over the round; lowest total wins. The format of most tournaments.
Texas scramble: A scramble where each player's drive must be used a minimum number of times.
Wolf: A four-player game: the wolf rotates, picks a partner after each drive or goes alone for more points.

Slang

What golfers say on the course that no rulebook explains.

Army golf: Left, right, left, right: a hole played zigzagging across the fairway.
Banana ball: A huge slice, shaped like the fruit: starts left and bends right all the way into the trees.
Cabbage (spinach): Deep, thick rough that swallows the ball and the club: take your medicine and get it back to the fairway.
Chili dip: A chip hit so fat that the ball barely moves while the club takes a divot.
Duck hook (snap hook): A low, violent hook that dives left immediately. The miss of a strong player who over-rotates the face.
Foot wedge: Kicking the ball to a better lie. A penalty in the Rules and a joke everywhere else.
Fore!: The shout that warns someone a ball is heading their way. Shout it early and loud; nobody minds a false alarm.
Fried egg: A ball half buried in its own crater in a bunker, after landing in soft sand.
Grinding: Fighting hard for every stroke on a day when the swing is not there. The most useful skill in golf.
Hacker (duffer): A poor golfer, said with affection or not. Every good player was one.
Jail: A spot, usually in trees, from which there is no shot at the green.
Lumberjack: A player who spends the round among the trees.
Mulligan: A do-over of a bad shot, usually the first tee shot, allowed among friends and nowhere in the Rules.
Pin high (hole high): A shot that finishes level with the flag, left or right of it: the distance was right.
Sandbagger: A player whose handicap is higher than their game, who wins net competitions too often. The WHS has caps and reviews for a reason.
Snowman: An 8 on a hole, from the shape of the number on the card.
Stiff (to the flag): A shot that finishes very close to the hole. Also a shaft flex, which confuses nobody on the course.
Tap-in: A putt so short it needs only a tap. Still a stroke, and still missed more often than anyone admits.
The 19th hole: The clubhouse bar, where the round is replayed shot by shot.
The dance floor: The green. 'On the dance floor but not close enough to hear the band' is on the green, far from the hole.
The turn: The point between the 9th green and the 10th tee. 'Making the turn' is finishing the front nine.
The yips: An involuntary twitch on short putts or chips that no amount of practice seems to fix. Real, and researched.
Velcro greens: Slow, sticky greens on which putts pull up short.
Worm burner: A shot that never gets off the ground and skims along the grass.

Three words that are not what they seem

Par is older than bogey in golf, though bogey was the first scoring standard: a writer asked two professionals in 1870 what would win the Open and called it par. Bogey was that standard, a fictional opponent you played against, before it slid to mean one over. And birdie is American slang that crossed the Atlantic, which is why the British had to invent ‘albatross’ for three under while Americans say double eagle. The scoring terms page has the whole story; the slang page the words nobody will explain to you on the first tee.

Sources

Scottish Golf History — Bogey to Blow-Up: origin of golf terms — Par (1870, Doleman; USGA yardages 1911), bogey (Coventry 1890, Great Yarmouth, Colonel Bogey 1892), birdie (Atlantic City 1898/9 or 1903), eagle, albatross (1929, Durban 1931). Read 9 October 2026.
The R&A — Rules of Golf — Rule references in the rules and handicap terms. Read 9 October 2026.
The R&A — Rules of Handicapping — Handicap Index, Course Handicap, Score Differential. Read 9 October 2026.

Glossary questions

What are the basic golf terms a beginner should know?

Par, birdie and bogey for scoring; tee, fairway, rough, green and bunker for the course; drive, approach, chip, pitch and putt for the shots; slice and hook for the misses; and 'fore' for safety. Those twenty words get you round a course with company.

What do birdie, eagle and albatross mean?

One, two and three under par on a hole. Birdie came from American slang ('a bird of a shot', Atlantic City, around 1903); eagle followed as a bigger bird; albatross is the British name for three under, which Americans call a double eagle.

Why is one over par called a bogey?

Because 'bogey' was first the whole score a good golfer should make on a course, named at Great Yarmouth in the 1890s after the 'Bogey man' of a popular song, with the imaginary opponent promoted to Colonel at Gosport. When par took over as the standard, bogey slid to one over.

What is the difference between a draw and a hook?

Direction and intent. Both curve right to left for a right-hander; a draw is gentle and on purpose, a hook is sharp and not. The same for fade and slice, the other way.

Can I link to one term?

Yes: every term has its own anchor, so a link opens the page at that word. The search box and the category chips filter the list in the browser.

Keep reading

All of Golf Terms

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