Golf’s historic scoring system has been in place for quite some time, and while for those who play the sport regularly know exactly what’s what, it’s not so easy for others
Golf enthusiasts and casual spectators frequently encounter terms such as “birdie”, “par” and “bogey”. The dreaded “double bogey” and “triple bogey” will be regular for the casual player too.
For the pros, “eagles” and the much-vaunted hole in one are far more difficult to come by. Then there’s the rarely spotted “condor”. Don’t expect to see many of those at the 153rd Open Championship. You’ll be lucky if you ever see one at all to be honest.
For most, the phrases are well enough known, even if what their scoring actually equates too isn’t necessarily. But what do they actually mean? And where do they actually come from?
At the heart of golf scoring is par. It represents the number of shots that, in theory, you should be needing to finish a hole, so long as your play is of a competent standard. Originally borrowed from financial terminology – where “par value” meant face value, par was adopted by golf during the late 1800s.
Around 1870, a golf correspondent employed par to characterise the perfect score at Prestwick. By 1911, the US Golf Association had established uniform distance-based standards: up to 225 yards represented par 3, 225–425 yards par 4, and 426–600 yards par 5. Pretty simple stuff.
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Then it gets weird. Like. Rory McIlroy probably doesn’t know this stuff weird.
Before the existence of par, golfers battled against a fictional adversary called Colonel Bogey. Yep, seriously. An idea stemming from an 1890s novelty song. Back then, bogey actually represented a decent score for a reasonably skilled player.
But, of course, times change, standards improve, expectations rise. All that. So bogey evolved to signify one stroke over par. And if that’s one over, then double bogey is two over, triple bogey three over, so on and so forth.
On the other side comes the much more cheerful “birdie” which, it’s claimed, originated in 1899 in at the Atlantic City Country Club. Supposedly one player’s impressive shot prompted his companion to exclaim that it was a “bird of a shot.” Holing out one stroke under par, it inspired the term birdie, which, by 1913 had made its way to the UK.
Sticking with the bird-theme, eagle came to represent two under par, while three under then took up the moniker of albatross in Britain, emerging from the 1920s. They didn’t like that in the US however, so went with “double eagle”.
Which doesn’t really make sense, because if an eagle is two under, then surely a double eagle would be four, rather than three?
Anyway, continuing with the correct lingo is the exceedingly uncommon condor. Four strokes under par – like a hole in one on a par 5. It is one of golf’s rarest ever achievements, with only a handful having ever been recorded – making it one of sport’s most extraordinary accomplishments.
Golf’s scoring lexicon draws from the worlds of finance, pop culture, and whimsical jargon. To those outside the sport, the system might appear odd, but within golf, these expressions are deeply embedded in its very essence, encapsulating the sport’s storied traditions.
But not double eagle. That’s just wrong.