Golf -- was: short slang story

[Mullins, Bill]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sam Clements [mailto:SClements at NEO.RR.COM]
> Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 4:47 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: short slang story
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Sam Clements <SClements at NEO.RR.COM>
> Subject:      Re: short slang story
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>
> Rats!  I though you had found "mulligan."  Or "skins."    :(
>
> SC
>

The Amateur Athletic Foundation has files of American Golfer (1908 - 1920)
and Golf Illustrated & Outdoor America (1914-1915) online.

No mulligans, nothing on skins game.  But I did find:

birdie
"Four-Ball Matches" Leighton Calkins, The American Golfer, November, 1908,
No. 1, p. 18-20.
"With all four players evenly matched, it is generally necessary for one of
them to "jump
out of the bunch" with a "birdie" in order to capture a hole."

eagle
"Around Philadelphia " by Hazard, The American Golfer,  January, 1909, No.
3, p. 124-128.
"A much mooted question is "who was the father of Birdies?" That distinction
certainly belongs to one of
the brothers Smith either A. H. or W. P. Some four or five years ago a party
of Philadelphia golfers at Atlantic
City decided that in order to improve their play, a premium of one ball from
each player should be given
the man who succeeded in making any hole in one less than par; in other
words, accurate play up to the "tee,"
rather than onto the green in general was encouraged and rewarded. The
innovation met with immediate favor,
and from its nest in Philadelphia the Birdie has taken wing to all parts of
the country. Sometime after the
hatching of the Birdie another feathered feature was given to golf the
Eagle, which soars even higher than
the Birdie and is consequently doubly rewarded. To secure an Eagle one must
hole out in two less than par,
thereby receiving from each opponent three balls (two for the Eagle and one
for the Birdie)."

bogey (as a verb)

"From the South " The Judge, The American Golfer, March, 1910, No. 5, p.
373-377.
"The seventh hole here is close to 400 yards, first down hill and then up a
rather steep incline,
bogeyed at 5."

"1910 Southern Championship"  The American Golfer, July, 1910, No. 2, p.
131-136
"The East Lake course, 6,300 yards in length, is bogeyed as follows with
distances given: [table follows]"