hacker - golf player of limited proficiency (1934 September 5)

[Garson O'Toole]

The excellent HDAS has hacker ^2 n. 1. a. Sports, esp. Tennis & Golf.
a player, often a beginner, demonstrating poor form or mediocre
ability. The first cite is 1949.

On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 12:49 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      hacker - golf player of limited proficiency (1934 September 5)
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>
> Cite: 1934 September 5, The Hartford Courant, Grant Hopes To Improve
> Mark In National Amateur Next Week, Page 12,  Hartford, Connecticut.
> (ProQuest Historical newspapers)
>
> This means that all a fellow has to do to win the National Amateur
> championship is to win eight matches. Remember, also, that there are
> no hackers in this field.
>
> I did not see in the OED an entry for "hacker" in the golf sense. OED
> does have an interesting cite containing the word "hacker" in the
> soccer domain under "clogger". Apparently, hacking in soccer is
> performed using legs and feet. In basketball hacking is performed with
> arms and in golf it is performed with clubs
>
> (OED 1989) 1980 D. MORRIS Tribal Words [MS.], The term clogger..today
> has become exclusively used inside the Soccer Tribe to describe a
> brutal, heavy-footed hacker. It also carries the implication of
> stupidity (‘they were a crude bunch of cloggers’).
>
> Garson
>
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