Golf Lampoon’s Senior Anti-Cliché Editor and Managing Executive Curmudgeon, Monty Gerund, has compiled the following chart to help our readers identify some of the game’s most iconic golf verbiage, regularly expressed in print and on television.
| GOLF TALK: | MONTY GERUND SAYS: |
| He’ll have a good look at birdie. | This Broadcasting Hall of Fame observation cannot be repeated too often. |
| Gotta go; gotta hurry; gotta sit; that needs to sit; that needs to hurry; that needs to go; that needs to settle; go, ball! | Gotta stop uttering these inanities. They need to go! |
| Hallowed ground. | Normandy Beach is hallowed ground. A golf course ain’t. |
| Ham ‘n’ egging it. | This high-cholesterol cliché gets trotted out whenever there’s team play. Today’s protein-bar-munching tour pros probably have never seen ham and eggs on a plate. |
| He fell in love with the line but forgot the speed. | So true. Sometimes, I so fall in love with the line that I have a dozen roses delivered to the golf hole in question. |
| His putter let him down. | Einstein proved that gravity — not inanimate objects — will always bring you down. |
| I rode my partner like a horse. | More team-play drivel. The transportation mode in question was probably a tournament courtesy car. |
| First Place: “Iconic”; Second Place: “Venerable”; Third Place: “Historic” | “Iconic” is the most overused word in print and broadcast. It’s just a matter of time before Topgolf will be referred to as “iconic.” |
| In the gloaming. | Golf writers have wet dreams that one day they can slip this one in. |
| He has no green to work with. | Strict grammarians long to hear: “He has no green with which to work.” |
| Punched his ticket to… | Young’uns will scratch their heads: “What’s a ticket? Can’t I just show you my phone?” |
| He short-sided himself. | Sexually suggestive and offensive to diminutive golfers. |
| Stud | Tasteless reference to a dominant golfer. Byron Nelson won 11 consecutive tournaments in 1945. Would you refer to him as a “stud”? |
| That’s not what he was looking for. | What, precisely, WAS he looking for, oh, Clairvoyant One? |
| This is a good-looking shot if it’s the right stick. | Be silent for 5 seconds and we’ll SEE — this being television and all — where the ball lands. |
| He’s got a sand wedge in his hand. | Is there any shame in saying “He’s hitting a sand wedge”? |
| You could throw down a bucket of balls and not hit that shot again. | Would that be a small, medium, or large bucket? |
| He walked it in. | Yes, walking towards the hole while the ball is still rolling makes the ball go in the hole. |
| Left is dead, right is dead; you don’t want any part of this, you can’t miss here, you can’t miss there; he’s got a great angle, he’s got a bad angle; it’s left-to-right, then it goes over a little swale, drops down the fall line, and straightens out a little at the hole … if anything, it goes just a touch right although the greens are getting a little crusty and if they don’t syringe them soon they’re gonna lose them if the wind comes up as predicted but right now it’s pretty calm although it is gusting from time to time with the wind coming from the northwest and helping but players are flighting their balls down and controlling their trajectories, hitting knock-downs and three-quarter 9-irons although earlier today we did see some creative players with great imaginations hitting little punch 8-irons. All in all, there’s not much in it. | OK, that makes sense! |
