Golf terminology, in plain English.

Golf has more jargon than any other sport, and nobody explains it. The rules book assumes you already know what a bogey is. The clubhouse assumes you know where the 19th hole is. The scorecard assumes you understand stableford. This page is the missing introduction: the terms grouped by where you will actually meet them, with the ones that need a full answer linked to a page of their own.

Scoring terms

Scoring is where golf loses most beginners, because the vocabulary is built on birds and maths.

Par is the number of strokes a good golfer is expected to take on a hole. It is the baseline every other score is measured against. How par is set, and why it matters.

Birdie is one under par on a hole. Eagle is two under. Albatross is three under, which is so rare that most golfers go their whole lives without one. Birdie explained, albatross explained.

Bogey is one over par. Double bogey is two over, triple is three over, and so on. The word comes from a Victorian song about a devilish character called the Bogey Man who was impossible to beat. The full bogey story.

Stableford is a scoring system that awards points at each hole rather than counting total strokes: more points for a better score against par, adjusted for your handicap. It's the format most club golfers play because a terrible hole doesn't ruin the round. How stableford works, with the points table.

Stroke play is the format where total strokes count. Match play is where you win holes rather than count strokes. Foursomes is two players sharing one ball, alternating shots. Fourball is two players each playing their own ball, the better score counting.

Course terms

The course has its own language, mostly about the ground.

Fairway is the cut grass between the tee and the green. Rough is the uncut grass either side, where your ball goes when you miss the fairway. Green is the closely mown area around the hole where you putt. Fringe is the strip between the green and the fairway, longer than the green but shorter than the fairway.

Bunker is a sand hazard. Tee box is the raised area you hit your first shot from. Pin or flagstick is the pole in the hole. Out of bounds is beyond the course boundary, marked by white posts. A dogleg is a hole that bends left or right.

Handicap terms

The handicap system is the reason golf is fair between players of different ability, and it has its own vocabulary.

Handicap index is your measured ability, calculated from your recent scores under the World Handicap System. Course handicap is your index adjusted for the specific course you are playing. Slope rating measures how much harder a course plays for a bogey golfer than a scratch golfer. Course rating is what a scratch golfer is expected to score.

The full system is explained properly in our handicap guide, and the two common questions are answered on their own pages: how a handicap is calculated and what a good handicap is.

Culture terms

The clubhouse has a vocabulary the rules book does not cover.

The 19th hole is the bar or clubhouse after the round. Not a real hole, and the reason golf takes longer than four hours. We named a print after it.

Mulligan is an informal do-over, replaying a shot with no penalty. It has no basis in the Rules of Golf and exists purely as a casual custom. The full mulligan story.

Gimme is a short putt your opponent concedes, so you do not have to hole it. Breakfast ball is a mulligan on the first tee, before the round officially starts. Skins is a game where each hole carries a value that carries forward if tied.

Golf Etiquette is the unwritten code: let faster players through, repair your divots, do not talk during someone's backswing. The etiquette page.

The terms nobody explains

Some of the terms that confuse newcomers are not in any rulebook, because they are about the culture rather than the game. The 70-30 rule is a case in point: it is a practice guideline about how much time to spend on short game versus long game, not an official rule at all. What the 70-30 rule actually means.

Likewise, the birds: birdie, eagle, albatross. Nobody chose these deliberately. They evolved at a specific club in the 1890s and spread, and the story of how is a good read. Where the bird names came from.

Using the language

Once you know the terms, golf stops being a foreign country. You can read a scorecard, follow a tournament, and hold a conversation in the clubhouse without nodding along. And if you are buying for a golfer, understanding the language is the difference between a gift that lands and one that does not: a print of the course they play, with its real yardages and bunkers, speaks the language they speak every weekend. Our course prints do exactly that.