What is a birdie in golf?
A birdie is a score of one stroke under par on a hole: two under is an eagle, three under the rare albatross, and the most commonly celebrated good score in amateur golf.
The name comes from American slang, where "bird" meant something excellent; the origin story golf tells about itself puts the first use at Atlantic City Country Club around 1899, and it isn't documented much more firmly than that. What isn't in doubt is where it sits, because every name on the scale is a distance from par, and par itself is fixed in advance by Appendix F of the Rules of Handicapping rather than by how the day goes. A birdie is one under it: one rung below an albatross, three under, and directly opposite a bogey, one over, with an eagle, two under, between the two. For most club golfers it's the score that gets mentioned in the clubhouse afterwards, because it needs a genuinely good shot or putt rather than a hole played competently. Scorecards don't record it as anything special; a four is a four. It only becomes "a birdie" in conversation, as shorthand for how the hole went against its par. Whatever hole earned the story, our golf gift ideas put it on the wall properly.
You will find this among the scoring terms in the game, next to the bogey going the other way and par in the middle of them.
Written by Craig Fearn, The Golf Gift Co. Last updated .