Apology #1… this is the second golf-related 5-4-Friday in a row. I do have other material and I promise I’ll get onto that next week.
Apology #2… at this risk of pandering to the ever-growing snowflake and woke brigade, the content of this week’s 54F could be deemed to be moderately offensive. If you don’t want to risk being offended, click away now. If you are happy to risk it but subsequently find that you have actually been offended, please take note of the following two points: 1) I didn’t personally create any of this content and 2) lighten up and grow up.
Right, now that the small print, and anyone who doesn’t want to pay along, is out of the way, let’s crack on…
Golf takes a long time. Only very recently, some bloke in the pub trotted out that tired old cliche that “golf is a good walk spoiled”. The fact that said bloke spends his weekends sat on a river bank eating chicken butties whilst hoping that the piece of string he has dropped in to the water will start to twitch, is not remotely ironic, is it?
However, he does undoubtedly have a point that a round of golf can take a long time. In fact, it can take up to four hours and beyond for a competitive fourball, dependant on where and with whom you are playing. As a result, a lot of chat goes on, a lot of banter occurs and the odd amusing comment or insult about a player’s swing or shot gets thrown in.
Because it’s golf , it rarely gets personal. Although the subjects of these five common monikers to describe a particular type of poor shot, may be deemed personal by the people they are named after. Anyway, here we go…
Quasimodo – we’ll start with this one because Quasimodo isn’t a real person and is unlikely to sue me. If a player hits a good shot (usually, but not exclusively, a tee shot) his playing partners may or may not utter the name Quasimodo. It is intended as a compliment and means that you have nailed it and should be happy with the outcome. In other words, “YOU WOULDN’T WANT THAT BACK”.
Dennis Wise – or, alternatively, Diego Maradona or that angry short fella character that Harry Enfield used to play. This is used to put pressure on your opponent when you are on the green and he has left himself a longer putt than he would ideally like to save his par. In match play, it’s beyond what we call “gimme” range meaning that he has to man up and try to hole it. It’s “A NASTY LITTLE 5-FOOTER”
Adolf Hitler – “Sand, or bunkers, are an ever-present hazard on most golf courses. They can sometimes be tricky to escape from and often, golfers only get out at the second attempt. When this happens, you have had an Adolf – TWO SHOTS IN THE BUNKER.
The Sister-in Law – Right. We’re going to get a little more blokey with these last two so, if that kind of humour offends you, just skip to the end now, click the “like” and “share” buttons and move on with your day. If a golfer hits a poor shot off the tee, maybe he has thinned it, topped it or got a ridiculously fortuitous ricochet off a tree yet the ball still travels an acceptable distance towards the target, this is known as the sister-in-law – “YOU’RE UP THERE, BUT YOU KNOW YOU SHOULDN’T BE”
Sally Gunnell – this is the daddy (or mummy, I guess?) of all these things. It’s used in similar circumstances to the sister-in-law gag, but more specifically when the ball fails to get airborne and travels an inordinate distance along the ground. It is very harshly called the Sally Gunnell (or, in Scotland, a Liz McColgan) because “IT’S NOT MUCH TO LOOK AT, BUT A GOOD RUNNER”, And on that note…
See you in the Cancelled Court – Griff
