Search: golf terms bogey
Why: Sunday mornings in spring mean PGA on NBC.
Answer: "Bogey was the first stroke system, developed in England in 1890. Hugh Rotherdamn, Secretary of the Coventry Golf Club, conceived the idea of standardizing the number of shots at each hole that a good golfer should take, which he called "the ground score." Dr. Browne, Secretary of the Great Yarmouth Club, adopted the idea as well. With the assent of the club's golfers, this style of competition was introduced for use in match play.
During one competition, Mr. C.A. Wellman exclaimed to Dr. Browne, "This player of yours is a regular Bogey man!" This was probably a reference to the subject of a popular music hall song, "Hush! Hush! Hush! Here Comes the Bogey Man" (a funny little ditty - listen here.) So at Yarmouth and elsewhere, the ground score became known as the Bogey score.
A "bogle" was a Scottish goblin (from Welsh: bwg) as far back as the 16th Century; Bogey-man was a widely-used term for a goblin or devil. Golfers of the time considered they were playing a "Mr. Bogey" when measuring themselves against the bogey score.
Source: ScottishGolfHistory
The More You Know: In 1911, the US Golf Association (Men) laid down the following very modern distances for determining Par (from Latin: par, "equal"):
As golf developed, scores were coming down, but many old British courses did not adjust their courses or their Bogey scores. This meant that good golfers and professionals were achieving scores lower than the Bogey. The US had an up-to-date national standard of distances for holes, while the British Bogey ratings were determined by each club and were no longer appropriate for professionals. The Americans began referring to one over Par as a "Bogey," much to the chagrin of the British.
