32 Golfing Cliches... We Can All Relate To!

Cliches in all walks of life are often partly or wholly grounded in undeniable truths, hence why they take hold. It's the same in golf, where cliches relating to various aspects of golfing life, or common everyday scenarios out on the course, abound.

But even if you find yourself nodding in agreement about the sentiment they convey, that doesn't stop them occasionally becoming a little irritating if repeated too often...

Two-way miss

Imagine in the next photo, Scottie Scheffler is raising his left arm rather than his right. That could indicate he has a ‘two-way miss’ going on. No miss is ideal; a one-way miss can be managed to some degree if you know where your bad shot is likely to go; but where on earth do you aim if you have a two-way miss going on? The golfer’s nightmare.

Textbook swing

As with many things in life, there is, on the face of it at least, a ‘perfect’ way to swing a golf club and that way is often described as a textbook swing. Of course, in reality, there is more than one way to get it round the golf course, but that doesn’t stop people drooling over the likes of Adam Scott’s swing here, or perhaps now Ludvig Aberg’s.

Finding the dance floor

‘Dance floor’ is simply another term for the putting green as in, “It’s not particularly close but at least it’s on the dance floor.” The desirability of this is that it means you’ll be using a putter for your next stroke, and for most of us, that means fewer things that can potentially go wrong. If all goes well, you’re likely to get down in no more than two.

It’s not how but how many

One of golf’s very simple truths. Not all textbooks swingers are particularly good players because of weaknesses elsewhere – perhaps putting or the mental side – while some less-than-elegant swingers, like Eamonn Darcy here, know how to get it round. It can also apply to an individual hole – you might be all over the shop but hole a long putt for par, which counts for exactly the same as another player’s regulation par.

If you’d hit it, you had it

Probably exactly what you don’t want to hear from another player when you’ve left a putt short in the jaws of the hole… but that doesn’t stop them saying it. You’re already fully aware that your putt was on a perfect line, and if you’d just hit it a bit harder, you would have had it. But now you’re having to write four down on the card instead of three.

I don’t go that far on my holidays

Believed to have first been uttered by 1991 Open champion, Ian Baker-Finch, with reference to John Daly’s prodigious driving. The Wild Thing was way ahead of his time when it came to 300-yard drives, with his driving distances leaving people open-mouthed. Probably a less common phrase now as countless players hit it miles rather than just the odd one or two.

Take a chair

A slightly more eloquent way of politely asking your ball to stop rolling or to sit down as it approaches the hole with what you know to be too much pace. This would typically be a pitch or chip you’ve hit too hard or not as intended, or a putt where you haven’t factored in the full effect of the slope. Usually accompanied by a ‘whoa’ gesture with the hand, as demonstrated by Craig Stadler here.

To shortside yourself

This basically means you’ve missed the green in pretty much the worst possible spot. This might be behind a bunker playing up to a green where the pin is set close to the edge and you will either need to display the touch of a surgeon to risk trying to get it close or take your medicine and accept you’re going to be facing a long putt for a par.

Denied by the cellophane bridge

The concept here is that your ball has defied the laws of physics by not going in. The putt wasn’t too hard, has finished right behind the hole and appeared to roll pretty much straight over it. Yet it remains above ground. The only possible answer is that someone has stretched some invisible material across the hole to deny you, hence ‘cellophane bridge’.

Putting down a marble staircase

A term used when a downhill putt is clearly going to be so fast that you might as well be putting down a marble staircase. Not surprisingly, given the slopes and speed of the greens at Augusta National, there are several holes there where this might apply if you get above the hole, among them the 9th here, the 7th, 13th, 16th and 18th.

Out in 34, back in an ambulance

The scenario here is that you play a blinder to the turn, then suddenly everything goes catastrophically wrong on the back nine, turning a potentially great score into a bad one. The implication is that you needed figurative medical assistance to ease the pain on the way back to the clubhouse, like Jordan Spieth in the 2016 Masters, seen here being consoled by caddie, Michael Greller.

In the Mayor’s office

Just a more colourful way of saying that you have hit the ball into the perfect spot on the hole from where you are now ideally placed to take full advantage. Typically, this will be the perfect side of the fairway to attack the flag or far enough down a par 5 to be able to easily reach in two and potentially bag that eagle.

Beware the sick or injured golfer

The temptation may be to write off an opponent who is clearly not 100 per cent or is carrying some sort of injury, but sometimes you do so at your peril. Sometimes, they are able to overcome physical adversity – as Tiger famously did in the 2008 US Open – to still deliver out on the course. Don’t dismiss someone’s chances just because they’re struggling physically!

Couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo

This refers to a player who is playing so poorly that he can’t even pull off the simplest of shots, such as this absolute tiddler that Craig Stadler somehow missed in the 1985 Ryder Cup. It is perhaps more associated with fuller shots – maybe missing a wide-open, undefended green from 100 yards with a wedge from the perfect spot in the fairway.

A bad day on the golf course is better than a good day in the office

This one is really a bit of a reminder to self that, even if you’re playing a long way from your best, you’re still out on the golf course in beautiful surroundings with friends rather than sitting behind a mountain of paperwork in the office, even if you’re up for the task that day and really getting stuck into that formidable workload. Hard to argue, really!

Stay in the present

One of the phrases you’ll hear most often in pre- or post-round interviews with modern tour pros. What they’re really saying is that the most important thing is the next shot you face – you can’t do anything about what’s already happened and can’t yet do anything about the future shots you’ll be facing, so stay in present and focus 100 per cent on the immediate task in hand.

You can’t win it on a Thursday, but you can lose it

Most tour events are played over four consecutive days from Thursday to Sunday. The sentiment here is that even if you have a great round on Thursday, you’ve still got to keep it going for another three days. But if you have a really bad round, you may well be so far behind that it’s impossible to recover enough over the next three days to challenge for the title.

The secret is in the dirt

This one comes courtesy of the great Ben Hogan. This phrase is simply saying that if you want to become great, there is no substitute for hard work and lots of practice. The dirt ‘The Hawk’ is referring to is the divots you make as you hit shot after shot on the practice ground in pursuit of excellence. There are no short-cuts.

Tee it high, let it fly

It’s probably always been the case to a degree but more so than ever these days when our large titanium-headed drivers are just itching to be hit on the up to maximise carry distance, especially downwind. Teeing it high encourages you to attack the ball on an upward angle, rather than a downward one that would impart too much unwanted spin on the ball.

When it’s breezy, swing it easy

A rhyming one that is oh so true. Any golfer will be aware of the temptation to hit it harder when playing into the wind in the mistaken belief that this is the only way not to lose distance. It’s actually just the opposite because the harder you swing, the more spin you create and that’s just what you don’t want into the wind. Swinging it easy helps you keep your rhythm too.

One shot at a time

This is another phrase trotted out week in, week out in player interviews but, despite hearing it ad infinitum, it’s another that is just undeniably true. The more you get ahead of yourself and start thinking about potentially difficult shots to come or realistic birdie chances ahead, the less chance there is that you are concentrating wholly on the only shot that matters – the next one.

To miss it on the pro side

A phrase to make you feel a little better about missing a breaking putt. The ‘pro side’ is the side where the ball is at least turning towards the hole rather than away from as it breaks. Even if it misses, you should leave yourself closer than missing on the other side. However, Nick Dougherty once told us, “Pros don’t use this phrase – they just say, ‘I missed it.’”

To be handed a dog licence

You really need to be British and of a certain vintage to get this one. A dog licence used to cost seven shillings and six pence in old money in the UK, or 7&6 as this was abbreviated to. So, if you’re handed a dog licence on the golf course you have basically been thrashed 7&6 in a very one-sided matchplay encounter.

You’d have to hit your Sunday best

If you’re standing in the fairway contemplating the carry over distant water or pondering whether you can get up in two on a par 5, someone might say, “You could, but you’d have to hit your Sunday best.” In other words, you’re going to have make your best possible swing, just as Nick Faldo did here on 13 in the final round at Augusta in 1996.

The game within a game

If you think about it objectively, the simple stroke used when putting is so far removed from the highly complex sequence of movements you have to accomplish to make a good golf swing, that there really are two completely different games that combine to produce the overall result in golf. Few would deny that putting is "the game within a game".

No pictures on the scorecard

A simple observation that conveys quite beautifully that the only thing you put on the scorecard other than name and handicap before signing it is what you scored on each hole. There’s no box on the card to draw the way in which you achieved that score, so whether you knocked it close and missed the birdie putt or played a miraculous recovery from the woods, then holed a 40-footer, the card makes no distinction. 

Hit it out of the screws

Those of a younger generation may not really understand this one. To do so, you need to look at the face of an old persimmon driver. The inlay or insert in the centre of the face was screwed to the wood, so it therefore followed that you really were hitting it out of the screws if your ball found the centre of the clubface . 

The Masters starts on the back nine Sunday

This one is all about the pressure the back nine at Augusta exerts on a player, with five opportunities to knock it in the water via Amen Corner plus 15 and 16. However much you appear to have been in control for the first three and a half rounds, you simply cannot count your chickens about what might unfold over the next two hours as you desperately try to close things out.

In the zone

This describes the kind of Utopian mental state golfers sometimes achieve, which seems to transcend all conscious thought as their minds home in fully on the task in hand without getting distracted by the mechanics required to achieve those goals. They’re almost performing on autopilot as they go about their business on the course, completely immersed in the moment.

The woods are full of long hitters

The notion here is that those whose primary goal is to hit the ball as far as possible off the tee tend to spend more time in the trees because they have to sacrifice a degree of accuracy to achieve their distance goals. It’s a slightly disparaging phrase really towards long hitters, and probably not entirely fair in an era when distance counts for more and more in golf.

Never up, never in

This one is very, very straightforward. On the putting green, if your ball doesn’t even reach the front edge of the hole, it has absolutely zero chance of going in. The message is that, if you want to at least have a chance of holing a putt, first you have to hit it with enough pace to actually reach the hole.

Drive for show, putt for dough

A classic cliche ever since someone realised ‘show’ and ‘dough’ rhymed and could be worked into a catchy little phrase suggesting you can be as impressive as you like off the tee, but if you can’t get it in the hole it will all be to no avail and little monetary reward. Looking at the stats, it can probably be ‘proved’ or ‘disproved’ at will, but this Tiger putt in the 2008 US Open got him into a play-off, which he won, so worth a lot of dough.