Ever wondered where the term ‘bogey’ comes from?
It is the oldest club in Norfolk – founded way back in 1882 – and plays a course that winds its way at several points through the nearby racecourse. But what Great Yarmouth & Caister is really renowned for is being the home of the term bogey in golf.
Ever played in a bogey competition? It’s great fun, although something of a head-scratcher if you’re not used to it.
It harks back to the days when all serious golf was fought out over matchplay. What a bogey competition does is take that central element – winning and losing holes – and mould it into a strokeplay competition.
You are rewarded based on how you do against the course, rather than an individual player. So what’s this got to do with Great Yarmouth & Caister?
In 1890, a member at Coventry Golf Club had the bright idea of playing a match, under a handicap, against the number of shots it was thought a scratch golfer would rack up if they played a perfect game.
- Related: Why Painswick is the oddest course you’ll ever play
- Related: The incredible wartime rules at Richmond
- Related: How did this Scottish club help Ben Hogan win the Open?
This became known as the ground score. The idea was proposed to Dr Thomas Browne, who founded Yarmouth, at the club’s autumn gathering and was then introduced.
Yarmouth’s website continues: “These competitions were played throughout the winter, at the same time a music hall song ‘Hush! Here comes the Bogey man’ was gaining in popularity.”
A key part of the song was the lyric: “I’m the Bogey Man, catch me if you can.”
So when one competition participant said to Browne ‘This player of yours is a regular Bogey man’, the bogey score was born.
Golfers began to equate the idea of matching or beating a hole’s ground score with chasing the bogey man and, soon after, Colonel Bogey came into being – the imaginary character that would personify that score.
It was now the staple term to describe golf’s scoring system. So when did it become something we’d all rather avoid?
In 1911, the USGA began using par as the standard to rate courses and holes and they defined the term as the score an expert player could achieve.
As time passed, the bogey score started to be listed as being a stroke higher than par. And that’s exactly how it stands today.
Steve Carroll
A journalist for 25 years, Steve has been immersed in club golf for almost as long. A former club captain, he has passed the Level 3 Rules of Golf exam with distinction having attended the R&A's prestigious Tournament Administrators and Referees Seminar.
Steve has officiated at a host of high-profile tournaments, including Open Regional Qualifying, PGA Fourball Championship, English Men's Senior Amateur, and the North of England Amateur Championship. In 2023, he made his international debut as part of the team that refereed England vs Switzerland U16 girls.
A part of NCG's Top 100s panel, Steve has a particular love of links golf and is frantically trying to restore his single-figure handicap. He currently floats at around 11.
Steve plays at Close House, in Newcastle, and York GC, where he is a member of the club's matches and competitions committee and referees the annual 36-hole scratch York Rose Bowl.
Having studied history at Newcastle University, he became a journalist having passed his NTCJ exams at Darlington College of Technology.
What's in Steve's bag: TaylorMade Stealth 2 driver, 3-wood, and hybrids; TaylorMade Stealth 2 irons; TaylorMade Hi-Toe, Ping ChipR, Sik Putter.