Golf Compendium

One of the words golfers use and golf fans sometimes hear in match play is "halve." Which, let's be honest, is a weird word! Not "half," but "halve." What does it mean? A halve is a tie.

Who put the "Ryder" in the Ryder Cup? Why is this every-other-year competition, one of the biggest events in golf, named the Ryder Cup? The namesake who seeded the idea of the Ryder Cup happens to have been a man who made his fortune selling ... seeds.

Fred Wampler was a professional golfer whose PGA Tour playing career took place mostly in the 1950s. He won one tour event and had several other near-misses, but, before that, he was a record-setting college golfer.

Every year, the golfer who leads the PGA Tour in scoring average receives (among other things) the Vardon Trophy. But the Vardon Trophy is not awarded by the PGA Tour — it is given out by a different organization. And it has slightly different qualifying criteria compared to the PGA Tour's own award for scoring average.

Let's say Team Europe and Team USA are playing a hard-fought, very closely contested Ryder Cup. It comes down to the final match, and when that match ends, both teams have the same number of points. It's a tie score. What happens?

In the golf game named Woof or Boo, two golfers are playing a match, with the less-accomplished of the two getting to use his handicap. But that golfer doesn't get his traditional handicap. No, instead he gets to distract his more-accomplished foe at critical moments in the match. He does this by invoking his "woof handicap" or "boo handicap" — literally by shouting "woof!" or "boo!" just as his opponent is about to strike the ball.

The Walker Cup is a biennial (every other year) competition for top amateur men golfers, one team representing Great Britain & Ireland, the other representing the United States. The 2023 Walker Cup will be the 49th time the event is played. Team USA leads the overall standings (the tournament dates to 1922) with 38 wins; Team GB&I has nine wins and there has been one tie.

"Dormie" is a term used in match play in golf, and it means that the golfer or side that is leading the match is ahead by the same number of holes as remain to be played. A golfer who is 1-up with one hole to play, for example, is dormie.

The 2023 Ryder Cup will be the 44th time this biennial competition is played. It matches a team of male professional golfers representing Europe against one representing the United States, in several forms of match play over three days. It will be the first Ryder Cup played in Italy.