When was 'bogey' a par.

[Dave3498]

Looking through a copy of Golf Illustrated for 1899, (which incidently was reporting on Harry Vardon's Open Championship win) I noticed that they referred in one instance to 'bogey' being the score to achieve on a hole. I also have a card game , probably from the thirties, which clearly gives 'bogey' as being the par for a hole. I also remember when I first started playing golf in the early sixties, we used 'bogey' as a term for par. When did it change to refer to one over par? Can any of you golf historians out there throw any light on this, or am I wrong?

 

[muttleee]

Good question. I always thought that the reason it changed was because of the increasing distance that the ball was travelling. Obviously if a par 5 could easily be reached in 2 shots instead of 3, that hole effectively became a par 4 and the old fashioned 'bogey' came to mean one over par. I didn't think there was a huge jump in the distance travelled in the 60s though. Surely by then the ball was already going a relatively long way? I'm certainly surprised by the distances they hit the ball in the matches featured on the Shell's Wonderful World of Golf programme on Sky. Most of those seem to be from the mid 60s or so.

So the short answer is, I don't know when it changed.

 

[golfdonkey]

The website www.scottishgolfhistory.net gives a great explanation of old golf terms. Apparently the "bogey" was the first stroke system before par came about.

 

[Dave3498]

Thanks for that link to scottishgolfhistory. It answers my question. It was the Americans wot dun it.