The Great Debate of 2017

[Andrew Buck]

Golf is not a verb.

So, if you were invited to take a spin around Shinnecock, you would say, “I am playing golf at a solid track today” as opposed to “I am golfing at a solid track today”?

As my mom taught me, I’d say please, thank you and be a good boy!


I’m pretty sure I’d have a great time playing golf there, but it would be just as enjoyable golfing in Southampton should that be the option available.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Sure, the verbs stymied, birdied, bogied, etc. have all become accepted usage.

So has "golfed." You just refuse to accept it. 

Again, I don't use it as a verb very often, if ever… but it is a verb. To deny that is to stick your head in the sand, plug your ears and hum a tune, whatever…

[Bret Lawrence]

Bob,


I have no problem with good writers having higher standards than the rest of us. I suppose writers have nothing to lose, if they avoid using golf as a verb.  A person like myself (a historically poor writer) wouldn't decipher whether an author used golf as a verb in their writing or not.  Whereas people it really bothers will appreciate that you didn't use golf as a verb.


I still don't understand how designers can design and drivers can drive and caddies can caddie, but golfers can't golf, but I will understand it someday.


I recently received my copy of "The Little Red Book of Golf Course Architecture" edited by Bob Crosby. I am looking forward to reading about Tom Doak's trials and tribulations in Golf Course Architecturing! 


Happy New Year!


Bret

[BCrosby]

Bret -


I hope you enjoy the book. It is meant to be a fun, interesting and easy read. There aren't enough of those kinds of golf books.


Bret/Erik -


Language usage goes where it wants to go. Us curmudgeons might object, but our objections are often futile. So I will not fall on my sword over this.


But if I was editing something you wrote in which you used 'golf' as a verb, I would ask you to change it. Not because you would be violating a hard and fast grammatical rule, but because - to my ear - it sounds dumb.


Bob

[Erik J. Barzeski]

But if I was editing something you wrote in which you used 'golf' as a verb, I would ask you to change it. Not because you would be violating a hard and fast grammatical rule, but because - to my ear - it sounds dumb.

As I've noted, I wouldn't write it that way in the first place. 

I edit quite a bit as part of my daily "stuff," and I'm not sure I'd stick on that one or not. It would depend on the context, I suppose. Maybe a character is saying it, and it fits them to use golf as a verb. 

[Tim Gavrich]

The worst thing about the use of "golf/golfed/golfing" as an active verb, rather than "play golf/played golf/playing golf" is that it negates the use of the word "play." It's crucial that the sense of play be tied to the activity of golf in order to remind us that it is a game, and that it is supposed to be fun.


If someone says, "I golfed yesterday," it's not implied that it was a playful activity. That's a depressing notion to me.


FYI, expressions like "I really golfed my ball today" are colloquial in nature, so they're exceptions that prove the rule. The rhetorical strength of that usage relies on it being used to wink at the fact that the speaker knows that that's not the way to talk seriously about the playing of the game. If there's no irony, then it's not amusing - it's just incorrect.