Shakespeare on golf

New Rule #21     Even though we tend see golf as we know it as being a game of the last three or four centuries, I propose (with tongue firmly in cheek) that even though the first Open Championship was played in 1860 at Prestwick, Ayreshire, Scotland,  William Shakespeare must have been familiar with the game and that many of our modern terms and golf idioms are, in fact, derived from the immortal bard.

Upon being suckered into the life-long addiction that is golf, one soon learns that there are numerous idiomatic terms, some unique to the sport and some adapted but with other than standard meanings.  Upon studying the complete works of Shakespeare as I have, because as previously noted I have that kind of time, these terms show up in sometimes eerily similar context to their golf meanings. This leads me to the conclusion that William Shakespeare was really a time traveler who on a foray into the future  ( a la Dr. Who and Arthur Dent, other well known Brit temporal navigators) discovered the game and cleverly began inserting golf references into his works. There are but a few examples of this linguistic jiggery-pokery in the sonnets, but as one looks through the plays (especially, appropriately enough, the tragedies) many  more become evident. To make this thesis easier for the non-golfing reader to comprehend, I have broken the examples  into general areas of applicability.

          Scoring is the object of the game, the fewer strokes, the better; examples of both good and bad scoring  references follow, for the sake of brevity (yeah, I know, too late) I won't cite the play, just trust me they're all Shakespeare:

 "What, one good in ten?"   "When I break twenty? I am perjured most"

"I will be even with thee, doubt it not"  "Have you scored me? Well?"

"Upon the stroke of four."      "A wager they have met."

" 'Tis fond to wail inevitable strokes"   "Who devised this penalty?"

"Let's see the penalty"  "He shall have nothing but the penalty."

"To fright them hence with that dread penalty"

          Contributor factors  to all this angst about scoring include equipment and weather, but usually derive primarily from the practitioner striking the ball is such manner as to place it somewhere inappropriate.

Sand Traps, waste bunkers, etc:

"Give up yourself merely to chance and hazard"  "To the extreme edge of hazard."

"Under an oak whose antique root peeps out" "Sometime diverted their poor balls"
"Even as men wrecked upon a sand"  "Here in the sands Thee I'll rake up"
"Huge rocks, high winds, shelves and sands"

"Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow"

"my ancient skill beguiles me; but, in the  boldness of my cunning, I will lay myself in hazard"

 "Drives him beyond the bounds"  "And drive towards Dover, friend"

"Where lies he?"   "Yonder they lie"   "For this relief much thanks"

Water hazards:

"Nor what I have done by water"   "Too much of water hast thou"

"Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep"  "Trust not those cunning waters"

"The other down, unseen and full of water"  "Well, I am standing water"

"here is a water, look ye"   "'tis with him in standing water"

"One of the prettiest touches of all and that which angled for mine eyes, caught the water"

"Here lies the water; good. Here stands the man; good"

The Object(s) of the game:

"In warlike march these greens"  "Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green"

"And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green"

"Making no summer of another's green"  " How lush the grass looks! how green"
"Summon'd me hither, to this short-grass'd green"

" For the great swing and rudeness of his poise"   "This way, my lord; for this way lies the game."

"Come, bird, come"   "O, well flown, bird"

"This bird you aim'd at, though you hit her not; Therefore a health to all that shot and miss'd."

"Thou with an eagle art inspired"  "Save the eagle"

General Golfer comments and excuses:

"I have myself resolved upon a course"   "mine honour was not yielded"

"And with those hands, that grasp'd the heaviest club, Subdue my worthiest self"

"Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps"   "I'll call for clubs, if you will not away"

"True is it that we have seen better days"  "My gracious lord, here is the bag"

"My arm is sore; best play with Mardian."

"Go get thee gone; fetch me an iron"  "I will dry-beat you with an iron"

"If our betters play at that game, we must not dare  to imitate them"

"Give me the iron"

Great truths:

"Good words are better than bad strokes"

"Fathers that wear rags  Do make their children blind;

But fathers that bear bags Shall see their children kind"

                                I rest my case!