I’ve long known what it means when a golf ball lips out. I’ve long known what a tap in is, and what is meant by an up and down.
Dog leg? Absolutely. Not simply something you’d find on a collie.
That doesn’t mean, however, that I’m completely up to speed on golf speak.
Of late, I am hearing it more and more. This is because the husband has returned to the game with a vengeance — and will talk about it to whoever cares to listen.
“How was your round?” I will ask when the husband comes off 18.
Given that I am polite enough to ask, the husband will begin to inform me, sometimes hole by hole.
“I got off to a decent start even though my chipping wasn’t great. Made par on nine and 10, but then I chili dipped my chip on 11,” he told me recently.
Hmm, I thought to myself. I knew what a gimme is. I even knew what it means to have the yips. But I had never heard of this chili dip thing, which I wouldn’t have imagined was a verb.
“You chili dipped 11?” I asked.
“Yes,” said the husband. “That means I hit it thin.”
I still wasn’t getting the picture, but I was pretty sure this was not a good thing.
On other occasions, the husband has informed me that he had hit his ball fat, which I imagine is the opposite of hitting it thin, even though neither is presumably a Tiger-variety golf shot.
At other times, the husband has chunked his shot, pulled his shot, flared his shot, flubbed his shot and fanned on his shot, none of which have made him particularly happy.
But when he told me he’d air-mailed his shot, I was rather surprised that he wasn’t smiling. Wouldn’t most golfers aspire to air-mailing their shots? Would this not be preferable than sending the ball on its way via, oh, pony express?
This is not to say that the husband is generally disappointed with his strokes. Not by a long shot, something he often achieves.
“I’m really pleased with the way I played today,” the husband reported a week or so ago. “You wouldn’t have believed my shot on 17. I flushed it!”
Hmm, I thought again.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“That means I hit it pure,” he replied.
OK, I thought.
Pure is the way you want to play. The chili-dip thing? Not so much.
