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Glossary of Golfing Terms - B

This page of our glossary of golfing terms is for golfing terms which begin with the letter 'B'.

• Back door - A putt is said to have gone in the back door when the ball drops in from the rear of the hole.
• Back marker - The term for the player with the lowest handicap in a match or competition.
• Back nine - The last nine holes of an 18 hole golf course (holes 10 to 18).
• Backspin - The rotation of a golf ball which causes it to fly high through the air, stop quickly when it hits the ground, and sometimes to spin back slightly towards the player.
• Backswing - The total movement of body and club away from the ball until the swing becomes a movement back towards it.
• Baffy - An obsolete wooden club with quite a short shaft and much loft on the face. A baffy was used to play high shots to the flag.
• Bag - Used for carrying golf clubs. A golf bag usually has a shoulder strap and a carrying handle.
• Ball mark - A term which is sometimes used instead of pitch mark, usually to mean the dent caused by a golf ball landing on a fairly soft green.
• Ball moved - A ball is said to have moved if it does not return to its original position once it has been at rest. This is usually caused by a player grounding his club behind the ball or removing loose impediments near it. In either case, there is a one stroke penalty.
• Banana ball - The term used for a bad slice, it gets that name because the flight of the ball resembles the shape of a banana.
• Bandit - The name given to a player who performs much better than his handicap in competition.
• Bare Lie - The term used when a golf ball lies directly on hard ground without any grass under it.
• Bent - A type of grass particularly suited to greens, but also used on teeing areas.
• Best ball - A match involving four players in which one plays against the best score on each hole of the other three players.
• Better ball - Either a stroke competition where the better score of two partners is counted, or a match where two play against two with the better score of each side being counted.
• Birdie - The term used for a score of one stroke lower than the par for the hole.
• Bisque - A handicap stroke which can be taken at any time during a match, even after play at a hole has finished.
• Bite - The term used for a lot of backspin applied to a ball causing it to stop quickly instead of rolling forwards when it lands.
• Blade - To strike the ball with the bottom edge of the club. The result is usually a thinned or topped shot, but it can be deliberate.
• Blaster - The term often used for the first broad-soled sand irons.
• Blind - A hole or shot where the player cannot see his target.
• Block - A shot where the player fails to pivot his hips through the ball quickly. enough, with the result that it is pushed or sliced to the right.
• Blow - The term used for a sudden loss of good play, usually when under pressure.
• Bogey - A score of one over par on a hole.
• Bogey competition - A competition in which a player receives three-quarters of his handicap and plays against the course, hole by hole. He will win, halve or lose a hole. If a player's total number of strokes are the same as his handicap, his result against bogey is likely to be about two down. In these competitions, a bogey is a par.
• Borrow - To aim off to the left or right in putting to allow for slope of the green to bring the ball back to the hole.
• Boundary - The perimeter of a course. To go beyond these limits is to be out-of-bounds and suffer the stroke and distance penalty.
• Bowmaker - The term used for a type of competition where usually three players are allowed to use their best individual score to count for their team.
• Box - A system of scoring for matchplay with three players. When one player wins a hole over the other two he goes into an imaginary box. If he then wins a hole he scores a point, if he halves a hole, he stays in the box, but if he loses, he leaves the box. It is also sometimes called 'chairman of the board'.
• Brassie - A wooden club with a brass soleplate intended to protect the wood in contact with the ground. Because it had slightly more loft than a driver its modern equivalent is often said to be the No. 2 wood. Many drivers today have as much loft as the old brassie.
• Break - The term used for the amount of turn on a putt from left to right or right to left.
• Buggy - A battery-powered vehicle for carrying golfers and their equipment around a golf course.
• Building a stance - A player is not allowed to improve his stance by scrapping footholds, for example, or holding down boughs of trees. Neither may he lay anything down to stand or lie on.
• Bunker - A depression, either deep or shallow on the course, usually part filled with sand and is either natural or man-made. Bunkers can also be made of earth or grass.
• Bye - There are two distinct meanings. The first is used in knock-out competitions where the number of players needs to be arranged in order to arrive at a later figure of 64, 32 or 16. Some players are then given a bye and move on to the next round without playing a match. The second meaning occurs in matchplay when the game is over before the end of the round. The players may decide to play a bye over the holes which remain.