Path = Home : Glossary of Golfing Terms - S

Glossary of Golfing Terms - S

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

• Sand iron - A usually heavy club with a flange designed so that the clubhead rides through soft sand rather than digs down. The rear of the flange, not the leading edge of the club, is lower.
• Sand trap - American term for bunker although trap is increasingly used in Britain.
• Sand wedge - See sand iron.
• Scorecards - These probably came into use for the first time in the 1865 Open Championship. They are printed cards on which scores for individual holes and eventual totals are recorded.
• Scotch foursomes - A term used in the USA for foursomes. Scotch because the game is presumed to have been invented in Scotland.
• Scratch player - A golfer with a zero handicap.
• Seeding - Spacing the best players through a draw so that, in theory, they do not have to play each other until the later stages of the competition.
• Semi-rough - The grass between the fairrway and the uncut rough. Considerable attention is often paid to its length and density in important events.
• Shaft - The part of the club between the grip and the clubhead.
• Shank - To hit a ball, using an iron at the place where the head joins the shaft. The ball flies away from the player at almost right angles.
• Short - When the ball fails to reach the target.
• Short game - Putting, chipping, bunker play and short pitching.
• Short set - Less than the full complement of golf clubs.
• Shutting the face - The loft of the club is reduced because the hands are ahead of the clubhead at impact. Achieved by setting up to the ball with the hands ahead or having the ball back in the stance, with the same result. The result will be to keep the ball low, perhaps into the wind or under the branch of a tree.
• Shut to open - A deliberate effort is made on the backswing not to allow wrist action to open the clubface so that at the top the clubface, rather than the toe of the club, may be aiming down the target line. The clubface then opens on the downswing.
• Side saddle - A stance adopted by some players, notably Sam Snead, when puttting between the legs in croquet style was banned. The player stands chest on to the hole and strokes the ball from near the right edge of the right foot.
• Sidespin - Left-to-right or right-to-left rotation of the ball, resulting in a shot that bends right or left.
• Silloth terms - A form of handicapping invented at Silloth Golf Club in Cumbria for pairs golf which tends to penalize a partnership with a low handicap golfer.
• Singles - A match between two players.
• Sitting down - Used of a ball lying well down in the grass.
• Sitting up - Used of a ball in a good lie.
• Skulling - Hitting a chip or pitch shot too hard so that the ball goes past the green.
• Sky - Usually a wooden club shot where the ball is struck by the top edge of the club and soars upwards.
• Slice - A ball that curves to the right for the duration of its flight.
• Snap hook - A hook which bends very quickly.
• Snipe - The term used for a sharply hooked ball that dives quickly.
• Socket - A ball hit on the joint between shaft and clubhead and which shoots off almost at right angles to the player.
• Sole - The part of the club which rests on the ground when the player addresses the ball.
• Spade mashie - An old club with a deep face, used for shots from sand and deep rough.
• Split hands putting - A putting grip where the hands are kept apart with the stroke made mostly by the bottom hand.
• Spoon - An old club, equivalent to the modern No. three wood.
• Square - When the clubface is at right angles to the target line.
• Square stance - To stand with both feet parallel to the target line.
• Stableford - A scoring system in which one point is awarded for a bogey, two for a par, three for a birdie, four for an eagle and five for a double eagle. Hanndicap strokes are included. If a player equals his handicap, he will score just under 36.
• Stance - The placing of the feet before playing a shot.
• Standard scratch score - The score a scratch player should do on a particular course.
• Steel shafts - The first steel shafts were made before the turn of the century but were banned. The USGA allowed their use in putters from 1924 and they were legalized by the R and A in 1929, some years after the USGA approved them. They rapidly replaced hickory because they were both lighter and had little torsion.
• Strict par - Basically the score that a very good professional should have for a round. For instance, the par of a course with four par fives might be 72 but the professional should reach all of the par fives in two strokes, thus making the strict par 68.
• Stroke - A forward movement of the club made with the intention of striking the ball.
• Stroke hole - A hole where a stroke is received.
• Stroke index - For the purpose of giving and receiving strokes, all club cards are rated from one to 18 because it is reckoned a good player can be expected to play the most difficult holes more effectively than the poor player. In practice, however, strokes are equally divided between the first and second nines of the 18 holes so the system depends on deciding which is the most difficult hole on the course and the second most difficult is then reckoned to be in the other nine. So the numbering continues, alternating.
• Strokeplay - A form of competition in which the winner is the player with the lowest total score for the number of holes played. It seems to date back to the 18th century.
• Strong - A shot which travels too far.
• Stymie - A situation in which a ball about to be putted had another ball on its route to the hole. Players had to attempt to loft their balls over the obstruction. The rule was changed early in the 1950s.
• Sudden death - Often played in tournament golf after a tie. When two players are involved, the first to score lower for a hole than the other wins the event. If a greater number of players is involved, all who do not equal the best score on a hole have to drop out.
• Sweet spot - Usually in the centre of the clubface but sometimes inclining slightly towards the heel. A ball struck here will travel further than when hit anywhere else.
• Swing - All the movements a golfer makes in moving the club away from the ball, back to it and then continuing until all momentum is spent.
• Swing weight - The static measurement of the weight and balance of a club. A matched set of clubs should all be the same swing weight.
• Syndicate - In fourball play a syndicate bet is won by the player with the lowest score on a hole.