M
MIND / THE NEXT ONE'S GOOD
‘I Hate this Golf Course!’ The modern terms of endearment for architectural frustration By Jerry Tarde
Pete Sampras won Wimbledon that year, but it was David Duval who led the PGA Tour in hitting Greens in Regulation (GIR) with a 73.57 average. GIR may have been invented by Ben Hogan or Moe Norman or Calvin Peete, but it was first calculated officially in 1980 when Jack Nicklaus led the statis- tical category (72.11) with the highest percentage for having a ball finish on the putting surface in the number of strokes equal to par minus two. The consequence – not the tongue- in-cheek term Greens Visited in Regu- lation (GVIR) – has been around as long as golf has been played on the hardscrabble links of Great Britain
T he first time the term might have been used was at Royal St George’s in 1999 when golf’s boulevardier Jimmy Dunne was playing a casual match with his friend Frank Bren- nan while attending Wimbledon. On the long par-3 11th hole, Brennan hit a slight hook into the right side of the green and appeared satisfied with the result as he turned to put away his club.
“Hey, Frankie, take a look at this,” chirped Jimmy, as the ball slowly slid off the left edge of the green into a sod-faced bunker that Dunne de- scribed to me recently as resembling a World War One foxhole. “I hate this golf course,” Brennan said. “You didn’t hit the green in regula- tion,” exulted Dunne. “You visited the green in regulation.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY CARLOS AMOEDO
8 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
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