Fore

Since the weather has warmed up, our golf group played a couple of times this week. During one of the discussions, the origin of the use of the word “fore” to alert other golfers of a ball coming their way came up. Of course none of us knew any more about the origin of the term than we do about playing golf. I decided as a service to our group as well as both the readers of this blog, to do some extensive research.

Turns out that, as often is the case, no one really knows how the term came to be used as a ‘heads up.’ The Oxford English Dictionary indicates it was first used as a warning cry to people in front of a golf stroke in 1878 and believes it is an abbreviation of the word ‘before.’
I found several explanations, or “stories” that were interesting….
Because golf balls were expensive, early golfers employed “Forecaddies” to stand where the ball might land and reduce the number of lost balls. (This is still done today in professional golf tournaments.) Golfers probably shouted to their forecaddie, who would always be some distance ahead, to draw attention to the fact the ball was coming. In time, this was shortened to “Fore.”
One explanation given by the USGA, is that the term comes from the military battle craft of musket days, when rank after rank would fire fusillades — some over the heads of those in front. Speculation has it that the term Fore! might have been used to warn those in front to keep their head down.
The first explanation makes more sense to me — I’m not sure why golf would choose to use military terms….

Going with the “forecaddie” theory, looking up caddie reveals it comes from the French word ‘le cadet’ meaning ‘the boy’ or the youngest of the family. Adopting French terms wasn’t unusual for the Scots and leads to the theory that French military ‘cadets’ carried the clubs for the golfing royalty in France and the practice came to Scotland. The term came to be used for a general purpose porter or errand boy in Scottish towns in the 18th century. By the mid-1800s, caddie began to be used mainly for those who carried golf clubs. In the early days there were no bags and the clubs were carried in a bundle.

So I’m going with the forecaddie explanation — I imagine if golf balls were very expensive, it was a lot cheaper to hire a forecaddie. I think if anyone in our golf group could hit a golf ball far enough to lose it, we might think about using forecaddies….
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