I am flying up to play golf with my son (official aviation tie-in). He asked me a question for which I do not have the answer.
He told me that since I am his father, I am supposed to know everything, thus I must turn to the sages of the aviation community for an answer so as to save face.
WHY DOES A GOLFER YELL “FOUR” WHEN HE HITS THE BALL"?
In reply to:
WHY DOES A GOLFER YELL “FOUR” WHEN HE HITS THE BALL"?
Not “four,” but “fore!”
From http://www.golfglossary.com
Fore! → A general warning issued on the golf course that a golf ball may plunk you! The precise meaning of this phrase depends upon who is yelling it.
Though the answer is not definitive, there are strong suggestions that it goes back several hundred years when golf was played by Scotsmen on pastures used by grazing sheep and goats… because the animals kept the fairway trimmed.
Indeed, fairways were dynamic in those days. A course would be laid out to take best advantage of the swath just chewed by the flock. As a courtesy to the shepherds, the word “Fore!” was yelled before striking the ball in their direction.
“Fore” is Scottish for “ahead”. So “Fore!” was really a way of saying: “Look out all ye ahead of me!”
Another similar theory has it that because early golf was played upon links lands, it was quite likely that there would be other townspeople recreating on the same patch of land upon which a course of holes had been set up. If strollers were in your way, you’d yell “Fore!” before striking the ball so as to get them to yield terrain to your game. In fact “playing through” meant something entirely different in those days. Your fairway just might have been traversing an archery range!
Actually the word “four” is often used with the people I play with. Like in “Four? Yeah , right… at LEAST four, just in the trap”
John