Bogey

Golf Glossary

Bogey

In short

A bogey in golf is a score of one stroke over par on a single hole. You play a par 4 in five strokes or a par 3 in four strokes. For tour professionals a bogey is a small slip, while for many club golfers it is a solid result.

Bogey in golf: the meaning explained

Every hole has a par, the number of strokes a very good player is expected to need. Take one stroke more and you have made a bogey. The calculation is par plus one:

Two over par is a double bogey and three over par a triple bogey. On leaderboards a bogey appears as ‘+1’ for that hole. Scorecards and stats apps often mark a bogey with a square around the number.

In Stableford a bogey earns one point. That is less than the two points for a par, but far better than a double bogey, which scores nothing.

Practical example: a bogey on a par 4

A par 4 measures 350 metres. Your tee shot finds the rough to the right. You chip back out safely and are left with 90 metres to the green. Your third shot finishes on the green about six metres from the flag. The first putt slides past and the second drops.

Five strokes: a bogey. The example shows a typical pattern. A bogey often comes from one weak shot, here the drive into the rough. If you stay calm and avoid a risky recovery, you limit the damage.

It happens on par 3s too. Your tee shot misses the green, the chip finishes three metres short and you two-putt. Four strokes make a bogey.

Origin: where does the word bogey come from?

The term comes from Britain and is older than par. The usual account goes like this: around 1890 the idea of a fixed target score for each hole was developed at Coventry Golf Club. The club secretary Hugh Rotherham is usually credited with it and called it the ‘ground score’. Great Yarmouth Golf Club adopted it, and players there competed against an imaginary opponent who played every hole in that score.

A popular song about the ‘Bogey Man’, a kind of phantom, was well known at the time, so the invisible opponent became known as Bogey. He was later jokingly promoted to ‘Colonel Bogey’.

Originally, then, bogey meant the target score of a hole. When par became the measure of error-free play, the old bogey score was often one stroke higher. Especially in the USA, bogey therefore came to mean one over par, and that meaning is now used worldwide.

The bogey golfer in the World Handicap System

The term plays an important role in handicapping. A bogey golfer is a player who averages roughly one bogey per hole. Under the World Handicap System that corresponds to a Handicap Index of about 20 for men and 24 for women.

For every course, raters estimate how many strokes a bogey golfer would need. This is the Bogey Rating. Alongside it is the Course Rating for a scratch golfer with a handicap of 0. The gap between the two produces the Slope Rating, which shows how much harder the course is for average players than for very good ones. For men, Slope Rating = (Bogey Rating minus Course Rating) × 5.381. For women the factor is 4.24.

On a par-72 course, a bogey golfer would therefore shoot around 90. For many club golfers that is a realistic and worthwhile goal.

Bogey competition: playing against the course

The old idea of playing against Colonel Bogey lives on in the bogey or par competition, covered by Rule 21.3 of the Rules of Golf (Par/Bogey). You play each hole against a fixed score, usually par, with your handicap strokes applied.

Scoring works like match play:

The result is the balance of holes won and lost, for example ‘2 up’ or ‘3 down’. Whether the terms of the competition call it a par or a bogey competition makes no difference, as it is the same format. The advantage is that one disastrous hole only costs a single minus, so you can pick up and move on to the next tee.

Bogey, double bogey and net bogey compared

The bogey belongs to the series of scores over par. All of these terms refer to a single hole:

A net bogey is one stroke above your personal net par. For example, you receive one handicap stroke on a par 4, so your net par is 5. Six strokes are a gross double bogey but a net bogey, which earns one Stableford point.

Watch out for the old meaning: in older British writing, bogey sometimes still means the target score of a hole. A ‘bogey of 5’ was the goal, not a mistake. Today bogey means one over par all over the world.

Tips: avoid double bogeys, accept bogeys

A bogey is no disaster. It usually gets expensive when one mistake turns into two or three. These habits help:

For handicap purposes, the maximum score on any hole is a net double bogey anyway. Finishing a hole with a controlled bogey instead of gambling usually leads to the better total.

Try it at Golf Lounge

The Golf Lounge’s 9-hole ‘Black’ course is a par 33. Make a bogey on every hole and you finish on 42, a good first target after gaining your Platzreife. The course combines par-3 and par-4 holes with water hazards and bunkers. It is open from April to December for players with the DGV Platzreife, with up to four players per tee time. From May to October there is a 9-hole qualifying competition every Saturday.

View the 9-hole course

Frequently asked questions

What is a bogey in golf?

A bogey is a score of one stroke over par on a single hole. That means four strokes on a par 3, five on a par 4 and six on a par 5. Two over par is called a double bogey, three over par a triple bogey.

What does bogey mean literally?

The name goes back to the ‘Bogey Man’, a phantom figure from a popular British song around 1890. At Great Yarmouth, golfers at the time played against an imaginary opponent with a fixed score for each hole. That opponent was called Bogey and later ‘Colonel Bogey’. Only later did the term come to mean one over par.

How many Stableford points is a bogey worth?

A bogey earns one Stableford point. A par earns two and a birdie three. A double bogey or worse scores nothing. In net scoring your handicap counts: with one handicap stroke on the hole, a gross bogey is a net par and earns two net points.

What is a bogey golfer?

A bogey golfer averages roughly one bogey per hole, which means about 90 strokes on a par-72 course. Under the World Handicap System this corresponds to a Handicap Index of about 20 for men and 24 for women. The figure is the reference point for a course’s Bogey Rating and therefore its Slope Rating.

As of: October 2026

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