Golf didn’t take long to catch on Danger! beginning. It was there, in the first pilot episodeon September 18, 1983.
“The answer is,” began mustachioed rookie host Alex Trebek, reading the $50 Sports category clue, “in golf, it’s two under par for a hole.”
The first to ring the buzzer was Jack Campion, a blond-haired sales executive from Los Angeles.
“What is an eagle?”
“Good, you’re on a roll!” »
Thus began the long and storied history of golf-related clues – more than 800 in total – that would appear over the 35 seasons of America’s most iconic quiz show. If that sounds like a lot of questions about how to throw wedges and set up Presidents and Gary Player, it is. According to a thorough, if not entirely scientific, analysis of each Danger! clue (all 361,983 of them are cataloged on the excellent website, J! Archive), there was on average one golf-related clue every eight or nine shows.
“It’s a pretty high representation.” Danger!the editor-in-chief of Billy Wissesaid the other day in a telephone interview. “Probably not as high as baseball or basketball or football, but I guess it’s higher than any other sport.”
Wisse said golf lends itself to anecdotes because it is both a spectator and participant sport. “When you write clues about most other sports, you have to approach them purely as a spectator,” he says. “But when you write about golf, there are two different angles: the big players and the tournaments you see on TV, but also which club to use in a certain situation and that sort of thing.” As in this 2011 index: “Sand and pitch are common varieties of these irons used for throwing short shots. » (Hmm…what are wedges? Again!)
Some golf-centric clues have been the equivalent of a giveaway for contestants with even a basic knowledge of the sport (“When this president played golf, he often invoked ‘Billigans’ after misplayed balls”); others have felt more like a slippery, triple-breaking 35-footer (“This chain of 748 shoe stores is named after a Scottish professional golfer” (Accessories if you found, What’s Thom McAn?). There have also been a few shanks, like this depressing 2017 whine: “It’s a right-handed golfer’s shot veering to the right, or what he might want to do to his wrists after that is the case.
The Tiger Woods effect? It’s one thing for sure Jeopardy!, Also. Woods has been the subject of a clue or the answer to a clue 84 times. His name first appeared on the November 15, 1996 episode, when he answered the following question: “In 1996, the 20-year-old African-American golfer won a record third consecutive U.S. amateur title.” Tiger’s most recent appearance came last month, when Jonathan Greenan, a human rights lawyer from Prince Edward Island, knew that “Who is Tiger Woods” was the correct answer to the following question: “At the Buick Invitational from 2005 to 2008, there were many guests invited, but no one beat this golfer.” (Incidentally, Jack Nicklaus was only asked 42 questions, although he trailed Woods in Final Jeopardy, 3-2.)
If a certain golf topic is a reasonable topic for a Danger! The index is at the discretion of the eight full-time writers, some of whom play golf, Wisse says, but none of whom can be described as avid players. (Trebek used to stare at him, but was sidelined with a hesitant back.) “We can basically understand that a bogey and Jack Nicklaus are (fair topics), but Vijay Singh and ‘what’s a drop’ maybe aren’t, but we could still try them,” Wisse says. “Sometimes we try them and they work, sometimes we try them and they don’t work. »
Case in point: this $2,000 puzzle from 2003, delivered by guest clue reader and seven-time PGA Tour winner Peter Jacobsen: “On this type of long putt, your goal is not to make a hole, but to leave yourself a short one. Wisse says, “The other clues (in this category) were a lot easier, so by the time we got to the fifth clue, we were like, ‘Damn, let’s see if they know what a lag putt is.’
Alas, the competitors did not do so. Triple surprise!
It is much less common for all three candidates to land on a $200 clue – the Danger! the equivalent of a tap-in – but that’s what happened earlier this year after Trebek delivered this brainteaser: “Golf, so relaxing…until I got 7 on a par-3, or that score.”
Sara Butner, a communications manager from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, took the first step.
“What is a double-bogey?”
Sorry, no.
Next: Adam Francois Watkins, stay-at-home dad and attorney from Atlanta.
“What is an albatross?”
Wrong again.
What about you, Maureen Block, high school English and film studies teacher in Rancho Cucamonga, California?
Crickets.
Come on, people! What a quadruple bogey!
At least a handful of the past Danger! competitors would have devoured this clue. Among them: Armando Martinez, a greenskeeper from Santa Monica, California, who appeared in season 17 (in 2001); John Chapman, a golf course manager from Columbia, Mo., who played in Season 14; and Yancy Naughton, a golf magazine publisher from Point Pleasant, Pa., who was a Danger! season 16 champion. Ryan Ballengee wasn’t in the golf business when as a high school student in Pasadena, Maryland, he earned semifinal honors at the 2001 teen tournament. But he is today as the proud owner and operator of Golf News Net.
Mark Dawson, a business owner from Chamblee, Ga., who took in nearly $350,000 over five Danger! appearances, didn’t make a living in golf, but he loved the game. After spending part of his harvest on a two-month trip through Europe, he returned home and splurged “on hearty breakfasts, golf and memberships to the New York Times.” Mike Thayer, who, while a student at Rutgers, was the Danger! University champion in 1999, he became a celebrity in his local course. On one occasion he was spotted by a group of strangers who were serenading him with the Danger! theme song.
Robin Cheney, a middle school teacher from Rancho Santa Margarita, California, was decidedly not a golfer. Asked before her 2012 appearance what her dream categories were, she responded, “As long as we stay away from college sports and golf, I think I’ll do pretty well.” » (Robin got his wish.)
Repeat the clues on Danger! are about as rare as an albatross, but they do occur, especially in a niche category like golf. Bob Hope’s affinity for the game is a recurring topic (it’s been brought up at least 11 times), as is astronaut Alan Shepard’s moonshot (at least five times). Even the simplest golf questions popped up, including this $800 clue from a show last March:
“That’s 2 below average on a single hole of golf.”
Do you remember this one?
That’s right, you’re on a roll!
