You're watching golf on a Sunday afternoon and the announcer drops a name like "The Walrus" or "Chucky Three Sticks" and your brain glitches for half a second trying to figure out if that's a real player or just something the broadcast booth made up to fill airtime.
Pro golf has accumulated more weird, funny, occasionally brutal nicknames than any other sport, and the origin stories are almost always better than the nicknames themselves. Below are 23 of the most memorable, counted down from #23 to #1 across 7 categories, with the actual backstories so you can drop one casually at your next round and look like the most informed person at the table.
PART 1: NICKNAMES NOBODY ASKED FOR BUT EVERYONE USES ANYWAY
What we all do: pretend we'd love to have a nickname, then pray nobody ever actually gives us one.
What history says: some of the funniest golf nicknames in history were assigned by other people without permission.
23. THE TOWERING INFERNO (Tom Weiskopf)
Weiskopf was The Towering Inferno, a play on his height of six foot three and his tendency to absolutely melt down on the course when things went sideways. He still managed to win the 1973 Open Championship, mostly in spite of his temper rather than because of it.
22. BIG MAMA (JoAnne Carner)
Carner is Big Mama, a nickname she earned for her powerful drives back in her LPGA prime. She won two U.S. Women's Opens in the 1970s and is one of the most important figures in women's golf history. In 2022, at age 83, she shot her age in the first round of the U.S. Senior Women's Open, which is the kind of stat that should make every weekend hacker reconsider their entire approach to the sport.
21. CHUCKY THREE STICKS (Charles Howell III)
Howell is widely known as Chucky Three Sticks, a nickname coined by ESPN announcer Charlie Rymer back in 2000 when Howell turned pro. The "three sticks" refer to the three Roman numerals at the end of his name. Howell once told ESPN, "(Rymer) started it, and it stuck. Hey, you could always be called something worse," which is the most resigned acceptance of a nickname ever recorded.
PART 2: NICKNAMES THAT ARE LITERALLY JUST A NUMBER
What we all do: lose count of our own score after the seventh hole and round down.
What history says: shooting 59 in a sanctioned tour event is so rare that it earns you a permanent number-based nickname.
20. MS. 59 (Annika Sörenstam)
Sörenstam became Ms. 59 in 2001 at the Standard Register PING tournament in Phoenix, becoming the first woman to do it on the LPGA Tour. Other golfers have shot 59 since, and one day someone will shoot 58, but the nicknames are first-come first-served, so everyone after her just gets a really cool round to remember.
19. MR. 59 (Al Geiberger)
Geiberger became Mr. 59 on June 10, 1977, when he became the first golfer to shoot 59 in a sanctioned PGA Tour event during the second round of the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic. He had 11 birdies and an eagle in that round, and the nickname has been his alone ever since.
PART 3: NICKNAMES BORN FROM PERSONALITY
What we all do: nickname people based on whatever one weird thing they do.
What history says: pros do this to each other constantly, and the result is usually unflattering.
18. THE SQUIRE (Gene Sarazen)
Sarazen became The Squire because he owned a farm in upstate New York and farm owners back then were commonly called squires. It's a delightfully old-school nickname that you can't really see making it onto the modern tour. Sarazen also stood five foot five and was once described as a "small but deadly" competitor, which is the description every short golfer secretly hopes for.
17. THE MECHANIC (Miguel Ángel Jiménez)
Jiménez is The Mechanic, partly because he worked in a garage before turning pro and partly because of his famously precise, almost robotic pre-shot routine. The cigar-smoking, ponytail-rocking Spaniard has aged into one of the most beloved characters in golf precisely because he doesn't fit the modern athlete mold.
16. THE MERRY MEX (Lee Trevino)
Trevino was The Merry Mex (and sometimes Supermex) for his nonstop chatter on the course and his Mexican-American heritage. He genuinely could not stop talking. The most famous version of the story goes that during a match with Tony Jacklin, Jacklin walked to the first tee and said, "Lee, I don't want to talk today." Trevino's reply: "Tony, you don't have to talk, just listen."
15. THE BLACK KNIGHT (Gary Player)
Player became The Black Knight because he wore head-to-toe black on the course for almost his entire career. He's also the only non-American to complete the career Grand Slam, which is the kind of resume bullet that lets you wear whatever you want.
PART 4: NICKNAMES BORN FROM ONE SPECIFIC RIDICULOUS MOMENT
What we all do: try to live down whatever stupid thing we did at the club championship.
What history says: a single weird moment can stick a golfer with a name for the rest of his career.
14. SPIDER-MAN (Camilo Villegas)
Villegas became Spider-Man for his unorthodox habit of getting on all fours and crawling along the ground to read his putts, which somehow made him look exactly like a comic book hero scaling a wall. The Colombian's putting style was so unusual it became must-see TV during his peak years on tour.
13. EL NIÑO (Sergio García)
García picked up El Niño as a teenager, meaning "the kid" in Spanish, after he stunned the golf world by going toe-to-toe with Tiger Woods at the 1999 PGA Championship at age 19. The shot where he closed his eyes, swung at a ball pinned against a tree root on the 16th hole, then sprinted up the fairway scissor-kicking through the air to see where it went is still one of the wildest moments in major championship history.
12. CHAMPAGNE TONY (Tony Lema)
Lema, an early-1960s star out of Oakland, became Champagne Tony in 1962 after promising the press corps he'd buy them champagne if he won the Orange County Open Invitational. He delivered on the bet, and the name stuck for the rest of his career, which was tragically cut short by a 1966 plane crash near Chicago at age 32. He won the 1964 Open Championship at St. Andrews by five strokes over Jack Nicklaus, having only played nine practice holes beforehand.
11. AQUAMAN (Woody Austin)
Austin became Aquaman at the 2007 Presidents Cup. He fell face-first into a pond while attempting a shot, surfaced soaking wet, and a few days later showed up to a singles match wearing a snorkel and goggles on the 14th tee. He was 43 years old at the time. He has been Aquaman ever since.
PART 5: NICKNAMES BORROWED FROM THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
What we all do: nickname our buddy "The Bear" because he grunts when he swings.
What history says: golf's animal-kingdom nicknames go way deeper than basic farm-animal slander.
10. THE WALRUS (Craig Stadler)
Stadler became The Walrus in tribute to his stocky frame and an absolutely glorious mustache. He won the 1982 Masters with that mustache in full bloom, which is a sentence that should be in every Masters highlight reel forever.
9. THE HAWK (Ben Hogan)
Hogan was The Hawk, named for the cold, predatory stare he locked onto every shot. Look up any old footage of Hogan and you'll understand within about ten seconds why nobody wanted to be paired with him on a Sunday afternoon.
8. THE GREAT WHITE SHARK (Greg Norman)
Norman became The Great White Shark thanks to his aggressive style of play and his white-blond Australian hair. He leaned into it so hard he founded a company called Great White Shark Enterprises and titled his autobiography "The Way of the Shark." He spent 331 weeks ranked number one in the world, which is shark-level dominance regardless of nickname.
PART 6: NICKNAMES BORN FROM HOW THEY HIT THE BALL
What we all do: see a guy crush a 320-yard drive and immediately try to give him a nickname.
What history says: a lot of golf's best nicknames came from a swing that was either way too smooth or way too long.
7. LONG JOHN (John Daly)
Daly became Long John in his early years for his prodigious driving distance, eventually becoming the first PGA Tour player to average more than 300 yards a drive across a full season back in 1997. He's also widely known as Wild Thing for reasons that include but are not limited to: passing out drunk at a Hooters in 2008, being credited by the PGA Tour with the highest single-hole score on record (an 18 on a par 5 at the 1998 Bay Hill Invitational), and once losing $55,000 out of a moving car window during an argument with his wife.
6. BOOM BOOM (Fred Couples)
Couples earned Boom Boom for his enormous distance off the tee, paired with a swing tempo so casual that he looks half-asleep mid-downswing. He won the 1992 Masters with that same low-key vibe, which made him one of the most copied swing models of the 90s by every weekend golfer who ever bought a Golf Digest.
5. THE BIG EASY (Ernie Els)
Els is The Big Easy because he's six foot three and his swing looks like it requires zero effort, which feels personally insulting if you've spent the last fifteen years trying to figure out why your own backswing feels like assembling flat-pack furniture in a dimly lit garage. He even named a wine label after the nickname.
4. SLAMMIN' SAMMY (Sam Snead)
Snead got Slammin' Sammy from his powerful, fluid ball-striking. Gary Player once called Snead's swing the best of all time, and pros today still reference it as a model. Snead also remains tied with Tiger Woods for the most PGA Tour wins of all time at 82, which is the kind of stat that makes you respect a nickname even when it sounds like a 1950s pinball machine.
PART 7: THE LEGENDS YOU PROBABLY ALREADY KNOW
What we all do: refer to the all-time greats by one word and assume everyone agrees who's the GOAT.
What history says: the three nicknames every golf fan picks up first are Lefty, The King, and Golden Bear.
3. LEFTY (Phil Mickelson)
Mickelson goes by Lefty for the obvious reason that he plays golf left-handed even though he does literally everything else right-handed, having learned by mirroring his father's swing as a kid. He has another less polite nickname that his fellow pros gave him in the 1990s called FIGJAM, a profanity-laced acronym that roughly translates to "I'm good, just ask me." It surfaced publicly in a 2006 GQ article that included him on a list of the most hated athletes in sports. Mickelson reportedly hates the nickname, and most of the tour stopped using it years ago.
2. THE KING (Arnold Palmer)
Palmer became The King because of how he pulled in massive crowds (known as Arnie's Army) and made the sport feel accessible to people who didn't grow up at country clubs. He's generally credited with changing the face of tournament golf in the late 1950s and 60s, and to his fans he was simply Arnie or The King for the rest of his career.
1. THE GOLDEN BEAR (Jack Nicklaus)
Nicklaus picked up Golden Bear in the early 1960s thanks to Australian sportswriter Don Lawrence, who described the young, blonde, crew-cutted Nicklaus as looking like a "cuddly, golden bear." Funny coincidence: Nicklaus's high school in Upper Arlington, Ohio happened to use the Golden Bears as its mascot, but that wasn't actually the source. Before Golden Bear took hold, fellow pros and some fans were calling him Fat Jack and Ohio Fats, so trading up was probably the smartest branding decision he ever made. With 18 major championships to his name, the Golden Bear is also the most iconic nickname in golf, full stop.
Golf nicknames are a special kind of folklore. They get passed down at clubhouse bars and quoted by fans who don't even know the player but love saying "Chucky Three Sticks" out loud just to feel something. The next time an announcer drops one of these on you mid-tournament, you'll have an actual backstory ready to share with whoever's watching with you, instead of nodding politely like you knew the whole time.
