Nickname Quiz

If you are a sports nut who likes trivia, especially colorful nicknames of famous athletes, then maybe you will have some fun with my golf nickname quiz.

As a warmup, I will give you one of the most famous golf nicknames in the history of the game and if you nail this one with no problem, then you might be on your way to a perfect score.

Warm up nickname: The Golden Bear. Take 15 seconds to think about the name and to keep you from peeking ahead for the answer, I will spell it backwards to slow you down looking for the answer in the text. (kcaJ sualkciN).

Each correct answer to the quiz will be worth 50 points and the answers will be spelled correctly at the end of the column, with a brief description of how the golfer got his nickname.

1. Fuzzy

2. The Shark 

3. The Slammer 

4. The Black Knight 

5. The Super Mex 

6. Boom Boom

7. The Big Easy

8. The King

9. The Walrus

10. The Squire

11. Bonus nickname, worth  

500 points: The Hawk

While you are pondering the quiz nicknames, here are a few others I did not use because they would have been extremely hard and would only be used on the quiz show “Jeopardy.”

The Welsh Wizard: 1991 Masters Champion Ian Woosnam, who lives in Wales and has also been known as Woosie.

El Nino: This nickname was given to Sergio Garcia as a rookie professional golfer because he raced around the golf course like a hurricane.

Wild Thing: John Daley got this nickname for his wild lifestyle, trashing hotel rooms and losing $2 million in Las Vegas in two days.

Answers: 

1. Fuzzy is Frank Urban Zoeller, who got his name from his initials, FUZ

2. The Shark is Greg Norman, who got his name from aggressive play, hailing from Australia and having pearly white teeth.

3. The Slammer was Sam Snead, who could hit a drive a country mile.

4. The Black Knight was Gary Player, who dressed in black and also painted his putter black.

5. Super Mex was Lee Trevino, who was a Mexican-American legend and Hall of Famer.

6. Boom Boom was Fred Couples, who like Sam Snead, could hit his drive a country mile.

7. The Big Easy is Ernie Els, who is 6’ 3”, has an easy manner and an ultra-smooth swing.

8. The King is Arnie Palmer, who is one of the top three golfers to ever play the game.

9. The Walrus is Craig Stadler, who is known for his large frame and long mustache.

10. The Squire is Gene Sarazen, golfing legend, who lived on a farm in his playing days from 1920 to the late 1940s.

11. Bonus Name: 500 points, The Hawk is Ben Hogan, who had an intense stare and even greater intensity to play the game. 

Scoring:

0-50: Take up bowling; the ball comes back to you!

50-200: Watch YouTube videos of Hall of Famers for enlightenment.

200-300: Not bad for someone who only watches the Masters each spring.

400-500: Perfect score, bragging rights and, if you got the bonus question correct, you are reading way too much about golf and not playing enough.

19th Hole Trivia:

kcaJ sualkciN was also known as Ohio Fats, when he first broke onto the pro golf scene.

Arnold Palmer hated the nickname The King. His fans were known as Arnie’s Army.

Golf writer Dan Jenkins once described Craig Stadler as being “built like a freezer and has a mustache, which is only slightly smaller than the forest around Lake Tahoe.”

Australian golf writer Don Lawrence gave kcaJ sualkciN his nickname after he saw his size and called him, “a cuddly Golden Bear.”

Red Herring bonus of 1000 points:  Who was known as the “Sultan of Swat?”

kcaJ sualkciN once filled John Montgomerie’s car with horse manure, as a “friendly practical joke.”

The red herring nick name belongs to ebaB htuR.