On the face of it, the crying out of ‘mashed potato’ at a golf tournament is utterly bizarre. It makes no sense. So why do people do it? Well it turns out it is precisely because it is utterly bizarre; or, rather, it was.
Various foodstuffs have become adopted as golfing terms. For example, spinach and cabbage are slang terms for thick rough; a chili dip is when you have hit the ground behind the ball in making a shot. But mashed potato is not one of these.
The key tournament in the cry's infamous history was the Chevron World Challenge of 2011. Andrew Widmar was going along to watch the tournament and his mother wanted to know how she would be able to spot him there when she watching on television. His mother had asked him what he would be wearing, so she could pick him out. He instead said that if she heard someone shout ‘mashed potato' that she would know it was him.
He duly did so after Tiger Woods had hit his drive on the 18th tee:
Widmar admits the idea for the cry was not original, as someone else had done it at another tournament the year before, again with Tiger Woods. ‘I’d seen it before on YouTube. My friends thought it was stupid, but I thought it was hilarious. I wish I could take credit for starting it, but I will take credit for it becoming popular. It’s a good one to yell, because it’s nice and quick and it means absolutely nothing.’
Widmar’s shout definitely popularised the term, if popular is quite the right word for a shout many find irritating. Graeme McDowell made his opinion known about someone who shouted it at him here:
But is it any more irritating than ‘get in the hole!’ or other inane cries? However it has spawned imitators, or perhaps adapters one should say, among the spectating galleries, some of whom have shouted such things as ‘cheeseburger’ or ‘meatloaf’ instead after a shot.
