A listener from Charlottesville, Virginia, is dating a professional golfer who often plays a Calcutta with other tour members. Calcutta, a betting game going back over 200 years, involves every player betting before the tournament on who they think will finish with the lowest score. It was first picked up by the British in and around—you guessed it—Kolkata, also known as Calcutta. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Golfing Calcutta”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, how are you?
I’m doing well. Who is this?
This is Sadie from Charlottesville, Virginia.
Hi, Sadie. Welcome to the show. What can we help you with?
Hi, Sadie. What’s going on?
Hello. I’m so excited to be talking to y’all.
Okay, so my boyfriend is a professional golfer. He’s on a mini tour.
So he was telling me that he and some of the other players were going to arrange a Calcutta, which I was like, what is this?
And so he tried to explain it, and then I looked it up.
And it turns out that it’s kind of a bunch of players prior to the start of the tournament can bet on who is going to be the best and get the, I guess, least amount of points for golf or the lowest.
And then whoever wins the bet wins the pool of money.
Right.
But so my question is, I’m asking him, like, why is it called a Calcutta, of all things? Where did that come from?
And he had no idea.
And so this is why I’m enlisting you for help.
Oh, I love this.
The Calcutta wager in golf. They’ve used this in other sports, occasionally pop up in dog racing or horse racing.
But it’s a 200-plus-year-old kind of wagering that the British brought back from the subcontinent, from India.
And it was apparently practiced at a well-known club in Calcutta, a golf club.
But it was in a variety of other kinds of sports entertainments as well.
So the British brought it back and spread it to the Anglophone world.
It’s literally because it’s from a place in Calcutta.
Okay, so it’s not like, I was like, it has to have something related to that. That makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, what surprises people, though, is the long pedigree, that it is more than 200 years old, and yet we’re still using the term because we just hang on to it.
It really aptly describes this, and you did a perfect job of describing it.
You’ve got a bunch of players betting on the outcome of a race that they’re a part of, and the one who bets correctly gets the largest share of the pot.
And sometimes you use this as a fundraiser, so the winner gets some of the pot, and then the rest of the pot goes to whatever the charity is.
So there’s a lot of different ways to do it.
But yeah, it usually involves the participants betting on the outcome.
And one of the things that the Calcutta supposedly does is takes out some of the cheating, or evens out the cheating so that everyone can cheat since you’re betting on what you’re involved in, right?
Usually that’s not allowed in sports.
You’re not allowed to bet on a game that you’re a part of.
This is so interesting.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, sure.
You’re welcome.
But it’s pretty cool that you’re married to a famous dude, right?
It’s a boyfriend, right?
Boyfriend.
Okay, boyfriend.
Well, nice.
Right.
Now, I’m going to make sure that he hears that, too.
Well, thank you both so much. I really appreciate it.
Yeah, sure.
Thanks for calling.
Call us again sometime, all right?
All righty.
Bye-bye.
Take care.
Tell us about the language of your workplace, whether it’s on the golf course or in the office or someplace else.
