Bogle stands for ghost or goblin or demon. It is even applied to a scarecrow as in "tattie bogle," the ragged dummy - bogie man - placed with arms extended in potato fields to frighten away the raiding rooks. And the word is to be met with frequently in Scottish song or story. We have it when Tarn o' Shanter "well mounted on his gray mare Meg " is described as "whiles glowerin' roun' wi' prudent cares, lest bogles catch him unawares." Burns also uses the term in the beautiful song "Ca' the yowes to the knowes," a stanza of which reads -

Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear, Thou'rt to love and heaven sae dear, Nought of ill may come thee near, My bonnie dearie.

Probably the best translation is the "affrighting goblin," and that is what is meant in this golf green connection. In another sense bogle suggests bewitching play. A juvenile game popular in Scotland in by-gone days in which the young folk chased each other round the corn stacks in the farmyard, is referred to in one of the most beautiful of all Scots ballads - the lament for those who fell on Flodden Field - "The Flowers of the Forest."

At e'en in the gloamin' nae swankics are roamin' 'Bout stacks wi' the lasses at bogle to play,

Hut ilk maid sits drearie, lamenting her dearie, The Flowers of the Forest arc a" wede away.

All is not dread here however. "Wee " in Scotland and across the Bonier is, in a sense, a term of endearment, and possibly its tenderness was never more finely expressed than in Hums' love song that has the haunting retrain -

Bonnie wee thing, cannic wee thing, Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine,

I would wear thee in my bosom, Lest my jewel I should tine.

Boyle is sometimes in use as a verb "to terrify or bewitch "; it is also used figuratively to denote circumvention. Thus at the Wee Boyle - where the wee hobgoblins may appear to be waylaying you - you play a wee stroke to reach the green. You have to circumvent or clear forbidding bunkers that may conceivably bewitch any player and unnerve the arm.