The ‘We’ Phenomenon

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA | Henry Watson Fowler, the grammarian whose Dictionary of Modern English was a staple in British schools in the past two centuries, is unable to comment on a linguistic tic that once was common in golf. We can give the old pedant a pass on that score because if he were around he would be 161 years old.

But Rickie Fowler is in the room and is a witness to the discussion as to when players stopped blaming their caddies, as in “I birdied the 10th and 12th and then we bogeyed the 13th” and instead started talking about “we” in all things.

Today, there are those such as Jordan Spieth, Danny Willett and the aforementioned Fowler who use the first person plural pronoun – we – almost as much as the first person singular pronoun – I. “Not sure how many more full PGA Tour events we’ll play this year …” Matt Wallace, the Sawgrass rookie who is up to 35th in the world, said on the eve of the Players and “… and we’re here now and we’re playing in my first Players …”

Henrik Stenson is another one who uses the “we...