The only thing missing in Wordle’s status as a cultural institution was a day that is devoted to it, and now we have it too.
Welcome to Wordle Day, or May 6, to be precise. Why today? “Because Wordle uses five letters with six guesses to find a secret word, we thought 6 May would be the perfect date to celebrate the game that has given rise to a happy daily routine for so many people across the globe,” said the New York Times Wordle Editor Tracy Bennett.
Okay, it makes some self -service meaning, and who should we argue with that logic when most of us are connected to daily plays of the word game asking us to find out a word of five letters in six attempts?
If you have any questions about Wordle’s popularity or why it deserves one day, look at these statistics. According to Nyt, there have been 5.3 billion Wordle games so far. A massive 2.8 million people use the same start word every day.
Wordle ‘is definitely an institution here where our daily Wordle Today column gives some tips and then leads you through how we solved it. I hope you don’t read these posts until you try to solve the puzzle on your own but you do.
Wordle is also a competitive sport. In my house, my wife and I end every night with several riddles, including Wordle, Connections, Strands and Quordle (the only non-new game).
Wordle is always our first stop, and yes, there is a competition to see who can solve it in the fewest attempts. So it should come as no surprise that to celebrate this very composite day, the New York Times introduced Wordle Golf.
This is not another word game (thank goodness I can’t take on myself anymore). Instead, it’s a reimaging of the Standard Wordle competition for a golf game format.
As with golf, there are 18 holes … or are … puzzle. You can play against seven other players (or more, if you assume, print more Wordle Golf Sheets).
Each game is scored in the same way as a golf game, which means you want the lowest score (several golf strokes raising your score and is generally considered a bad thing).
The scoring system for Wordle Golf is broken down as this:
- 6 points for a guess on the sixth attempt
- 5 points for a “bogey” or fifth test.
- A guess in four is “pair” and worth 4 points,
- Three is worth 3 points and is considered a “Birdie”
- 2 guesses is worth 2 points and a rare “eagle”
- 1 is the miracle in a “hole in a” and worth 1.
In theory, you can spend most of May playing Wordle Golf, but that means no one should skip one day.
It’s a silly game, but probably less difficult and frustrating than 18 holes on a real golf course.
Who knows, if you are a real Wordle Pro, this may just be the kind of challenge you have been waiting for. Let’s just hope there is no other “core”. That was the word, according to the New York Times that broke 5.6 million stripes.
