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Originally and chiefly British English, the phrase hit and hope (also hit hard and hope) is used in sports of a style of play characterised by an emphasis on luck rather than skill, often in desperate circumstances or due to a lack of other options.
This phrase occurs, for example, in Moments of the year: Golf, by Ewan Murray, published in The Guardian (London and Manchester, England) of Thursday 29th December 2022 [page 28, column 2]:
Fitzpatrick wins the US Open
Matt Fitzpatrick, holding a one-stroke lead, tugs his tee shot into a bunker on the final hole at Brookline’s Country Club. Heads are in hands. Will Zalatoris lurks with intent. What followed, under intense pressure, was one of the finest recoveries in major championship history. From sand and 160 yards, Fitzpatrick’s iron shot finished within 20ft of the cup. “It was a hit-and-hope,” a beaming Fitzpatrick said. The Sheffield golfer, then 27, had broken his major duck.
The phrase hit and hope (also hit hard and hope) was originally, and is still frequently, used in reference to golf. The image is of a golfer who trusts to luck when hitting the ball—as mentioned by the British golfer Elsie Corlett (1902-1988) in Let 1930 be a year of improvements for Women Golfers, published in The Motor Owner incorporating Car and Golf (London, England) of February 1930 [page 31, column 3]:
One of the hall marks of a really good golfer is the ability to be accurate with shots approaching the green from say 100 to 150 yards. How many longer handicaps can be sure of being anywhere on the green? The majority have no idea of getting the right distance, they just take out some sort of club and hit and hope for the best.
This image has been applied to other sports—as in the following from an account of a cricket match between Yorkshire and Hampshire, by Frank R. Stainton, published in The Leeds Mercury (Leeds, Yorkshire, England) of Wednesday 20th June 1934 [page 9, column 4]:
Mead had indicated, by a certain impetuosity, that he thought the only possible plan was to hit and hope for the best.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the phrase hit and hope (also hit hard and hope) that I have found:
1-: From the Evening Standard (London, England) of Monday 21st December 1931 [page 18, column 1]—that year, the British golfer Enid Wilson (1910-1996) had won the British Ladies Open Amateur Championship:
By ENID WILSON.
I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO PLAY GOLF—For Thirteen Years.I am often asked how I built up my golf. I think that is rather a difficult question to answer, because so far I have not built up any sort of a game. […]
[…]
So far my golf can be divided into two phases—“hit and hope” and “experimental.”
I am convinced that the first phase of the game is to learn to hit the ball, to walk up to it with the cold and brutal intention of smiting the cover off the wretched thing, entirely careless of its fate.
2-: From Golf Club Gossip, by ‘Clubman’, published in the Evening Express (Liverpool, Lancashire, England) of Wednesday 14th December 1932 [page 9, column 6]:
Inter-Club “Rabbit” Matches
Good news for golf “rabbits!” It is proposed to form a special section for local players with handicaps of 16 and over.
[…]
The “rabbit” section idea has been borrowed, I am told, from the Oakdale Golf Club at Harrogate. The scheme has been a great success there. The Harrogate people have a badge which shows a rabbit over a pair of crossed golf sticks. Beneath is the motto—yes, really—“Hit and Hope!”
3-: From The Yorkshire Post (Leeds, Yorkshire, England) of Saturday 16th December 1933 [page 21, column 4]:
GOLF “RABBITS”
“Clubs Could Not Carry on Without Them”The spirit of good fellowship existing between the three golf clubs at Harrogate was emphasised last night at the first annual dinner of the five months old “Rabbits” section of the Pannal Golf Club.
[…]
Mr. Croft distributed the prizes for the Christmas handicap competition, the “Hit and Hope” cup to Mr. W. Clough, and an award to Mr. Stephenson as runner-up.
4-: From an article on the question of the introduction of billiards coaches, by ‘Cue-Tip’, published in the Daily Record and Mail (Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland) of Thursday 1st February 1934 [page 24, column 4]:
Youngsters, and others who can scarcely be described as such, beginning the game have to depend solely on their own efforts for any progress they make. Wrong stance, badly balanced, and twisted cues, all kinds of balls and tables, in addition to faulty scoring methods tend to turn the average beginner into a perfect specimen of the “hit hard and hope” amateur.
5-: From a review of The Technique of the Golf Swing (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1934), by Peter Fowlie—review by Christian Mellor, published in The Sunday Sun (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland, England) of Sunday 22nd July 1934 [page 6, column 7]:
When I had read about a dozen pages of this book I was sorely tempted to throw it in the waste paper basket, for it completely upset the ideas that 30 years’ whacking the gutty on the motto “Hit hard and hope” had engendered in my mind.
Mr. Fowlie believes that the hips alone count in making a golf swing, and that the arms and shoulders are merely an extension of the club. I do not agree. If this were so a one-armed golfer should be able to hit the ball as far as a player with two arms, which I respectfully refuse to credit.
But there were so many stimulating suggestions cropping up from page to page that I was forced to read on, and was pleased to find myself in entire agreement with the author on the subject of the “auld Scotch grip” (my use of which at the 19th hole has been much remarked) and with his suggestions on putting.
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