The PGA.com headline read “The Chip Heard ‘Round the World.’” The shot, of course, was Tiger Woods’ chip from behind the sixteenth green on the final day of the 2005 Masters. Art Spander, an Oakland Tribune’s golf writer, started his article: [Read more…]
Ageless Advice from Lord Darling
December 21, 2008 by 1 Comment
The following appears in a description of the book A DUFFER’S HANDBOOK OF GOLF by Grantland Rice and Clare Briggs, on the Classics of Golf website.
There is no doubt “duffer” is a pejorative term. While the word’s origin is unknown, it appears in the 1800s as slang for an incompetent, ineffectual, or clumsy person. What better word to describe a neophyte attempting golf? The first “wave” of new golfers occurred when the gutta percha ball became available in the 1850s. Its lower cost and superior durability enticed many citizens to gather a few clubs and try their hand at the sport, some woefully ignorant of the rudiments of the game. “Duffer” first appears in the golf lexicon in 1875 in Clark’s Golf: A Royal and Ancient Game, in a poem by “Two Long Spoons.” [Read more…]
Welcome to Golf Course of Rhymes
December 19, 2008 by Leave a Comment
Golf’s long and colorful history is well documented. It origins, however have always been uncertain. Sir Walter Simpson, an early golf historian, writes in The Art of Golf, published in 1887, that golf at St. Andrews probably began when a shepherd idly hit a stone into a hole with his crook. An anonymous nineteenth century poet gives us a charming poetic version of this apocryphal story. [Read more…]
Golf Course of Rhymes 
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