Golf Poetry in a 1921 New York City Restaurant Ad

The American Golfer must have had a lot of New York City subscribers in 1921. Otherwise, why would the Rogers Restaurant (45th and 6th Ave, Tel. 2070 Bryant) have run an ad on page 29 of the March 26th edition? And why did the ad promote Rogers with a rhyme? We did see that Spalding ran an ad with poetry seven years earlier. And I have pointed out in previous Posts that poetry was included in most of the early issues of golf magazines.

So here is what the Rogers ad said.

You’ll never be doon
If ye’ll take yer spoon
When drinkin’ soup at Rogers
Na need to seek with mashie or cleek
Or the rest of yer artful dodgers
And I’m telling ye Mack
Yer lips ye’ll smack
At the grand food they’ll provide; er
Clams, yams, and Virginia hams
They’ll make ye a powerful driver.

The poem was signed “Sandy,” presumably Sandy Rogers. The poem/ad seems to be a poor attempt to speak in a Scottish dialect to the local golfers. But I can’t imagine that “clams, yams, and Virginia hams” brought many golfers to the door!

Historical Note: Near to Rogers, on 45th street, was the site of the Hesper Club, a gambling house run by Herman “Beansie” Rosenthal, a mobster who in 1912 blew the whistle on the extortion attempts of Lt. Charles Becker of the NYPD. Becker had Rosenthal killed in a notorious hit that sent Becker to the chair in 1915.

I’m not sure of the Hesper Club survived Rosenthal’s death or if Rosenthal had been a golfer. But I assume that by 1921 the neighborhood was a little safer.