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Joys of Golf

November 9, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Dear Blog reader: I hope that you won’t mind if, from time to time, I post a short excerpt from my book, Golf Course of Rhymes – Links between Golf and Poetry Through the Ages. The book provides a lyrical view of golf and its history through the words of golfing poets from publications dated 1638 to the present. It will make a great present for any golfer who loves the game. The book is available on Amazon.com.

The book is organized like a golf course – it has an Introduction, the Practice Tee, and then 18 Holes (chapters); it ends on the 19th Hole. The 3rd Hole, titled “Joys of Golf” included the following poem which I wrote.

♦On Course

Golf is a singular way
to take temporary leave
following a zigzag path
in search of a small white ball;

to abandon reality,
but stay the course,
hole after hole;

to create a new story,
always different
to be told to someone
before it’s forgotten.

An extraordinary chance
to pretend for a brief time
no matter how unskilled
that each stroke will be flawless;

to endure the pain of failure
without really failing,
and even if only once a round,

to truly enjoy
the pure pleasure
of hitting the ball rock-solid
or sinking a long tricky putt.

Among the other poems in the chapter, one was written by Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Homes and another by Sir John Betjman, a British poet laureate. Both Doyle and Betjman were avid golfers. I’m among good company!

Filed Under: golf, Golf Course of Rhymes, golf poetry, golf poetry books, poetry, sports poetry, The book "Golf Course of Rhymes" Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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Marketing Golf Poetry

October 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Marketing golf poetry—talk about a tough assignment. That’s what I have been doing with this Blog for almost three years. And now with my book as well. I have had some success with about 54,000 Blog page views and a spot on some of the top 50 golf blog lists.

But just recently, I zeroed in on what I’m “selling.” Let me explain it this way. Products and services are now thought of by marketers as means to an end. And the end has to be a great, memorable, unique, (you put in the adjective) experience. For example, a golf course wants to create an unforgettable experience for its customers. A club maker isn’t selling you clubs; he’s selling you the experience of playing your best golf with them.

So old readers and new, I am not selling golf poetry on this Blog or in my book. I am selling a unique and exhilarating golf experience —the experience of reciting golf poems. And you know what? You won’t get that golf experience any other way on the course or off. For some, reading poetry out-loud will take as much courage as playing a fairway wood over water. For others it may come easier. But whatever your predisposition, this much I know. Unlike golfers of an earlier generation, you have had little or no opportunity to enjoy this aspect of the game. Here is your chance.

You might begin with the opening stanza from a poem called “The Lay for the Troubled Golfer” by Edgar A. Guest (born in England in 1881), a writer for the Detroit Free Press for more than sixty years. This is a poem you just have to read out loud.

 His eye was wild and his face was taut with anger and hate and rage,
And the things he muttered were much too strong for the ink of the printed page.
I found him there when the dusk came down, in his golf clothes still was he,
And his clubs were strewn around his feet as he told his grief to me:
“I’d an easy five for a seventy-nine—in sight of the golden goal—
An easy five and I took an eight—an eight on the eighteenth hole!

Not all golf poems, or poems in general, are that dramatic, so reading experiences will be different. But just as with hitting different golf shots, each experience can be rewarding.

Let’s try one more, this one the first two stanzas from a poem in an earlier Post called “St. Andrew’s Law by Robert Browning.” Robert H. K. Browning (not the famous poet) was a Scottish writer, golf magazine editor and golf historian who was active in the first half of the 20th century.

 When prehistoric swipers sliced, and blamed the sloping tee,
They got so riled, Saint Andrew smiled, and “Blasphemers,” said he,
“Henceforth the lightly made excuse shall give you no resource;
Ye may not win to act or use of falsehood on the course.

“Let Peter judge his fisher folk, whose unexamined scales
Their easy consciences provoke to all-unswallowed tales;
But ye the prickly whin shall test, the bunker shall condemn:
The gods of golfing love to jest–but do not jest with them.

If you are having fun, come back to my Blog from time to time and choose from the many poems I have posted. And if you like, look at my book, Golf Course of Rhymes – Links between Golf and Poetry Through the Ages, on Amazon. If you do you can recite the rest of Guest’s poem, “The Lay for the Troubled Golfer.”

Filed Under: golf, Golf Course of Rhymes, golf history, golf humor, golf poetry, golf poetry books, humor, poetry, sports poetry, The book "Golf Course of Rhymes" Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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Golf Twines from Earlier Times (1898)

August 29, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I began writing golf twines (two line golf poems for Twitter) in November of 2009. Two line poems are formally called “couplets” and, of course, they have a long history in poetry.

For example, Shakespeare wrote :  “Double, double, toil and trouble;/ Fire burn and caldron bubble” which in read by the three witches in his play, Macbeth.  (This is actually a golf twine now where Shakespeare is referring to Tiger’s scores on the 11th and 12th holes during the second round of the 2011 PGA Championship!)

I was hoping that my golf twines would catch on, and other Twitterers would write them as well. So far no such luck. But then I found William G. Van Tassel Sutphen, a Victorian-era fiction writer, editor of the original “Golf” magazine and author of The Golfer’s Alphabet, originally published in 1898. In The Golfer’s Alphabet, Van Tassel Sutphen wrote 27 golf twines, but he was just a little early for Twitter.

Sutphen, wrote a twine for each letter of the alphabet and added one more for the symbol “&”. His twines were illustrated by A. B. Frost. Frost (1851-1928), was considered one of the great illustrators in the “Golden Age of American Illustration”.

Below is an example:

The caption reads:

.                                                     I is for Iron that we play to perfection,
.                                                     So long as no bunker is in that direction.

And who says golf has changed!

Here are a few others from the book:

C is for Card, that began with a three,
And was torn into bits at the seventeenth tee.

H is for Hole that was easy in four,
And also for Hazard that made it six more.

N is the Niblick, retriever of blunders,
And now and again it accomplishes wonders.

And,

W in a Whisper: “Between you and me,
I have just done the round in a pat 83.”

Sutphen’s book was reprinted in 1967 and is widely available on the net.

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf instruction, golf poetry, golf poetry books, Golf Twines, humor, poetry, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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A Golf Controversy Regarding the Swing

June 23, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The question, “How do you swing a golf club?” , has no simple answer today or in the past. Almost 70 years ago, J. A. Hammerton wrote this verse that appeared in The Rubaiyat of a Golfer:

Myself when young would hopefully frequent
Where Pros and Plus Men had great argument
On Grips that overlapped, on Swing and Stance
But came away less hopeful than I went.

As golf became popular in the United Kingdom and then in the U.S. and other countries around the turn of the 20th Century, golf books became the primary source of swing instruction. Books were written by the major golf professionals of the time and by other self-proclaimed experts as well. One of the most prolific writers on golf and golf instruction in the early 1900’s was a New Zealander named Pembroke Adolphus (sometime Arnold) “Percy” Vaile.  Joseph Murdoch’s book, The Library of Golf, lists eight books by P.A. Vaile. (worldcat.org includes 130 entries for Vaile including a number on Tennis about which he also claimed expertise! See illustration above.)

In one of Vaile’s golf books, The New Golf, published by E.P. Dutton & Co. in 1916, Vaile almost lashes out against the idea that the left hand is dominant in the golf swing:

“The hoariest old tradition that ever fastened on to golf was the power of the left. It was more than a tradition. It was a fetich. Authors and journalists worshiped at its shrine.”

Vaile goes on to attack Vardon, Taylor and Braid (“The Great Triumvirate”) as well as Horace Hutchinson, the great amateur and leading golf writer of the day for their “moldy old idea[s].” Vaile first put forth his ideas in a newspaper article maybe eight years earlier. At that time he was attacked. In his words,

” I was in the thick of it. Anybody who bursts up any useless old tradition, or even gives it a bump, in London, is a fool, a faddist, a theorist, or a revolutionist. If he does not recognize this before he disturbs any of the dust of centuries, and if he is not prepared to accept the position kindly and patiently-and temporarily-he deserves all that is coming to him-and that is much.”

And in those days, attacks were not limited to prose:

THE LEFT HAND’S LAMENT
(Picked up on the links at
St. Andrews)

Since first by Heaven’s august decree
The Royal Ancient Game was planned,
I always was allowed to be
The Master Hand.

To Me did text-books all allot
The part of propulsative strength.
The raking drive, the brassie shot–
I gave them length.

The Right Hand was –poor thing!–designed
To guide the club, and that was all;
Mine was the power that lay behind
The far-hit ball.

Now come there one upon the scene,
Whose heresy fair turns me pale–
The Arius of the golfing green–
A wretch name Vaile.

He says our Vardons, Braids, and Whites
Don’t golf’s dynamics understand;
Their view of Me’s all wrong; the Right’s
The Master Hand.

If Fate would let me but devise
Some torture for this villain bold,
Who thus would revolutionize
Golf’s credos old–

Oh! then to ball of rubber core
I’d change him for a tidy spell,
And drop him in “The Swilcan” or
“The Burn” or “Hell”;

I’d lose him in the rock-strewn sand
Whence few topped spheres ejected come,
Of Musselburgh’s notorious Pand-
Emonium.

Clearly, todays controversies  – one plane vs. two; stack and tilt; Tee It  Forward – are mild in comparison.

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf instruction, golf poetry, golf poetry books, humor, poetry, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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Short Golf Poems – Less Than a Foot

May 23, 2011 by 2 Comments

Two line golf poems, such as the Twines I occasionally write for Twitter, are short. But what about really short golf poems?

The widely acknowledged shortest general poem is:

FLEAS

Adam
Had ’em.

I would offer as a possible shortest golf poem:

BACKSWING

Low
Slow.

A three word entry might be:

DUFFER’S GOLF

A profane
Game!

And in the four word category, a familiar refrain uttered by many after a series of bad shots:

A GOLFER’S LAMENT

Can’t hit
For sh–.

If you would like to share your two, three or four word golf poems, please leave a reply. It shouldn’t take long.

[And if you are looking for a unique gift, please consider my book, Golf Course of Rhymes – Links between Golf and Poetry.” Robert Trent Jones, Jr. wrote the foreword.  Thanks.]

Filed Under: golf, golf humor, golf poetry books, Golf Twines, humor, poetry, sports poetry, The book "Golf Course of Rhymes" Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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A Golf Poem with a Boston Accent

March 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Grantland Rice

Grantland Rice wasn’t from Boston, he was born in Murfreesboro, TN in1880. And I don’t think he spent much time there. Nevertheless, in the following poem “Beating ‘Em To It” he somehow picked up at least a slight Boston accent. The poem appeared in The Winning Shot, a book written by Jerome Travers which I have mentioned in previous Posts. Rice’s poetry is sprinkled through out the book’s pages.

BEATING ‘EM TO IT

Yes Pal, I know just how it was–you should have won a mile;
You had him trimmed ten ways on form and twenty ways on style;
You had him stewed into a trance–you had him strung until
You went and blew a ten-inch putt where something tipped the pill;
A putt you wouldn’t miss again the whole blank summer long–
A pop-eyed pipe to anchor– am I right or am I wrong?

I get you pal–don’t say a word–he wasn’t in your class;
You had no less than twelve bad kicks that plunked you in the grass;
While you were straight upon the pin, he foozled every shot,
But somehow skidded on the green and gathered in the pot;
No not a word; I know, old top–your case is nothing new–
I know, because each time I lose they beat me that way, too.

Now that golf season has begun,keep the poem in mind when you have one of those matches or one of those days.

Filed Under: golf, golf humor, golf poetry, golf poetry books, humor, poetry, putting, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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The Golfer’s Wife

March 7, 2011 by 1 Comment

If you search this blog, using “Wife” as the search term, you will find five Posts that one way or another characterize the golfer’s wife of about 100 years ago. In these early days when golf was becoming popular and affordable the men played and for the most part their wives did not. A popular description of such wives was (and still is) “golf widows.” Yesterday, while searching through a Google book called Humours of the Fray by Charles L. Graves (published in London in 1907) I found yet another poem with the subject as its title, “The Golfer’s Wife.”

As is often true in these poems, the golfer himself is subject to the poet’s ridicule, while the wife though suffering is clearly the “hero.”

THE  GOLFER’S WIFE

OF  perfect stamina possessed,
From centenarians descended,
Jones spends his lifetime in the quest
Of health-although his health is splendid.
Last year he throve upon a fare
Which  now he views with utter loathing,
And monthly he elects to wear
New hygienic underclothing.

His doctors order exercise,
Fresh air and healthy recreation;
And Jones assiduously tries
To combat physical stagnation.
Llandrindod welcomes him to-day,
To-morrow Droitwich  lures him brinewards;
Next week ’tis Bath, or Alum Bay,
Or  Bournemouth,  and he hurries pinewards.

At scholarship inclined to scoft,
Yet  fond of neither dogs nor horses,
Upon his diet and his golf
Jones focusses his mental forces ;
Unmoved by mountain  peaks sublime,
Or  ‘mid the most enchanting  greenery,
Because he’s musing all the time
On  his inside, and not the scenery.

To travel with this fearsome freak,
This  valetudinarian* loafer,  (*unhealthy)
I should decline, though for one week
He gave me all the gold of Ophir.
Yet  his self-sacrificing spouse,
All normal interests resigning,
Beneath her lifelong burden bows
Without  the semblance of repining.

With  him she trots from links to links,
Wearing  a smile of saintly meekness ;
With  him eternal cocoa drinks
Though  China tea’s her special weakness.
Nor  is her sympathy profound
Relaxed at luncheon or at dinner,
When  Jones reconstitutes each round,
And turns the tables on the winner.

Fine weather keeps him out of doors,
But when it rains or even drizzles
The  slightest moisture he abhors
Her fate is worse than patient Grizel’s*. (* A reference to the wife of Marc Antony)
For Jones exacts attentive  heed
To his malingering recital,
And poses as an invalid
When  Mrs. Jones deserves the title.

No chance of respite or reward
To her the future seems to offer,
Unless some random rubber-cored
Despatches this dyspeptic golfer.
Already shrunken  to a shred
By her devotion self-denying,
She perseveres, and when she’s dead
He’ll  blame her selfishness in dying.

Divines are wont  to disagree
Acutely in regard to Heaven,
Some doctors holding it to be
A single sphere, and others seven ;
But Jones’s consort entertains
No doubt about one crucial question ;
There will, upon the heav’nly plains,
Be neither golf nor indigestion.

Mr. Graves lived from 1856 to 1944. He was a prolific writer and poet. Among his books were a four volume set called Mr. Punch’s History of Modern England. Though I searched widely, I could find no other connections between Graves and golf beyond his poetry.

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf poetry, golf poetry books, humor, poetry, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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“He’ll yet a gowfer be.”

February 21, 2011 by 1 Comment


If you search my blog using the word “duffer” you will find 10 Posts out of a little over a hundred that include the term. Duffers are common on the golf course and in golf poetry as well. But what is the opposite of “duffer?” It might be the perfect golfer, except there are none. But that hasn’t stopped golf poets from musing about the possibility of playing perfect golf or what it might feel like to be a perfect golfer. In my book, Golf Course of Rhymes – Links between Golf and Poetry, I include several poems on golf perfection. I found another, this one on a duffer’s view of perfect golf, in a book called Divots for Dubs, privately published by J. Ellsworth Schrite in 1934.

The Par Buster

I pray that some day I might be,
Allowed to step up to the tee,
And there with all my friends to see,
I’d swing–so smooth and evenly
That they, who’ve seen me in disgrace,
Would marvel at my new-found grace.
And as the ball sailed straight and true,
I’d hear them murmur: “What hit you?”

With practiced calm I’d stand and stare,
And watch the ball sail thru the air.
And when it settled to the land,
My friends would grasp me by the hand
And mutter: “Gosh! I’ve never seen,
A drive hit so near the green.”
I wouldn’t strut–I’d trudge along,
Stilling my heart from its victory song.

My second, with an iron I’d hit,
With plenty of spin to make it “sit.”
Of course, I’d be allowed to grin,
When it rolled almost to the “pin.”
I wouldn’t have to use my putter,
For, “Pick it up”, I’d hear them mutter.
From every tee I’d drive them far,
On every green I’d laugh at par.

The rough, the traps, and all that stuff,
Would see that I was good enough
To guide my ball beyond their clutch,
I’d pass them by with hooks and such.
And when the course I’d travel o’er,
I’d let my caddy add the score.”
I wouldn’t faint nor shout with glee,
If he should look with awe at me.
But how we all would celebrate,
When he shouted–sixty-eight.

I wonder, would I lose the thrill,
Playing that well–perhaps I will.
Oh well, a day dream now and then,
Gives us hope–we try again.

So in the end it is not unreachable perfection, but the hope of getting better that drives us all. John Thomson, an Scottish lawyer, golfer and poet, put this idea to verse in 1893:

See yonder lads upon the links.
Go, find a duffer there but thinks,
For a'[all] the jeers and wylie winks,
He’ll yet a gowfer be.

Filed Under: golf, Golf Course of Rhymes, golf humor, golf poetry, golf poetry books, humor, poetry, Scotland, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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“St Andrew’s Law” by Robert Browning

February 7, 2011 by 3 Comments

Much of the golf poetry in this Blog is straight-forward. You read it once, understand what the poet is trying to convey and respond with some kind of thought or emotion . . . or not. For the most part, the best of the golf-poets of the past were entertaining verse-writers who on occasion reflected their feelings for the game poetically.

A few of these poets went beyond verse writing and wrote at what might be described as a higher level. Their poetry requires more careful reading (not necessarily what Blog readers are looking for), but such reading can also be rewarding. One such golf poet is Robert H. K. Browning, a writer, golf magazine editor and golf historian who was active in the first half of the 20th century. His poetry has been included in my last two Posts.

I found Browning’s poem, “St. Andrew’s Law,” sub-titled “(With apologies to Rudyard Kipling)”, in a book called On the Green edited by Samuel .J. Looker, published in 1922. The reason for “apologies” is that the poem is a parody of Kipling’s poem, “Poseidon’s Law.” Both poems include warnings about lying while recognizing the inherent inevitability of stretching the truth, whether in a sailor’s tavern or clubhouse bar. I hope you will take the time to read “St. Andrew’s Law” out-loud . . . to fully enjoy Browning’s humor, his keen understanding of golfers’ foibles and his poetic skills.

St Andrew’s Law

(With apologies to Rudyard Kipling)

When prehistoric swipers sliced, and blamed the sloping tee,
They got so riled, Saint Andrew smiled, and “Blasphemers,” said he,
“Henceforth the lightly made excuse shall give you no resource;
Ye may not win to act or use of falsehood on the course.

“Let Peter judge his fisher folk, whose unexamined scales
Their easy consciences provoke to all-unswallowed tales;
But ye the prickly whin shall test, the bunker shall condemn:
The gods of golfing love to jest–but do not jest with them.

“Ye may not hope with putts untrue to reach the narrow tin,
Nor cozen [bamboozle] of their lawful due the bunker and the whin,
Nor tempt with drives that are not straight the slice-avenging rough,
Nor keep your ‘good’ strokes from the fate of stokes not good enough.

“But since the twisting ball that’s bent before the rising wind
Must always meet its punishment to tell you ye have sinned,
Be yours the frank unwavering eye, the open soul that shrinks
From any though of rotten lie–while ye are on the links.”

About the rugged moorland track on which his course was laid
The cave-man kept the law intact–until his game was played;
But once the last short putt was holed to crown his heart’s desire,
Audaciously mendacious [duplicitous] strolled the cave-man to his fire.

The prehistoric head of flint adorns our clubs no more,
But still the new clubs drive a-squint, exactly as of yore;
The prehistoric stone is now the radium-centred ball,
But ah ! the prehistoric man has never changed at all.

And driven in by rain or sleet, or by the Evening Star,
He moistly occupies his seat beside the clubhouse bar
And as or yore around Stonehenge, when golf was in its youth,
The swiper takes his great revenge upon the gods of truth.

If you have the time, you might find it interesting to look at Kipling’s poem and see just how Browning went about transforming a poem about sailors to one about swipers. And here is a website for help in understanding Kipling’s lines. But don’t worry, there won’t be a quiz.

 

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf poetry, golf poetry books, humor, poetry, Scotland, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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“Golf Dings A'”

December 27, 2010 by Leave a Comment

This year  may not have been the greatest for golf, professional and otherwise, but it was a great year for golf poetry.  This Blog got more than 20,000 page views and the subject of golf poetry was featured in a May Wall St. Journal article.

Hopefully, 2011 will be an even bigger year with the publication of my book, Golf Course of Rhymes — Links Between Golf and Poetry Through the Ages, by Golfiana Press.

Some of the golf poetry of old was written by Scottish golfers who read or sung their poetry at club meetings. One of those golfers was David Jackson, Captain of the Thistle Golf Club, in Levin. He published his “songs and recitations” in a short book of 32 pages in 1886. Last August I wrote a Post that featured one of his poems. Jackson and the other club house poets wrote about golf with an enthusiasm, love and respect and a kind of innocence that was unique to that time. Jackson’s “Gouff Dings A'” loosely translated as “Golf Surpasses All” is a good example. Subtitled, “Sung at a Convivial Meeting,” here, to begin with, is the Chorus:

For Gouff dings a’, my boys, Gouff will aye ding a’
With joy we’ll swing our Clubs and Cleek, and drive the bounding Ba’;
Then over bunkers, braes (hills), and bent, we’ll gang (go) out twa (two) by twa,
With hearts elate and mind content–oh, Gouff dings a’.

And here are a few of the stanzas. Remember this was sung in the 1880’s:

Oh, hoo (how) are ye a’ the nicht (night), my friends? I hope I see ye weel (well),
Yer Clubs a’ in guid (good) order; yer Cleeks and Irons like steel.
I’ve just looked in for half-an-hour to ha’e a joke or twa
About our jolly game o’ Gouff–for Gouff dings a’.

…..Chorus

The Gouff belongs to Scotland, but its spreading sure and far;
You’ll find a Golfing-Course, my boys, wherever Scotsmen are;
In Africa,in India, in America, ’tis the same,
Australia and our Colonies pay homage to the game.

…..Chorus

King James the Fourth, he loved the game; but had to put it down,
In case his men forgot the way to fight for King and Crown.
No wonder that he banned it, boys–if a’ that’s said be true,
They played the game through a’ the week, and on the Sunday, too.

…..Chorus

I met a chap the other nicht, he was looking unco (strangely) blue;
Said I, “My boy, what can annoy a lively lad like you?”
“‘Tis a’ about the Golf,” he said, while tears ran ower his cheeks,
“The wife and I have had a row, and she’s burnt my Clubs and Cleeks.”

…..Chorus

Then, let us swell the mighty throng of Princes, Lords, and Kings
Who have enjoyed the game of Golf above all other things
And wish success to every one, let him be great or sma’,
Who loves the jolly game o’ Gouff–for Gouff dings a’.

So next Friday night when you “take a cup of kindness yet,/ for auld lang syne,” take one as well for  David Jackson and the game he describes so lovingly.

Filed Under: Australia, golf, golf course, Golf Course of Rhymes, golf history, golf humor, golf poetry, golf poetry books, golf songs, Johnny Cash, poetry, Scotland, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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