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Was Omar Khayyam a Golfer?

May 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment

In 1965, when I was a young professor at the M.I.T. Sloan School, I wrote a paper with the title, “Markovian Decision Models for the Evaluation of a Large Class of Continuous Sampling Inspection Plans.” In June of 2009, I published a paper with the title, “Was Omar Khayyam a Golfer” in “Through the Green,” a publication of the British Golf Collectors Society. I leave it to you to characterize the arc of my writing career. Right now I’m more concerned with the arc of my drives! The golf parodies of Khayyam’s famous poem, “The Rubaiyat” are  explored more fully in the 7th Chapter of my new book, “Golf Course of Rhymes.”



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The Essence of Golf in an Old Poem
 

April 4, 2011  by  3 Comments 


Today (3/30) I drove by the local driving range and it was open! Always a good sign. And the afternoon temperature was above 50 degrees — another good sign. But the weather report warns of wet snow tomorrow night and Friday. And there you have it – early spring for the golfers of New England.


In the past at this time of year, I have offered spring celebration golf poetry, see “Another Golf Season Begins” and “A Springtime Exchange . . .” To start this golf season I would like you to read (out-loud and slowly if possible and more than once if you have the time) a poem “Ode to Golf” that gets at the essence of the game. The poem was written by Andrew Lang (1844 -1912), a prolific Scots poet, novelist, literary critic and appeared in a book titled, Ban and Arriere — A Rally of Fugitive Rhymes, published in 1894. [The poem makes several references to St. Andrews.]




Ode to Golf


‘Delusive Nymph, farewell!’

How oft we’ve said or sung,

When balls evasive fell,

Or in the jaws of ‘Hell,’

Or salt sea-weeds among,

‘Mid shingle and sea-shell!


How oft beside the Burn (stream),

We play the sad ‘two more’;

How often at the turn,

The heather must we spurn;

How oft we’ve ‘topped and swore,’

In bent and whin and fern!


Yes, when the broken head

Bounds further than the ball,

The heart has inly bled.

Ah! and the lips have said

Words we would fain recall –

Wild words, of passion bred!


In bunkers all unknown,

Far beyond ‘Walkinshaw,

Where never ball had flown –

Reached by ourselves alone –

Caddies have heard with awe

The music of our moan!


Yet, Nymph, if once alone,

The ball hath featly fled –

Not smitten from the bone –

That drive doth still atone;

And one long shot laid dead

Our grief to the winds hath blown!


So, still beside the tee,

We meet in storm or calm,

Lady, and worship thee;

While the loud lark sings free,

Piping his matin psalm

Above the grey sad sea


The old golf poetry, well represented in this Blog, time and again makes clear how timeless the game is. One drive “featly fled” will bring us back for another round, yesterday, today or tomorrow.


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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.


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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 Poetry by Robert H. K. Browning
 

January 10, 2011  by  1 Comment 


Robert Browning (1812-1889) was a famous English poet. Robert H. K. Browning (1884-?) was a scholarly golf historian from Scotland who was the editor of  “Golfing,” the premier British golf periodical, from 1910 to 1955. H.K Browning’s major claim to fame is his book, “A History of Golf,” which the late Herbert Warren Wind described as “…far and away the finest one-volume history of golf.”


But like the earlier Browning, Robert H. K. Browning was also a poet, thought he limited his subject matter to golf. Samuel L. McKinlay, another noted Scottish golf writer, wrote in the Afterword to the Classics of Golf’s edition of Browning’s book:


One good critic thought Browning’s light verse among the best of his generation, but it was so widely scattered among different periodicals as to defy any attempt at collection.


McKinlay singled out “The Pilgrims’ Progress” as one of Browning’s longest and best poems. The poem “describes in rhymed couplets the exploits of four London golfers who set out ‘to golf all August around the North.'” McKinlay then provides what he described as “some lovely lines” from the poem:


Then off through Dirleton, cool and shady,

To Muirfield, Archerfield, Aberlady.

They golfed at Gullane, on ‘One’ and ‘Two’

They played Longniddry and Luffness New.


And at St. Andrews, they


Laughed in the ‘Beardies’, despaired in ‘Hell’,

But played the first and the last quite well.


McKinlay, being a West of Scotland man, cites his favorite lines,


Troon and Prestwick–Old and ‘classy’–

Bogside, Dundonald, Gailes, Barassie.


I wonder if anyone could provide me with a reference to the entire poem? But even just these few lines make me wish I could have tagged along with the London foursome.


In my next Post, in two weeks, I will return to Robert H. K. Browning’s golf poetry.


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Another Poem for a Winter’s Day
 

December 13, 2010  by  Leave a Comment 


Last December I published a post titled “Golf Poetry for a Winter’s Day.” It included a poem called “Retrospection.” If you want a succinct description of the essence of golf, I encourage you to click here and read (better recite) the last two stanzas.


This December’s poem for a winter’s day is called “A Dirge for Summer.” It was written by Robert Risk, a Scottish poet and golfer, and appeared in his book, Songs of the Links, published in 1919.




A DIRGE FOR SUMMER


Gone are the days when by the swinging sea

We lounged and smoked between two sunny rounds,

Gone are the times of loitering by the tee;

The summer has been driven out of bounds–

No penalty is writ in white and black,

Whereby we are allowed to call it back.


Gone are the jocund evenings when we start,

High-tea’d and confident of light and weather,

Forgetful of the office and the mart,

Of debts and duns and the Golf-maniac’s blether;

Those perfect evenings, clear, and dry, and bright,

Have vanished wholly in the Ewigkeit. [eternity]


Gone is the crowd about the starter’s box,

And no one waits to-day at those short holes,

Where the procrastinating putter mocks

The men behind and harrows up their souls;

Void the grey town o’scarlet down and cleek

(I’ve half a mind to go there for a week).


For now, we must from Saturday to Saturday

Neglect our game–a week’s a weary time–

And each one brings a coorser and a watter day

(Kindly excuse a Caledonian rhyme),

For we are entered on the Golfer’s Lent,

The season of his deepest discontent.


Yet on the dim horizon looms afar,

No larger than the neatest niblick head,

A little scintillating, faithful star,

Though over all the heavens is darkness spread;

Through all the winter waste it sends a greeting,

The constellation of Next Year’s Spring Meeting.


When I read this poem it makes me think that over the last 100 years the game has changed much more than its players.


Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf poetry, golf poetry books, humor, poetry, Scotland, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , 
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Read Golf Poetry Out Loud!
 

November 29, 2010  by  Leave a Comment 


[Note: the picture is of Billy Collins, a former United States Poet Laureate and an avid golfer. If you ever have the chance to hear Professor Collins read his poetry out loud (he has two CDs out), you will be convinced quicky that poetry must be read out loud to be fully enjoyed.]


Though it is hard for me to believe, I have now been writing this Blog for almost two years. The Blog now includes more than 100 Posts and close to 100 golf poems. The good news is that golfers interested in finding poetry about golf are finding this site. The Blog has recorded more than 37,000 page views. The bad news is that the Blog is 100 years late in getting started. As I have mentioned in these pages, golf poetry was routinely included in all the golf magazines published early in the 20th century. And books of golf poetry were bought and enjoyed. Moreover, poetry was recited at club meetings by poetry writing members.


My purpose in writing this Blog has been to make this golf poetry of the past (and a few poems of the present) available to a generation of golfers who have had no access to this literature. But poetry, different than prose, puts an extra demand on its readers: it asks that you read it out loud. Though you are easily convinced that yelling “Fore” is a good idea when an errant ball is hit, you may be less sure about the value of reading poetry out loud. Even more so, when you rarely come across any kind of poetry, let alone golf poetry. So my only hope of convincing you may be  to write a poem with the right incentive:


READ GOLF POETRY OUT LOUD


Read golf poetry out loud,

It will lower your score;

And if one poem doesn’t do it,

Read two or three more!




If you believe all of those equipment ads, maybe this poem will work as well. But if not, search around the Blog and find a poem that appeals to you…and then gather up your courage and read it out loud. Maybe even more than once. I hope this exercise will convince you that reading poetry out loud adds greatly to your understanding and enjoyment of the poem. If you are inclined, leave a comment and let me know what you think.


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Poetry From The Golfer Magazine, 1897
 

November 1, 2010  by  Leave a Comment 


I just found this unsigned poem in the “Notes by the Wayside” section of the October 1897 issue of The Golfer magazine (offices at 154 Pearl St., Boston). It’s a little late chronologically, but still timely.




OCTOBER’S HERE


October’s here: I hear her tread,

Upon the hilltops, glad and free;

And also in my weary head,

I have a cold that’s killing me.


October’s here: but I don’t care,

I still get in my game;

I care not for the air so rare

Nor do I look for fame.


October’s here: but what of that,

Why prate I of the weather;

My only thought is now of what

My score’ll be altogether.


October’s here: her robes are red,

And yellow, sprinkled thick with gems;

The summer days have surely fled,

The talk is now of Repubs and Dems.


A month before in the same section of The Golfer:




SONG OF THE LINKS


Newport, Lenox, Lakewood,

Saratoga, Troy,

York Harbor and Knollwood,

Long Branch, Pomeroy.


Richfield Springs, Saranac,

Stamford, Hallowell,

Seabright, Bath, Pontiac,

Greenwich, New Rochelle.


Bar Harbor, Shelter Islands,

Ardsley, Asburee,

Larchmont, Atlantic Highlands,

Manchester-by-the-Sea.


How many of these courses still exist?


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