Exploring the links between golf and poetry
The following is the one of the closest links between golf and poetry that I have ever found. The story and poem appeared in the November 1913 issue of The American Golfer.
“Two Californians, Dr. Walter S. Power and Mr. Mark Sibley Severance, “a well known author and an ardent golfer” finished a match all even. The following day Dr. Power sent Mr. Severance a challenge “couched in a rather indifferent rhyme.” Here is Mr. Severance’s reply. [Read more…]
When you look up “slice swing,” Google provides 1,540,000 results! But, then, the number of slicers is still far larger. So this Post is aimed, sympathetically, at all of you who seek to straighten out your swings.
The truth is that golfers have always been frustrated with balls that veered sharply right (for a right-hander). And instruction books from the beginning have tried to help duffers find a cure. Take, for example, the famous book The Badminton Library: Golf, written and edited by Horace G. Hutchinson and first published in 1890. In a chapter titled “Out of Form,” Sir Walter Simpson, member and once captain of The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, writes,
“Whether in the case of a beginner or an old player, the ball when driven has a great tendency to curve off to the right. There is perhaps nothing more difficult to get rid of than this form of bad driving. … It is very evident that to enable him to correct the result the player must know what is its cause or combination of causes.” [Read more…]
Spalding Balls from a PBA Galleries Auction
If you think that selecting a golf ball is complicated in today’s market with multiple brands each with several balls, then consider what one company, A. G. Spalding & Bros., was offering in 1914. A Spalding advertisement in the September 1914 issue of Golf magazine (from the USGA’s Seagle library) offered readers “Large size balls,” either “light weight” or “heavy weight;” “Medium size balls,” again light or heavy weight; or “Small size balls,” this time “medium weight” or heavy. Each ball was designed for a particular group of players. For example, the small heavy ball was for “extreme distance…and for long players particularly,” the medium light ball was for “ladies and light hitters…,” while the large light ball was for “moderate hitters….” [Read more…]
Murder on the 8th Hole
E. C. Bentley (1875-1956), the English journalist and writer, was famous in the first half of the 20th century for his Philip Trent mystery stories. One of his short stories, The Sweet Shot, was selected for inclusion in Golf’s Best Short Stories edited by Paul D. Staudohar and published in 1997. But Bentley, whose full name was Edmund Clerihew Bentley, should be better known for inventing a particular type of poem that has become known as the “Clerihew.” Clerihews are four line verses of the form aabb, in other words, the first and second lines rhyme as do the third and fourth. Beyond their rhyming scheme, Clerihews have a particular structure and purpose. Each focuses on one or more aspects of the life and/or the works of a famous person while allowing for, better yet encouraging, overstatement, distortion and humor. It is also a requirement that the first line of a Clerihew begin or end with the person’s name. When Bentley was 16 he wrote his first Clerihew.
Sir Humphry Davy
Detested gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered Sodium
Bentley, in later years, wrote at least two golf Clerihews. [Read more…]
Taylor, Braid and Vardon
The “Foreign Notes” section of the March 1917 issue of The American Golfer includes an unexpected connection between several famous English golfers, the First World War and golf poetry. The British correspondent to the magazine, Henry Leach, wrote that four of England’s greatest golfers, Harry Vardon, J. H. (John Henry) Taylor, James Braid, and Alexander Herd (who beat Vardon and Braid to win the 1902 British Open championship), were asked to write four line poems that as a group would be “disposed of in the way of a lottery for the benefit of one of the war funds.” The poems were written, framed and delivered to the Mid-Surrey Golf Club where the lottery took place.
During a 21 year period, from 1894 to 1914, one or another of these four golfers won the Open a total of 17 times, Vardon six, Taylor and Braid each five, and Herd once. However, as golfer-poets, none of the four would have made the cut.
But Vardon’s poem proves interesting in a different way. [Read more…]
President Taft
As we welcome a new golfer-President, it should be remembered that William Howard Taft, our first true golfing President, became the 27th leader of our country March 4, 1909, one hundred years ago. Taft began playing golf in 1896 and was the first President of the Cincinnati Golf Club before going to Washington. While President of the United States, Taft often played golf with Walter J. Travis, founder of the magazine “The American Golfer” and for many years a very fine amateur golfer.
This is how Travis, in the June 1909 issue of his magazine, described the play of Taft,
“If the President will pardon me, I do not really think he would have much chance of qualifying in one of our amateur championships, but for all that he plays a very sound game, one free from bad faults of any kind … far better than the average ‘duffer,’ both in style and results.”
Travis goes on to write that, “Taft, in his modesty, some little time ago described his game as being of the bumble-puppy order.” Travis disagreed saying that the President “has nothing to ‘unlearn’ or correct and needs only some steady practice to develop a strong game.” Don’t we all!
Travis and Taft were sometimes partners in four-ball and best-ball matches. Apparently they played matches against each other as well. In fact, they were immortalized as being opponents in a poem called “A New Ballad of Chevy Chase,” by a poet who signed with only his initials “J McC T.” The poem also appeared in the June 1909 issue of “The American Golfer.” [Read more…]
In an earlier post, I included several stanzas from a poem by Lord Darling called “Keep Your E’e on the Ba’.” While Darling limited his advice to a few lines of verse, Horace Hutchinson (1859-1932), 15 years Darling’s junior, published the first popular book of golf instruction, Hints on Golf in 1886. The book is described on the Classics of Golf website as “The first mass-produced instruction book in the history of golf, the 14 editions of this book are credited with popularizing the written word as a viable means of teaching.” In the Classic of Golf edition, Hutchinson is described as “undoubtedly the first Englishman to become an important figure in the game of golf,” by Herbert Warren Wind, American’s greatest golf writer.Besides being first, Hints on Golf may be the only instruction book ever to employ verse to emphasize important swing principles. Hutchinson writes,
Horace Hutchinson 1903
“The head must necessarily be steady, for it is most important that you should keep your eye fixedly on the ball from the moment that the club -head is lifted from the ground until the ball is actually struck. [Then following Darling} ‘Keep your eye on the ball,’ should be your companion text to ‘Slow Back.’ A golfing poet writes of
The apple-faced sage, with his nostrum for all,
‘Dinna hurry the swing! keep your e’e on the ball!'”
Next time you step up to the tee you might startle the members of your group by reciting the words of “The apple-faced sage”as part of your pre-shot routine!
But two questions remain: Who was this Scottish mentor? And who was the “golfing poet” who immortalized his versified advice? With the help of Google I can report the following: [Read more…]
The poem below, from a book called Lyrics of the Links compiled by Henry Litchfield West and published in 1921, ends with a clever play on words. However, to appreciate the poet’s skill requires an understanding of the language of match play scoring. By way of reference, according to Robert Browning, a noted golf historian, stroke play began in 1759. The first match play of record was between King James IV and the “Erle” of Bothuile on Feburary 3, 1504, about 605 years ago! [Read more…]
A hundred years ago, golf was a game to embrace for its personal challenges, competitive qualities and unique history. It was not yet a big time professional sport. Nor was it a huge business dependent on tour sponsors, equipment sales and resort travel. It was just golf played for enjoyment, “for [its] vigor without violence, for life-long joy of youth.” The relationship of the average golfer to golf was straight forward. He was a duffer trying to improve without much help from his golf clubs or the few sources of instruction then available. Golf poetry at that time provided an interesting window into the minds of ardent golfers. [Read more…]
Doug Sanders misses 30 inch putt
My previous post celebrates one of Tiger Woods’ greatest moments when he chipped in on the 16th hole at Augusta during the 2005 Masters Tournament which he won.
Unfortunately, not so great moments have their place in golf history as well. In 1970, Doug Sanders, described by Golf Hall of Famer Johnny Miller as “a crowd-pleasing showman who dressed loud, lived fast and made golf the glamour game it was in the 1960s and ’70s,” missed a critical putt on the eighteenth green at the British Open. I wrote the following poem to memorialize this famous run-by that cost Sanders the tournament. [Read more…]
Golf Course of Rhymes 
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