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After a Foozle, Remember…

June 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

There are lots of things to remember when playing a round of golf. Maybe the most important is that golf is a game in which you must only pretend seriousness. It is not an easy lesson to learn. And yet we all want to play as well as we can. So we are forever trying to bring to mind the right tip or the right thought at the right time.

I wrote a Twine (a two line golf poem for Twitter) a while ago that dealt with some of this,

Ubiquitous Golf Instruction Twine: A thousand tips from Jan to December/ But when you need one, will you remember?

As my golf has improved over the years, I try to think less, relying more on ingrained basics. Yet there are a few maxims that I do keep in mind. One is embodied in the following four lines:

●Remember

When a golf shot turns out wrong,
The foozle leaves you feeling low.
That’s the time to recall the line:
Don’t hit two bad shots in a row.

LSW

Filed Under: golf, golf humor, golf instruction, golf poetry, Golf Twines, humor, poetry, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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A Third Vardon Achieves Fame

June 7, 2010 by Leave a Comment

The second Vardon, Tom

Joe DiMaggio had a brother named Dom. Harry Vardon had a brother named Tom. There was a third DiMaggio, another brother named Vince. And there was a third Vardon, but not another brother. This Vardon was featured in a paragraph on p. 116 of the August 1910 issue of the magazine Golf.

In the annual match between Brantford Golf and Country Club (Ontario) and the Galt and Waterloo Golf and Country club, July 1st, Dr. Vardon, who was playing last on the Galt team, drove the last hole, the ninth, and holed out in one. Dr. Vardon, a very popular physician in active practice, is over seventy, and weighs ninety -eight pounds—proving brains can always hold its own against mere brawn.

W. Hastings Webling, a Canadian writer and poet, who was playing for Brantford, wrote the following verses to commemorate the occasion,

The world of golf knows very well
Two Vardons on this earth do dwell.
But soon ’twill waken with surprise
To see another Vardon rise.

‘Tis Doctor Vardon, active still,
For age stands servient to his will,
Who looms aloft for all to see
A hero, in true modesty.

His years are many, light his weight;
He weighs, in fact, but ninety-eight.
Yet what of that, his drive sublime
Will stand the test of endless time.

So long as “Galt and Waterloo”
To golf and to themselves prove true,
So long will Doctor Vardon shine—
The man who’s drive “holed out” at “nine”!

Unfortunately, Dr. Vardon’s surname appears lost to history.

Baseball footnote:  Vince DiMaggio was the oldest of the three brothers. During his baseball career he played for several National League teams, starting with the Boston Bees in 1937. I will always remember Vince for the “tape measure”  home run he hit to the right of the clock atop the left field wall as a member of Oakland Oaks in 1948.  The home run capped a ninth inning rally of seven runs giving the Oaks an 8 to 6 victory over a rival Pacific Coast League team whose name is also lost to history. I should also mention that the Oaks that year under Casey Stengel won their first pennant since 1927.

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf poetry, humor, poetry, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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‘Now, mind, keep your e’e on the ba’

May 31, 2010 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.”

The poem was titled “Duffers Yet,” and was written by Lord Stormonth Darling (1844-1912), a judge, a Scottish Member of Parliament for Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities from 1888 to 1890, and also a golfer. Lord Darling wrote other golf related songs and verses including one called “Keep Your E’e on the Ba’.” It is subtitled, “Ballad of the Beginner,” and tells the story of when on Musselboro’s “famous old green,” Lord Darling, then no doubt a duffer, first “sought for the key to the game.”

The caddie that fell to my lot
Was old, hard of hearing, and wise;
His face had a hue that was not
Entirely the work of the skies:
He knew how the young player tries
To remember each tip all at once,
And, forgetting the vital one, sighs,
And despairs of himself as a dunce.

So, deep in his mind he had set
A rule that pervades all the rest;
‘Tis the maxim you ne’er can forget,
If you w’sh in you game to be blest:
‘Tis the greatest, the first, and the best,
The beginning and end of golf-law;
And ‘twas thus by my caddie expressed ─
‘Now, mind, keep your e’e on the ba’.’

Darling, not satisfied that he had a complete answer, asked other questions. Was he standing properly? What about his grip? Should he worry about the bunker ahead?

To each query the answer I got
Was that rigid, inflexible saw
(Of deafness and wisdom begot),
‘Now, mind, keep your e’e on the ba’.’

Lord Darling concludes,

Whate’er be the mark to be hit,
This truth from the caddie I draw ─
In life, as in golf, you’ll be fit
If you aye keep your e’e on the ba’

Although written more than a hundred years ago, Lord Darling’s words of advice are hard to improve upon!

Filed Under: golf, golf humor, golf instruction, golf poetry, golf poetry books, humor, poetry, Scotland, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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The Language of Golf

May 24, 2010 by Leave a Comment

The Foreword to Peter Davies’ impressive book The Historical Dictionary of Golfing Terms  − From 1500 to the Present begins:

No game has a richer array of terms than golf. Five hundred years of golfing have built up an extraordinary vocabulary.

Mr. Davies goes on to say,

…before 1850 when the Scots had the game to themselves: bunker, caddie, divot, links, putt, stance, stymie and tee [were] purely Scottish words…

Robert K. Risk, a Scottish writer, poet and golfer in his book Songs of the Links, first published in 1919, identifies a presumably non-Scottish writer who,

…in a magazine alleges that the terminology of golf is peculiarly repulsive, and instances “top,” “foozle,” “tee,” “stymie,” “divot,” and “bunker,” as the cacophonous offspring of a degraded invention.

Risk responded with “A Protest,”

A PROTEST

Imprimis, I would here protest
That any who mislikes our phrases,
Our stymies, foozles, and the rest
May, go, for all I care, to blazes,
Or any more select location
Where golf terms cannot cause vexation;

Secundo, when he sets his hand
Upon so sweet a bloom as stymie,
I’d have him clearly understand
Few words so keenly gratify me;
Stymie—it pleases me to say it
Almost as much as when I lay it.

Stymie—dear word most musical:
And what man will deny that putter,
Pronounced without a “t” at all,
Is smoother far than melted butter;
And when its “t’s” are forced to duty
Putter has still a poignant beauty.

And as for foozle—what could be
More deftly onomatopoeic?
Hearing the word, assuredly
Even one who knew not Golf, would see quick
Anger, futility, despair
As of a man who beats the air.

And divot—any duffer knows—
Is the by-product of a foozle:
When to a sounder game he grows,
And pitching-clubs cease to bamboozle,
Divot, when it is cut or said
Means a half-iron shot laid dead.

And what about those minor games—
Billiards and tennis, football, cricket—
Could one invent much uglier names
Than pot and screw and lob and wicket,
Off-side and deuce and maul and sett?
More loathly words I’ve never met.

Therefore, when in a magazine,
A writer airs such views as these,
I diagnose a touch of spleen
Or failure absolute to please
The Goddess who demands our duty—
Great are Golfina’s works and ways,
And passing sweet her every phrase,
And all her words are words of beauty.


Filed Under: golf, golf humor, golf poetry, golf poetry books, humor, poetry, Scotland, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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Where is Johnson’s Anodyne Liniment When Tiger Needs It?

May 17, 2010 by 2 Comments

The cartoon above filled the upper half of a full page ad that appeared in the April 1896 issue of The Golfer magazine. (Notice that “Anodyne” was misspelled. The word “anodyne” means anything that relieves distress or pain.) To sell the product the Johnson’s folks included the following eight line poem that appeared below the cartoon: (Spalding also used poetry to sell golf balls. See the Post called “Golf Ball Poetry.”)

When players versed in golfing lore,
Discuss the technique of their score,
And talk of putting, bunker, fore,
Let us suggest to them one more.

“Tis Golfer’s Elbow…and ten to nine,
We can make a cure
That is prompt and sure,—
A Liniment called Johnson’s Anodyne.

Below the poetry was the following statement:

It soothes every ache, every bruise, every cramp, every irritation, every lameness, every swelling everywhere, and speedily relieves and cures every ailment caused by inflammation. It is for INTERNAL as much as EXTERNAL use. It was originated in 1810, by Dr. A. Johnson, an old family physician, for his own practice. It is used and endorsed by athletes everywhere.

So Tiger, now that you have your MRI results, just get a few bottles of Johnson’s Anodyne, rub some on your neck, drink the rest and you should be hitting them long and straight in no time!

(Actually, according to an entry in the American Medical Association Journal (Vol. 101 # 4), Johnson’s Anodyne Liniment contained ” Alcohol (14.8 per cent), a fatty oil, oils of turpentine and camphor, ammonia, ether and water.” And its advertising claims were found to be fraudulent by the Food and Drug Administration in 1932.  So Tiger, maybe forget the advice and good luck with your treatment.)

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, humor, poetry, sports poetry, Tiger Woods Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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The Prime Minister (to be) is on the First Tee

May 10, 2010 by 1 Comment

Arthur J. Balfour (1848 – 1930) was a lifetime professional politician and a long time avid amateur golfer, which left him little time for anything else. He was Captain of the North Berwick club, 1891-92 and Captain of the Royal and Ancient Club of St. Andrews a few years later. He was called by some “the father of English golf,” most likely for his strenuous efforts to promote the game. The high point of his 50 year political career was his time as Prime Minister of the U.K. from 1902 – 1905. Earlier as the cartoon indicates, he was Irish Secretary. He was first known as a renowned philosopher, publishing A Defence of Philosophic Doubt , The Foundations of Belief , and Theism and Humanism .

Balfour the golfer (and philosopher) once wrote:

A tolerable day, a tolerable green, a tolerable opponent, supply, or ought to supply, all that any reasonably constituted human being should require in the way of entertainment. With a fine sea-view, and a clear course in front of him, the golfer should find no difficulty in dismissing all worries from his mind, and regarding golf, even , it may be, very indifferent golf, as the true and adequate end of man’s existence.

In 1894 when Captain of the R & A and following its traditions, Balfour drove off the opening ball at the Autumn Golf Meeting with his friend Tom Morris nearby. Balfour commemorated this event with a poem that will appeal to all golfers who harbor first tee trepidations.

A REAL POLITICAL CRISIS

The crisis came, at that wave-beaten place
Men called Saint Andrews in the golfing years;
Tom Morris watched me with an anxious face,
I, full of nervous fears.

Addressed the ball: the crowd had swelled in size:
Behind the ropes I saw; though scarce alive,
The stern tweed-coated men, with golfish eyes,
Waiting to see me drive.

The feat is far less easy than it seems,
Despite the rival politician’s scoff;
Indeed I marvelled what ambitious dreams
Had tempted me to golf.

For I remembered tee-shots toed and topped,
Sad moments, when the driver firmly clutched
Had done its utmost, yet the ball had stopped
Upon the tee, untouched.

This, after all, is merit’s actual test,
I thought, and other laurels matter not,
For no distinguished man can look his best
After a foozled shot.

Still, let me strike, I said, and gathered heart;
Then, with my eye fixed firmly on the ball—
That earliest canon of the Royal Art—
Drove off—and that was all.

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf instruction, golf poetry, humor, poetry, Scotland, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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Early Days of Golf – The “Good Wife’s” Point of View

May 3, 2010 by Leave a Comment

In the early days, the preponderance of golfers were men. Below are two poems that took the “good wife’s” point of view.

The first poem was published in The American Golfer on April 21, 1923 and “celebrated” the start of golf season. (It had been published earlier in the Chicago Post.)

Dementia Linksensis

The good wife awoke in the night with a start,
She gave a wild shriek with her hand on her heart,
And fright caused her hair to stand on her head,
For their stood her Hub, at the foot of the bed.

He’d wrenched a brass rod from the bed in his trance
And there at the footboard had taken his stance.
The little brass ball at the corner he took
For the pill and was ready to give it a hook.

Quite wildly he swung with his improvised club
And banged his own head like the veriest dub;
But he showed he was an old hand, when he swore
And swung once again with a shrill cry of “Fore!”

Four was right — four light bulbs he’d broke”
When the chandelier stopped his magnificent stroke.
This stopped his endeavor; he crawled back in bed,
And while yet half awake to his wifey he said:

“I know it’s unpleasant and that sort of thing
But I always get this way along in the spring.”

The second poem continues our series “celebrating” the golf widow. This poem, “The G. W.” was written by Miriam Teichner, an American author and journalist, who early in her career wrote a daily column of verse and humor in the Detroit News. The poem appeared in the June 1916 issue of The American Golfer.

THE G. W.

Who sits alone on sunny days
And fills her time in irksome ways?
Whose eyes are dull with sorrow’s glaze?
The G. W.

Who seems to have no place to go?
Whose holidays are filled with woe?
To whom are Sundays all too slow?
The G. W.

Who sighs, what time the days of spring
Their warm and pleasant sunshine bring.
And blossoms white their petals fling?
The G. W.

Who sits alone within the house,
Forlorn as any little mouse?
Who has been cheated of her spouse?
The G. W.

Who is the most neglected soul”
On earth, while husband—selfish mole—
In bogie makes the eighteenth hole?
The golf widow.

Of course, these poems represent historical artifacts of a time gone by. Or do they?

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf poetry, humor, poetry, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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Michelle Wie and other Clerihews

April 26, 2010 by 1 Comment

E. C. Bentley

Clerihews are four line poems in the form aabb, were the first two lines rhyme as do lines three and four. Furthermore, the first line of a Clerihew begins or ends with a person’s name and the poem focuses on some aspect of his or her life. Of course, there can be variations of this idea. As I explained in an earlier Post, Clerihews are named for their inventor, Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875 -1956), an English journalist and writer.

As examples, here are a few Clerihews that I wrote:

Harvey Penick

Harvey Penick
(Rhymes with scenic)
His claim to fame:
“Take dead aim.”

Jack Nicklaus

Jack Nicklaus (the Golden Bear)
Pudgy in profile with blondish hair
Left opponents in the dust
With his putting, most robust.

Vardon, Taylor and Braid

Vardon, Taylor and Braid
“The great Triumvirate” so portrayed
In tournaments, to their competitors’ chagrin
One of the three would usually win.

Miclelle Wie

Michelle Wie
May still want to see
If there is a chance
To beat pros who wear pants.

If you are so inclined, try your hand at writing a golf Clerihew and leave it as a comment below.

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Golf History, Golf Poetry and the Making of the Featherie

April 19, 2010 by Leave a Comment

A Featherie Ball

aFor many American golfers, the history of golf begins with the 1913 U.S. Open won in a playoff by Francis Ouimet over Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. The author Mark Frost marks this event as “the birth of Modern Golf” in his bookThe Greatest Game Ever Played. But what about the birth of the game? To get a better idea as to the origins of golf and its early history I would suggest a book called A Swing Through Time — Golf in Scotland 1457-1744 by Olive M Geddes (revised edition published in 2007).  Quoting from the book’s introduction,

This book takes a close look at the earliest written records of golf in Scotland, from the 1457 Act of Parliament banning the game to the first ‘Rules’ of golf — the ‘Articles and Law’ of 1744 drawn up by the Company of Gentlemen Golfers for the competition for the Silver Cup played over Leith Links.

Interestingly, some of these “written records” were recorded in verse. For example, Ms. Geddes devotes a chapter to a discussion of the first book entirely devoted to golf, called The Goff, first published in 1743. It was a mock-heroic epic poem, 358 lines long, written by an Edinburgh lawyer (who later became a Minister) named Thomas Mathison.  A second edition was published in 1763 and a third 30 years later. In 1981 the United States Golf Association published facsimiles of all three editions under one cover in a limited edition of 1400 copies. One of few surviving third edition copes was sold for $80,500 in 1998.

The Goff tells the story of a golf match on the Leith Links played between Castalio and Pygmalion, the heroic combatants of the tale. But the poem also makes reference to some golf related activities of the time. In one interesting section of eight lines, Mathison describes in some detail how featherie golf balls were made:

The work of Bobson; who with matchless art
Shapes the firm hide, connecting ev’ry part,”
Then in a socket sets the well-stitch’d void,
And thro’ the eyelet drives the downy tide;
Crowds urging crowds the forceful brogue impels,
The feathers harden and the Leather swells;
He crams and sweats, yet crams and urges more,
Till scarce the turgid globe contains its store.

Ms. Geddes remarks that “Bobson” probably referred to a St. Andrews ball-maker named Robertson (likely an ancestor of Davie and Allen Robertson). The implication is that although balls were made in Leith at the time, the best balls came from St. Andrews. (Featherie balls dated back to 1618 and were only replaced by Gutta-Percha balls in 1848!) I hope that those of you who might be interested in golf’s early history will have the opportunity to consult A Swing Through Time.

Filed Under: golf, golf balls, golf history, golf poetry, golf poetry books, poetry, Scotland, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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Ted Ray’s Golf Swing

April 12, 2010 by 2 Comments

 

The question “What’s wrong with his/her golf swing?”  is often answered today by looking at slow motion video. But the question goes back long before video analysis. It was raised with regard to Ted Ray’s swing shortly after he had participated in the famous 1913 U.S. Open won by Francis Ouimet.

The November 1913 issue of The American Golfer included the following short item titled “Ray’s ‘Sway'”:

Ray comes to us with the reputation of swaying on his up-stroke. Ray does not sway—and we have observed him very closely. What he does is this: Just after the backswing starts the weight is transferred to the right leg; then, about half way up the swing the left shoulder is dropped more or less—a movement in contradistinction to, and offsetting, the first, but to the uninitiated eye, giving every appearance of a sway. The first puts the body weight where it properly belongs—back of the ball—the second enables the arms to complete the upswing. The bending of the knees, more especially the right one, outwardly, creates the false impression of a body sway. It is a sort of leaning in to the ball. Not “according to Hoyle” perhaps, but mighty effective—in Ray’s case.

If you didn’t know, you would have thought that Johnny Miller wrote this! But this was a note in a 1913 golf magazine. And so, not unexpectedly, a short poem was also included:

OH! SAY

Oh! tell us Teddy—Teddy Ray,
Tell us truly, we do pray—
If as some are wont to say,
You do really, really sway.

We ourselves incline that way;
But that is not the proper way,
Our friends inform us day by day
When at the 19th hole we pay.

HIP-HIP-HOO-RAY

Does Ray sway?
Ray does not sway.
He leans; which means
Ray does not sway.

Ray was known for his portly build and prodigious length off the tee, though his ball often landed in awful lies. His recovery powers were said to be phenomenal and cartoonists usually caricatured him with a niblick in hand, festooned with clumps of heather and saplings, with an inseparable pipe clamped between his teeth. During his career he won the 1912 British Open and the 1920 U.S. Open.

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf instruction, golf poetry, humor, poetry, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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