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Golf Widows in Prose and Poetry

November 9, 2009 by 2 Comments

Mrs. Pastern was a woman with an air of bereavement, who 20 yrs. ago would have been known as a golf widow. Mr. Pastern was the brigadier of the golf club’s locker room light infantry, who would shout: “Bomb Cuba! Bomb Berlin!”

This quote is from a description of the story “The Brigadier and the Golf Widow” by John Cheever that appeared in The New Yorker in November 1961.

Actually the term “golf widow” goes back to at least 1890 where an illustration titled “A Golf Widow” appeared in Horace Hutchinson’s famous Badminton Book Golf.

Montrose (a town in Scotland) is … the site of the first recorded ‘golf widow’. She was ‘sweet Mistress Magdalene Carnegie’ who married the son of the 4th Earl of Montrose, James Graham. His diaries record that he played golf with his future brother-in-law, the Laird of Lusse, on the 9th November 1629, the day before his wedding,and then a few days later he sent to St Andrews for new clubs and repairs to his old ones as well as playing more golf. However his controversial lifestyle caught up with him in 1650, after he had become 5th Earl himself, when he was hung, drawn and quartered in Edinburgh at the Grassmarket as a traitor, when he backed the wrong side in the English Civil War.

In June 1915, Grantland Rice published a poem, “The Golf Widow Speaks” in The American Golfer.

THE GOLF WIDOW SPEAKS

You have kicked in with a serum for the Great White Plague;
You have uppercut the Typhus on the jaw;
You  have copped an anaesthetic
To relieve the diptherethic
And the rest of it you’ve cut out with a saw
But tell me, gentle doctors, ere the mortal coil is off,
Is there nothing you’ve discovered in the medicated trough
That may curb the raging fever of the game called “goff”?

You have cantered into Gangrene with a knock-out punch;
You have hammered Scarlet Fever to the ropes;
You have even found the answer
To a mild degree of Cancer,
And you’ve killed the drug enticement of the dopes.
But tell me, learned doctors, is there nothing you can do
For hydrophobic horrors in the heads of husbands who
Can only rave of Stymies and a Perfect Follow Through?

More next week.

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf poetry, humor, poetry, Scotland, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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The Epic of a Chronic Slicer (Continued)

November 2, 2009 by Leave a Comment

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The previous Post (October 26th) introduced the epic of  “Frenzied John.” The poem, a painful description of a chronic slicer, was left unfinished by Bert Leston Taylor, maybe for good reason. It was included in an article in the June 1926 issue of The American Golfer. The article also included a proposed ending. In addition, readers were asked to write their own endings and submit them to possibly win a prize. The ending that was included is as follows:

FRENZIED JOHN (proposed ending)

And Then

He tried the left side pivot,
Although he found it pained;
He turned his knee in from the tee
But still the kink remained.

He thought of weight and balance,
By toe and then by heel;
With shifting stance he did his dance,
But still they heard him squeal.

He sought a new instructor,
And seemed to be O. K.
But left alone, they heard him moan—
“I’m off again today.”

He bought a spoon and mashie
To help correct the ills;
They both felt great, but sad to state
They would not whang the pill.

His neighbors fled in panic
When he came off the course;
His wife in tears was game for years
And then grabbed a divorce.

He tried a slight pronation,
And said—”I’ve got it now”—
But by next day it went away
And furrows creased his brow.

“Perhaps,” he said, “I’m dipping
My shoulder down too far”:
He held it up, but missed the cup
And never got a par.

“I’m through,” he yelled in fury;
“I’m through for good—You’ll see”;
He quit a week, then grabbed his cleek
And hustled to the tee.

He tried the upright system.
Until I heard him curse;
And yet his game was not the same,
For it grew worse and worse.

In my view, Taylor’s unfinished poem is long enough and just needs maybe two more stanzas to bring it to a close. With that in mind I composed the following. (Note that the first stanza is Taylor’s last and then my two follow.)

My Proposed Ending

He laid the club-face forward,
He laid the club-face back.
His face grew thin, his chest fell in,
His mind began to crack.

He slumped but then remembered.
There was one other book.
He read it quick, and grabbed his stick
Ye gads no slice, a hook.

The moral of the story,
Grasp it ‘fore it’s too late.
Off the tee, ‘tween you and me,
It’s hard to hit it straight!

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf instruction, golf poetry, humor, poetry, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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The Epic of a Chronic Slicer

October 26, 2009 by 1 Comment

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Bert Leston Taylor (1866-1921), who wrote a column for the Chicago Tribune under the initials BLT, wrote a poem with the title “Frenzied John” which he never finished. In June 1926, The American Golf published an article with the unfinished poem and offered a prize of two dozen golf balls to the reader who best finished the poem in ten stanzas or less. I searched later issues of the magazine in vain trying to find the winning entry. Here is the poem (slightly shortened), as far as it goes.

FRENZIED JOHN

He worked as hard at golf
As any man alive;
For  nothing went the time he spent—
He always sliced his drive.

He held himself like this,
He held himself like that;
By hook and crook he tried to look
And see where he was at.

He changed his stance and grip—
It mattered not at all:
The same old thing with every swing,
He sliced the bally ball.

He put his right foot forward
He put his right foot back;
But still his game remained the same—
He sliced at every crack.

He told it to the lockers,
He told it in the hall,
Till more and more it grew a bore
To hear he sliced the ball.

He read the books of Vardon
Of Taylor, Braid, and all;
But every shot went straight to pot—
He sliced the cursed ball.

He went to Doctor Vardon,
And got the best advice;
He whaled the pill till he was ill,
Nor ever lost his slice.

Doc took him out to pasture,
And showed him what to do,
And while the Doc was there to knock
He hit them fairly true.

But after Doc departed
The stuff was off again;
He shot it on to Helngon,
And nearly went insane.

No matter how he whacked it,
He sliced into the tall.
“O Lord, how long,” his frenzied song;
“How must I hit the ball?”

Again to Old Do Vardon
He tottered for advice.
Said Doc: : “We’ll have to operate
And cut away that slice.”

He put his right hand under,
He put his right hand up,
But still the ball would hunt the ball,
Nor ever reach the cup.

He put his heels together,
He put his heels apart.
With anguished brow he wondered how
He’d ever learn the art.

he laid the club-face forward,
He laid the club-face back.
His face grew thin, his chest fell in,
His mind began to crack.

If you would like to enter the contest, it’s too late to “Please mail all answers to ‘The Contest Editor,’ AMERICAN GOLFER, 353 Fourth Avenue, New York, N.Y.”  But you can leave your ending as to what became of Frenzied John in a Comment below.

In the next post, I will provide the ending that the magazine included in the article. Yours may be better.

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf instruction, golf poetry, humor, poetry Tagged With: , , , , ,
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The End of Golf Season

October 19, 2009 by Leave a Comment

new-england-2

Yesterday morning (10/15), here in Eastern Massachusetts, a thin white covering could be seen from the kitchen window for a brief time. An early warning of things to come. In fact, it has been very cold all week. Even colder than the Red Sox were in LA!

C.P. McDonald saw this kind of weather in the Fall of 1913 and lamented the end of golf season in the following poem.

STOW THE STICKS

When Autumn’s chill is o’er the land,
And maple leaves are turning gold;
When coal trucks are on every hand,
And Summer’s radiant tale is told;
When steam first crackles through the pipe,
And geese fly southward day by day;
When hunters trek the fen for snipe,
Then, golfers, stow your sticks away.

When days are short and nights are long,
And sweethearts hover ’round the grate;
When winds no long croon a song,
But shriek in tones that irritate;
When Summer drinks have disappeared,
And rye and bourbon hold full sway;
When stalwart trees stand gaunt and seared,
Then, golfers, stow your sticks away.

Just bid the caddie sad farewell,
And in your lockers put away
The pristine balls, that eke would tell
The splendid scores you did not play;
Go, golfers, get an ample stock
Of rock-and-rye without delay;
Then get your blanket out of hock,
And stow your golfing sticks away.

The poem first appeared in The American Golfer in December 1913 and was later reprinted in Lyrics of the Links compiled by Henry Litchfield West and published in 1921. Though the coal trucks have bit the dust, “rock-and-rye” still makes headlines.

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf poetry, poetry Tagged With: , , ,
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At the Docks to Send Off Ouimet in 1914

October 12, 2009 by 2 Comments
Ouimet's ship to England

Ouimet’s ship to England

Suppose you lived in Orlando and wanted send Tiger off to the 2009 President’s Cup matches. Chances are you would not have known where to go or when. Things were different 95 years ago.

If you lived in Boston and the date was March 29, 1914, then in the late afternoon you might have decided to go down to the harbor where the steamship Lapland was docked. You’d have gone there to wave goodbye to Francis Ouimet, the current U.S. Open champion, who was off to England for the Amateur and Open championships. At the dock you would have been “surrounded by a hundred and more golfers who risked the loss of a good Sunday dinner in order to be on hand and give a rousing cheer when the ocean liner started on its way across the deep.”

The quote is from an article in the May 1914 issue of Golf Illustrated. Also included is a song about Ouimet written by “the golf poet-laureate of Boston, Joseph A. Campbell…” that a few of his friends might have sang on board ship before it sailed.

Oh! He wasn’t known in Europe till last Fall,
But they know him now in far off Hindustan,
In Bombay, in Baroda, in Bengal
He’s known to ev’ry blooming Englishman.

He had read about this Vardon and of Ray,
But they didn’t seem to feaze the lad at all,
He just simply kept on playing,
Did not mind what folks were saying,
And proved himself the topper of them all.

Chorus:

Oh! Francis, Francis Ouimet,
You’re a golfer through and through,
You rose to the occasion
When our last hope was in you;
May your good luck never fail you,
May your shots be always true,
God bless you, Francis Ouimet,
All our caps we doff to you.

Oh! He’s always on the job when Duty calls,
He’s the golfing pride and glory of the Hub,
He’s modest and his modesty enthralls,
And a deadly shot he is whate’er the club.

He knows we like to hear the Lion roar,
And to see the knots a’tying in his tail
And Johnny Bull he’ll show once more
What he showed him once before,
That the golfer who is best must prevail!

Ouimet along with his sailing partner Arthur G. Lockwood, 1903,1905 and 1906 Massachusetts State Amateur Champion, landed in Dover, England on April 6th. Unfortunately, both golfers faired poorly at both the British Amateur and Open. Ouimet would later write in his book, A Game of Golf, first published in 1932, “My trip to England was a horrible failure from the competitive point of view…” (p. 62)

So neither the golf trip nor the song turned out to be memorable. But had you been at the dock, you would have had a good story to tell.

(Note: After Francis Ouimet returned to the U.S. , he did win the 1914 Amateur Championship, becoming the first career winner of both the U.S. Open and Amateur Championships.)

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf poetry, golf songs, poetry, Tiger Woods Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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A Tall Golf Tale in 12 Lines

September 28, 2009 by Leave a Comment
Edward, Prince of Wales

Edward, Prince of Wales

The following is a tall golf tale in 12 lines told by the English writer, playwright and poet, Reginald Arkell who was introduced in a previous post. This is one of several golf poems Arkell included in his book, Playing the Games, published in 1935.

An Imperfectly True Story

THE favourite child of a millionaire
Was thrown, one day, by a restive mare;

Caught, by her boot, in the snaffle rein,
And dragged in front of a passing train.

A motor-cyclist, who heard her squeals,
Dragged her from under the cruel wheels.

The millionaire, who was deeply impressed,
Cried: “What is the thing you would like the best?”

“You can give me,” replied the chap on the bike,
“A couple of golf clubs, if you like.”

So the millionaire, not to be out-done,
Gave him Walton Heath, Oxhey and Wimbledon.

Looking up Walton Heath, I came across an interesting story.  Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII and even later Duke of Windsor) became Captain of the club in 1935. A number of years earlier at the suggestion of Bernard Darwin, he took lessons from James Braid, who was the club’s professional from its beginnings in 1904 until he died in 1950. In 1930 Prince Edward sent a handwritten letter to Braid, accompanied by a scorecard.

Dear Braid,

I am very pleased with this card and hope you are. I was very unlucky at the last hole, as a good second with a spoon pitched in the rough just a few inches over the green, and with the chance of breaking 80 I couldn’t stand the nerve strain and fluffed the chip and took two puts (sic). But it was great fun and I only wish you had been playing round with me. Will phone you one day soon and we must have another game.

Yours sincerely,

Edward.

Which only goes to show that the pressure on the last hole when 79 is possible exempts no one!

Filed Under: golf, golf course, golf history, golf humor, golf poetry, humor, poetry Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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The Serenity of the Golf Course

September 21, 2009 by Leave a Comment

thrasher_curve_billed

This week’s poem by Bert Leston Taylor was written about 90 years ago. Its title “Far from the M.C.” references a line in Thomas Gray’s poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” Gray’s poem was parodied in two earlier posts.

Taylor, a revered Chicago Tribune columnist, often had one eye on Chicago politics and the other on golf. He was a good friend of “Chick” Evans. The contrast Taylor sketches in the poem between the tranquility of the golf course and rowdiness of politics refers of course to an earlier time. The golf course still offers the possibility of “ecstasy.” Maybe today’s politicians need to play more golf.

FAR FROM THE M.C.

The Thrasher, on a leafless bough
High in a maple tree,
Pours forth, as only he knows how,
A song of ecstasy.

The sunbeams thro’ the branches sift
Upon the putting green,
Aloft the fleecy cloudlets drift,
The morning is serene.

In town strong men are in the heat
Of party politics;
The air is filled with “Lie” and “Cheat,”
And other verbal tricks.

The thrasher sings for song’s own sake;
I share his ecstasy.
I have a longish putt to make,
And hole it for a three.

Filed Under: golf, golf course, golf history, golf humor, golf poetry, humor, poetry, putting Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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Lying in Golf Poetry

September 14, 2009 by 2 Comments
The Death of Ananias by Raffael

The Death of Ananias by Raphael

We have already treated the issue of lying (much in the news in another context recently) in a Post called “The Language of Match Play in 1504.” But since lying has its complexities in golf, the golf poets have had more to say. The Rules of Golf make clear that their is no place for lying while playing or reporting a round. But fortunately the Rules don’t extend to the 19th hole.

Grantland Rice, the greatest sportswriter of the first half of the 20th century, gave us a woderful poem called “Three Up on Ananias” that all 19th hole story tellers should love.

THREE UP ON ANANIAS

A group of golfers sat one day
Around the nineteenth hole,
Exchanging lies and alibis
Athwart the flowing bowl.
“Let’s give a cup,” said one of them,
A sparkle in his eye,
“For him among us who can tell
The most outrageous lie.”

“Agreed,” they cried, and one by one,
They played way under par,
With yarns of putts and brassey shots
That traveled true and far;
With stories of prodigious swipes—
Of holes they made in one—
Of niblick shots from yawning traps,
As Vardon might have done.

And when they noticed, sitting by,
Apart from all the rest,
A stranger, who had yet to join,
The fabricating test;
“Get in the game,” they said to him,
“Come on and shoot your bit.”
Whereas the stranger rose and spoke,
As follows, or to wit:

“Although I’ve played some holes in one
And other holes in two;
Although I’ve often beaten par,
I kindly beg of you
To let me off—for while I might
Show proof of well-earned fame,
I never speak about my scores
Or talk about my game.”

They handed him the cup at once,
Their beaten banners furled;
Inscribing first, below his name,
“The champion of the world.”

As for the poem’s title, Ananias was a biblical figure, who fell down and immediately died after uttering a falsehood. The drama is immortalized by Raphael above.

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf poetry, humor, poetry Tagged With: , , , , ,
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Poetry and Golf Club Maintenance

September 7, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Sapolio Golf Ad

Golf’s rise in popularity in the early years of the 20th century coincided with early efforts in mass marketing and advertising of brand names. One of the first products with brand names was soap. These names included Ivory, Pears, Colgate and Sapolio. An early marketing genius (not the humorist) named Artemas Ward(1848 – 1925) made Sapolio a household name by depicting the product in fanciful scenes and using parodies of well known poems to sing its praises. Time Magazine described Sapolio as “probably the world’s best advertised product” in its heyday.

Sapolio was the WD-40 of its day. One ad identified ways to use Sapolio in every room in the house. Ward or a colleague found it could be used to clean golf clubs. The above ad to spread that message appeared in the February 1901 issue of the magazine Golf. Appropriately the verse is a parody from the poem “Comin Thro’ The Rye” by the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759 – 1796). Ward may have been a duffer but he was no dummy.

I don’t know how often Sapolio was advertised in golf magazines, but I did find a later reference in the June 1909 issue of The American Golfer. A subscriber (could it have been Ward?) wrote,

“There are some golfers who think that clean irons are desirable; among these there are a few who have wondered whether there is not some better way of cleaning than to set a caddie or one’s self to chasing sandpaper up and down.

“I have found that a little hot water and sapolio applied with a brush right after through playing, and then the irons wiped with liquid vaseline or Glycerinum Petria, which I guess is liquid vaseline, will do the work and please the most exacting. The Glycerinum will also do on the shafts and wooden heads with more good to the varnish than harm.”

This is one of the oddest links between golf and poetry so far.

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf poetry, humor, Scotland Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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A Golf Poem You Can Relate To

August 31, 2009 by 4 Comments

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Edgar A. Guest (1881-1959) was born in Birmingham, England and came with his family to Detroit when he was 10. In 1895 he began working for the Detroit Free Press as a copy boy. By 1904 he was writing a weekly column. And eventually he started a daily column that in time consisted almost exclusively of poems. At the height of his popularity his column was carried by 300 newspapers. At age 50 he began a weekly radio show and 20 years later, NBC broadcast his “A Guest in Your Home” on TV. Over his lifetime he wrote more than 20 books of poetry. He was also a lifelong golfer and a few of his 11,000 or more poems had golf themes. The following poem, “Yesterday” could only be written by a seasoned lifer on the links.

YESTERDAY

I’ve trod the links with many a man,
And played him club for club;
‘Tis scarce a year since I began,
And I am still a dub.
But this I’ve noticed as we strayed
Along the bunkered way:
No one with me has ever played
As he did yesterday.

It makes no difference what the drive;
Together as we walk
‘Till we up to the ball arrive,
I get the same old talk.
“Today, there’s something wrong with me,
Just what I cannot say,
Would you believe I got a three
On this hole—yesterday?”

I see them top and slice a shot,
And fail to follow through,
And with their brasseys plough the lot,
The very way I do.
To six and seven their figures run,
And then they sadly say:
“I neither dubbed nor foozled one,
When I played—yesterday.”

I have no yesterdays to count,
No good work to recall;
Each morning sees hope proudly mount,
Each evening sees it fall.
And in the locker room at night,
When men discuss their play,
I hear them, and I wish I might
Have seen them—yesterday.

O dear old yesterday!  What store
Of joys for men you hold!
I’m sure there is no day that’s more
Remembered or extolled.
I’m off my task myself a bit,
My mind has run astray;
I think, perhaps, I should have writ
These verses—yesterday.

This poem is included in my book, Golf Course of Rhymes – Links between Golf and Poetry Through the Ages, available at Amazon.com.

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