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D.J. and M.K. at the 2010 PGA Championship – Two Clerihews

August 23, 2010 by Leave a Comment

As all golf fans know, Dustin Johnson, the talented but inexperienced professional, has had his problems with the Majors this year. In June, at the U.S. Open, he led going into the last round and then skied to an 82, losing his chance to win. And in this year’s last major, the PGA Championship, leading by a shot on the last hole, he incurred a two stroke penalty for grounding his club in a bunker, and again lost any chance to win.

Johnson’s Major travails deserve to be remembered in a Clerihew. A Clerihew is  particular kind of a four line poem, named for its inventor, Edmund Clerihew Bentley. In an earlier Post, I described the characteristics of a 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.

So here is my Clerihew for Dustin Johnson:

D.J. at the PGA Championship

Dustin Johnson, D.J.to some,
Is likely feeling pretty glum.
He grounded his club in a trap unknown,
The result – another Major blown!

But what about the winner, Martin Kaymer? He deserves a Clerihew as well . . . and may need it to be remembered! So here is his:

Martin Kaymer – The Guy who Won

Martin Kaymer,
A Major first timer.
His win eclipsed by an unfortunate flap,
When the leader on 18 was caught in a trap!

Hopefully, both with have unclouded Major victories in the future.

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf poetry, humor, poetry, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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A Wife’s Place in the Golf World of 1886

August 2, 2010 by 1 Comment

Last November I wrote a Post that included a poem from the Captain of the Thistle Golf Club, David Jackson. The poem came from a 32 page book called Golf Songs & Recitations published in 1886. In my November Post I said that the book was not available in any library. I have since learned that one copy exists in the library of the University of British Columbia. I managed to find a 1988 reproduction of the book.

I picked up Jackson’s book again recently and found a relatively short epic poem called “The Breaking O’ the Clubs.” The poem describes the tensions that golf created between a man and his wife in the 1880’s when golf was becoming more popular among the rank and file. In writing the poem, Jackson used some Scottish dialect which I have tried to translate using Internet sources. The poem is interesting both for its lively content and its “happy” ending.

THE BREAKING O’ THE CLUBS

Ae nicht (One night) I had a round at Gouff wi’ my cronies, Bob and Tam,
When we were through, to weet our mou’, some ane (one) proposed a dram;
Sae down we sat, and had a chat about our Drives and Putting—
Wi’ (with) joke and sang, it wisna lang till it was time for shutting.
Then hame I goes on my tiptoes, but ah! the wife was waken.
“The morn,” she cries, “afore ye rise, I’ll ha’e yer Clubs a’ (all) broken;
Ye gang tae (go to) Gouff, it’s a’ your houff, and then ye maun (must) be drinking,
Some morning when ye canna rise, ye’ll get the sack, I’m thinking;
Whaur wull you be, the bairns (children) and me—oh, man, ye should think shame,
If I should rise and break yer Clubs, I woudna be to blame.”
To bed I sprung, and held my tongue, thinks I before the morrie,
For a’ this lung and words high-strung she surely will be sorry.

When morning dawned, I wakened, yawned, was pulling on a stockin’,
When horrors, a’! what was I saw – my Clubs and Cleeks a’ broken.
As guid (good) a Club as e’er was swung, I won at last Spring Meetin’,
My driving Cleek, my lofting Iron, a’ tools that ne’er were beaten,
How aft I’ve praised their style o’ mak’, and rubbed wi’ oil their handle,
It’s quite enough to drive me mad, and raise a perfit scandal.
I fumed and swore, and loud did roar, and kicked up such a shindy
The neebors gathered round the door, and some glowered through the window.

“Shall I give up the Gouff for this, and frae (from) my Clubmates sever,
I tell ye plainly to yer face ye needna think it—never;
Fareweel to a’, for I’m awa, my peace wi’ you is ended,
Unless ye gang (go) this very day, and get thae Clubs a’ mended.”
I left the house in awful scorn, their cries to come back spurning,
My heart wi’ grief and anger torn, my brain wi’ rage near turning.
That was a dull and dreary day, to breathe seemed quite a labour,
I coudna sing a lilt, or say a word to my next neebor.
When I came hame frae wark that night, my heart a’ wives reviling
Wha’s (Whose) was the first that met my sicht—my ain (own) and she was smiling.
“Oh, come awa, I’m awfu’ glad that this long day is ended,
For I ha’e been at Patrick’s, lad, and got yer Clubs a’ mended;
And there’s a Club I bought for you – he said ’twas special made, man,
The wale (choice) o’ wud, a powerfu’ shaft, and bonnie driving head, man.
Forgi’e me noo.” “I will, my doo.” And bright her face did shine;
And ever since ye coudna ha’e a better wife than mine.

Though somewhat over the top, this story is probably representative of male golfers’ attitudes in the 1880’s.

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf humor, golf poetry, golf poetry books, humor, poetry, Scotland, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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Golf and the Great War

July 19, 2010 by Leave a Comment

The American Golfer, a popular golf magazine of a 100 years ago,  included a monthly column called “Foreign Notes” written by Henry Leach, its British correspondent. Leach wrote for the magazine for many years bring its readers the golf news from Great Britain. It should not be surprising, then, that after the start of the First World War, Leach often included war news when it intersected with golf.

Leach reported on professionals, amateurs and caddies that had signed up to serve; there were many in each category. He also reported the deaths of a number of well-known golfers, men and women. And once in a while he included a story that showed how inescapable golf is even in war-time. An example from the March 1919 issue:

Shorty after the British forces occupied Bagdad (sic), a course was laid out, and when it was completed thoughts were soon turned to contemplation of the first championship of Bagdad. A competition was duly organized, and the news of it spread for miles and miles over the surrounding country where the British golfers were. . . .

An English club  professional  named Hardman, a gunner in the War and three days travel from the course, resolved to play. And with a score of 70, won. Leach ends his piece with “Such is a little romance of the war and golf.”

The American Golfer also occasionally included a poem that related to the War. In the June 1915 issue, a poet who signed as “Hari-Kari” contributed a long poem titled “Any Links in War Time.” It begins:

There’s a ceaseless pulse o’er the course all day like the throbbing of phantom drums,
And we strain our ears in the midst of our stroke for the news that never comes;
The dormy house is an hospital—it’s all that it’s wanted for;
And the oldsters play their round per day, but the boys have gone to the war.

The fourth stanza continues:

I am told three score of the Club, or more, are serving the country now,
For Colonel Bogey is no old fogey when once it comes to a row.
There’s twenty-one of the caddies gone, and we’ve lost our assistant pro;
And our greenkeeper’s son died saving his gun—he was one of the first to go.

And the poem ends with these lines:

We think no shame to stick to the game that has kept our youngsters fit
And sent them forth to the game of War with the genuine golfer’s grit.
But though perforce we stick to the course, our hearts are away in France,
As we pray that the guns may spare our sons in “the day” of the great advance.

I wonder what impact Leach’s reporting and poems like this one had on American readers of the magazine.

Note: Since I wrote this Post I have found out that “Hari-Kari” was a pseudonym used by Robert H. K. Browning. Also since writing this Post I have written three Posts that including Browning poems written under his own name.

Filed Under: golf, golf history, golf poetry, poetry, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , ,
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Remembering Tom Watson at the 2009 Open

July 12, 2010 by 1 Comment

Just after last year’s British Open I wrote a poem to commemorate Tom Watson’s memorable performance. Since then I have revised the poem slightly. You might also enjoy the poem I wrote about Doug Sanders at the 1970 Open.

Watson At Turnberry – The 2009 Open

From the tee at eighteen
He looked down towards the home hole
Like a pitcher with a one run lead looks
Toward home plate needing one more out.

As he drove his ball
We knew what the magic number was.
When the camera showed a safe white speck
We exhaled in unison and counted one.

Now it was an eight iron to the green
Or was it a nine?
A question to be answered twice,
The first time by Watson alone.

He was thinking nine but hit the eight
And as we watched with growing anxiety
The ball bounced hard and rolled too far.
We held our breath and counted two.

Again a choice: to chip or putt.
“One of the best chippers of all time,”
The words of an old pro in the booth.
But the third stroke would be a putt.

From off the green the ball raced up
Then by the hole a good eight feet.
He said he had seen grain.
Down to one, we saw trouble.

Once more a putt to win the Open,
But this was not a kid with a dream
This was a Champion Golfer five times over.
Yet now we feared the worst.

While he took two short practice strokes
We lost interest in counting
And as the ball rolled weakly off his putter
We lost all hope as well.

“I made a lousy putt,” Watson’s words;
“Then it was one bad shot after another.”
A self-stated epitaph marked the close:
“The Old Fogy Almost Did It.”

And so the golf writers lost their story
To an illustrious sage from an earlier time.
It wouldn’t be about Watson winning or losing –
But how he had played the Game.

And did he ever!

Filed Under: golf, golf course, golf history, golf poetry, poetry, putting, Scotland, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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Haskell on the Brain

July 5, 2010 by 1 Comment

The golf ball has gone through relatively few fundamental changes in the last 460 years. The first ball to be documented was wooden and was played in 1550. The feather golf ball, or “featherie” was introduced in 1618. In 1848, the Gutta Percha ball or “Guttie,” made from the rubber like sap of the Gutta tree began to be played at St. Andrews and then more widely. In 1898, Coburn Haskell introduced the one-piece rubber cored ball. By 1901 it was universally accepted. Finally in 1972 Spalding began selling the first two-piece ball, the Executive, which was the first basic improvement on Haskell’s design. Now it seems like there is a new and better ball every week, leading to the Twine:

If last week’s ball by this week’s is outdone,
We’ll soon be reaching every green in one!

Getting back to the fundamental progression in golf ball technology, the early changes at least led to conflict and controversy. The change from featherie to guttie, caused a split between Allan Robertson and Tom Morris. Morris who worked making featheries in Robertson’s shop, played a guttie one day. When Robertson got word that Morris was playing the new ball, he fired him.

The Haskell was the first new ball to be made in America. And this caused at least one British golf poet to write some verses in protest. The poem as it appeared in the magazine Punch in November 1902 is as follows:

A GROWL FROM GOLFLAND

Bores there are of various species, of the platform, of the quill,
Bores obsessed by Christian Science or the Education Bill,
But the most exasperating and intolerable bore
Is the man who talks of nothing but the latest “rubber core.”

Place him in the Great Sahara, plant him on an Arctic floe,
Or a desert island, fifteen thousand miles from Westward Ho!
Pick him up a twelvemonth later, and I’ll wager that you find
Rubber filling versus gutty still and solely on his mind.

O American invaders, I accept your beef, your boots,
Your historical romances, and your Californian fruits;
But in tones of humble protest I am tempted to exclaim,
“Can’t you draw the line at commerce, can’t you spare one British game?”

I am but a simple duffer; I am quite prepared to state
That my lowest round on record was a paltry 88;
That my partner in a foursome needs the patience of a Job,
That in moments of excitement I am apt to miss the globe.

With my brassy and my putter I am very far to seek,
Generally slice to cover with my iron and my cleek;
But I boast a single virtue: I can honestly maintain
I’ve escaped the fatal fever known as Haskell on the brain.

Filed Under: golf, golf balls, golf history, golf humor, golf poetry, Golf Twines, humor, poetry, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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The Poet Laureate of St Andrews

June 28, 2010 by 1 Comment

George Fullerton Carnegie was born near St. Andrews, Scotland in 1800.  In 1833 he privately published a small book of poetry called Golfiana. The first edition included three poems, the first, “Address to St. Andrews” and third, “The First Hole at St. Andrews on a Crowded Day.”

Carnegie, who could be described as the poet laureate of St. Andrews in his time, had a passion for golf which continued to his death in 1851. In his later years he was a friend of Tom Morris. This is how Carnegie, a short man, described himself:

That little man that’s seated on the ground
In red, must be Carnegie. I’ll be bound.
A most conceited dog, not slow to go it
At golf, or anything a sort of poet.

In 1842, a third edition of Golfiana was published that included another poem about St. Andrews called “Another Peep at the Links.” The last stanza of this poem might be described as Carnegie’s final tribute to the course he loved.

And now farewell! I am the worse for wear—
Grey is my jacket, growing grey my hair!
And, though my play is pretty much the same,
Mine is, at best, a despicable game.
But still I like it—still delight to sing
Club, players, caddies, balls, everything.
But all that’s bright must fade! and we who play,
Like those before us, soon must pass away;
Yet it requires no prophet’s skill to trace
The royal game thro’ each succeeding race;
While on the tide of generations flows,
It still shall bloom, a never-fading rose:
And still St. Andrews Links, with flags unfurl’d,
Shall peerless reign, and challenge all the world!

Though written long ago, this is the St. Andrew Links that will yet again soon host another Open Championship.

Filed Under: golf, golf course, golf history, golf poetry, golf poetry books, poetry, Scotland, sports poetry Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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Golf Controversies

June 21, 2010 by Leave a Comment

In two Posts earlier this year, “A Poetic Response to the Rise of Medal Play in 1912” and “More Match Play Poetry,” I wrote about the controversy regarding the switch to medal play that occurred around the turn of the 20th century. In the beginning players who competed on the basis of score were scorned. Apparently, the poetic upset with the “score-keeping man” goes back even earlier. Here are eight lines of derision written by Patrick O. Macdonald (he certainly had the right name). The verses appeared in the magazine Golf in 1898.

The Real Golfer plays his man,
And not a computation;
He licks his partner if he can,
And not the whole creation.

That wretched new score-keeping man,
Whose Golf’s a calculation:
Kick him, ye golfers, if you can,
He’s an abomination.

You may be aware that Jim Hyler, the new USGA president, is promoting more environmentally sustainable golf course maintenance practices. Maybe he should advocate a return to match play as well. Think of all the trees that would be saved from becoming score cards!

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