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.

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?