Bernard Darwin on Golf

by Bernard Darwin; Edited and with an introduction by Jeff Silverman

• ISBN13: 9781585747689
• ISBN10: 1585747688
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2003-04-01
• Publisher: The Lyons Press

Summary

Bernard Darwin could easily have settled into a privileged life as a respected lawyer, one who also just happened to be the grandson of Charles Darwin. But his conventional upbringing didn't prevent him from choosing a different path, abandoning the relative security of the legal profession to follow his first and only passion--the game of golf. While Darwin was no slouch on the links--he was captain of his golf team at Cambridge and twice reached the semifinals of the British Amateur Championships--he achieved far greater notoriety with his pen than with his club. Starting as a weekly columnist forThe Times, he was soon acknowledged as one of the finest essayists in Britain, and was the first writer ever to elevate the discussion of golf beyond a simple reportage of events. He was a regular contributor toThe Timesof London (always signing his columns "Our Golf Correspondent") andCountry Lifefor almost fifty years. This collection gathers the finest of Darwin's writing, and is a celebration of a life devoted to a love of the game of golf.

Author Biography

BERNARD DARWIN was golf correspondent for The Times of London for almost half a century, and the game's most revered writer. The grandson of Charles Darwin, he was a prominent authority on Charles Dickens and was the editor of The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. JEFF SILVERMAN, a former columnist for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, has written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and several national magazines. He is also editor of The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told (page 206), Classic Baseball Stories (page 14), Lardner on Baseball (page 15), The Greatest Golf Stories Ever Told (page 169), Classic Golf Stories (page 170), and The Greatest Boxing Stories Ever Told (page 193). He lives with his family in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. ix
On Himself
On Being a Darwin	p. 5
My Earliest Golfing Days	p. 15
My First Open	p. 19
A Second Visit to America	p. 23
Confessions of a Practicer	p. 33
A Golf Writer's Revenge	p. 37
The Spirit of the Game
Golfing Reveries	p. 43
The Sounds of Golf	p. 47
The Humor of It	p. 51
The People in Front	p. 55
On Being Dormy	p. 59
Down Memory Lane	p. 63
Golf as a Soporific	p. 67
Lovelock's Mile	p. 71
Crime or Folly	p. 75
Bad Useful Golf	p. 79
Absit Omen	p. 83
Silence Is Golden	p. 87
The Golfer and the Crossword	p. 91
The Golfer's Cigarette	p. 95
A Fresh Start	p. 99
The Black Flag	p. 103
Mixed Foursomes	p. 107
The Dissembling Golfer	p. 111
The Pampered Golfer	p. 115
Providence and Politeness	p. 119
Card and Pencil Golf	p. 125
Faults, Fixes, and the Tools of the Trade
"A Little Too Much Massy"	p. 131
Go to the Best Doctor	p. 135
A Musical Cure	p. 139
To Underclub or Overclub	p. 143
The Terrible Choice	p. 147
The Knot in the Handkerchief	p. 151
Cures and Cathedrals	p. 155
Nine Inches	p. 159
The Rebirth of a Golfer	p. 163
Aces of Clubs	p. 167
Black or Silver	p. 171
Alien Clubs	p. 177
The Ball That Cannot Be Sliced	p. 183
The Winds of Heaven	p. 187
The Ladies	p. 191
The Players, Ridiculous and Sublime
The Happy Golfer	p. 197
Portrait of a High-Handicap Golfer	p. 201
Francis	p. 207
The Man from Titusville	p. 211
Ghastly, Horrible, but True	p. 217
The Immortal Bobby	p. 223
The Small Colossus: Hogan at Carnoustie	p. 239
Hydes and Jekylls	p. 243
A Golfer's Almanac
New Year's Eve Cheer	p. 249
Stripping For Action	p. 251
Out-Of-Season Joys	p. 255
The Golfless Holiday	p. 261
The Evening Round	p. 265
Stormy Weather	p. 269
Autumn Comes	p. 273
A Mid-Winter Night's Dream	p. 277
The Frozen Player	p. 281
A Christmas Story	p. 285
Nailed Shoes Over Waterloo Bridge	p. 289
A Christmas Sermon	p. 293
The Last Round	p. 297
Fields of Play
Architectooralooral	p. 303
In the Rough	p. 315
The Heart of a Rabbit	p. 319
Aberdovey	p. 323
The Links of Eiderdown	p. 333
St. Andrews in August	p. 337
Muirfield in Winter	p. 341
The Old Course	p. 345
Crossing the Pond: The Atlantic Monthly Dispatches
The Golfer's Emotions	p. 353
The Perils of Golf	p. 365
Bad Manners in Golf	p. 375
The Ailing Golfer	p. 387
Golf in a High Wind	p. 397
Valedictory
Giving Up the Game	p. 407
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