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Ran Morrissett

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Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« on: May 11, 2004, 06:05:36 PM »
Books can appeal for numerous reasons. Some like Emerald Gems by Larry Lambrecht entertain because his stunning photography  :o transport the reader to Ireland. Books by Darwin barely matter re: the subject as the reader is seduced just by his writing style. And in the case of Daniel Wexler, the great thing about all three of his books is that they help you learn, be it your 1st reading or your 100th.

His latest book entitled The Golfer's Library is a prime example, as it provides great clarity in which books to pursue in order to further one's golf education. Three that jumped out at me right away were:

1) British Golf Links by Horace Hutchinson - according to Wexler, "There has never in the history of golf been a book more ahead of its time." I need to start saving some rupees though as this 1897 one has never been reproduced.

2) South African Golf Courses : A Portrait of the Best by Stuart McLean

3) Around Golf by JSF Morrison

Also, in my first read, I learned that the reason I could never find more Patric Dickinson golf books is because he only wrote one ^&*%$ - I have wasted hours upon hours trying to find a book(s) that never existed  :-\

The usual Wexler musings are laced throughout (re:Kroeger's The Golf Courses of Old Tom Morris, Wexler notes that it is "one rather remarkably left for an American to write"). Also, Wexler notes the key chapters that will appeal to golf architecture junkies (the chapter in Travers's The Fifth Estate: Thirty Years of Golf about Colt pitching a tent in the middle of the woods and emerging days later with a routing plan for Pine Valley is SURE to be on interest to one or two people that visit GolfClubAtlas.com  ;))

Perhaps the most oft repeated topic thread in this discussion group is a variation on the  "what golf books are essential/how should I start a golf library" theme. The answer is now simple: buy Wexler's The Golfer's Library.

Cheers,

Joel_Stewart

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Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #1 on: May 11, 2004, 06:19:37 PM »
Always interesting.  

Good luck on the book sales, I applaud your effort and it will be an excellent reference for many years.  As a business, I guess I question how many books can you possibly sell but hopefully you wrote this book for the love of golf and the authors who wrote the books.

T_MacWood

Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #2 on: May 11, 2004, 07:39:48 PM »
Excellent interview...again. I thought I was pretty well read until I saw Daniel's list for the book....he blows me away. I'm looking forward to getting hold of this book, it should be fascinating.

Daniel_Wexler

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Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #3 on: May 11, 2004, 08:25:42 PM »
Joel:

It's going to be interesting to see how the book sells.  As you suggest, it's not overtly mass-market stuff -- but at the same time, it's doesn't read like a reference guide so it hopefully has an appeal to anyone interested in reading about golf.  Also, at $24.95 it's priced pretty accessibly, for which I tip my cap to the folks at Sports Media Group.

Tom:

Books are easy.  You're the master of the really hard sources!  :)

DW

George Pazin

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Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #4 on: May 11, 2004, 08:28:38 PM »
Sounds like The Confidential Guide To Golf Books. :)

Can't wait to read it - thanks for the book and thanks Daniel & Ran for the interview.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2004, 08:29:14 PM by George Pazin »
Big drivers and hot balls are the product of golf course design that rewards the hit one far then hit one high strategy.  Shinny showed everyone how to take care of this whole technology dilemma. - Pat Brockwell, 6/24/04

Lynn_Shackelford

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Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #5 on: May 22, 2004, 09:13:00 PM »
I just blew through this book.  Loved it.  So does anyone here have a copy of British Golf Links, Horace G. Hutchinson?  Daniel says it is valued at $2,000.  If anyone has it what pictures do they like?
Daniel is a bit softer than Doak's Confidential Guide, but the writing is still entertaining.
"as I am one who believes strongly that golf's greatest feature is the uniqueness of its playing fields, the inherent variety of which is unmatched by any other sport."
Anyone disagree?
We learn in this book that one has a long road ahead to read all of the books by and about Bernard Darwin and Bobby Jones.
This is a fast read and great addition to one's library.
Need I mention he speaks highly of books by Geoff Shackelford?
It must be kept in mind that the elusive charm of the game suffers as soon as any successful method of standardization is allowed to creep in.  A golf course should never pretend to be, nor is intended to be, an infallible tribunal.
               Tom Simpson

BCrosby

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Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #6 on: May 23, 2004, 01:09:04 PM »
Great interview, Ran.

Dan -

Congratulations on the book. I have a copy on order.

I will be curious to to see how you deal with the ocean of instruction books out there. My guess is that there are more instruction titles than all other titles combined. How did you whittle them down?

One of Updike's favorites is Fox's Dr. Golf, published in the early '60's. It's now very hard to find. Any thoughts?

I hope the reprint house will take a look at Pat Ward-Thomas. He was not the bon vivant Longhurst was. But I've always thought he was a much more vivid writer. Plus, I think his stuff has aged better. His pieces on playing golf in Ireland for the first time are as good as anything in the literature. Really extraordinary.

My only reservation about your book is that it will send the market for first editions into low earth orbit. I've been hunting down a few old first editions you mentioned. I fear prices may soon leave me at the station and your book isn't helping. ;)

Bob    
« Last Edit: May 23, 2004, 01:14:21 PM by BCrosby »

Brian Phillips

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Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #7 on: May 23, 2004, 01:27:35 PM »
Daniel,

Congratulations on the book.  I think you are spot on about your opinions on the books you mention in the interview.

I own a 1912 copy of The Book of Links and I love it.  I also own a copy of Colt & Co. and also agree that although it is a great history lesson of the man and his business it just doesn't touch on the genius of the man.

Hopefully, Paul will get in gear and have a book out soon!!

Brian.
Bunkers, if they be good bunkers, and bunkers of strong character, refuse to be disregarded, and insist on asserting themselves; they do not mind being avoided, but they decline to be ignored - John Low Concerning Golf

Daniel_Wexler

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Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #8 on: May 24, 2004, 04:37:29 AM »
Thanks for the kind words (especially you, Mr. S, as you were one of the people I had in mind while writing it)...

Bob:
The question of instructional books wasn't so hard because while there are literally thousands to choose from, I find the vast majority to be...well, lets be nice and say superfluous.  Anyway, to be lazy and quote myself:  "...my own approach to the instructional genre is simple.  Those time-honored books hailed as classics naturally are included, as are a handful of avant-garde or cult favorites and several volumes written by acknowledged giants of the teaching profession.  Beyond this, however, I, like most golfers, am particularly interested in the methods employed by the game’s greatest players, past and present.  Therefore, included here are all manner of works penned by or about the game’s elite, detailing styles, techniques and swing theories, essentially from the time of Harry Vardon forward."

Re: Pat Ward-Thomas, while I am ever-loyal to the great Longhurst, I certainly agree that Ward-Thomas was special.  Four of his books are included here.

Re: first edition prices, you might be right.  That's why I held off publishing the book until I'd found all the ones I wanted.  :)

Brian:
I couldn't agree more regarding the Colt book.  I wait with all the patience i can muster....

DW



JohnV

Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #9 on: May 24, 2004, 08:37:22 AM »
Dan, thanks for writing this.  I'll be getting a copy soon.  One area that seemed lacking in your list of categories is the Rules of Golf.  Are they listed under Reference/Miscellaneous?  I can think of a few good rules books that should be a part of any library.

TEPaul

Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #10 on: May 24, 2004, 09:42:10 AM »
Dan:

Regarding the Flynn book--I've been told we better get it out fairly soon or we'll be on the pace of Geroge Bahto in producing his wonderful book on Macdonald ;) (Wayne's doing his part but I'm spending too much fruitless time on Golfclubatlas.com).

My question to you, as I'm somewhat in the breach as to how to portray William Flynn, is do you think more rather than less should be presented about the man himself and particularly the clearly interesting world and time he lived in and around? To do this we'd have to go well beyond just golf course architecture and present the fascinating interconnected social world from that time Flynn plied and very suprisingly for a guy like him---sort of! Flynn's client list reads like a Who's Who in America at that time---perhaps more than any other architect ever!

Also I see Flynn as a real "transition" architect, perhaps even "THE" transition architect and that alone may surprise many who follow architecture, particularly as to the things he was breaking away from and getting into in architecture. Personally he was a daredevil, a hard charging, hard living man who apparently had a total world away from his work in his family. He was apparently a sometimes hot tempered, sometimes soft hearted Irish guy who wouldn't take any crap from a Rockefeller but was pleasantly kind to his lowliest field hand.

The real reason I ask is I keep getting the sense, particularly on Golfclubatlas, that few really understand or appreciate how different things were back then from today. So many seem to look back through the prism of some awareness of things that Flynn never lived to know or understand. I'd sort of like to try to completely strip away in the book the perception on the part of the reader of the awareness of anything that came after him---except maybe to mention it in the context of things Flynn could never know but that we do--if you know what I mean.

Only then, I think, can a reader really appreciate where he started from and where he finally got to in architecture--a span of time that really did see such a remarkable transition in golf architecture! And then just before the most massive transition of all in golf architecture he was dead and gone at 55 in 1945! I guess any of us could speculate what would've happened if so many of those "Golden Age" and transition architects had lived and worked into at least the first 10-20 or so years of the modern age beginning around 1950, but somehow to me that question is just so poignant with William Flynn.

He may have gone on to even greater things but on the other hand who really knows which direction he would've taken with a career that lasted 20 or so more years than it did. I keep thinking that some golf architecture book really should explore intricately that time of about 20 years that some of us call the "hiatus" in architecture--that time between about 1929 and 1949 and what that time in architecture and the world meant to what followed it. Both in golf architecture, in the evolution of our country and even the entire world that time was probably far more significant than we today realize!

Daniel_Wexler

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Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #11 on: May 24, 2004, 02:10:27 PM »
John:
The rules are indeed represented under Reference/Miscellaneous by Richard Tufts' The Principles Behind the Rules of Golf, with references within the copy to one or two others.

Tom Paul:
I'm going to email you some thoughts later tonight but for the moment I can briefly say that in my experience with my first two books, one of the strongest areas of reader response was the portrayal of the period -- people definitely are interested in the (affluent) American's lifestyle of the 1920s!  So yes, if it were me, I'd work that angle nicely.  :)

More later.

DW


T_MacWood

Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #12 on: May 26, 2004, 10:14:36 AM »
Daniel
We now look back at the early decades of the 20th C. as the golden age of golf architecture. Did you find identifiable periods in golf's literature that were high points (and low points)?

Paul_Turner

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Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #13 on: May 26, 2004, 10:33:52 AM »
Daniel

Very much looking forward ot reading your book.

I'm curious if you have included "Golf Courses of Great Britain" by Darwin.  It was his 1925(?) update of his famous book.  You don't see it very often, but it's important (particularly to me) since it details many of the new British courses built or redone since his first book.  Although, he drops the Irish courses because he feels he's not up to date with the new courses there.

can't get to heaven with a three chord song

Lynn_Shackelford

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Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #14 on: May 26, 2004, 10:52:47 AM »
Not to take away Daniel's reply, he mentions The Golf Courses of Great Britain.  He calls it evasive, which I assume he means he has been unable to view it.
So Paul, where do you find it and what courses has Darwin added in this update book?
It must be kept in mind that the elusive charm of the game suffers as soon as any successful method of standardization is allowed to creep in.  A golf course should never pretend to be, nor is intended to be, an infallible tribunal.
               Tom Simpson

BCrosby

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Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #15 on: May 26, 2004, 10:56:46 AM »
Lynn -

Darwin's 1925 update was republished by The Classics of Golf about 10 years ago. It shouldn't be hard to find.

Go to abebooks.com and you will probably find a seller. They may even have first editions for sale.

Bob


Paul_Turner

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Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #16 on: May 26, 2004, 11:27:00 AM »
It's at the USGA.  Really useful because that 1910-period was perhaps the most important design period in Britain.   It was invaluable in piecing together some of Colt's work in that time:

For example, Darwin describes Dunn's course at Broadstone in his British Isles book and then in 1925 he describes how Colt took in more land and redesigned about half of the course.

Obviously important course like St George's Hill are included, that were built between the two books.  But also lesser known gems like Harborne and Sandwell Park (I've posted pics of these) which Colt almost completely redid.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2004, 11:27:15 AM by Paul_Turner »
can't get to heaven with a three chord song

George Pazin

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Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #17 on: May 26, 2004, 01:46:00 PM »
Given how the many posters on this site feel about St. Enodoc, and how amazing it looks in photos, I was surprised Darwin didn't have more to say about it. It would seem like almost an ideal course for him to wax poetic about.
Big drivers and hot balls are the product of golf course design that rewards the hit one far then hit one high strategy.  Shinny showed everyone how to take care of this whole technology dilemma. - Pat Brockwell, 6/24/04

Daniel_Wexler

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Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #18 on: May 27, 2004, 01:25:47 PM »
Tom:
I talk about the highs and lows in the book's introductory chapter although generally speaking, I don't see that much of an era-defined trend.  Styles change a bit - both writing and graphic - but in my general opinion there were good and bad books done in the 1920s just as there are good and bad books done today.  Actually, I think there are far more silly volumes produced today, but most such drivel will scarcely be noticed by people on this website.  The high end (if we can call it that) is probably about the same.

Bob:
Unless the Classics of Golf have an edition which they have never listed either on their website or in printed materials, nor which I have ever located in about a thousand wanderings through abebooks.com, their reprint is of the 1910 edition.  We do, however, plan to do the 1925 version in the Rare Book library, hopefully sooner rather than later.

DW


BCrosby

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Re:Daniel Wexler's Third Feature Interview is now posted
« Reply #19 on: May 28, 2004, 08:12:13 AM »
Dan -

I checked my copy at home and yes, you are right. It is the 1910 edition that was reprinted by TCofG.

I hope you will get the 1925 version back into print.

Bob