Lots of golf poetry, following are three beauts: from Rudyard Kipling, Ring Lardner, A.W. Tillinghast, and of course John Prine.
The Sages on the LinksO! East is East, and West is West, but sundered
many a mile:
And the East-Coast swing is a different thing from
the common-place half-baked style.
On an inland course we learn perforce a style that
is far from free,
But we've more than our score to answer for,
when we are playing by the German Sea. Oroya Brown, of Camden Town, being weary of
Bears and Bulls,
Went north one night by the Golfer's Line, to the
City of St. Rules.
It's classic links inspired such golf as he never
had known before;
And never a day throughout is stay but he played
three rounds or more.
His style of dress did not impress the genuine
native play'r.
Its design was based on ideas of taste which the
Fife folk hardly share.
But his scores were such as promised for
the future of Camden Town,
Though the strokes he made are condemned by
Braid, and by all but Oroya Brown.
But one forenoon in the end of June ('twas his last
forenoon in Fife),
He set out for a round with a Prestwick man, and
he played the game of his life.
His second carried the Swilcan Burn, and he
captured the first in four.
And when he had won the Hole of Cross, he had
taken but nineteen more.
You may make no loss at the Hole of Cross, and
take ten on the Hole of Shell.
You may carry the Beardies from the tee, and
foozle your third in Hell.
You may easily do the eighth in two, and yet have
a lot to learn.
-- And Oroya Brown was one hole down, when he
got to the Hole of Return. But Oroya then bucked up again, and taking
a higher tee,
He did the tenth in a perfect four and the next in a
perfect three;
Being hardly pressed, he played his best, and his
best was uncommonly strong;
He seemed to have struck a streak of luck, where
nothing he did went wrong.
His partner's tee-shots left the club as a cross-bow
bolt is spun.
But Oroya's "Kite" had the even flight of a shot
from a six-inch gun;
His partner played like a second Braid, and stuck
to him all the way,
But Oroya's game was much the same as the devil
himself might play;
He holed his pitch at the Heathery Hole; he
captured the next in four;
At the Gingerbeer his drive lay clear -- three
hundred yards or more;
His putts rolled in as though the tin were the size
of a soup-tureen.
And Oroya Brown was dormy two when they
holed at the sixteen.
You may often stand two holes in hand and still
have a lot to do;
For a game may be won by two and one, but never
by dormy two.
A half in deed is all you need; yet your toil may be
all undone;
For none win through by dormy two, though many
by two and one. But Oroya Brown with his clumsy swing again got
a clinking drive;
He did not make the least mistake, and halved in
and easy five.
He won the bye with a lucky three which com-
pleted his great success --
The record score is a seventy-four; Oroya was one
stroke less.
Oroya Brown in Camden Town still boasts of the
game of his life,
But it's not his score that they know him for, in
the old grey town in Fife,
Where the caddies still have nought but ill to say
of Oroya Brown,
--A man who teed with a pound of sand, and
drove with his left hand down.
O! East is East, and West is West, but sundered
many a mile;
The West thinks more of the golfer's score, the
East of the golfer's style.
On a inland course we learn perforce a style that
is far from free,
But on East Coast swing is the only thing when we
play by the German Sea. --Rudyard Kipling, 1910
The Golfer's PrayerI do not ask for strength to drive
Three hundred yards and straight;
I do not ask to make a five
A hole that's bogey eight.
I do not want a skill in play
Which other's can't attain;
I plead but for one Saturday
On which is doesn't rain.
--Ring W. Lardner
Jinx's Office The 'phone bells are a-ringing; everybody's on the
jump,
As the clacking of the ticker tells the story of the
slump;
The clerks are dazed and frightened as the market
lower sinks,
For they don't know where the boss is -- they have lost
all trace of Jinx.
The managers exhausted and the office boy's all in,
The stenographer has fainted in the turmoil and the din;
For the market keeps on sagging, as poor lambs are
shorn of wool,
And though at golf Jinx is a bear, on 'Change he is a bull,
At last they have him spotted and he's dragged in
from the links,
And then his frantic manager unfolds the news to Jinx
Over the 'phone as best he can, in choking voice and sad;
And Jinx replies: "Why goodness me, now isn't that
too bad!"
The boss continues speaking: "Say, just ask Miss
Blosson call
Up Lombard Eight-O-Seven-Two and ask for Jimmie
Ball,
And tell him that the brassey which he made me doesn't suit,
But the driver is a corker and the putter is a beaut."
--A.W. Tillinghast
There was also a book that came out a few years ago,
The Poetry of Golf by Michael Ebeling. Not my favorite stuff, but there is one called
Course Design, that perhaps I'll type in later.
Dan King
I know a fella
He eats like a horse
Knocks his old balls
Round the old golf course
You oughta see his wife
She's a cute little dish
She smokes like a chimney
And drinks like a fish
There's a big old goofy man
Dancing with a big old goofy girl
Ooh baby
It's a big old goofy world
--John Prine