Golf's best writers.......

[Bob_Huntley]

My favorite, Darwin. In the pantheon, Herbert Warren Wind, but no one had the sulferous language of Pat Ward Thomas after a particularly bad sclaff. I thought I had a pretty good double flutter blast until I heard Pat give vent. He would have made a a cockney barrow boy sound like an archbishop. He wrote a damn good sentence.

Bob

[Jonathan Cummings]

Funny but while I enjoy Geoff Shack's poignant prose I think of him more as a modern pioneer of golf than I do of him as a writer.  His excellent writing is secondary to his watchdog role on the direction golf is going.  He's likely to send me a lashing reply for this but I view Geoff more as the Ralph Nadar of golf!

jaycee

[Mike_Young]

What about Charlie Rymer and his Golfweek articles.  Very thought provoking.

[BCrosby]

Bob -

Pat Ward Thomas is grossly under-appreciated. Especially his more reflective stuff. His pieces on visiting golf courses in Ireland for the first time is as good as it gets.

O.B. Keeler was the best American golf writer of his generation. Ironically, the more you got him away from covering Bobby Jones, the better he got.

Easily the best living golf writer is John Updike. A better writer than Darwin or Wind or Keeler. The problem is that he isn't really a "golf writer". He hasn't written that much on golf. Just one thin collection of pieces.

And then of course there is Charlie Rymer who is in a league all his own.

Bob

[SPNC_Chris]

My godfather, the late Dick Taylor, was a pretty well-known golf writer and editor. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to read very much of his work as it was published in periodicals before I was born as well as when I was young and not terribly interested in reading about golf.

Any input on him?

[T_MacWood]

I believe Dick Taylor used to write for Links or maybe its precurser Southern Links...whatever the case I really enjoyed his writing.

I got the impression he was interesting personality...I had image of a crusty old sports writer who liked to drink with other crusty old sports writers.

[SPNC_Chris]

That's certainly the image many have of him. He has a barstool dedicated to him at the Pine Crest.

For my high school graduation, he sent me some money and told me I should use it to buy a nice bottle of single malt.

He was editor at Golf World for a good while until the magazine was sold and moved away from Southern Pines.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

One of the best books written by a golf writer is 'My Life and Soft Times' by Henry Longhurst.  It's his autobiography.  There is very little about golf in it, but it is just such fun.  It's long out of print, first published by Cassell (London) in 1971.  It's well worth ordering from a library that's still got it.

Also of interest are the two non-golfing books by Peter Allen (who wrote Play the Best Courses).  He was Chairman of ICI and travelled widely and his two travel books are beautifully written, keenly observed and impressively objective.

[SL_Solow]

Mark, I am also a fan of Longhurst.  I recall a collection of his columns as being first rate.  While they don't approach Darwin or Wind, how do people rate Charles Price and the earlier works of Dan Jenkins?

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

I cannot believe that it took so long for the name of Henry Longhurst to surface on this thread.
What a writer his candor and wit are amongst the finest the game of golf has ever witnessed, I cherish anything of his I am able to find.

In terms of"class" and use of the English language, the finest writings that I have come across are those found in "masters of the links"    especially the writings on Tillinghast, macdonald and The Mac..their words flow across the page with so much conviction and passion.
Whenever I want to feel inadequate as a communicator, I just read their wonderful prose.