"I haven't read any of Max Behr's books, can you recommend one for me to begin with?"
Ted:
I'm sorry I can't but I certainly wish I could. Unfortunately, Max Behr never wrote a book, only a series of articles on golf, golf rules, golf architecture and other things to do with golf over a period of perhaps 25 years. Behr's articles are fascinating and quite interconnected philosophically---to do with golf architecture anyway.
Geoff Shackelford and perhaps me seem to be his biggest modern day fans and proponents and unfortunately neither of us seem to have been able to find what we believe to be all his articles. A few of them were in some pretty obscure and local magazines such as "The West Coast Golf, Polo and Mixed Croquet" magazine.
Max Behr's philosophy on architecture and his messages on the dangers to both golf (for a variety of reasons) and golf architecture are really something else once you take the time to decipher his writing style. As you can probably garner from that quote in your first post Behr had this rather bizarre, grandiloquent and sort of labyrinthian style of writing, so as amazing as his messages and his philosophy truly are, obviously a lot of people in his time as well as today had and have a hard time understanding him.
But not to worry---the excellent golf writer of today, Geoff Shackelford, promises to write a book translating and better explaining Behr and the meaning of his architectural philosophy.
However, GeoffShac apparently isn't starting the book on Behr until and unless that other dedicated Behr disciple, TommyN, get to X lbs. I don't know what that is, I only know I think it's pretty neat and also appropriately bizarre considering it somewhat relates to Max who most certainly wasn't a stranger to the off-beat.
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