A nice surprise or an early April Fools joke?

[Ed Oden]

The other day I found a used copy of the Classics of Golf reprint of MacKenzie's "Golf Architecture" for sale thru one of Amazon's used booksellers for $5.  I didn't have that one and the price seemed too good to pass up, so I bought it.  The book arrived today and when I opened the front cover I found this...



HWW wrote the forward.  And I believe Robert Macdonald is the founding publisher of the Classics of Golf series.  Any chance someone at Goodwill Discount Books of North Las Vegas is both golf literature aficionado and forger?

[Brad Klein]

That is HWW's handwriting on his signature.

[Mac Plumart]

Not too shabby for $5!!!

[JC Jones]

That is awesome, Ed.  Congrats on the score.

[Scott Warren]

Wow! That's pretty awesome, Ed!

[Ed Oden]

There was one other thing that brought a smile to my face.  It appears that the owner of the book was passing it around to his buddies using their locker numbers at whatever club they belonged to.  I found three handwritten notes stuck between the pages as they shared their thoughts.  One guy notes that MacKenzie's comments on hazards are great.  Another points someone else to copies of the Cypress Point prospectus and maps in the appendix at the end of the book.  And the last one notes that a drawing of TOC road hole is a reversed image and tells his buddy to hold it up to a mirror to look at it.  So these guys knew their stuff.  Here's hoping they're still out there somewhere talking GCA.

[Bill_McBride]

A few years ago I was staying the NYC apartment of the sister of a good friend.  I was browsing her bookcase in the living room, full of books collected by her late husband who was not a golfer.

Hmmm, copy of "Down the Fairway" by Bobby Jones and O.B. Keeler.

Open the book, hmmm, first edition!

Go back to the frontispiece.  "Robert T. Jones, Jr." in that familiar script.  Oh my!

[Colin Macqueen]

Ed and Bill,

My heart skipped a beat when I saw and read what you, Ed, had purchased and you, Bill, experienced. The lure of classic golf books indeed.

Nice purchase and, Bill, I couldn’t have resisted putting in a hang-dog like expression of interest. Ach well.

Cheers Colin

[PCCraig]

Very neat...congrats on the good purchase!

[Ian Andrew]

Ed,

It's the joy of golf.

I aquired a first edition copy of Golf Courses in America by Thomas

... inside it says "property of Norman Woods" (he worked for Stanley Thompson so there's a special value to me)

It's fun to get a suprise like yours, since you know the value (not talking $), it makes us glad someone who cares got the book.

Pretty cool!

[Tim Martin]

Ed-Sort of like finding your errant tee shot sitting on a $100 bill with a clear shot at the green. Nice.

[ed_getka]

Ed,
    What a great stroke of luck. My youngest son's middle name is Warren in honor of Mr Wind.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Not quite the same magnitude, but I once sold off one of my three excess copies of "The Golf Course" to half price books (long timers will recall I donated one to the winner of a gca.com essay contest).

Next time I went in to Half Price, I saw the book, opened it, and realized I had accidentally taken the one with all the autographs of ASGCA members, including JN, AP, RTJ, etc. 

So, someone had a nice bonus for their $15 purchase.  And, it proves it happens.

[Dick Kirkpatrick]

Ed,

Is this the same Norm Woods that became the parks commissioner for the City of Ottawa?

I met him a few times when travelling with Robbie Robinson. I remember he and Robbie talking about old times but did not make the connection until I read your post.

He was also great friends with Tommy Thompson, who was the Parks Commissioner for the City of Toronto.

They both had signs in their parks that said "Please walk on the grass" while at the same time other cities had signs telling people to "Please keep off the grass"It's the joy of golf.

I aquired a first edition copy of Golf Courses in America by Thomas

... inside it says "property of Norman Woods" (he worked for Stanley Thompson so there's a special value to me)

It's fun to get a suprise like yours, since you know the value (not talking $), it makes us glad someone who cares got the book.

Pretty c