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Andy Stamm

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #25 on: January 17, 2013, 10:33:34 PM »
Here's a nice little paragraph about the issue from Ben Hogan. I love the last bit.

Their championship tees are called the "tiger" tees. I thought that was because they were so far back in the heather and gorse that only tigers would be there. I didn't learn differently until my return to New York, when Bobby Jones told me where the name originated. The people call a golfer who plays from the back tees a "tiger," and the golfer who plays from the much shorter, front tees a "rabbit." I played several rounds at Carnoustie before I realized I was being a rabbit part of the time. You can't find some of the tiger tees unless you have a caddie or partner who knows the course well.

From the Greatest Year of My Life, Ben Hogan, The Saturday Evening Post, 10/17/1953

Ally Mcintosh

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #26 on: January 18, 2013, 05:05:51 AM »
Here's a nice little paragraph about the issue from Ben Hogan. I love the last bit.

Their championship tees are called the "tiger" tees. I thought that was because they were so far back in the heather and gorse that only tigers would be there. I didn't learn differently until my return to New York, when Bobby Jones told me where the name originated. The people call a golfer who plays from the back tees a "tiger," and the golfer who plays from the much shorter, front tees a "rabbit." I played several rounds at Carnoustie before I realized I was being a rabbit part of the time. You can't find some of the tiger tees unless you have a caddie or partner who knows the course well.

From the Greatest Year of My Life, Ben Hogan, The Saturday Evening Post, 10/17/1953

I first played Carnoustie when I was 13 years old. The starter - with a wink - suggested I play off the "tiger" tees. In those days Carnoustie's back tees were considerably longer than any other course (about 7,250 yards when all other Open venues clocked in around 6,900 yards).

I've always associated the term with Tom Simpson though. I presume it was fairly common-place.

Tony_Muldoon

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #27 on: January 18, 2013, 05:11:54 AM »
I'm convinced Darwin also used the term.

I know I had the same shock when I first read it, but now I wonder if it was the other way round and Earl Wood's knew exactly what he was doing when he gave Eldrick the nickname, Tiger?
Let's make GCA grate again!

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #28 on: January 18, 2013, 10:08:00 AM »
Patric's autobiography is 'The Good Minute.' I have only recently re-read it. He doesn't really talk about golf courses in it, although he does describe his learning to play as a young boy and his getting into the Cambridge team. Darwin, Longhurst, PB Lucas are mentioned - he knew them and played with them.

But if you are not interested in poetry you'll find yourself skipping quite a lot. If you are interested in poetry, and the English poets in particular, you'll be amazed at the people he knew personally. His favourite he did not know, Wilfred Owen, who was killed shortly before the end of the First World War. He quotes from Owen a great deal, which pleases me as they were some of Owen's poems which were assimilated into Britten's War Requiem alongside the latin ordinary. This year sees the centenary of Britten's birth and I am delighted to say that I have a performance of War Requiem in October. I've been wanting to do just one more performance of it before I snuff it.

You can feel the influence of Darwin's writing in A Round of Golf Courses, especially in using the first person a good deal - Longhurst did it, too. But in A Good Minute it is as if Dickinson is speaking rather than writing to us personally. He skips from subject to subject as his brain rattles along and it is a book that needs a detailed index or you find yourself turning back page after page to remind yourself who someone was or where you encountered the subject earlier. (I can imagine a Kindle would do this, but I can also imagine Patric's reaction to it!) The text of A Good Minute is a wonderful study of the use of English and its construction. Dickinson was classically educated and it helps if you some knowledge of ancient literature and, being classically educated, Patric uses exactly the right word, with its correct shade of meaning, in every instance.     

You can pick up second hand copies of A Good Minute for very little on the internet.

RJ_Daley

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #29 on: January 18, 2013, 04:32:25 PM »
Just caught up with this thread, and ordered "A Round..." for only $19.50 w.shipping.  Thanks for the bump and pointing this out to us. 
No actual golf rounds were ruined or delayed, nor golf rules broken, in the taking of any photographs that may be displayed by the above forum user.

Tom Culley

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #30 on: January 18, 2013, 04:35:49 PM »
I managed to pick my copy up this week for under £3 including postage  ;D
"Play the ball as it lies, play the course as you find it, and if you cannot do either, do what is fair. But to do what is fair, you need to know the Rules of Golf."

Jim Sherma

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #31 on: January 18, 2013, 04:51:54 PM »
Ordered a copy today as well.

Russ Arbuthnot

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #32 on: September 25, 2014, 06:00:22 PM »
Ordered a copy of this book just now based on this thread and the thread by GJ Bailey on Westward Ho! I'm looking forward to seeing more of those funny little diagrams.

Marty Bonnar

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #33 on: May 12, 2017, 07:45:52 AM »
Bump.
I only first read this wee gem a couple of years ago, when I received a copy from a kindly older London gentleman of Irish ancestry. (T Muldoon, esq, BBC, B&Q, At The Bar).
Yesterday, I found myself recommending it hugely to a golfer in our group who I had been discussing great golf writing with. I bet there's another copy been sold on t'interweb this morning!


Cheers,
F.
The White River runs dark through the heart of the Town,
Washed the people coal-black from the hole in the ground.

Thomas Dai

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #34 on: May 12, 2017, 09:36:13 AM »
Terrific book. Some rather nice (and amusing) sketches.
Atb

Colin Macqueen

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #35 on: May 12, 2017, 04:57:25 PM »
Yes Thomas.


The sketches are, to me, quite hilarious. And the sketch in this thread of the 13th. at Berwick has the added bonus of the exasperated, parenthetical "Pick up or throw" statement! Very occasionally when I am playing with good friends who are not as golf mad as I am and they run into awful trouble, like a hellish bunker, and fail to extricate themselves we have the "Dickinson" rule. Do not count the muffed shots .... simply throw the ball from your execrable situation towards the hole and proceed. This thoroughly defuses the frustration of this damnable pastime, lifts everyones spirits, and allows a highly competitive game!


I also found his description of Carnoustie compelling. I guess so because I am familiar with the course itself. The sixth hole, now with the moniker "Hogan's Alley", has a "secondary tiger track" and a "super tiger track". I always scraped by with a "rabbit" sort of track which I will not boast about on this forum! Needless to say Hogan took the "super tiger track" on each round of his epic win in the 1953 Open.


Cheers Colin
"Golf, thou art a gentle sprite, I owe thee much"
The Hielander

Garland Bayley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #36 on: May 12, 2017, 10:10:33 PM »
I missed this thread the first time through.  Thanks to Garland for profiling Westward Ho! using Dickinson's text and to James for originally writing about the book.  I've ordered one of the paperbacks for essentially the cost of shipping.

In case you were wondering.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,54567.0.html
"I enjoy a course where the challenges are contained WITHIN it, and recovery is part of the game  not a course where the challenge is to stay ON it." Jeff Warne

ward peyronnin

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #37 on: May 17, 2017, 09:08:08 PM »
His description of the putting green at a course i have forgotten the name of is hilarious; pre-puttputt
"Golf is happiness. It's intoxication w/o the hangover; stimulation w/o the pills. It's price is high yet its rewards are richer. Some say its a boys pastime but it builds men. It cleanses the mind/rejuvenates the body. It is these things and many more for those of us who truly love it." M.Norman

Colin Macqueen

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #38 on: May 18, 2017, 06:16:14 AM »
Ward,
I suspect you are alluding to Patric's description of the greens at Worlington and Newmarket.


To quote:
""The greens are sheer poetry,
"My myne of precious stones, my empirie,
   How blest I am in thus discovering thee!
   To enter in these bonds is to be free.....""


"I know of no other greens that are so utterly scrupulous. ......  If Plato had played golf, here was the place for him Ideally to Putt"


Tremendous writing and imagery. Just so good it sends me into raptures!


I wonder if Tom Doak's "Little Red Book will have the same cachet!


Cheers Col





"Golf, thou art a gentle sprite, I owe thee much"
The Hielander

David McIntosh

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #39 on: May 18, 2017, 08:50:20 AM »
I ordered A Round of Golf Courses after Richard Fisher/Bob Crosby/Sean's recommendations on the Best book pre First Scotland Golf Trip thread a few weeks ago so Marty's bump is very timely.

Copies are now going for as little as 1p plus postage online (Amazon) and, having only flicked through thus far, I'm looking forward to going through the descriptions and sketches when I finish Simpson & Co.

Richard Fisher

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #40 on: March 26, 2021, 05:26:36 AM »
I don't think I have ever seen an actual image of PD himself before stumbling across a team photograph from May 1935 of the Cambridge University Outlaws playing against Miss Diana Fishwick's team at Ashridge: this is (obviously) on the website of the RAF Golfing Society
https://rafgs.org/100-years/
which has one of the best 'golf timelines' for a club or society that I have ever seen, and is hugely recommend as of (much) more than purely military/services interest. Lots about RAF officer Frank Pennink, for example.


The name 'Outlaws' dates from the time when  Cambridge or Oxford teams were not allowed to play (in any sport) as the official university team on a Sunday. PD looks suitably cherubic in the photo!

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +3/-1
Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #41 on: March 26, 2021, 01:15:45 PM »
I made a post about this book on my Instagram a couple of weeks ago, and may have helped to sell a few more second-hand copies.  [I had to buy another for myself because I realized it had gone missing from my collection!]

Thomas Dai

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #42 on: March 26, 2021, 02:46:22 PM »
The book is splendid and the somewhat exaggerated sketches have a delightful amusement to them.
Atb

Colin Macqueen

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #43 on: March 26, 2021, 07:06:43 PM »
Gentlemen,
Isn't it magical that almost a decade after the thread was initiated, by James, that it should resurface in all its glory and the superb writing and imagery of Patric is again thrust under our noses!
It has inspired me to once again unearth my copy and wallow in his marvellous and evocative descriptions of golf holes.
Rereading this thread Mark Rowlinson's recollections made an impression on me. One thing which astonished me was that Patric, after succumbing to something akin to the putting yips, had the discipline and determination to banish his clubs to the attic and never darken the fairways again.
For someone who seemed to love the game, who could write about the game so well and presumably played it competently (was he a Cambridge blue?) and then forsake it is beyond my ken. Maybe if my chipping yips worsen I will become more understanding and sympathetic but for the moment giving the game away would render me inconsolable!
Cheers Colin
"Golf, thou art a gentle sprite, I owe thee much"
The Hielander

Garland Bayley

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"I enjoy a course where the challenges are contained WITHIN it, and recovery is part of the game  not a course where the challenge is to stay ON it." Jeff Warne

Richard Fisher

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #45 on: March 27, 2021, 06:49:26 AM »
Colin


Many thanks and yes, PD won a golf blue for Cambridge in 1935, at Burnham. Cambridge won a famously close match by a single point overall, and PD won both his foursome and his single - all matches then, as now, over 36 holes. In the top single (both participants in which went on to play in the Walker Cup) light blue Laddie Lucas thumped Frank Pennink 9/7, although Pennink and Tony Duncan (a future Walker Cup captain) won their foursome over Lucas and partner 5/3. The Cambridge team is of the vintage shown in the photo cited in the post above, which restarted this thread about the best single book written on British golf courses since 1945...

Forrest Richardson

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Re: Patric Dickinson and his "A Round of Golf Courses"
« Reply #46 on: March 30, 2021, 03:50:19 PM »
I am fortunate to have a signed copy, and some correspondence. I cannot recall where I picked it up, but the illustrations and commentary is fun and humorous.
— Forrest Richardson, Golf Course Architect/ASGCA
    www.golfgroupltd.com
    www.golframes.com