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Chris Buie

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A Passage on Warwick
« on: July 17, 2014, 06:22:58 PM »
Here's an excerpt from long ago by a writer called Holworthy Hall that some of you might enjoy:

In the grill-room at Warwick every stranger and every guest is presumed innocent and truthful to the last degree of stern integrity; it is only when he steps out upon the turf, accepts a card from the caddie master, and takes his first practice swing near the first tee that he becomes an object of humorous interest and grave suspicion. No fairway was ever seriously injured by clubhouse conversation, and to this extent, therefore, any alien's claim to a seasonal average of eighty-five is undisputed; but statistics show that the man who in the grill-room prophesies eighty-five or better for his initial round at Warwick generally manages to turn in a score of about a hundred and ten; and this sweeping statement includes both the type of golfer who can excavate more rapidly with a spoon than a long-shoreman with a shovel; and also the seasoned veteran who, like, a field marshal in retreat, proceeds from one strategic position to another.

Seen from the elevation of the veranda, the course is beautiful rather than suggestive of good golf; it presents the cultivated appearance of a millionaire's lawn, landscaped by the king of expert gardeners. Trees by Corot and brooks by Inness lie in a background of charming composition; vast reaches of lawn in the middle distance temper the glare of sunlight; far to the east a Maxfield Parrish harbor sleeps peacefully beneath a blanket of clouds. The sheer sweep of turf is nowhere marred by unsightly sandpits; the ungainly cop-bunker is visible not at all. Save for the occasional oasis of a putting-green, and an occasional direction flag whipping in the breeze, the links might pass for a deer-park or a national reservation. Obviously, to the stranger on the veranda, it is too well manicured to offer the highest phase of sport. It is too refined. It lacks the complications without which no true golfer can be content. It should be maintained exclusively in behalf of poets and artists; surely it isn't a test course for a red-blooded human being equipped with a leaden-weighted driver and a heavy mashie which scars the ground at every shot. Why, for a man to take turf at Warwick would be equivalent to mayhem! But the professional who supervised the engineering was by birth a seer, and a bush -whacker by self-culture. To estimate from the craftiness displayed in his handiwork, he could unquestionably have ambushed an Apache in broad daylight in the middle of a field as level and unobstructed as a billiard table. Not merely against par does one compete at Warwick; certainly not against the decrepit and long since outlawed Colonel Bogey; not even primarily against an opponent in the flesh; the game is really played from start to finish against the fiendish imagination and Scottish ingenuity of Donald Ross. Witness the unexpected, hanging, side-hill lies; witness the undulating greens of almost impossible keenness; witness the apparent paucity of hazards, and the seeming infrequency of rough, and the astonishing presence of one or the other obstacle whenever a shot strays slightly from the line of geometrical progress. The dainty brook by Inness, the trees by Corot, so stand that to avoid them the study of triangulation is utterly essential. That soft bandeau of taller grass, posing calmly as the most inconsequential species of difficulty, proves to be the falsest of beards concealing behind it the identity of swamp and swale. An impenetrable morass masquerades, from the clubhouse, as a landscape garden.

Peter Pallotta

Re: A Passage on Warwick
« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2014, 08:34:21 AM »
Terrific, Chris -- thanks for posting. I'm going to look up Warwick now, and learn more about this Holworthy Hall.

Peter

Colin Macqueen

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Re: A Passage on Warwick
« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2014, 09:47:54 AM »
Chris,

That's very nice writing!  I see he has a reprint (2012) of a book Dormie One and Other Golf Stories which I presume is where your nice piece came from. If so is his other writing in this book of this calibre?  Should I buy it!  It read, to me, a bit like F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing style but what would I know!! Maybe it is just of the same era.

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

Chris Buie

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Re: A Passage on Warwick
« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2014, 02:48:16 PM »
Yes, that's the beginning of Dormie One. I've gone through about a third of it and I'm afraid that 'Holworthy' used up most of his steam early on - so I can't really recommend that you purchase it, though you might enjoy parts of it.
You can download the ebook gratis here:
http://books.google.com/

Here's one very wry bit from the book that amused me:

"But it was in England, during the Victorian Era, that golf became at once a cure and a disease; and its regeneration was chiefly due to the exigencies of the age. Not to be contented is one of the greatest privileges of mankind; and the Victorian Era was typified by a national lack of this blessing. England, comparatively free from the civic stimulant of wars and riots, was wallowing in the sybaritic sweetness of supercomplacency, and golf appeared as a welcome antidote, because golf alone could provide that ingredient of agonized despair which is the safeguard of every progressive community."

Years ago in college, they used to teach something called "Belles-Lettres". Thomas Jefferson took it. That's why he didn't say "at a certain point"; he said "when in the course of human events". Today, colleges teach something called "Style-Free Writing". Well, ok, I made that last sentence up. But it seems as if that's the case. Language is pervasive, is it not? Since our lives are filled with it, it wouldn't be a bad idea to upgrade how it's taught. You'd start by exposing kids to well done materials which would actually resonate with them. As it is, the majority of kids don't know what a pleasure reading can be - much less writing. In America, they just force kids to read Scarlet Letter in a very short amount of time. They just tune out of the whole thing, or rather tune into other things, not all of which are exactly what you'd call wholesome. I think we let them down and the ramifications shouldn't be surprising to anyone. The consequences of this pattern are more far reaching than you might think.

Well anyway, Holworthy could use some editing in places. But he's still pretty great all the same.