[TEPaul]

As a contributor to The American Golfer his articles are fascinating, his subjects have plenty of historic value and his writing and his style is every bit as good as Darwin's. I think I noticed he said he wasn't American. Was he English?

Who was Henry Leach? I'll tell you right now I'm going to print out everything he wrote for The American Golfer. It's some wonderful stuff and I want to keep it all in one place!

[Dan King]

I'm wondering if he is the same Henry Goddard Leach who was the editor of Forum and Century during the 1930s. The Forum was a political magazine.

I did find a couple books by Henry Leach, out of print and expensive:
Click here for Great Golfers in the Making

Click here for Happy Golfer

He was also an expert on Scandanavia.

Harvard has his papers:
Click here for Leach, Henry Goddard, 1880-1970, recipient. Letters from various correspondents: Guide.

I have a couple collections of American Golfer, but no articles by Henry Leach. I'd be interested in seeing anything you have.

Dan King

Our children, homeward bound from school, are being introduced to a new danger today in the form of a drugged cigarette --- Marijuana.  This weed is jeopardizing American youth, making of those who become marijuana addicts irresponsible degenerates or criminals.  On street corners there has developed the refrain Do you want to be happy?  Hey, kid!  Do you want to be happy.  This voice must be stilled.
 --Henry Goodard Leach (Editorial in Forum, Feb. 1938)

[ForkaB]

Dano

I googled (actually yahooed) "Henry Leach golf" and got this quote:

"What earthly good is golf ... golf and fisticuffs is that in one the pain is of the mind and in the other it is of the body. -- Henry Leach ..."

The source was an obscure site called www.danking.org

Slainte

Rich

[Dan King]

Rich Goodale writes:
The source was an obscure site called www.danking.org

I guess I need to start using Yahoo more than Google, since I didn't get that on google in the first few pages.  Maybe I have seen an American Golfer article by Mr. Leach.

The quote sounds British, and I think Henry Goddard Leach was an American, so maybe not the same person.

According to a Colt article by Jeff Mingay, Leach was British:
With his next heathlands creation at Swinley Forest, completed in 1910, Colt’s reputation as a leading expert on course design, construction, and upkeep spread far and wide; so far in fact that the Toronto Golf Club invited him to Canada to lay out 27 holes near the junction of the Etobicoke River and Lake Ontario, west of the city, that same year. Following a visit to Colt’s new Toronto course shortly after it opened for play in September 1912, leading British golf writer, Henry Leach, wrote: “As on many of the Colt courses, there is something of a Sunningdale look about the holes.” Indeed, in its early years, Toronto exhibited a more open, rugged, heathland sensibility. There were fewer trees, native grasses framing the holes, and steep, shaggy-faced sand pits arbitrarily sprinkled throughout the course.

Click here for Jeff Mingay's Under the Influence: Harry Colt

Dan King

Yes, it is a cruel game, one in which the primitive instincts of man are given full play, and the difference between golf and fisticuffs is that in one the pain is of the mind and in the other it is of the body.
 --Henry Leach, 1914

[John Yerger]

He was a prominent writer in the early days of golf with Horace Huthchinson and editor of Britian's Golf Illustrated.
He aldo edited Britians version of Spaldings Golf Guide.

[TEPaul]

Dan:

Check out the Amateur Athletic Foundation web-site-it has a ton of American Golfers and just look for Henry Leach's articles---on all kinds of things to do with golf. He did write the "Happy Golfer" and he said he's wasn't American. John Yerger above has the guy right.

Fascinating writer. Love his turn of phrase. At one point he describes a King of England who played golf extensively and follows that up with 'But then kings were always queer cattle'. I can't imagine why he didn't capitalize Kings.  

[John Yerger]

Tom
"Great Golfers in the Making" is probably his best work. It was essentially an autobiograpical account of the greatest players of the times in there own words. It also included American's Travis and Chandler Egan. To use an analogy, it seems as if Leach may be the golfs writing equivalent of Jerome Travers. Both largely unappreciated but among the finest of there era. The reference to aafla.org is a good one. He is everywhere on there.

John Yerger

[T_MacWood]

Henry Leach was British writer who was friends with Travis, who hired him to be American Golfer's foreign correspondent. He made at least a couple of tours of the states. He wrote for the Daily Mail, which was a London newspaper I believe. I agree he was a good writer.

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