Bernard Darwin 1925 - Beau Desert

[Bill_McBride]

When I was at Beau Desert north of Birmingham in October, the club secretary was nice enough to give me a copy of the club's history book.

The club  was designed by Herbert Fowler for the young Marquess of Anglesey in 1912 on 161 acres of hilly land at Cannock Chase. The construction cost 18,000 pounds, a lot of money at that time, but not a problem for the Marquess, whose income amounted to 250,000 pounds a year!

So the construction of the course postdated Bernard Darwin's "Golf Courses of the British Isles" by at least a couple of years.

The club's history book has this quote:

"Bernard Darwin, the most respected of all the early golf writers, played at Beau Desert in the 1920's, and was sufficently impressed to mention the course favourably in his book, 'The Golf Courses of Great Britain (sic),' published in 1926."

In the foreward to the 1988 publication of the original 1910 volume, Herbert Warren Wind mentions that Darwin updated the book in 1926.  I have never seen a copy of this 1926 book (and wish someone would publish it like the 1910 original).

If anyone has a copy, could you please post an excerpt or summary of Darwin's remarks on Beau Desert?  I found it to be an exceptional course in routing, features, and particularly the wildly contoured greens, and am curious about what Darwin would have had to say about it.

After we played there, Craig Disher, Mark Bourgeois, Sean Arble and I were discussing how much more interesting the greens were at Beau Desert were than those at Delamere Forest an hour away (if you can follow the directions correctly  ).

Reading the club history, this may be explained in part by the fact that Beau Desert is routed over old mining works and quarried areas of the hills.  The club records discuss many incidents of subsidence, where the shifting of underlying soils may have accentuated and added to Fowler's contouring of the greeens.   Plans are mentioned to flatten almost every green.  Fortunately (for the greens) not much of this work was done, as the history of the club is one of a membership that consistently declined to step up and fund anything, from taking debentures to buy the club from the Marquess (for only 2,000 pounds!) to declining to build a new clubhouse until 1970!

By the way, Beau Desert is an outstanding place to play these days, as they have built a very nice 3-bedroom Dormy House and offer a package of B&B and golf for 75 pounds.  

[Neil_Crafter]

Bill
Enjoyed your post. Darwin re-wrote a number of the descriptions from The Golf Courses of the British isles for The Golf Courses of Great Britain published in 1925 (not 1926), but what distinguished the later volume was that he left out all the Irish courses as he had not been to Ireland for a number of years and felt he couldn't in fairness write about what he hadn't seen. I do not have a copy so can't relay his Beau Desert description for you, hopefully someone can.

Are there many mentions of Darwin in the club's history book or just that one quote?

Incidentally, Washington golf book dealer Pete Yagi and I are working on a comprehensive bibliography of Darwin, including all his books and writings, not just his golf work. Its a sizeable task but we are getting there.
cheers Neil

[Bill_McBride]

That was the only section on Darwin and "The Golf Courses of Great Britain."  The authors - unnamed - listed Darwin, Henry Cotton, and the Prince of Wales as famous golfers or celebrities who visited Beau Desert.

I would love to read your book on Darwin.  I love his essays, short and sweet.  I love the one about the joy of being dormie, the worst you can do is halve your match.  I guess he hadn't heard about extra holes or maybe they just took the half point in those days.  I love his self-deprecating humor!

I've also really enjoyed the story of his covering the 1922 Walker Cup matches at NGLA and winning a singles match as a substitute for a player taken ill.  Apparently he was as good a golfer as a writer.

[Tom_Doak]

Bill:  Darwin was not as good a golfer as he was a writer, but then, Tiger Woods may not be that good a golfer, either.

[Neil_Crafter]

Tom
Couldn't have put it better.

Bill
Darwin, or 'Bernardo' as he was known to his many friends, was a very useful golfer who played for England in home internationals and in the 1922 Walker Cup at NGLA, where he stepped in and played after the captain Robert Harris went down ill, winning his singles. By all accounts Darwin suffered from 'temperament difficulties' (anger management) on the course but you would not know this from his writings. He wrote weekly columns for Country Life continuously from 1907 until his death in 1961 and was golf correspondent for The Times from 1907 until 1953. This was a lot of column inches. At least 6000 individual articles we think for just those two. He wrote for 7 different newspapers at various times and for at least 36 magaines on topics as diverse as picnics, ties, murders, Dickens, Sherlock Homes, and many others. His golf books are actually just the tip of the iceberg of his body of work.

Thanks for letting me know about the Darwin reference in the club history, as we will be also listing books in our bibliography that have extensive references to Darwin.Don't think this one will make it though.

We hope also to include a decent biographical section on his life and work as no detailed one has been written so far to our knowledge.

My favourite BD quote is "Golf is not a funeral, but both can be very sad affairs." Seems to sum up some days on the course.
cheers Neil

[Bill_McBride]

Neil, there is no quote from Bernardo in the Beau Desert book, just mention of the fact that he played there in the 1920s and was sufficiently impressed to mention it in his 1925 update of the 1910 book.

I would hope he would have, Beau Desert is a gem just 20 minutes off the M5 a bit north of Birmingham.

The title of the book for attribution in the event you do quote it, is "Beau Desert, The Marquess of Anglesey's Golf Course."

Whoops, I was looking for a copyright date (1992, Sam Lord) and there IS a quote from Darwin inside the front cover   :

"About twenty five miles away from Birmingham, near Hednesford is, Beaudesert, which Mr. Herbert Fowler originally laid out for Lord Anglesey.  Here might be one of the very best of courses, for the turf is excellent and there is a flavour of Gleneagles about it.  It stands high and is pleasanter in hot weather than cold, for the wind can blow there with penetrating shrewdness."

-- "The Golf Courses of Great Britain," Bernard Darwin, 1925.

Very true about the weather and the turf both - we played in chill and intermittent rain, nasty stuff, but the turf was firm and drainage good except in front of #18 where there's a cross area of semi-bog to be carried.  According to the history, it's been there since the members refused to pay an assessment for drainage improvements - sixty years ago!