Wonderful H.W. Wind Article In Today's NY Times

[David_Tepper]

Can't think of a better way to celebrate the Masters:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/sports/golf/golf-writer-who-coined-amen-corner-was-a-master-in-his-own-field.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

[Peter Pallotta]

Thank you, David. I enjoyed that very much - and Ms Crouse writes beautifully.

Besides everything else (including making me nostalgic for someone else's past) it reminded me that I have to get to Yale one of these days. The library there houses the collections/papers of both HH Wind and Benny Goodman!

Man oh man, put a Benny album on and give me a collection of Wind's writing and I'd be a happy fellow.

Peter

[Colin Macqueen]

David,
Thanks for the link …it is a very nice piece.  I had no insights into the man himself so this was interesting stuff.  From his writing who would have guessed "His personality flowed like ink only when his pen was uncapped."

I was also intrigued by Wind's writing that Hogan played the game with “the burning frigidity of dry ice.” which amused me as the Dundonians described Hogan as "the wee ice mon" during and after his epic win at Carnoustie in 1953.

How was his name actually pronounced? As in "the wind blows" or "Please wind the clock"?

Cheers Colin

[Howard Riefs]

Great details:

He used “Amen Corner” all of six times in the next 31 years, according to an online search of The New Yorker’s archives. Wind’s nephew, Bill Scheft, a staff writer on “Late Show With David Letterman,” was not surprised.  “Herb was like a comic who comes up with a bit and delivers it to an audience once,” Scheft said. “It was nothing he was going to repeat because he was always striving for better bits.”

[David_Tepper]

"How was his name actually pronounced? As in "the wind blows" or "Please wind the clock"?"

Colin M. -

To quote Bob Dylan, "the answer my friend, is blowin' in the wind."

DT

[Dan Kelly]

Even today's New Yorker wouldn't find the space for the wonderful pieces Mr. Wind wrote, about a thing as trivial as golf.

Pity.

[Bob_Huntley]

Many years ago I visited Mr. Wind in his tiny office at the New Yorker, it was about as big as office toilet. I couldn't believe this man of letters wasn't granted something better by the management.

Someone should get hold of E d Getka and get the story about his contact with the man.

Bob

[Rory Connaughton]

Wonderful piece.  Wind captured the soul of the game better than anyone.

[Dave McCollum]

Back in my youth, I read the New Yorker religiously, in a cabin in the mountains of Idaho.  I didn’t play golf or watch it on TV.  Hell, I don’t think we had a TV.  Wind’s pieces on the Masters and British Open (and other profiles) were so good they were not to be missed.  As I recall, they came out about a month after the events and serve as a nostalgic reminder for fine writing mostly lost in the contemporary world of Twitter and the Internet.  I suppose everything I knew about golf came from Herb Wind.  I may have made the mistaken assumption that golfers were literate folks.

[BCrosby]

Back in my youth, I read the New Yorker religiously, in a cabin in the mountains of Idaho.  I didn’t play golf or watch it on TV.  Hell, I don’t think we had a TV.  Wind’s pieces on the Masters and British Open (and other profiles) were so good they were not to be missed.  As I recall, they came out about a month after the events and serve as a nostalgic reminder for fine writing mostly lost in the contemporary world of Twitter and the Internet.  I suppose everything I knew about golf came from Herb Wind.  I may have made the mistaken assumption that golfers were literate folks.

Dave -

My mother subscribed to The New Yorker and, like you, I gobbled up HWW's pieces. (He wrote for SI as well, but in a more traditional journalistic style.). I also remember reading Bob Jones' elegant Golf is My Game that appeared at about the same time. That golf could  provide material for such writing was one reason I was so drawn to it as a teenager.

You and I differ in one respect, however. At the time I was playing in a lot of junior golf tournaments. I was never under the illusion that golfers generally were literate types. 

Bob

[Ronald Montesano]

a whorl of words~

[John Kirk]

Very nice article on Mr. Wind.  I especially appreciate his comment about the difficulty of writing.

[Bill_McBride]

His article "North to Dornoch" brought that great course to the attention of Americans, including, I'm sure, our own Richard Goodale and David Tepper.   It was virtually unknown on this side of the Atlantic, from what I've heard.  

A few years ago, before the immense storage of the cloud, the New Yorker offered an external hard drive which had an archive of all past New Yorker issues, complete with articles, covers, ads and cartoons.   I bought one just to read HWW's articles on golf.  They are that good.  

[David_Tepper]

Bill -

Speaking of HW Wind's writing in the New Yorker, I still remember a few paragraphs he wrote just describing Seve Ballesteros arriving on the range & hitting balls during the Masters. He captured Seve's charisma perfectly and made those paragraphs as interesting as anything he wrote about the tournament itself.

DT

[Rich Goodale]

His article "North to Dornoch" brought that great course to the attention of Americans, including, I'm sure, our own Richard Goodale and David Tepper.   It was virtually unknown on this side of the Atlantic, from what I've heard.  

A few years ago, before the immense storage of the cloud, the New Yorker offered an external hard drive which had an archive of all past New Yorker issues, complete with articles, covers, ads and cartoons.   I bought one just to read HWW's articles on golf.  They are that good.  

Not true in my case, Bill.  I first read Wind's article on Dornoch ~25 years after first visiting the course.  When I did read (~2005) it I was underwhelmed.  If you read the essay closely you will find that it is mostly about Wind and not much about Dornoch (the course or the experience).  A good friend of mine and I were the only two members who voted against giving HWW Honorary Membership when it was proposed at an AGM several years ago--not because we didn't like HWW and his writing, but because we thought that the whole idea was just a craven way for the club to suck up to the golfing establishment.

Rich

[Dan Kelly]

His article "North to Dornoch" brought that great course to the attention of Americans, including, I'm sure, our own Richard Goodale and David Tepper.   It was virtually unknown on this side of the Atlantic, from what I've heard.  

A few years ago, before the immense storage of the cloud, the New Yorker offered an external hard drive which had an archive of all past New Yorker issues, complete with articles, covers, ads and cartoons.   I bought one just to read HWW's articles on golf.  They are that good.  

Not true in my case, Bill.  I first read Wind's article on Dornoch ~25 years after first visiting the course.  When I did read (~2005) it I was underwhelmed.  If you read the essay closely you will find that it is mostly about Wind and not much about Dornoch (the course or the experience).  A good friend of mine and I were the only two members who voted against giving HWW Honorary Membership when it was proposed at an AGM several years ago--not because we didn't like HWW and his writing, but because we thought that the whole idea was just a craven way for the club to suck up to the golfing establishment.

Rich

This was my introduction to Royal Dornoch:

Rick Reilly, in Sports Illustrated: http://www.si.com/vault/1987/08/17/115930/unseen-hands-on-my-game-a-week-at-royal-dornoch-in-scotland-is-a-golfers-dream-but-the-author-found-it-a-haunting-experience

Like this one, Rihc?

[Rich Goodale]

His article "North to Dornoch" brought that great course to the attention of Americans, including, I'm sure, our own Richard Goodale and David Tepper.   It was virtually unknown on this side of the Atlantic, from what I've heard.  

A few years ago, before the immense storage of the cloud, the New Yorker offered an external hard drive which had an archive of all past New Yorker issues, complete with articles, covers, ads and cartoons.   I bought one just to read HWW's articles on golf.  They are that good.  

Not true in my case, Bill.  I first read Wind's article on Dornoch ~25 years after first visiting the course.  When I did read (~2005) it I was underwhelmed.  If you read the essay closely you will find that it is mostly about Wind and not much about Dornoch (the course or the experience).  A good friend of mine and I were the only two members who voted against giving HWW Honorary Membership when it was proposed at an AGM several years ago--not because we didn't like HWW and his writing, but because we thought that the whole idea was just a craven way for the club to suck up to the golfing establishment.

Rich

This was my introduction to Royal Dornoch:

Rick Reilly, in Sports Illustrated: http://www.si.com/vault/1987/08/17/115930/unseen-hands-on-my-game-a-week-at-royal-dornoch-in-scotland-is-a-golfers-dream-but-the-author-found-it-a-haunting-experience

Like this one, Rihc?

I did like that one, particularly since I knew then (1987) most of characters Reilly wrote about.  The articles that made me take the detour to see Dornoch in 1978 were: firstly, an excellent little pamphlet written on Scottish Golf Courses by International Golf, a tour operator from Canada, and secondly; the original version of The World Atlas of Golf.
Rich

[Steve Lang]

  not trying to go "moriarty" on this topic, but HWW may well have heard of the Amen Corner in New York... from the infamous Tammany Hall era and even related to Teddy Roosevelt and Boss Platt having Sunday breakfasts...  funny the things one can learn about on gca.com.  I remember seeing some cartoons on the subject.

from:

http://www.harpweek.com/09Cartoon/RelatedCartoon.asp?Month=October&Date=9


Platt moved to Manhattan where he enhanced his control over New York's Republican Party.  In the 1894 elections, Republicans captured the governorship (under Levi Morton) and both houses of the legislature, which two years later elected Platt to the first of two terms in the U.S. Senate (1897-1909).  He was largely uninterested in national policy or politics, though, and initiated no important legislation, seldom spoke on the Senate floor, and failed to earn the respect of his colleagues.  However, he continued to be deeply involved in state politics, returning every weekend to Manhattan, where he met with state or local politicians on Sundays at the Fifth Avenue Hotel.  The meetings became known as "Platt's Sunday School" or the "Amen Corner" because his subordinates were said to always agree with him. 

Amen indeed

[Colin Macqueen]

Steve,

Interesting tidbit ..... I wonder. I guess it was make or break time for Platt's cronies just as H.W.W. saw it for his golfing brethren!! Ofttimes there is nothing new under the sun!

Cheers Colin