[Mac Plumart]

I have just started reading my first book my Herbert Warren Wind, "Following Through"

I had high expectations, but they are being blown away.  His article/chapter on Dornoch was amazing.

Any recommendations for my next Wind book?  The Story of American Golf?  I'd be interested to hear your opinions and/or comments.

[PThomas]

you MUST get the book you mentioned Mac...one of the best if not the best golf history book out there

[Mac Plumart]

Thanks Paul...with a recommendation like that...I'll order it today.

[Colin Macqueen]

Mac,
Considering that your golfing season is relatively short compared to that in OZ here are some books which will allow you to while away the long winter nights between golfing seasons! I thoroughly enjoyed them all. After you have finished this fine collection and been duly examined as to their content I can provide you with a few more gems!

The Lure of Golf - Herbert Warren Wind

For the Love of Golf: The Best of Dobereiner - Peter Dobereiner

Not only Golf - Pat Ward-Thomas

The Essential Henry Longhurst - Edited by Chris Plumridge

Yours Colin

[Ryan Admussen]

Just finished "A Course Called Ireland" nothing too serious just a fun read, which has sparked planning a trip to Ireland this spring.

[hick]

Mac , are you ordering from classics of golf. I like all  wind books and one of my top wind books is On The Tour with Harry Sprague. The Story of American Golf is a must read.

[David_Tepper]

Mac -

Starting your reading with Following Through does not leave too much room from improvement. Kind of like breaking par on your first round at Cypress Point or Augusta National. He wrote 4-6 golf columns per year for the New Yorker magazine for many years and they are all worth reading. If there is any way you can access them from the magazine's website, I would encourage you to do so.

I remember a column he wrote about the Masters one year that devoted a number a paragraphs to watching Seve Ballesteros hit ball on the range. He made it sound captivating.

DT 

[Mac Plumart]

Hey guys...thanks. 

David...to your point about him making Seve hitting balls on the range a captivating read, that is why I am blown away by Mr. Wind.  He simply seems to be describing what he sees and in the context he sees them, but he sees things differently and/or different thing than I do.  It really does make his writing fascinating to read.  I see why he is such a respected writer.

[David_Tepper]

Mac -

It looks like you can access the database of Wind's New Yorker columns online at www.newyorker.com, if you are a subscriber to the magazine. A one-year subscription might be money well spent, just for that privelege.

DT

[Mac Plumart]

My wife has a subscription.  BABY!!!

Thanks!

[David_Tepper]

Mac -

FYI, H.W. Wind writes just as well about tennis as he does about golf.

DT

[PThomas]

Mac -

Starting your reading with Following Through does not leave too much room from improvement. Kind of like breaking par on your first round at Cypress Point or Augusta National. He wrote 4-6 golf columns per year for the New Yorker magazine for many years and they are all worth reading. If there is any way you can access them from the magazine's website, I would encourage you to do so.

I remember a column he wrote about the Masters one year that devoted a number a paragraphs to watching Seve Ballesteros hit ball on the range. He made it sound captivating.

DT 

i think that practice range of Seve's you mentioned David was in the 1986 Masters...Winds said it was the best practice session he ever saw

[PThomas]

Mac - a few more suggestions after a look thru my library (architecture books NOT included, as they have been discussed many times on GCA)

any books by Dan Jenkins, Chrles Price and Peter Dobereiner..and Longhurst

David Owen's "My Usual game "

Sidney Matthew is a Jones expert and has written several books on him

James Dodson's book on Hogan

the publisher The AMerican Golfer has done several great books on Jack, Hogan (2 books on him), Nelson, etc

and as Mat Hickery suggested definitely check out The Classics of Golf, as they have reprints of many great books for about $30 each

[David_Tepper]

Other good books in the genre of David Owen's My Usual Game are To the Linksland by Michael Bamberger and Dogleg Madness by Mike Bryan. Bamberger's book also has a good chapter on Dornoch.

[Ken Moum]

Don't overlook David Owen's Making of the Masters, it's sometime criticized for being soft on Roberts and ANGC, but he is the only writer who ever had access to all the club's archives in the basement.

FWIW, I also recommend Clifford Roberts' book on ANGC,  I managed to score a couple of them on eBay, and it's a very interesting read.

[Tim_Cronin]

Anything by Herb Wind is a must read. When you delve through the New Yorker database, don't miss his profile of Larry Bird. It starts with about 3,000 words on the Bruins and Bobby Orr.

Anything by Henry Longhurst is delightful. Bernard Darwin provides a masters degree in golf before World War II. And if you can find a collection of golf stories put together by Herb Graffis, you're one-up on the field. I'm away from home and can't for the life of me remember the title, but it might have been under Esquire's care.

[Mac Plumart]

Awesome stuff guys!

Ken...I may have read that book by David Owen.  I was at Secession staying in one of the cabins and they had a book on the Masters/Augusta there.  However, I can't remember the title.  But I read it pretty intently as previously on this site I had posted that I was under the impression that Augusta was built with a professional tournament in mind.  However Adam Clayman told me he thought I was wrong on that one and that the tournament idea came after the course was already being built.  And after reading it, Adam was right and I was wrong.  Another example of how you can learn something every day on this site, if you want to.

Again...great stuff guys!!

[Colin Macqueen]

Mac,
The GCA contributors to this thread have pretty much covered the other books I would have mentioned as great reading material, particularly Bernard Darwin, so for the sake of completing the books that I would recommend you might want to bear in mind

The Golf Omnibus - P. G. Wodehouse.   Anglophilic? Yes, but contains hilarious caricatures of golf club personalties and golfing dilemmas. A wordsmith indeed.

Golf.  The Badminton Library. - Horace G. Hutchinson with contributions by other British worthies which was originally published in 1890.  Wonderful, amusingl writing even though it may be considered outdated. The most hilarious and pithy descriptions of caddies I have ever read. Very humorous.

Colin

[Mac Plumart]

Thanks Colin.

Interestingly enough, I have that Badminton Library Book on Golf...or at least one of the additions...maybe 1893ish.  Ralph Livingston told me it is his go to book regarding hickory golf.  What is fascinating about reading that book (and many of the books written some time ago) is the context it puts on things.  As they were written as contemporary books at the time, but are historical now.  If that makes sense. 

Anyway, thanks...I'll check them out.

[Phil McDade]

Mac:

A book I really enjoyed was: Pilgrims in the Rough: St. Andrews beyond the 19th hole. Written by Michael Tobert, a St. Andrews resident and R&A member, the book is a somewhat light-hearted and affectionate look at a town rich in history that has come to be identified by many solely via its connection to golf. The book wanders in and around the Auld Grey Toon, mixing history with observations about golf, The Old Course, the citizens who live there, and the golfers who make a sojourn to the town. Not a must read, but a good one. Amazon has copies.

[PCCraig]

Mac:

Try visiting some local book sales, esp. at local libraries. They can be fantastic places to stock up on all types of golf books. Not only are they a great place to pick up a bunch of good books...they are usually pretty cheap.

[BCrosby]

Mac -

Best golf book nobody knows is Patric Dickinson's A Round of Golf Courses. (That's not a misspelling of his name.)

Let me say that differently. Dickinson's book is one of the best golf books ever written. It just happens not to be well known.

Bob

[Dale Jackson]

Mac, HWW is a great writer, the words just seem to cover you in a warm blanket.

I think there is only one other collection of his writings and it was a book published in the - I think - the late 1960s.  It is long out of print and has some overlap with Following Through.  For example, you will have read the piece about Ballybunion; together with the Dornoch profile, my favourite pieces in Following Through.   The Ballybunion piece is part of a longer article that is included complete in the other book.

Here is a link to a copy on eBay - http://cgi.ebay.com/Herbert-Warren-Winds-Golf-Book-Foreword-Bing-Crosby-/170517395254?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Antiquarian_Collectible&hash=item27b3a0f736

[David_Tepper]

www.bookcloseouts.com has almost 500 discounted & remaindered books about golf listed for sale. Many of the books are rather useless, but they do have books like the updated World Atlas of Golf (for $20) and books on GCA by Nicklaus and RT Jones, Jr. available as well. They even have a book by fellow GCA-er Mark Rowlinson listed!

http://www.bookcloseouts.com/Store/Browse/_/N-0/Ntt-golf

Books of interest include:

Preferred Lies by Andrew Greig ($3.59)
Dream Golf, the Making of Bandon Dunes by Stephen Goodwin ($4.99)
Bernard Darwin on Golf ($3.39)
Tommy's Honour by Kevin Cook ($5.99)
On Golf  by Timothy O'Grady ($2.79)

[Dan King]

Almost 10 years ago someone else asked for suggestions. I ended up saving my response:
http://www.danking.org/books.html

Many of those already mentioned are on my list. The one that I recently reread and really love is Tom Morton's Hell's Golfer: A Good Walk Spoiled. It's the fictional story of Arnold Evelyn MacLachlan Palmer's trip around the western islands of Scotland on a Kawasaki playing golf.

Cheers,
Dan King

Golf is an Emerson Lake and Palmer triple concert album, A Rick Wakeman mock-rock-opera, an interminable 25-minute instrumental by Yes. It is fat, self-satisfied, drunk on its own bourgeois snobbishnesism, racist, sexist, caught in some 1970s fashion timewarp or Pringles sweaters and hideous tartan trousers made of Crimplene, a substance long abandoned in every other sphere of human existence. Golf is acknowledged for the breeding of truly hellish haircuts, bleary gin-and-tonic politics, obsessive collectors of monogrammed tees, and an entire range of supremely boring Volswagen cars.

So why do I love it so?
--Tom Morton (Introduction to Hell's Golfer)

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()