Can someone rate these books?

[Lynn_Shackelford]

The Mystery of Golf---Arnold Haultain
Bernard Darwin on Golf---Jeff Silberman
Happy Golfer-Essays from American Golfer by Bernard Darwin
British Clubs---Bernard Darwin
History of Golf in Britain----Bernard Darwin

Thanks.

[Bob_Huntley]

Lyn.

If I wanted to cite a primer for the use of the English language, I would use Darwin before all others.

You may want to add 'Golf between the Wars.'

[ForkaB]

Bob is right.  Darwin is the best writer of those people who write or have written about golf.  I haven't read that much of him (including the books listed) but what I have read has never been anything but entertaining.  Most of it is anecdotal and about the game, and not the architecture, however.  Haultain is in a class by himself for those who like to think of golf in the wider context of the human condition and human endeavor.  He also writes as well or better than any of the writers today.

[Daniel_Wexler]

Greetings Mr S.

A few thoughts:

The Mystery of Golf - A engaging but patently strange volume.  More in the Max Behr/Wethered & Sampson (latter half) realm than anything Darwin.  In his foreword for the Classics of Golf reprint, Wind writes that “In my judgment, no later writer has equaled Haultain’s performance, though, heavens knows, hundreds have tried.”  Of course, he later suggests that “you will enjoy Haultain most if you read him in relatively short takes.”   I lean towards the latter.

Bernard Darwin on Golf - A nice collection if you don't own the early (expensive) anthologies but if you do, nearly all but the five Atlantic Monthly pieces are duplicative.

The Happy Golfer - As Geoff occasionally reminds me, this is definitely not a complete book of Darwin's American Golfer pieces...but it's a lot of them.  My guess is that it would be of greatest value to British readers as I doubt this material has appeared previously in the UK.  Does anyone know otherwise?

British Clubs - Not what people think.  This is a 48-page wartime book profiling British social clubs (e.g. Boodles, Brooks, etc.), not golf clubs.  I'm probably one of the few people in the USA who's hunted down a copy, but only for the sake of completeness.

History of Golf In Britain - A wonderful book, though Darwin's role is little greater than that of Longhurst or Cotton, and less than Sir Guy Campbell.  This really is a defintive history, covering the game's roots, development, rules, equipment, technique, courses, etc.  Well worth having, BUT...  The Classics of Golf reprint deleted chapters on the history of the rules and Campbell's three entries, “The Early History of British Golf,” “The Development of Implements— Clubs and Balls” and “Links and Courses.”  So the original 1952 edition is vastly preferable.

Your presence is missed around the club!

DW

[BCrosby]

The Mystery of Golf is a wonderful little book. I pick it up every couple of months and re-read some pages. Good quirk. It has not aged much.

OTH, I seem to be chronically disappointed by Darwin. I keep thinking I am supposed to think he is great stuff, but I can't get there. It's not that he isn't a great writer. He is. He may to be best golf writer ever.

My problem (and it may be only MY problem) is that so much of his writing is personal reminiscences. After seven or eight decades, I have trouble connecting with him. His mindset, the things he finds important, seem foreign in 2003. His stuff today comes off as merely quaint.

His extraordinary skills as a writer seem wasted. I wish he had spent more of his energies on histories or analysis and less on what happened to be on his mind on a given Tuesday morning.

A first rate writer. A lazy thinker. He wasted a lot of horsepower. Anybody have similar reactions to BD?

For me the proof is in the pudding.

Unlike Haultain, I find I almost never go back and reread BD.

Bob      

[Lynn_Shackelford]

Thanks everyone.
BCrosby, but then again, Darwin in Golf in the British Isles, is something I do go back to.
Daniel
Thanks, that is more than I had hoped for.  I think I may try the Canadian, The Mystery of Golf.

[Forrest Richardson]

Lynn, The Mystery of Golf will take you all of one evening in which Haultain uncovers more about golf than several volumes of even "greater" works. Haultain embraces life as golf and vice verse. Most writers embrace golf as golf -- and not much more. Which is OK, too. Just a different approach.