OT - (Book) Great Golfers: Their Methods at a Glance

[Matt Schoolfield]

I received an early Christmas present this year from two extremely bookish friends. It's a second printing of Great Golfers: Their Methods at a Glance, by George W. Beldam from 1904. It's a book that features "268 Action-Photographs" that are extremely impressive. I'm not sure how familiar folks are with this book, but there are so many photographs are too good and feature too many famous folks from golf history for me not to share. The images in the book are surprisingly high quality, and I can definitely provide much higher resolution to anyone who wants them (apologies if this is all common information, I checked and it looks like it's not come up on the site before):

Harry Vardon:






James Braid:






Bernard Darwin:



Rhona Adair (I actually updated her Wikipedia entry with these photos):


Just thought it was worth sharing!

[Charlie Goerges]

Noice! Thanks for sharing. I wish we got a better look at Bernard Darwin's face though.

[David_Tepper]

Miss Adair is wearing a very bonnie bonnet.

p.s. and she might have the best golf swing of them all! 

[Tony_Muldoon]

Miss Adair is wearing a very bonnie bonnet.

p.s. and she might have the best golf swing of them all!

I know nothing about her and it's possible she was tiny, but the shaft on her club seems much stouter than I associate with Hickories.   Even cut down, it would have felt very heavy but she managed a full swing?

Nice pics thanks.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I am always amazed at the strong right hand at address. Miss Adair has the club in her plans, but she sure seems to give it a good whack.


I found the original on eBay. I've never bought anything on it but wanted an original copy.

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

Matt,


I have a copy of the same book (not sure if it's a first edition).


Rhona Adair and May Hezlet were the two big names in Irish women's golf in those days. The Hezlet's were a very talented family of golfers as well (Mrs. Hezlet and her children Charles, Miss. Florence, Miss. May and Miss. Violet).


I often wondered how those photographs were post processed, if indeed they were. The chalk grid on the ground in some of the photos appears to be superimposed in some way. There does not appear to be shadows in many of the photos and where the feet meet the ground looks a bit strange.

[David_Tepper]

"I often wondered how those photographs were post processed, if indeed they were. The chalk grid on the ground in some of the photos appears to be superimposed in some way. There does not appear to be shadows in many of the photos and where the feet meet the ground looks a bit strange."

Yes, I think you are right. Some "photo shopping" from a long time ago.

[Charlie Goerges]

RE: the "photoshopping" They probably are, but I don't think the ground at their feet looks wrong, it's the backgrounds. There is too sharp a line between the foreground and background. They probably took a long depth of field image with the player there, then a soft-focus background with no one present and then used an exacto knife to cut out around the player and place the blurry background behind them. Probably limitations with their photography equipment that wouldn't let them get a nice shot otherwise.

[Matt Schoolfield]

I'll add some more. Unfortunately, I only had my old phone camera for these.

Noice! Thanks for sharing. I wish we got a better look at Bernard Darwin's face though.

It's funny because the author actually teases him for this as well:



Even putting:

I often wondered how those photographs were post processed, if indeed they were. The chalk grid on the ground in some of the photos appears to be superimposed in some way. There does not appear to be shadows in many of the photos and where the feet meet the ground looks a bit strange.

I haven't encountered any that seem surreal to me, but who knows. The author does claim these are simply his photographs, but he does include an edited Varden photo for the cover:







More famous players:

JH Taylor









Sandy Herd:



Harold Hilton has the weirdest grip I've ever seen:





An obvious name to folks here, Herbert Fowler:





Finally, it's pretty easy to determine this was a second printing because of the inscription from 1904:



It's a very interesting book, not really useful these days, but I'm pretty astonished by all the famous names. The author must have been pretty connected in the golf world to get so many Open champions to pose for him.