FOREWORD
By Michael Beckerich
Sometimes you do get more than you pay for. I am not speaking just yet of the fine volume you hold in your hands, though it is an exceptional example of exactly that. I’m talking about how I came across this rarity by the great Bernard Darwin.
Back in 2003, while attending a meeting of the Golf Collectors’ Society in Jacksonville, Florida, I passed a table where an older man, who struck me as a veteran of these shows, was offering an array of collectibles. He asked if I had seen his stack of free books. Drawing a smile of interest from me, he casually fanned five books across the table. I immediately was drawn to a timeworn hardcover with the name Bernard Darwin printed on its stained, pale blue cover.
As publisher of Classics of Golf and a lover of golf literature, I am fairly conversant with the works of BD. Classics of Golf offers the most complete set of Darwin’s works available anywhere—14 titles, ranging from recently assembled anthologies to books originally published between 1910 and 1955. Yet here on this table, abandoned, was a title I was not familiar with: Golfing By-Paths.
"It’s not in good shape," the seller admitted, as I thumbed through the yellowed pages. "I was just hoping that a guy like you would stop by and give it a home."
"Well," I said, "I’m not getting a Bernard Darwin treasure for free. I insist on paying you something for it." The man protested, but eventually I persuaded him to accept a token sum.
That night I started reading the book, and was overwhelmed. Here was Darwin, the essayist praised by Herbert Warren Wind for the consistently "relaxed vitality" of his voice, keeping the flame of golf alive during the privation of the war years, 1939-1945. Everything was rationed, not least golf balls. The major championships were suspended. Few people, Darwin included, had the opportunity to play. But in these columns gathered from the English weekly Country Life, for which he wrote for decades, Darwin celebrates the traditions and camaraderie that makes golf part of the fabric of English life.
I shared the news of my discovery with Robert Macdonald, founding publisher of Classics of Golf and now publisher of Flagstick Books. He hadn’t heard of Golfing By-Paths, either, which is amazing given Robbie’s considerable knowledge of the history of golf books. That phone call set in motion the process of republishing this long-lost volume.
Though 58 "new" Darwin essays are reason enough to rejoice, the 33 photographs that accompany them tip the book right off the charts in terms of value. The crispness and clarity of these images is simply amazing. Even the 1892 group portrait of the golfers of Aberdovey (following page 84)—among whose number is Darwin himself, winner of the outing’s Scratch Medal—is so detailed you can study at length the faces of these proper, tweed-suited Victorian gentlemen.
Many of the photos are close-ups, showing the grace and grit of the golfing greats. No finer example exists than the picture of the brilliant English champion John Ball hitting out of the water at St. Andrews (following page 68). It has everything: Ball in the foreground, his back to the camera, right shoulder dipped, up to his ankles in water, the photo snapped just a split second after impact. The camera has arrested the huge splash of water, taller than the golfer himself, kicked up by the shot. In the distance, standing perilously close to the line of play (some things never change) the expectant gallery hovers.
But, finally, this book is about the balm of memory. In October of 1940, he evacuated his home in Kent, near London, with "its broken windows and its grand new impromptu bunkers" and moved to relative safety in the Cotswolds, where he wrote the essays in this book. He rarely refers directly to the war, but when he does, he deftly brings the focus back to golf.
For example, in a piece called "Noises Without," he reports that a club near London is said to have adopted a local rule allowing a player to replay his shot with a one stroke penalty if his "stroke is affected by a simultaneous explosion of a bomb or shell or by machine-gun fireâ?¦" Comments Darwin,
"I sincerely hope it is true, and more so as the rule shows a proper mixture of the Spartan and the modern spirit. It acknowledges that bombs are altogether out of the common and that some allowance is to be made for them; at the same time, to have a second shot is so outrageous that the player must be prepared to pay for it; no number of wild Germans is to be allowed to make the game wholly farcical."
He goes on to recall the effect on Bobby Jones, Joyce Wethered and J.H. Taylor of noises that erupted as they were about to swing in important matches.
"Golfing By-Paths" shows us Darwin in a Proustian mode, recalling sunnier seasons with the sometimes uncertain hope that they will return. In "The Golfer’s Lunch," he takes a sentimental tour of signature dishes he has enjoyed at lunch in the famous golf clubs of England and Scotland. There was the "scrumptious" fried sole at Addington and Mid-Surrey, the potted shrimps at St. Annes, Formby, Hoylake and St. Andrews. It’s a world-class piece, in which he goes to lengths to be generous to all. The difficulties facing the membership and club secretaries to preserve the mosaic of social graces associated with "a day at the club" weighs heavily on Darwin’s mind.
This essay can make you hungry. At the end, ever self-effacing, Darwin writes, "I am not really so greedy as I may appear, only grateful to many people for many kindnesses and much hospitality."
These many years later, we are happy, a smile on our faces, for the kindnesses and hospitality that always await us in the company of this most endearing writer.
Michael Beckerich
Piermont, New York
December, 2005
Contact:
Eric Levin
Executive Director
Classics of Golf
1 Blue Hill Plaza
PO Box 1554
Pearl River, NY 10965
Tel: (845) 735-0125
Fax: (845) 735-8358
levin@classicsofgolf.com
www.classicsofgolf.com
