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Gleanings from the Wayside
My Recollections as a Golf Architect
By Albert Warren Tillinghast
Researched, compiled, designed
and edited by Richard C. Wolffe, Jr.,
Robert S. Trebus and Stuart F. Wolffe
TreeWolf Productions, 2001
ISBN: 0-9651818-2-0, $39.95
888/580-TILL (8455)
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Set a place at the table, clear a spot on the shelf, for one of the game's great storytellers. The third in a lovingly assembled collection of essays and columns by the distinguished designer is just as entertaining and enlightening as previous installments. Tilly was a wry observer and deserving of all he gets as an architect.
In this book, more so than others, the creator of Winged Foot and Baltusrol, and Brackenridge Park Municipal in Texas, among many others [a map on the back cover shows just how itinerant he was - truly a golfing Johnny Appleseed], discourses on the elements of his craft. His Gleanings provide a Rosetta stone of design good sense and insight.
On par threes, for example. "It has been said that no course is any greater than its one-shot holes. These should be stand-outs, altogether imposing and inspiring. Consequently the green itself and its immediate surroundings provide all the character that such a hole has. Nothing other than these has any real value in the case of the hole which should be played with an iron." Amen.
He liked his water and his sand cozied up to the green where it could do the most good, not just for aesthetics but for the shot. How many holes do we see today where the water is relegated, wasted, really, in front of the tee where it can only menace beginners?
Short, devilish par-threes, with plenty of room on the tee for variety; "the pits," [greenside bunkers] "should be pretentious…in full view from the teeing ground and of such proportions and character as to make the player fear the consequences…"
"Let us assume," he wrote in the same essay, 'A Short Pitched Shot,' "that this hole measures only one hundred and ten yards in length. This may seem very short to many, but I believe that a controlled pitch of no greater distance than this calls for one of the most skillfully executed of all strokes known to the golfer. It is the wrist shot, played with rare precision, yet with great crispness. Were the hole much longer, the length would permit a full shot with a lofted iron, and such a shot is far more easily executed."
The essays, conversations with himself, his contemporaries, and the trends and issues of golf past, present and future, will reward the thoughtful reader many times over. He takes aim at gimmes, the dreaded DH's (Duffer's Headaches that "catch the poor shots of poor players …[and] add aggravation and are of no value"), par, even a stalking bull that got the best of him. ] The numerous period drawings and photos are also marvelous. A 1919 Light Tractor with the Triple Gang-Cutter looks as if it came off Heath Robinson's drawing board.
A better writer than Ross, more prolific than MacKenzie, a skilled, self-effacing storyteller befitting a lively mind and extensive travels, Tilly is a most entertaining correspondent. Anyone with more than a passing interest in the game, or the mechanics of renowned design, will relish these literary Fireside Chats.
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The Darrell Survey
Golf Equipment Almanac 2001
Darrell Survey Co., 2001
ISBN: 0-9703219-1-0, $24.95
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This second annual edition chronicling "the count" documents equipment use at over 200 pro and top amateur events worldwide.
What's really in the bag? These folks know.
Clubs, shafts, grips, headgear, headcovers, shoes, etc., the snapshot provides the true agate of the game. It's a fascinating glimpse if you really want to know, or care, what's winning on tour from one week to the next.
Hats off again to Mr. Donut, the appealing-sounding Japanese bag sponsor. And isn't it interesting that several products in vogue on the Japanese PGA Tour, the Bridgestone Tour Stage MC392S ball, for instance, never appear elsewhere. Honma clubs are another. Ruinously expensive irons, they're invisible outside Japan but never fail to raise eyebrows at the PGA Merchandise Show where a spokesman once told me their presence was merely for the sake of appearance.
Why is it, we wonder flipping through the data, that certain putters predominate on the men's tours but hardly crack the charts on the LPGA. Money? Individual preference? Sponsor neglect? The Darrell Survey doesn't say. That's not their business. They provide the details. You draw the conclusions.
This edition tracks not just the Millennium year but, a new feature, events in 2001 up to the Masters. Thus it tracks the rocket-like acceptance of the PRO V1, and, on the consumer side, the Lady or, if you will, "Laddie," Precept. The Almanac is meant as a consumer reference, and it also provides superlative definitions of many arcane technological terms.
It's read best, though, as a source of endless trivia. We learn that more than half the players on the PGA Tour now wear alternative spikes. Jesper Parnevik and Rocco Mediate have joined Steve Elkington in throwing off the affectation of head covers. Despite Tiger and David Duval's endorsement, Nike's balls have hardly made a dent with consumers. Twenty-five players at the 2000 Masters carried
5-woods in their bags. And so on.
The book brims with innocuous tidbits, crunched and collected by assiduous TDS "auditors." Every Thursday they go through the bags on the first tee. (And, if you're wondering, there have been occasions when they have come across golfers carrying too many clubs.)
What it all means is anyone's guess but for those who relish the camera zooming in on the putter head each week - just so we can see whether it's a Scotty or an Odyssey - this reference is a beggar's banquet of tour dish.
[For more, click on this edition's Talking Points icon. Susan Naylor of The Darrell Survey talks about her work.]
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The Toronto Terror
The Life and Works of Stanley Thompson,
Golf Course Architect
By James A. Barclay
Sleeping Bear Press, 2000
ISBN: 1-886947-93-7, $35
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The Terror is sometimes called the Canadian Ross, a compliment, but he might have a greater kinship with Tillinghast. Both men led exuberant, eccentric and active lives. Both faced tragic financial circumstances. Stanley's legacy is no less distinguished. His courses will be savored by those who know for as long as golf remains.
This academic biography should up the awareness level, at least below the border. His work belongs alongside the best, as indeed he stands with his contemporaries in that famous photo of the founders of the American Society of Golf Course Architects at Pinehurst, two over from his one-time employee and accomplice Robert Trent Jones, Sr.
Judging from several stories making the rounds about his ah…occasionally raucous personal life (not included here), I'm not sure that a book that sticks to the straight and narrow paper trail of his work really could do him justice. There is a robust Thompson society and a just Canadian pride in his work.
This is a start. We get the genealogical and professional details, a survey of his courses, his rise from an enthusiastic golfing family, as well as a vicarious appreciation for the difficulties of building courses in truly spectacular and rugged wilderness. With little more than teams of horses, dynamite and manpower, he carved courses from nature with an effort that the pyramid builders could appreciate.
What's needed now is one of those bicep-straining gloss dripping tomes that commemorates the scenic grandeur of his designs. Having sampled two of his most celebrated courses: Banff Springs and Jasper Park, I can attest that Thompson courses are magnificent, majestic, artistic, challenging treasures. They fit in seamlessly. And the closer you look, the more you see and appreciate. Stanley deserves to be included in any list - and near the top, at that - of the century's best designers.
And, put it this way, if half the stories about him are true, there is more than enough for a movie.
The USGA has only itself to blame for the cottage industry that's sprouted up around the rules. Maybe you saw the pamphlet, "Uncle Snoopy Wants YOU to Know How to Use Your Handicap," a miasma of actuarial tables and riddles. It brings to mind a longtime Texas-based expert who would say that one doesn't have to be an attorney to understand the rules, but that it doesn't hurt.
So, here we are with books for dummies and idiots. Perhaps numbskulls and dimwits are next. Imbeciles, maybe. What the success of guides directed towards those who see themselves this way says about us…
Never mind. The beginner, or as Harvey Penick liked to think of them in a kinder, gentler way, as newcomers, will find much of this mystifying. The content is fairly sophisticated.
Those unfamiliar with Caddy Shack, with the travails of Craig Stadler, with betting, with dozens of nuances of the game that experienced players have long since internalized, will likely leave this book scratching their heads.
Three million, we're told, leave golf each year. They do so in part because of the time it takes (hello slow play) and the ever present 'intimidation' factor, which boils down to etiquette and attitude. The good here, unfortunately, is stopped up by a clubby treatment. There's lots of do's and don'ts, and far too much about the exploits of the author and his buds.
The author, a Golfweek senior hand, provides some very good information but it's often couched in a sermon to the converted. He presumes too much. Only experienced players will get the jokes or understand the references.
He does a great job, though, on recalling famous and infamous applications of the rules. One easily forgotten, the Solheim Cup affair, that reduced one of the game's best players to tears, was regrettable, if it did hold to the letter of the law.
Willie Nelson's classic, novel interpretations are deservingly highlighted. The best may be the one that goes, any ball that doesn't hit the ground can be caught and replayed without penalty.
Another highlight: International Management Group founder Mark McCormack offers business insights from golf. Those who insist on putting out gimmes, he believes, are hard to do business favors for. He's also found that those quick to accept a gimme will, away from the course, take a favor but only because they expect it. Good stuff if somewhat beyond the ken of most dummies.
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How to Quit Golf
A 12-Step Program
By Craig Brass
Dutton, 2001
ISBN: 0-525-94629-2, $19.95
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In which a Michigan financial consultant takes a turn at literary stand-up. The jokes sadly schtick to the floor like Kool-Aid to linoleum.
If this description of a sandbagger strikes you as even remotely humorous -"a self-absorbed, spineless weasel, who needs to become the mating interest of a 900-pound Gorilla named Nunchuck" - you're in luck.
He is right on one count. Golf is mistaken for many things that it's not, "a metaphor for life…a subset of some highly enlightened, Zen-based eastern religion that if mastered will bring you closer to total consciousness. It doesn't offer a glimpse inside your, or anyone else's, soul." Agreed. No, it's just a game.
Quitting the game is legitimate grist for consideration. We've all done it. Better golfers who walk away for good undoubtedly have their reasons. We should not be surprised. They do it quietly without remorse. If they're suffering, they don't let on. A club pro friend upon his retirement was showered with a staff bag and a gleaming new set of irons. Everyone cooed. Three years hence, the clubs are still unwrapped. He could care less. Interesting, isn't it? The way golf passes from those who know it all too well. Finally, one day, the urge simply evaporates, I'm guessing.
Perhaps they share Henry Longhurst's experience - an inner voice that suggests, "You don't have to do this." He thought, "No, by God, I don't," and recalled feeling a "great wave of relief."
He added: "Nor have I for one second regretted it."
The day he quit was noted, though, which is interesting. Why bother were it not significant? It's almost a whiff of defiance, as if he were tracking his time "off the wagon."
Of the 12 steps - and this must be tempered as it comes from someone apparently still deep in denial - I'm afraid not one struck me as amusing. Golf jokes are like that, always hit or miss.
Light Reading - Edition I
Light Reading - Edition II
Light Reading - Edition III
Light Reading - Edition IV
Light Reading - Edition V
Light Reading - Edition VI
Light Reading - Edition VII
Light Reading - Edition VIII
Light Reading - Edition IX
Light Reading - Edition X
Light Reading - Edition XI
Light Reading - Edition XII
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