A Slice of Golfing Literature Part 21: Gary Moran on a collection of Bernard Darwin's writings that brought a new interest to the world of golf
In an era of unprecedented prizemoney, the world's leading players can afford to barely bat an eyelid before turning down a place in the 12-man field who will carve up €3.2m in the HSBC World matchplay at Wentworth in October. Tiger Woods and the television viewers he draws are major reasons for the current affluence and today's millionaires can thank him and predecessors such as Arnold Palmer and Walter Hagen for their current rude wealth and bulging wallets.
The rewards are hardly the same but for golf writers the pioneer was surely Bernard Darwin (1876 - 1961) who was golf correspondent of The Times from 1907 - 1953. His immediate successor and obituary writer Pete Ryde observed that "when Darwin began to write, golf reporting was little more in the daily press than a list of figures at the bottom of a column; by the time of his retirement he had turned it into a branch of literary journalism."
Ryde also edited Mostly Golf, a collection of 48 pieces by Darwin which was first published in 1976 to mark the centenary of his birth. Some are straight reportage and cover everything from Francis Ouimet's landmark victory in the 1913 US Open to Bobby Jones' Grand Slam to Ben Hogan's victory at Carnoustie in his one and only British Open in 1953.
Had he been born even 50 years later, Darwin might have played in some of those events himself but professional golf was hardly the career for a graduate of Eton and Cambridge in the late 19th century.
He was good enough to represent England, twice made the semi-finals of the British Amateur Championship (while covering the tournament for The Times) and when the one of the players fell ill he swopped his typewriter for his clubs and won a singles match as a substitute in the 1922 Walker Cup.
Writing of Ouimet's famous win over Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, the partisan Darwin "felt like a war correspondent on some stricken field, sending home news of the annihilation of the British Army. But victory had been so glorious that no grudging of it was possible."
While the reportage is of historic interest, his more general pieces make for finer reading today. In Hydes and Jekylls he writes of golfers losing form, "contrasting with present and insipid methods the gorgeous driving of some unforgettable summer evening, when it did not seem to matter how we stood or how quickly we swung or even whether we looked at the ball."
In Giving Up The Game he observes that "no one likes it when he finds himself not as good as he was, but some dislike it much more acutely than others.
"Those whom I imagined going on for ever make a sudden break and those who, as it seemed, could hardly bear the descent, go philosophically topping and slicing down the hill".
His sense of humour comes out in When Slices Were Slices in which he takes a pop at Seymour Dunn, a well-known teaching professional in America and author of Standardised Golf Instruction.
Dunn defined six types of slice. Darwin took his hat off to him, "being careful to do so in a graceful curve from the inside out."
Mostly Golf is an accurate title for this anthology which contains several pieces on other topics. Having studied law, Darwin maintained a keen interest in murder trials.
He wrote one book on prize-fighting and another on the cricketer WG Grace as well as several works for children.
He was awarded the CBE in 1937 for his contribution to literature and sport and served as captain of the Royal and Ancient in 1934.
