BrettM
17th April 2011, 04:10 PM
To be played and enjoyed in the true spirit of the gentlemen's game. To kick it off, I'd like to paste a brilliant piece from Max Behr, The Democracy of Golf, Golf Illustrated, October 1915, posted in an excellent history of life and work of William Flynn I bought recently:
The game of golf, if it is anything at all, is a sanctuary, a well where one may refresh oneself by the very fact that the game enshrouds one with a cloak of democracy. Not only are all men equal upon the links, not only are social and worldly distinctions laid aside, but, the game itself has the peculiar faculty of removing that veneer of convention, pride and vanity, which some men are wont to lay around them.
"If you want to know your man, play golf with him."
And it is because the game reduces man to his simple natural state, lays his very soul open to the world, that there is inculcated among golfers a spirit of pity, forgiveness and wise toleration, but, above all, brotherly kindness. What other game has this humanizing property? None that we know of. They are all of them direct assertions of will and skill in direct opposition to the tasks set by an opponent. There is never time, for instance, in a rally at tennis for true reflection; all is intuition, for one's best laid plan of attack is open to defeat by the countering of one's opponent. But, in golf, no stroke of the opponent can imperil a man's skill. He is his own master. And because he stands so very alone, so absolutely dependent upon himself that we are given an insight into what manner of man he is. That is why golf has been compared to life. A man rises and falls in the world at those critical points of his career where he alone can make a decision. He then plunges into the whirl of the world until again he finds himself upon a desert island of doubt and must decide. But a golf match is always a desert isle for him. Every shot is only a peg to an uncertain future. Luck, good and bad, he knows awaits him. What sudden inexorable task his opponent may set by a brilliant stroke lies hidden in the mists ahead. All he can do is to stride bravely forward and manfully accept the situations that confront him one hole after another.
It is possible in this way to look upon golf as a game of character and the skill necessary to play it as the means to its revealment. And the revelation leads to humbleness, the only state of mind in which true values may be arrived at. Weakness is no longer scorned and laughed at. It is seen to be inherent in all. It is only the man who makes excuses who puts himself out of court. The strong man admits his failings on the spot and is happy to know just how and where he may school himself for the future. And so the game of golf enforces a spirit of charity, for we must give if we expect charity in return for failings we cannot hide. The duffer and the scratch player stand here on equal ground. And, although one may far exceed the other in skill he may yet lag behind in character, the only foundation upon which skill in golf can achieve a high position and sustain itself there.
Fore.
The game of golf, if it is anything at all, is a sanctuary, a well where one may refresh oneself by the very fact that the game enshrouds one with a cloak of democracy. Not only are all men equal upon the links, not only are social and worldly distinctions laid aside, but, the game itself has the peculiar faculty of removing that veneer of convention, pride and vanity, which some men are wont to lay around them.
"If you want to know your man, play golf with him."
And it is because the game reduces man to his simple natural state, lays his very soul open to the world, that there is inculcated among golfers a spirit of pity, forgiveness and wise toleration, but, above all, brotherly kindness. What other game has this humanizing property? None that we know of. They are all of them direct assertions of will and skill in direct opposition to the tasks set by an opponent. There is never time, for instance, in a rally at tennis for true reflection; all is intuition, for one's best laid plan of attack is open to defeat by the countering of one's opponent. But, in golf, no stroke of the opponent can imperil a man's skill. He is his own master. And because he stands so very alone, so absolutely dependent upon himself that we are given an insight into what manner of man he is. That is why golf has been compared to life. A man rises and falls in the world at those critical points of his career where he alone can make a decision. He then plunges into the whirl of the world until again he finds himself upon a desert island of doubt and must decide. But a golf match is always a desert isle for him. Every shot is only a peg to an uncertain future. Luck, good and bad, he knows awaits him. What sudden inexorable task his opponent may set by a brilliant stroke lies hidden in the mists ahead. All he can do is to stride bravely forward and manfully accept the situations that confront him one hole after another.
It is possible in this way to look upon golf as a game of character and the skill necessary to play it as the means to its revealment. And the revelation leads to humbleness, the only state of mind in which true values may be arrived at. Weakness is no longer scorned and laughed at. It is seen to be inherent in all. It is only the man who makes excuses who puts himself out of court. The strong man admits his failings on the spot and is happy to know just how and where he may school himself for the future. And so the game of golf enforces a spirit of charity, for we must give if we expect charity in return for failings we cannot hide. The duffer and the scratch player stand here on equal ground. And, although one may far exceed the other in skill he may yet lag behind in character, the only foundation upon which skill in golf can achieve a high position and sustain itself there.
Fore.