The Life and Work of Dr. Alister Mackenzie

The Sleeping Bear Press is a specialty publisher based in Michigan that focuses on the publication of high-quality children’s books. Prior to their focus on children’s books, Sleeping Bear Press also focused on high-end golf related books including The Confidential Guide to Golf, The Scrapbook of Old Tom Morris, and The Captain: George C. Thomas. One of the other golf books they published prior to their switch to children’s only fits the same mold as the others (well researched, high quality and beautifully produced) was The Life and Work of Dr. Alister Mackenzie, published in 2001.

The book was the work of three people: Tom Doak, the golf course architect. James S. Scott, a retired physician/professor from England and Raymund M. Haddock, a stepgrandson of Alister Mackenzie. The book is a biography of Dr. Mackenzie, the designer of Cypress Point, Augusta National, Royal Melbourne, Crystal Downs, Lahinch and Pasatiempo.

The book is chocked full of vintage black and white a color photos of both Mackenzie at various times throughout his life and of his golf courses. It also includes copies of letters and other correspondence written by Mackenzie.

The appendix includes a list of every course designed or renovated by Mackenzie. We all know the obvious courses because they are so famous. What I found interesting is that Mackenzie designed over 65 courses around the world including courses in Uruguay and Argentina and Canada and redesigned over 20 courses.

Copies of architectural plans or hole designs for many of his courses are included in the book including The Valley Club of Montecito near Santa Barbara. There are also extensive period black and white pictures of the Valley Club, a real beauty.

As an example of the depth of research involved in the book is a detailed drawing of a proposed suspension bridge Mackenzie thought about putting in on the 18th hole at Cypress Point. Cypress has an unbelievably spectacular set of finishing holes along the water starting at the 13th green through the 18th tee. The 18th teeing ground features Monterey bay at your back. There is a rocky outcropping in Big Sur about fifty yards further back from the current tee. Caddies always mention that Mackenzie had wanted to put a tee back there, which you are never quite sure whether it is true or urban legend. Mackenzie’s detailed drawing of a bridge puts to rest any doubt about whether this was seriously considered. Obviously, it was. Too bad it was not put it, it would have make the finish at Cypress even more dramatic than it is. It was rejected because it was felt (probably rightly) that the bridge could not withstand the frequent winter storms that the Monterey Peninsula gets.

 

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The Crosby – aka “The Clambake”

Being obsessive about both the game and collecting golf books, today we focus on a little know and obsure book “The Crosby: Greatest Show in Golf” published in 1975 by Doubleday and written by Dwayne Netland. The book focuses on a tournament rich with history and tradition, whose origins are sometimes overlooked.

The Crosby, otherwise known as “The Clambake” was a Pro-Am tournament hosted by Bing Crosby and first played in 1937 at the Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club. The first event featured both Fred Astaire and Zeppo Marx as amateur players. The Pro-Am continued at Rancho Santa Fe until World War II. The 1939 Pro-Am featured the only husband and wife team to play together with “Babe” Didrickson Zaharias playing with her husband George.

After the Second World War the tournament moved to the Monterey Peninsula and was originally played over three courses: Cypress Point, Pebble Beach and Monterey Peninsula Country Club. During these years Ben Hogan shot an incredible 63 during a practice round at Cypress Point during the 1949 tournament. It’s too bad they don’t play at Cypress any more since the couse has obtained legendary status it would be nice to see it on TV played by the best players in the world.

The field at  “the Crosby,” now the “AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am” has always been star-studded and has included Bob Hope, James Garner, Clint Eastwood, Jack Lemmon, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Sean Connery and Joe DiMaggio.

The picture below is from the 1956 Crosby which was the last competitive appearance in a tournament for both Ben Hogan and Bing Crosby.

The pro-am is still played today over the Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill and Poppy Hills golf courses. Poppy Hills will be eliminated from the rotation in future years in favor of the restored “Shore” course at  Monterey Peninsula Country Club. Back to the future, which is good, restoring two out of three of the original courses. Maybe there is hope that Cypress will return one day to the rotation.

This book takes you through the rich history of this famous event and includes many interesting pictures such as the one above of Sam Snead with a full head of hair playing at the 1938 Crosby at Rancho Santa Fe.

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Golf Book Prices Peaked in 2006-2007

We’ve been tracking golf book prices for a long time and find it amusing to try to gauge general price direction, which can be tricky. A good way to do it is to track prices of truly rare and unique items such as the 1863 book Historical Gossip About Golf and Golfers, by a Golfer. A Golfer was the pen name of George Robb.

If we follow the price progression below from the last twelve years:

May 1997 $9,200, missing original green wrappers
June 1998, $8,050, missing original green wrappers
July 2006, $18,400 in very good condition
January 2007, $18,300 in very good condition
February 2007, $11,500 in fine condition
August 2009, $13,200, in very good to near fine condition

When adjusting for the differences in condition, the price trend clearly indicates that in late 2006 and early 2007, prices were at their peak. We have seen this trend repeated with other rare and collectable titles such as the limited, signed edition of Bobby Jones’s Down the Fairway.

Like it or not, the price of rare golf books, like most things that are collectable, track the broader markets in the real world: the stock market and the real estate market.  The reason is pretty obvious, with prices rising and people feeling good about the future, they indulge in the finer things in life like a quality golf book.

A ten year view of the stock market, above.

It should come as no surprise that prices go up and prices go down. We remain long term bullish on the value of scarce and collectable golf books that are truly rare. With the growth of big economies in Asia and the emerging markets,  and a whole new generation of duffers taking up the game, demand should remain strong. The growth of the internet has made price transparency painfully clear. This has resulted in a big divergence between books that were thought to be rare but really are not and the genuine items.

Viewed in the long term, today’s bargain prices are an opportunity for a collector to pick up some rare golf books at favorable prices, before the next up cycle begins.

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Royal Blackheath Golf Books

Royal Blackheath has the distinction of being the oldest golf club in the world, having been instituted in 1608. Blackheath is an area in southeast London, centered around a section of open public grassland (‘the Heath’) and straddling the boundary of the London Borough of Lewisham and the London Borough of Greenwich.

William Innes, Captain of Royal Blackheath in 1778

The club’s first course consisted of just five holes on Blackheath itself, with three circuits, that is, 15 holes constituting a round. The course was extended to seven holes in 1844. The club departed the Heath in 1923, merging with Eltham Golf Club some three miles away. An important distinction to note is that Blackheath does not lay claim to being the oldest course (that would be the Old Course at St. Andrews), simply the oldest club.

It’s amazing to think that a golf club can celebrate its 400th anniversary, which is precisely what Royal Blackheath is doing. To commemorate this milestone a newly published book 400 Years of the Blackheath Goffer 1608-2008 has just been published in a limited edition of 400 copies: 100 of the Subscriber’s Edition and 300 of the Club Edition.

The book is edited by Neil Scaife and designed by John Nash. It has more than 450 images and runs 224 pages. Clubs in the U.K. are bestowed a ‘royal’ designation by a patron. In the case of Royal Blackheath, the patron is HRH Price Andrew, the Duke of York. The Club Edition are signed by the author and the Subscriber’s Edition are signed by the author, the Royal Blackheath Captain and the Field Marshal.

We recommend this book highly as it is an important club in the history of the game and the quality of its production is stunning. The quality and layout of the illustrations in the book is second to none and takes full advantage of the rich history of this important golf club. The book has a chapter title “The Club’s Treasures” which is quite something. Only a handful of golf clubs can offer such a rich set of paintings, medals, trophies, clubs, jackets, books and illustrations spanning four centuries.

Previously, there were two other books published about Royal Blackheath: Chronicles of Blackheath Golfers with Illustrations and Portraits was the first book written about Royal Blackheath. It was edited by W.E. Hughes and published in 1897 by Chapman and Hall. This book is the first known club history and is rare. The book consists primarily of notes and minutes from the club’s record books.

Royal Blackheathwas published in 1981 and written by Ian T. Henderson and David I. Stirk. It was published in three editions. A limited edition of 100 issued in gilt stamped leather and a slipcase. Each of these copies of the book is signed. The book was simultaneously issued in a standard trade edition with a dust jacket. A second revised edition was published in 1995.

What was it like playing the original Blackheath course in London? Horace Hutchinson writing in Golf: The Badminton Library in 1894 gives this brilliant description of the original course at Blackheath: “Long powerful driving, and strength in jerking from heavy lies, are the main requisites for success at Blackheath, of which, as of Wimbledon, it may be said that it is a wonderful substitute for golf so near to London, and so surrounded by houses. At Blackheath, the historic, flinty links you are allowed to play every day of the week; but golf is practically given over on Saturday afternoons in favour of the winter footballers and summer cricketers. Blackheath, moreover, is the only links on which you habitually play with a fore-caddy, who runs ahead with a red flag, as if you were a traction engine, to scare away the nursemaids and to see that your ball is not stolen by a boys’ school. In addition to these living hazards, the chief obstacles are lamp-posts, wooden seats, and roads, and footpaths.”

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Sales of Rare Golf Books

Sometimes it is difficult to explain why a rare golf book sells for any given price. Case in point is the truly rare The Golfer’s Manual written by A Keen Hand, which was the  nom de plume for Henry Broughman Farnie. The book was published in 1857 in Scotland and was the first book devoted entirely to golf related prose .

A copy sold at auction this past August for a very impressive price of $15,600. The copy was rated to be in fine condition. A copy in very good condition sold for $9,775 in 2003, a difference in price of almost $6,000. Some of the difference in price can be attributed to the condition and some to price inflation between 2003 and 2009.

We think it also illustrates the power of an auction sale when a truly rare item comes up for sale. We’ve tracked only four sales of the rare first edition over the last 15 years. When two bidders really want to get a copy of a rare book it drives the price up to a record sales price.

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Greatest Selling Golf Books of All Time

What is the greatest selling golf book of all time? We were curious on this question recently so did some un-scientific research to find out. Getting accurate information from publishers proved difficult so we did some research the old fashioned way. We looked on-line for golf books with the greatest number of used copies for sale as a rough proxy to the number of books published. The results based on these rankings are listed below:

1. Goldfinger, Ian Fleming, 1959
2. Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book, Harvey Penick, 1992
3. Murder on the Links, Agatha Christie, 1923
4. Golf My Way, Jack Nicklaus, 1974
5. And If You Play Golf You’re My Friend, Harvey Penick, 1993
6. Chicken Soup for the Golfers Soul, Jack Canfield, 1999
7. Golf in the Kingdom, Michael Murphy, 1972
8. Golf Dreams, John Updike, 1996
9. Clicking of Cuthbert, P.G. Wodehouse, 1922
10. The Golf Omnibus, P.G. Wodehouse, 1973
11.Five Lessons of Golf, Ben Hogan,1957
12. How I Play Golf , Tiger Woods, 2001
13.Down the Fairway, Bobby Jones, 1927
14. Golf is not a game of Perfect, Bob Rotella, 1995
15. Haunted Major Robert Marshall, 1902

What does the list tell us about golfers? Two things, we think: First, that we like fiction. Six of the top fifteen are mysteries or fictional books. While we know it’s a stretch to include Goldfinger and Murder on the Links on the list since they have a minimal amount of golf content, we still count them because the major golf book bibliographies such as Donovan & Jerris catalog them as such.

The second thing it tells us is that we need a lot of help in both our golf swing and with psychology. Seven of the top fifteen books relate to instruction or managing the mental side of the game. This shouldn’t be a surprise. Some of the best selling non-golf books are self-help or weight-loss books. You need to be an optimist to play this game and we all hope there is a secret around the corner to magically take a couple of strokes off our game.

Although it didn’t make the rankings, an honorable mention goes to Harry Vardon’s How to Play Golf, originally published in 1912. The book was issued in more than nineteen separate editions through 1926 alone, and in more than twenty-five total editions counting modern reprints, making it one of the most popular instruction books of all time.

If you have additional information on popular golf titles, please share it with us.

Recent High Profile Golf Book Sales

A very rare copy of Charles Blair Macdonald’s Scotland’s Gift sold at auction recently for a seemingly  impressive $6,000.

Macdonald was a founding member of the U.S.G.A. and designed The National Golf Links of America in Southampton, Chicago Golf Club and The Mid Ocean Club. He wrote Scotland’s Gift in 1928 in two editions: A standard trade edition, which is difficult to find, but not exceedingly rare. The other edition is quite rare and is a limited edition of only 260 copies. This version of the book was signed by Macdonald and was issued with a gold slipcase.

The copy recently sold had the slipcase present and included a hand written letter from Macdonald penned on letterhead from Old Battery Mangrove Lake in Bermuda.

While $6,000 is a nice price, it is actually a bargain price based on prior sales. In 2006, a copy of the limited edition sold for $8,625 without the slipcase and last year copies sold for $13,800 with the slipcase and $11,400 without.

Clearly, even collectable golf books are not immune to the recession. Although when Joe Murdoch auctioned off his collection in 1998 a copy with a slipcase sold for $3,450,  we remain of the firm belief that the buyer who picked up the copy for $6,000 made an excellent long term purchase and came close to stealing a copy of this rare gem.

Charles Blair Macdonald

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Bernard Darwin

We’ve been writing reviews of antiquarian and collectible golf books for almost five years and haven’t written about Bernard Darwin yet. Oops!

Bernard Darwin was the grandson of the famous evolutionist Charles Darwin and the most prolific author in the history of the game. If you exclude club books, of which Darwin wrote more than 50, he contributed over thirty-five books to the golfer’s library. Darwin wrote for both the Times of London and Country Life. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge and later in life would be named a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for his work, and served as Captain of the R & A in 1934. His writing is always enthusiastic and his longevity was impressive, having written about golf for over fifty years in a tireless fashion. We will repeat what is often said about Darwin, which is that he was simply a great writer who happened [luckily for us] to write about golf.

 

Darwin’s oeuvre can seem daunting for the collector to tackle. Below we offer a summary of his vast work. We begin with his first book and one of the greatest pieces of golfing literature ever published: The Golf Courses of the British Isles, published in 1910. The book is a tour-de-force and one of the cornerstone books of any collection. His The Golf Courses of Great Britain, published in 1925, is essentially a second edition of the 1910 original.

Many of Darwin’s books were compilations of his writings from newspapers and magazines. These are:

o Tee Shots and Others (1911) – a collection or articles from Evening Standard
o Golf from the Times (1912) – a collection of 10 essays from the Times
o Bernard Darwin and Aberdovey – a collection of 23 essays from the Times and Country Life
o A Friendly Round (1922) – a collection of 24 essays from the Times
o The Game’s Afoot! (1926) – an anthology of sports, games and the open air
o Second Shots (1930) – a collection of 34 pieces from the Times
o Out of the Rough (1932) – a collection of 49 pieces from the Times and Country Life
o Playing the Like (1934) – a collection of articles from the Times and Country Life
o Rubs of the Green (1936) – a collection of 39 pieces from the Times and Country Life
o Golfing by Paths (1946) – a collection of 58 articles from Country Life
o Golf: Pleasures of Life Series (1954) – an anthology of Darwin’s writings

 

Darwin’s historical works are:

o A Golfer’s Gallery of Old Masters (1920) which is a limited edition book of 500 copies and contains eighteen reproductions of golf related paintings from the 16th-19th centuries. Darwin wrote the introduction to the book.
o Present Day Golf (1921) was written with George Duncan and is an instructional book
o A Round of Golf on the L&NER (1924) is a promotional book written for the London & North Eastern Railway highlighting courses along the route
o Six Golfing Shots by Six Famous Players (1927) is a 46 page promotional brochure
o Golf Between Two Wars (1944) covers the period 1918-1938
o British Golf (1946) is a look at golf clubs in Great Britain
o James Braid (1952) is a biography of this Open Championship winner

Seinfeld was famous for being a television show about nothing. The same can be said about two of Darwin’s non-golf books, which cover a variety of topics:

o Pack Clouds Away (1941) has some biographical elements
o Every Idle Dream (1948)

 

Darwin wrote three autobiographical works:

o Green Memories (1928)
o Life is Sweet Brother (1940)
o The World That Fred Made (1955)

Value and scarcity

As with other golf books, the elements that make Darwin’s works collectible are no different: early first editions are sought after; as are copies with good copies of dust jacket and those signed by the author. In roughly descending order, collectible Darwin books are listed below. A Darwin signature adds somewhere between $200-$300 dollars.

o Golf Courses of the British Isles is generally worth in the range of $1,000 to $2,000. The book was issued with an exceeding rare gray dust jacket. Copies with the jacket present are worth four or fives times this amount.
o A Golfer’s Gallery of Old Masters is worth at least $1,000 with all eighteen prints present
o Rubs of the Green, Green Memories, Tee Shots and Others and Playing the Like are worth $400-$500 or up to $1,500 with a dust jacket
o Golf from the Times – $1,000
o A Friendly Round – $500
o A Round of Golf on the L&NER – $350-$400

Recommended Books

How do you narrow down the daunting body of work Bernard Darwin produced? We have attempted to distill his works down to three gems. Certainly, not everyone will agree with us, although the good news is that it is hard to go wrong with any of Darwin’s work. Many of his works were reprinted in later editions for those interested in simply reading his work, rather than collecting them.

Golf Courses of the British Isles – A cornerstone book for any golf collector. An added bonus with this book is the hand drawn illustrations by Harry Rowntree.

A Round of Golf on the L&NER – Don’t be fooled by a book written to promote the railroad. This little gem contains some brilliant writing. It features a short review of twenty-courses, but distills Darwin down to his essence. Writing about the quirky holes at Cruden Bay he says “…at the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth holes the most elderly and phlegmatic persons will pant up to the top of the bank like two-year-olds to see what has befallen their ball on the far side.”

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You’ve Got Balls!

How could it be that the first book devoted exclusively to golf balls was published the year Robert de Vicenzo suffered one of the cruelest of all fates, signing the wrong scorecard in the 1968 Masters? Our sport has a long, rich history of literature, yet we had to wait until the year Bob Goalby won the Masters for a book dedicated to that maddening little sphere we chase around. Subsequently, two additional books have been published, all three featured into today’s review.

The Curious History of the Golf Ball: mankind’s most fascinating sphere was written by John Stuart Martin in 1968 and published in two editions. The book is 192 pages in total, 32 of which are black and white photos. The standard trade edition is generally available for under $50. The signed, limited edition of the book was published in 500 copies with a slipcase and each was signed by Martin. Generally, copies of these are much more expensive, selling in the $200-$400 range.

The Golf Ball Book by Udo Machat and Larry Dennis was published in 2000 and also issued in two editions. A “Collector’s Edition” was published in a limited edition of 100, each signed by Machat. This version of the book was issued with a special white cloth slipcase with an embossed metal label. The standard trade edition was issued simply with a dust jacket. The book is illustrated with about 175 color photographs of rare golf balls from private collections. The book traces the evolution of the golf ball, including theories on early golf balls. The book is very high quality and has the most images of balls of all three of the books.

The Story of the Golf Ball was written by Kevin W. McGimpsey and was published in 2003 in four separate editions. The special “green” edition was issued as a limited set of 125. The limitation numbers for the green edition are from 51-100; 151-200 and 226-250. There was also a “Maroon” edition, issued as a limited set of 125 with the limitation numbers 1-50; 101-150 and 201-225.

The most limited of the “limited” editions is a “blue” version, which was limited to only twenty copies. All the limited edition books are signed by McGimpsey and come with Kaduna goatskin slipcases. The book was also published simultaneously in a standard trade edition with a dustjacket. All four editions contain the same content.

Over 3,000 balls are listed and described in detail with dates, characteristics, original selling price and values today based on hundreds of auction realized prices. The book is 288 pages in total with 32 pages of color illustrations.

 

 

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Coming Attractions…

This Fall looks like it will be kind to those of us who obsess about this great game. We take a look ahead at high quality golf books soon to be published.

Masters of Design: The Golf Courses of Colt, Mackenzie, Alison and Morrison written by Peter Pugh and Henry Lord is scheduled to be published in November by Icon Books

In the world of golf, just as certain courses have achieved iconic status – Pine Valley, Augusta National, Huntingdale, Princes – so are their respective creators, Harry Colt, Alister MacKenzie, CH Alison and JF Morrison equally revered. “Masters of Design” pays homage to these four great sculptors of the land, blending lively anecdotes and atmospheric history with spectacular photographs that evoke glories of playing the fairways of many of the world’s finest golf courses. From the dramatic sea-scoured headlands of Cypress Point in California to the tranquility of Japan’s Hiron Club, this book displays golf’s internationally renowned venues alongside unsung courses of subtlety and beauty. Furthermore, each of these design masterpieces reveals fascinating stories about their architects that will enlighten all golfers about an extraordinary legacy left to the game.

We are also very happy to see a follow-on book to the fabulous Planet Golf: The Definitive Reference to Great Golf Courses Outside the United States of America.

Planet Golf USA: The Definitive Reference to Great Golf Courses in America written by Darius Oliver is scheduled to be published in September by Abrams.

A companion volume to Abrams’ hugely successful Planet Golf, which Golf Magazine called “absolutely superb, a stunning achievement,” this gorgeous book features superb photographs and detailed reviews of more than 140 of America’s finest golf courses, making it the most comprehensive directory ever published on the nation’s outstanding layouts. Included are reviews of every Top 100 ranked course in the United States, according to Golf Digest and Golf Magazine, including Augusta National, Cypress Point, Pine Valley, Shinnecock Hills, Pebble Beach, Whistling Straits, Oakmont, the National, Winged Foot, Pacific Dunes, Bandon Dunes, Oakland Hills, Medinah, and many more.

Author Darius Oliver, a regular contributor to golf rating panels, visited every course he reviews in this book and provides readers with a detailed ratings section that outlines the best, hardest, and most dramatic golf courses and golf holes in the country, as well as a unique Planet Golf World 100 ranking that selects the 100 finest courses on the planet and is sure to generate much interest and discussion.

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