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.

Visit our website for valuable and collectable golf books.

Piping Rock Golf Club

U.S.G.A. founding member Charles Blair Macdonald is most famously known for the course he designed on the eastern end of Long Island: The National Golf Links of America, and for his beautiful course in Bermuda: the Mid Ocean Club. Macdonald also designed another beautiful course on Long Island’s North Shore: Piping Rock Club.

Opened in 1912, Macdonald designed the course with the assistance of Seth Raynor, who he often worked with. Piping Rock is located in the über-affluent town of Locust Valley, New York. Piping Rock is a very private club and has never published a club history and seeks no publicity. As our regular readers know, on occasion, we like to focus on obscure and lesser known golf books. This month our focus is on an early club book for the Piping Rock Club, issued a year after it opened in 1913.

 

 This small, fifty-one page book offers some interesting insight into golf in the early part of the 20th century. Today, titans of industry, leaders in business and captains of finance belong to Augusta National. Seminole Golf Club held this position in the 1930s and 1940s. The Piping Rock Club was the Augusta or Seminole of its day.

The book contains a certificate of incorporation, list of officers, rules, by-laws and most importantly a list of members. The list is a who’s who of prominent people from the pre-war era.

A postcard from the 1910s capturing the glamour of Piping Rock

To better understand the membership at Piping Rock, a little history is in order. The Piping Rock Club is not dedicated exclusively to golf, although golf is a central feature. When it opened, the club also featured polo, trap shooting and tennis. I have been fortunate enough to play Piping Rock and a unique feature you notice immediately is the oversized driving range, which was previously the polo field. Bill Quirin writes in Golf Clubs of the MGA that Macdonald was never particularly happy with his overall design at Piping Rock because he had to work around the polo field. Piping Rock contains many holes typical of Macdonald courses such as a Redan hole, Road hole and a Biarritz hole.

A sampling of Piping Rock’s 466 members is listed below and gives a good indication of the type of membership it had when it opened:

Golf

o Charles B. Macdonald
o Charles H. Sabin, co-founder of the National Golf Links, prominent banker
o Devereux Emmett, amateur golfer and architect
o Theodore Havemeyer, the U.S.G.A’s first president
o Howard F. Whitney, secretary of U.S.G.A.
o H.J. Whigham, Macdonald’s son-in-law

Finance

o J.P. Morgan, Jr.
o Benjamin Strong, Jr., first president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
o Percy Chubb, co-founder of the insurance company
o Mortimer L. Schiff, banker and early leader of the Boy Scouts

The Arts

o Louis C. Tiffany, stained glass
o Frank N Doubleday, publishing
o Condé Nast, publishing

Industry

o William L. Harkness, Standard Oil
o Charles H. Pratt, Frederic B. Pratt, George D. Pratt, Harold I. Pratt, Standard Oil heirs and philanthropists
o Henry Phipps, Carnegie Steel

Politicians and Philanthropists

o Theodore Roosevelt, listed as an Honorary Member
o W. Averell Harriman, future New York Governor
o Payne Whitney, patron of the New York Public Library
o Alfred G. Vanderbilt. Alfred G. Vanderbilt would die two years later as a passenger on the RMS Lusitania (first class, of course) as it was sunk en route to Liverpool
o Cornelius Vanderbilt
o William Vincent Astor
o William W. Aldrich, future ambassador to Great Britain

Golf Books by A.W. Tillinghast

 

Albert Warren (A.W.) Tillinghast was born in north Philadelphia in 1874. As one of the golden age of golf architecture’s prime figures, his golf course designs are among the best in the word: San Francisco Golf Club, Bethpage, Baltusrol, Winged Foot, Baltimore, Somerset Hills and Quaker Ridge. According to a synopsis by Daniel Wexler in The Book of Golfers, Tillinghast was poorly educated and ran a street gang, dropped out of school and skipped college. Despite this, Tillinghast also made a significant contribution to the golfer’s library with his fictional writing.

Cobble Valley Golf Yarns and Other Sketches was written in 1915 and was published by Philadelphia Printing. As Tillinghast describes in the introduction to Cobble Valley Yarns: “Somewhere, nestled among the hills of Everywhere, is Homesburg, and there, too, is the golf course of Cobble Valley. The Links differ from others, just as they all do, but, after all, the people there are very like those of every other section. In the stories contained in this volume the author has attempted an analysis of human nature.”

The book contains nineteen short stories about golf. Although Tillinghast’s writing would never be confused with that of P.G. Wodehouse, the book is relatively scarce and is worth between $300-$500 in good condition.

The Mutt and other Golf Yarns (A New Cobble Valley Series), was privately printed in two editions in 1925. The standard trade edition was published with a red cloth cover. While this edition was not issued with the author’s signature, Tillinghast signed many copies. A standard trade edition is worth a couple of hundred dollars. Copies of either Cobble Valley or The Mutt signed by Tillinghast increase the value by about $1,000.

The Mutt was also published in a limited edition of 250 copies, hand-numbered and signed by Tillinghast. This book was produced in a much nicer green embossed binding. This version of the book is extremely rare and sells for between $5,000 and $7,500.

Planning a Golf Course was published circa 1917 and is by far the rarest Tillinghast publication. It is essentially a prospectus for his golf course design firm and is 24 pages and soft cover, measuring 8 ½ inches x 3 ½ inches. It contains illustrations from drawings. The only copy seen at auction in the last twenty years sold for an eye-popping $14,400 earlier this year.

It’s really too bad that Tillinghast didn’t do more non-fiction writing along the lines of Robert Hunter’s The Links or Alister Mackenzie’s Golf Architecture. As one of the undisputed great architects of the game, it would have been nice to have learned more about his thought process regarding design.

Golf Holes They Talk About

We have been tracking the prices of antiquarian and collectable golf books for fifteen years and have compiled an extensive database of sale prices. Thus, we were delighted to see a rare item that sold at auction recently maintain its price. Only three other copies have sold at auction over the last fifteen years.

The book is Golf Holes They Talk About by Frank Hopkins, published in 1927. The book was published in a limited edition of 880 copies, each signed by Hopkins. The book contains reprints of sketches that “Hop” did on the sports pages of the New York Telegram during 1927.

The book has 60 drawings of the New York Metropolitan district golf courses all done by the author. Each illustration also mentions and shows notable members of each club. Some of the courses listed below either no longer exist or have been remodeled, thus, this book is a valuable historical record of golf in the New York area in the 1920s. Pictured below is the illustration of the 8th and 9th holes at Oakland Golf Course on Long Island. Oakland was a Seth Raynor design that was sadly lost, but looks spectacular.

The courses illustrated are :

Arcola – 14th hole  
Ardsley’s – 14th hole
Baltusrol – 4th Hole
Bonnie Briar – 13th hole
Brae Burn – 10th hole
Canoe Brook – 13th hole
Cherry Valley – 7th hole
Dunwoodie – 7th hole
Elmsford – 7th hole
Engineers – 14th hole
Englewood – 12th hole
Essex – 11th hole
Fox Hill – 8th hole
Fresh Meadow – 14th hole
Garden City – 18th hole
Glen Ridge – 9th and 13th holes
Grassy Sprain – 12th hole
Green Brook – 5th hole
Green Meadows – 6th hole
Greenwich – 10th hole
Hackmaxons – 9th hole
Hempstead – 11th hole
Hillcrest – 10th hole
Hudson River C.C. – 4th hole
Inwood – 12th hole
Knickerboker – 4th hole
Lakeville L.I. – 13th hole
Leewood – 16th hole
Lido – 4th hole
Meadow Brook – 10th hole
Milburn – 11th hole
Montclair – 24th of 27 holes
Nassau – 17th hole
Newark – 14th hole
Oakland – 8th and 9th holes
Old Flatbush – 1st hole
Oakridge – 6th hole
Pelham – 16th hole
Phelps Manor – 12th hole
Pomonok – 8th hole
Quaker Ridge – 4th and 5th holes
Richmond – 8th hole
Ridgewood – 4th and 5th holes
Rumson – 17th hole
St. Andrews – 5th hole
Scarsdale – 9th hole
Salisbury – 9th hole
Sleepy Hollow – 14th hole
Siwanoy – 16th hole
Soundview – 10th hole
Teterboro – 5th hole
Westchester – 5th hole
Wheatley Hills – 9th hole
White Beeches – 14th hole
Winged Foot – 7th hole
Wykagyl – 6th hole
Yountakah – 10th and 11th holes 

One of the courses that no longer exist include Charles Blair MacDonald’s Lido on Long Island. Hopkins illustrated the famous ‘Channel’ hole. Others include Pomonok, Englewood, Grassy Sprain, Hudson River, Newark, Salisbury and Soundview.

The book, in very good condition, sold for $900 and was accompanied by a signed letter from the author with a copy of an original sketch that appeared in the book.

The Oxford & Cambridge Golfing Society

The Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society, founded in 1898, is the oldest golfing society in the world. Known simply as The Society, its 700 members are mostly those who have gained their ‘blue’ by taking part in the annual university match. The Oxford and Cambridge Golfing society plays about thirty five matches each year and holds its match play competition each January at the Rye Golf Club in England, known as the President’s Putter at Rye. The format of the play at Rye is “foursomes”.

As the society states, “election to the Society is no automatic affair and each new member wears his tie of light and dark blue stripes upon a green background with great pride.” Many well known golf personalities have been members of the society including Bernard Darwin, Henry Longhurst, Harvey Pennick, Dickinson, H.S. Colt, C.H. Alison, H.S.C. Everard, Horace Hutchinson and Donald Steel.

Surprisingly, there have been six books published about The Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society, which tells you how serious this little-known society is.

The Oxford & Cambridge Golfing Society 100 Years of Serious Fun was published by Grant Books in 1997 in two different editions. The President’s Edition was published in a hand-numbered limited edition of 150 copies bound in half morocco at the bindery of Cedric Chivers. Each copy is signed by John Whitmore, the president of The Society and the editors: Peter Bathurst and John Behrend. This edition comes with a green slipcase with gilt titling. Slipped into the back pocket of this edition is a small twelve page facsimile booklet for the 1899 Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society, listing the club’s rules, members and a report. It is superbly done!

The book contains a chapter written by Herbert Warren Wind, who wrote about this special society for The New Yorker in 1972. As with all of Wind’s work, it is great.

There was also a limited edition version of the book published, with 750 copies issued with a dustjacket. Images of both the limited editions are seen above.

The Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society 1898-1948 was written by Eric Prain in 1949 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the society. The book was issued with a dust jacket, but copies with it present are difficult to find. It contains two parts: Part one includes ‘The Early Days’ and ‘Rye’ by Bernard Darwin, ‘The American Tour’ by H.W. Beveridge, ‘Tours Between the Wars’ by Eric Prain as well as contributions by a selection of authors on ‘Some Society Personalities’. Part two is comprised of lists of winners and runners-up and results of matches and tours.

The book was also published in a rare presentation copy of sheepskin leather. It is not known how many of each edition was printed

For hard core Oxonians or Cantabrigians

Oxford & Cambridge Golfing Society: the Presidents Putter 1947-1971, is a 25 page booklet privately printed in 1971 by Peter Bathurst.

John Littlewood published three books: The Society: Oxford & Cambridge Golfing Society. The President’s Putter, 50 Putters; 1920-1976, a Statistical Analysis. It was privately printed and is 32 pages. Apparently, it was such a popular piece that John published two more, covering the time periods 1920-1987 and 1920-2002, called 60 Putters and 75 Putters, respectively.

Bernard Darwin has written, “The Society achieves the complete and perfect fusion of Oxford and Cambridge. Once a man belongs to it we forget to which university we belonged.”

The website of valuable book

U.S.G.A. 2008 Book Award

“Tom Morris of St Andrews,” written by David Malcolm and Peter E. Crabtree was recently named winner of the 2008 U.S.G.A. Book Award.

We have previously written about this spectacular book and agree it is a worthy winner of the award.

Prior winners of the Herbert Warren Wind aware are:

2007 – Kevin Cook, Tommy’s Honor
2006 – James Finegan, Where Golf Is Great
2005 – John Strege, When War Played Through
2004 – James Dodson, Ben Hogan, An American Life
2003 – Phil Pilley, Heather and Heaven
2002 – Mark Frost, The Greatest Game Ever Played
2001 – Bradley S. Klein, Discovering Donald Ross: The Architect and His Golf Courses
2000 – Stephen Lowe, Sir Walter and Mr. Jones
1999 – David Owen, The Making of the Masters
1998 – Lawrence Donegan, Maybe It Should Have Been a Three-Iron
1997 – Davis Love III, Every Shot I Take
1992 – Rhonda Glenn, The Illustrated History of Women’s
1991 – Bobby Burnet, The St. Andrews Opens
1990 – Robert Trent Jones Sr. with Larry Dennis, Golf’s Magnificent Challenge
1989 – Phil Pilley, Golfing Art
1987 – Al Barkow, Getting to the Dance Floor

website of valuablebook

Seminole Golf Club History

 

The Story of Seminole was published in 2007 and was written by James Dodson with photographs by Joann Dost. This 180 page book was beautifully produced to celebrate the club’s 75th anniversary. The book has the Seminole logo on the cover in silver and this is repeated on the foil embossed blue protective slipcase. The book also comes with a French-fold dustjacket. Seminole was built in the 1920s as a winter course for wealthy northerners

The book includes beautiful color and black and white photos of the course, clubhouse, members, etc. The end of the book is a color spread which has a hole-by-hole analysis of all eighteen holes accompanied by pictures of each.

The book was produced in a limited edition of 3,000 (unnumbered) and is available only in the pro-shop when you visit Seminole. Seminole is not the type of course you call and ask for a tee time. It has one of the most exclusive memberships in America and can best be described as secretive.

Seminole is widely recognized a having the best locker room in the game. Unfortunately, most will never see it, except for the picture in the book:

 

From the book’s frontis: The Story of Seminole has been written and produced solely for the members of Seminole Golf Club and is not produced for commercial distribution. This book is for distribution by Seminole Golf Club and is available only through the club. This book is a scholarly work intended to commend on and/or preserve the history of Seminole Golf Club.

Please check our inventory as we have The Story of Seminole from time-to-time, although we’re not telling how we came upon the book!

 website of valuable book group

 

 

Alastair J. Johnston Library of Golf

Alastair J. Johnston is a Vice Chairman of IMG World, the sports entertainment and media agents for stars. IMG’s clients are some of the highest profile athletes in all of sport including TIger Woods, V.J. Singh, Arnold Palmer, Sergio Garcia and countless others.

Johnston is probably the most prolific golf book collector in the world. His collection rivals that of the largest collection in the world at the U.S.G.A. and before he is done, will probably be larger.  His collection has more than 16,000 volumes and his stated goal is to collect every golf book ever published. He began collecting in 1969 and adds about 600-700 new books each year.

Johnston has ocassionally published a bibliography of his collection. These are privately printed books in limited editons of 10. The bibliographies have become quite collectable in their own rite. A copy of Johnston’s 1997 bibliography sold for $1,265 at auction last year.

 

In addition to a massive golf book collection Johnston has also authored several golf books. His  epic golf book The Chronicles of Golf  regularly sells for more than $1,500.

Alastair is Scottish and speculation is that his collection will one day find a permanent home back in the birthplace of the game.

Valuable Book Group’s website

Your First Game of Golf by Hillinthorn

Your First Game of Golf was written by Gerald Hillinthorn and published by Day and Son, London in 1891.

It is a rare and important golf book as it is likely the first book of golf fiction not written in verse. Murdoch said it had “Amusing and colorful illustrations, offering tongue-in-cheek advice to the golfer, makes this book an attractive addition to any golf library”. The book is worth in the $1,500 – $2,000 range based on the limited number of auctions the book has sold at over the years.

The book is Chromolithographed throughout (full-page and within text) with humorous color illustrations. The book was lithographed in Holland by Emrik & Binger. The book is a soft cover oblong, 7¼ x 9¾, and is twenty-eight pages. As the cover hints at, the program is full of nicely drawn illustrations.

Day & Son was an early Victorian firm and one of the earliest involved in lithographic printing. The firm printed lithographs dealing with a wide range of subjects, such as hunting scenes, topographical views and genre depictions. Their lithographs were so meticulously conceived and technically advanced that in 1838, Day and Haghe were appointed ‘Lithographers to the Queen’. After William’s death in 1845, the firm became known as ‘Day & Son’ and in the mid-Victorian era it led the way as a pioneer of the recently developed medium of the lithograph printed in colors.

The final section of the book is a very humorous look at 12 different caricatures of candidates being considered for a club secretary.

1. Too simple looking
2. Too disagreeable looking
3. Too old
4. Too artistic looking
5. Too legal looking
6. Got a red beard
7. Too horsey looking
8. Not good enough
9. Too alarming looking
10. Too exquisite
11. Too Common-Place
12. Might do

website of valuablebook

Drives and Puts

Drives and Puts by Walter Camp and Lilian Brooks was published by L.C. Page in 1899. This book has one of the prettiest covers in the golf library. It is also unusual in that the word “putt” is spelled “put”. This is unusual because the spelling of the term “putt” had been firmly established by 1899. In fact, Hutchinson’s Golf in 1890 extensievly uses the word “Putt”.  Why they chose to spell it “Puts” remains a mystery.

The co-author of the book, Walter Camp is a famous American sportsman, generally known as the father of American football.

The book is a collection of short stories about golf…

In an interesting anomoly, L.C. Page also published another book with the same cover as Drives and Puts. We suppose they found it cheaper  to use the illustrated cover on multiple books rather than design new ones.  The cover of The Court at Harvard is seen below.

 

 

 

The covers were designed by Amy Sacker. In the late nineteenth century, book design in was evolving, as single-color, embossed covers gave way to more colorful designs reflecting the aesthetics of the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts movements. One region of the country where women book designers and other female artists were particularly prolific was the Boston area. It is in this setting that Amy Sacker developed her considerable skills, designing book covers for several local publishers, including Joseph Knight, Estes & Lauriat and its successor, L. C. Page & Co.[1]Sacker was a prolific illustrator, doing over 200 cover illustrations in her lifetime.

There is a slight variation to the cover of Drives and Puts, involving Sacker’s monogram. Under the man’s left foot you can see her signature styleized ‘S’ in the cover below. Drives and Puts sometimes has the monogram and sometimes it does not.

Despite it’s golf cover, The Count at Harvard is about a young man and his years at Harvard and includes no golfing content.

---

[1] Mark Schumacher, UNC Greensboro

website of valuable book group