Al Capone Was a Golfer: Hundred of Fascinating Facts from the World of Golf (Totally Riveting Utterly Entertaining Trivia) - Softcover

Barrett, Erin; Mingo, Jack

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1573247200 ISBN 13: 9781573247207

Publisher: Conari Press, 2002

Synopsis

What is it about the game of golf that can cause otherwise normal folks to lose all perspective? More than one person has seen their loved one become consumed with the details of the quality of wood used in clubs, or the type of cleats on their shoes. What is it about the game of golf that can cause otherwise normal folks to lose all perspective? More than one person has seen their loved one become consumed with the details of the quality of wood used in clubs, the type of cleats on their shoes, the distance between their feet, and the direction of the wind, not to mention statistics, statistics, statistics. Featuring more than 500 facts about the sport that Paul Harvey describes as "a game in which you shout 'fore, ' shoot six, and write down five." Readers learn that experts believe shepherds invented the game using their staffs to bat around stones and that 12 percent of all lightning fatalities happen on the golf course

About this title

About the Author

Erin Barrett and Jack Mingo have authored 20 books, including How the Cadillac Got Its Fins, The Couch Potato Guide to Life and the bestselling Just Curious Jeeves. They have written articles for many major periodicals including The New York Times, Salon, Reader's Digest, and The Washington Post and have generated more than 30,000 questions for trivia games and game shows such as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Their website, which lists their "This Day in History" nationallysyndicated column.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Al Capone was a Golfer

Hundreds of Fascinating Facts from the World of Golf

By ERIN BARRETT, JACK MINGO

Conari Press

Copyright © 2002 Erin Barrett and Jack Mingo
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-57324-720-7

Contents

A Word from the Authors
one Golf Is ...
two Driving and Putting Through History
three Golf by the Numbers
four What's the Good Word?
five It Takes Balls ... and Some Clubs
six Not Our Kind of People
seven Women Drivers
eight Golf Pros ... and Cons
nine A Penalty for Your Thoughts
ten From the Greens to the Court
eleven Fore-Footed Friends
twelve Are You a Player?
thirteen Life According to Golf
fourteen A Course Is a Course, Of Course
fifteen The Play's the Thing
sixteen Playing by the Rules
seventeen Celebrities Open
eighteen A Driving Love for the Game
Acknowledgments
Selected References
About the Authors

CHAPTER 1

Golf Is ...

"Golf is a puzzle without an answer."

—Gary Player

"Golf is an expensive way of playing marbles."

—G. K. Chesterton, author

"Golf is the Lord's punishment for man's sins."

—James Reston, journalist

"Golf is a game with the soul of a 1956 Rotarian."

—Bill Mandel, Berkeley radio legend

"Golf is a game of expletives not deleted."

—Dr. Irving J. Gladstone, golfer

"Golf is an ideal diversion, but a ruinous disease."

—Bertie Charles Forbes

"Golf is the hardest game in the world to play, and the easiest to cheat at."

—Dave Hill, pro golfer

"Golf is so popular simply because it is the best game in the world at which tobe bad."

—A. A. Milne

"Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole,with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose."

—Winston Churchill

"Golf is like faith: It is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence ofthings not seen."

—Arnold Haultain, Canadian author (1857–1941)

"Golf is the most fun you can have without taking your clothes off."

—Chi Chi Rodriguez

"Golf is a wonderful exercise. You can stand on your feet for hours, watchingsomebody else putt."

—Will Rogers

"Golf is essentially an exercise in masochism conducted out of doors."

—Paul O'Neil

"Golf is war. And like all wars, if you're not looking to win, you probablyshouldn't show up."

—Capt. Bruce Waren Ollstein,author and golf strategist

"Golf is a game where the ball always lies poorly and the player always lieswell."

—Anonymous golfer

"Golf is not just exercise: It is an adventure, a romance ... a Shakespeare playin which disaster and comedy are intertwined and you have to live with theconsequences."

—Harold Segall, golfer

"Golf is a game that creates emotions that sometimes cannot be sustained withthe club still in one hand."

—Bobby Jones

"Golf is 20 percent mechanics and technique. The other 80 percent is philosophy,humor, tragedy, romance, melodrama, companionship, camaraderie, cussedness, andconversation."

—Grantland Rice, American sportswriter

"Golf is the hardest game in the world. There is no way you can ever get it.Just when you think you do, the game jumps up and puts you in your place."

—Ben Crenshaw

"Golf is an awkward set of bodily contortions designed to produce a gracefulresult."

—Thomas Armour, golfer

"Golf is good for the soul. You get so mad at yourself you forget to hate yourenemies."

—Will Rogers

"Golf is like a cat chasing its tail. You're never going to catch it. The dayyou think you've got your game down pat, something goes awry and you're back tosquare one. That's one reason why I love the game so much: the soul-searching,and the never-ending search for the perfect swing."

—Greg Norman

"Golf is an exercise which is much used by the Gentlemen in Scotland. A largecommon, in which there are several little holes, is chosen for the purpose. Itis played with little leather balls stuffed with feathers, and sticks tippedwith horn.... A man would live ten years the longer for using this exercise onceor twice a week."

—Dr. Benjamin Rush (1770)

"Golf is not a game of great shots. It's a game of the most accurate misses."

—Gene Littler

"Golf is like a horse—If you take your eye off it, it'll jump back and kick yourshins for you."

—Byron Nelson

"Golf is a game of endless predicaments."

—Chi Chi Rodriguez

"Golf is not a fair game. It's a rude game."

—Fuzzy Zoeller

"Golf is 20 percent talent and 80 percent management."

—Ben Hogan

"Golf is not so much a game as it is a creed and a religion."

—Arnold Haultain

"Golf is meant to be fun."

—Jack Nicklaus

"Golf is just a game, and an idiotic one at that."

—Mark Calcavecchia (after failing to make the cut at the British Open)

"Golf is a game where guts, stick-to-it-ness, and blind devotion will get younothing but an ulcer."

—Tommy Bolt

CHAPTER 2

Driving and Putting Through History

Who invented golf? We could go with the Scots, but it's not that easy. Thesimple fact is that hitting a rock into a hole in the ground is such a no-brainerconcept for a game that dozens of nationalities can lay claim to havinginvented it. Evidence shows exactly that—that the basic game was invented overand over again all over the world.

The Visigoths—known for their plundering and overall pillaging—may have playedgolf before they overthrew ancient Rome on August 4, 410. But whether they knewof the game before the sack of Rome, this very unrefined lot, many historiansbelieve, certainly played the golf-like game of paganica afterward.

According to historian Ling Hong-ling, the Chinese played a game very much likemodern golf five centuries before the Scots. Chuiwan ("hitting ball") wasdepicted in tenth-century pottery designs and paintings and mentioned in adocument that dates back to A.D. 943. Hong-ling believes that early travelersbrought the game back to Europe. The game's popularity died out in the 1500s, afew decades after the game was "invented" in Scotland.

French people swear that golf came from their ancient game called Jeu de Mail.

Golf also might've come from an early British game called knur and spell.

Belgium's game called chole goes back to the 1300s. Although similar to golf,both sides played the same ball, and at certain intervals, the opposing team hadthe opportunity to hit the ball into any available hazard.

The Dutch game of kolven, which was played on any surface including ice, mayhave been golf's predecessor. The supporters of this theory insist that the wordtee came from the old Dutch tuitje (pronounced "toytee"), meaning "mound;" golfcame from kolfe ("club"); and putt came from put ("hole").

Kolven at least has the distinction of being the first golf-like game played bycolonists in the New World: Historians have found a warrant from 1657 for thearrest of three Dutch immigrants in Fort Orange (now Albany, New York), chargedwith skipping church and playing kolven on Sunday.

Two years later, Fort Orange issued an ordinance to "forbid all persons fromplaying 'het kolven' in the streets."

Whatever its earlier roots, linguists say that the word golf comes from anancient Scottish word gowf that meant "to strike."

What the L!: Goiff and goff were the preferred spelling and pronunciation of"golf" during the 1500s and the 1600s.

Regardless, golf eventually emerged in Scotland. Whether it was indigenous or—likekilts and the bagpipe—imported from somewhere else, the game became sopopular that King James II feared that his army was spending too much timeplaying it instead of practicing their archery. On March 6, 1457, he decreedthat "Fute-ball and Golfe be utterly cryed down" (banned) as a threat to hisarmy's readiness to do battle against England.

King James IV reaffirmed the embargo in 1491. However, it was a "Do as I say,not as I do" situation—he is the first player of golf for whom we havedocumentation. A notation in the Lord High Treasurer's accounts shows payment of14 shillings to a bow-maker for making "the King's golf clubbis and ballis."From that point on, the treasurer's records showed numerous golf-relatedexpenses for replacement balls and even a gambling debt to the Earl of Both-wellfor 14 shillings lost on the links.

After a peace treaty with England, Scotland's ban against golf was finallyrescinded by King James IV in 1503, except "in tyme of sermonis" on Sunday.

Perhaps King James should've kept the ban. Scots became very good at golf ... buttheir archery abilities got rusty. When the 1503 peace treaty fell apart tenyears later, the Scots suffered bloody defeat by English archers at the Battleof Flodden in 1513. Scotland lost not only many men and a number of their royalsbut a king as well: King James IV was killed in battle.

Church records from Scotland in the sixteenth century show that parishionerswere severely fined the first two times they were caught playing golf on theSabbath. The third time, they were excommunicated.

King James IV's notorious granddaughter, Mary, Queen of Scots, was the firstknown female golfer. Before she lost her head for other reasons, she gave herlife to golf. History tells it that when Mary Queen of Scots heard the news ofthe murder of her husband (who also happened to be her cousin), she was in themiddle of a game of golf. By all accounts, she scandalized her subjects and theclergy by continuing to play her round, and then playing again just a few dayslater. (The fact that she hated her husband, likely arranged his murder, andthen married his murderer just three months later didn't help, either.)

Mary's son, James VI, was also an avid golfer. He spread the habit to Englandwhen he became its king. As England's James I, he helped heal the church/golfsplit, in that he was the King James who authorized the first Englishtranslation of the Bible.

James I made two golf-related proclamations. One appointed William Moyer, anexpert crafter of bows, as Royal Golf Club Maker. The other forbid the purchaseof golf balls from Holland, upon which golfers were spending "no small quantitieof golde and silver," and assigned a twenty-one-year monopoly of ball making toone James Melvil. (This latter proclamation some historians point to as evidenceof golf's Dutch origins.)

Despite golf's popularity in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it tooksome 150 years before the game became institutionalized and formalized. In 1744,the Company of Gentlemen Golfers of Leith (Scotland) became the first golforganization, and their thirteen rules were the earliest known written golfcode.

The original thirteen written rules of golf had a few variations from the oneswe play now. For one, the green of the previous hole was the tee of the nexthole—players were to start within a club's length from the last hole. Once aball was played on a hole, no substitute ball could be introduced. And if aplayer lifted his ball out of water or "watery filth," his opponent got to playan extra stroke.

What is now known as the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews wasn'tformed until ten years later. In 1754, its twenty-two founding members adoptedgolf rules that were almost identical to the Leith Club's. St. Andrews' manyholes proved more popular than Leith's five, which eventually led to thestandardization of the golf game to conform to St. Andrews'.

Still, golfing organizations didn't exactly go "Fore!" and multiply. In 1864,more than a century later, there were only thirty-three known golfing clubs—thirtyin Scotland and three in England.

The first permanent golfing club in the Western Hemisphere was the RoyalMontreal Golf Club, which was established in 1873.

The first golf club in the United States? It's in dispute. The Oakhurst (WestVirginia) Golf Club is said, without documentation, to have had a founding dateof 1884. The Dorset (Vermont) Field Club has equally undocumented claims that itwas organized in 1886. Our call on the whole mess? The Foxburg (Pennsylvania)Golf Course, which has documentation to show that its golf course was built in1885 and its charter became formalized in 1887.

It wasn't until the end of the nineteenth century that golf took off like astraight shot to the green. By 1900 there were golfing organizations all overthe world and more than 2,000 in England alone.

The first professional golf tournament was sponsored by the Prestwick (Scotland)Golf Course in 1860. Called the Open Championship, it attracted eightprofessional golfers and a considerable degree of skepticism: after all, couldsomebody playing for money be trusted to abide by the rules of the game, since atrue gentleman played only for the honor of winning?

The Prestwick competition eventually became known as the British Open, the nameit bears today.

Early golfing clubs were as dedicated to drinking as they were to driving ...which helps explain why the British Open trophy is a claret jug.

The early days of the British Open consisted of playing the same nine holes fourtimes in a single day. Ending before dark was always a challenge, so it became atradition for frontrunners to bribe poorly scoring competitors to quit early andspeed up the game.

The very first golf manual was published in England. Written by H. B. Farnie in1857, it was called—sensibly enough— The Golfer's Manual.

The first American book on golf, Golf in America: A Practical Manual, waspublished in 1895. Up until that point, most Americans were terribly confused bythe game, as inadvertently revealed by an explanatory article in thePhiladelphia Times:

It is sometimes agreed that the game shall be won by him who makes the largestnumber of holes within a given number of minutes, say twenty or thirty. ... Eachplayer places his ball at the edge of a hole designated as a starting point. Hethen bats it ... toward the next hole. As soon as it has started he runs forward ...and his servant, who is called "caddy," runs after him....

As far as anyone knows, the first photo of someone playing golf in the UnitedStates was taken in 1888.

Horace L. Hotchkiss was in his sixties when he organized the first seniors' golftournament at the Apawamis Club in Rye, New York, in 1905, attempting to provethat golf wasn't just a young person's game. It was a huge success, and theUnited States Seniors Golf Association was formed twelve years later.

The Ryder Cup was started in 1926 by Samuel Ryder, a wealthy English businessmanwho made his fortune from selling penny packets of flower seeds.

Samuel Ryder's idea of good prize money? "I'll give $5 to each of the winningplayers," he offered. "And I'll give a party afterwards, with champagne andchicken sandwiches." Eventually he was convinced to put up $250 for a solid goldtrophy instead.

CHAPTER 3

Golf by the Numbers

"Golf is a game in which you shout 'Fore,' shoot six and write down five."

—Paul Harvey

1 in 8,606: One often-repeated estimate as to the odds of making a hole-in-one—thataverages out to one in every 478 rounds.

1 in 13,000: The estimate of companies that sell hole-in-one prize insurance togolf tournament organizers, or about one in every 722 rounds.

According to the Professional Golfers Association (PGA), a male professional'sor a top amateur player's chances are 3,708 to 1 (an average of one hole-in-oneevery 206 rounds); a female pro's odds are 4,648 to 1 (one every 258 rounds).However, the average player's odds are only 42,952 to 1 (one every 2,386rounds).

49: Holes-in-one made by golf pro Mancil Davis, who had more in his career thanany other pro.

$85.70: The average cost of a weekend's green fees in Hawaii, the most expensivestate in which to play golf.

$23.80: The average cost of a weekend's green fees in South Dakota, the cheapeststate in which to play golf.

6: Tiger Woods' age when he got his first hole-in-one. However, at the time hefailed to beat the record for youngest hole-in-one, which had been set by afive-year-old.

3: The age, in 2001, of Jake Paine of Lake Forest, California, who smashed TigerWoods' record. He teed off with his Snoopy driver and hit the ball a soaring androlling 48 yards, directly into the cup.

$180,000: The initiation fee of the most expensive golf and country club in theUnited States, not including monthly dues. The club in question is the VintageClub of Indian Wells, California.

$900,000: The amount awarded to Retief Goosen for winning the U.S. Open in 2001.

$500: The amount awarded to Gene Sarazen for winning the U.S. Open in 1922.

$28,000: The price of a four-passenger, fully loaded deluxe Deusenberg EstateGolf Car, including CD players and rack-and-pinion steering.

101 mph: The speed that a driver travels when swung by a typical "accomplished"golfer.

7: The world record for the number of golf balls balanced on top of each other.

10 percent: The percentage of all professional golfers who are single andunattached.

35: The mean age of those players who tour with the PGA.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Al Capone was a Golfer by ERIN BARRETT, JACK MINGO. Copyright © 2002 Erin Barrett and Jack Mingo. Excerpted by permission of Conari Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Conari Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1573247200
• ISBN 13: 9781573247207
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224