OAKHURST. THE BIRTH AND REBIRTH OF AMERICA'S FIRST GOLF COURSE. (AUTOGRAPHED)

Diperna, Paula and Vikki Keller

ISBN 10: 0802713718 / ISBN 13: 9780802713711

Published by Walker & Company, New York, 2002

About this Item

Presentation copy: "To.I hope enjoy your first Round here at Oakhurst this week! Thank you for visiting us all the way from Germany. Best wishes, Vikki Keller 8-1-02" (Signed on the front fly-leaf). An Oakhurst Links score card is also laid in. Foreword by Sam Snead. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs, drawings, maps and facsimiles. The dust jacket is protected by a Brodart mylar cover and is not price clipped. Not an ex-library copy. No remainder marks. Most books shipped within 24 hours. All books mailed with Delivery Confirmation. Scattered light foxing on the top edge. Very good condition in very good dust jacket. Selling Used and Rare books on line since April 1998 and from our bookstore in the heart of the Bluegrass since 1984. ; Black-and-white illustrations; Small 8vo.; xii, 194 pages; Signed by One Author.

Seller Inventory # 39382

Bibliographic Details

• Title: OAKHURST. THE BIRTH AND REBIRTH OF AMERICA'S FIRST GOLF COURSE. (AUTOGRAPHED)
• Publisher: Walker & Company, New York
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802713718
• ISBN 13: 9780802713711
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition; First Printing.
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

Golf formally came to America in 1884. Russell Montague―a thirty-two-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer―had moved to White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, to improve his health. His Scottish neighbors, George Grant and Alexander and Roderick MacLeod, were also men of leisure. When Grant's golf-obsessed nephew Lionel Torin arrived from Ceylon, these five built, purely for their own pleasure, a nine-hole course on Montague's land―unaware that it was the first course in the United States, and tenuously launching what has arguably become America's most popular sport.

Oakhurst tells the memorable story of this historic course, from its birth and brief first life of fifteen years to its miraculous restoration 110 years later. Weaving the lives of the founders through a fascinating history of golf, the evolution of its equipment, and the genesis of course design, Paula DiPerna and Vikki Keller recount colorful stories of early matches that astonished local residents, who thought the founders mad: "It may be a fine game for a canny Scotchman, but no American will ever play it except Montague," one opined. Some sixty years after Oakhurst had fallen into neglect, legendary local golfer Sam Snead gave it new life, convincing his friend Lewis Keller to buy the land. Their dream of restoring the course was realized in 1994, when Keller and noted golf architect Bob Cupp―relying on scant clues, and intuition―unearthed the dormant holes one by one.

As Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, and many others who have played the course discovered, only period equipment (hickory-shafted clubs, gutta-percha balls) is allowed, and nineteenth-century rules prevail―making Oakhurst the only place in America where anyone can experience the game as it was first played. It is an important chapter in sports history, a nostalgic piece of Americana, and Oakhurst brings its magic alive.

About the Author

Paula DiPerna took her first golf swing at the age of four, and has played golf on every continent except Antarctica. She has written about golf for every major golf magazine and for the New York Times travel section, where her article on Oakhurst appeared. One of the few women members of the Golf Writers Association, she lives in New York City.

Vikki Keller, daughter of Lewis Keller, helps manage Oakhurst today.