The Socrates and Plato of golf literature no doubt would dread being compared
against each other. Just as Plato studied under Socrates, Herbert Warren Wind
received counsel from Bernard Darwin while pursuing a degree at Cambridge in the
1930s. It was Darwin who convinced the young American to pursue golf
writing.
Wind’s gentlemanly eloquence appeared for decades in The New Yorker
and Sports Illustrated, a career of classic writing that has aged gracefully.
But his most vital contributions to the game were his collaboration with Ben
Hogan on Five Lessons: the Modern Fundamentals of Golf, the Bible of golf
instruction books, as well giving Augusta National’s 11th, 12th and 13th holes
their immortal moniker: Amen Corner.
Darwin’s “singularly vibrant enthusiasm”
(Wind’s description) marked his columns for Country Life and The Times. With a
gift for creating timeless essays out of Seinfeldian nothingness, Darwin
made golf writing an art form.Both could churn out classic tournament recaps
or take on more nuanced topics like Joyce Wethered’s swing. However, the
Englishman’s supreme wit proves too much for Wind.
Take Darwin on slow play:
“The real bitterness of waiting, the thing that makes the impatient man dance
with impotent rage is the thought of what might have been,” Darwin wrote. “If
only you had not stopped to talk to Jones for two minutes about something of no
importance; if only you had not forgotten your pipe and run back for it, you
would not have got behind those two old gentlemen, as to whom you have to look
at the hedge in the background to swear that they are moving.”
Darwin honed
his unique style with help from the vagaries of a life of links play at
Aberdovey and Royal St. George’s, and later, the Old Course at St. Andrews.
Also, Darwin’s playing experience—he competed in several British
Amatuers—allowed him to appreciate nuances of golf course architecture that Wind
never fully captured.
How am I sure that Darwin wins this match every
time?
Because his protégé said so. “Like no other golf writer, Darwin had the
ability to take the reader right out onto the course with him. You can
practically feel the wind in your face and the crunch of the hard-packed turf
under your spikes,” Wind wrote. “There is little disagreement that the best golf
writer of all time was an Englishman named Bernard Richard Meirion
Darwin.”
