Where is My Husband

My husband, who is 35 years old and rather tall, has been gone for seven years. He left me with four children and his ailing parents, along with a number of his old golf debts. I have held two jobs ever since he left and I am managing to get the children through school and the debts paid off. I now have every reason to believe he is staying at your Eagle-Ho Camp. Enclosed is his photograph as I am sure he has changed his name.
JULIA WORM

Rochester, N. Y.

My Dear Mrs. Worm,

Eagle-Ho is not a camp. Eagle-Ho is a sanctuary and in no sense can it be considered a camp, a spa, or any other recreation reserve. If you have occasion to write us again I must insist that you use the proper name- Eagle-Ho Sanctuary.

As ever,

Doctor Golf

I’m Worried about his Golf Obsession

Dear Doctor Golf,My husband is a follower of your Eagle-Ho form of golf. He takes little or no interest in me, his children, or his home. He gets off the commuter train at Ardsley at 5:20 and instead of coming home he goes directly to the first tee at the Country Club. Upon finishing nine or eighteen holes, depending on the season of the year, he showers at the club and comes home. During winter months he leaves work two hours early and tees off at 3:30 to avoid playing in the dark.

When he arrives home he is nervous and irritable and finds fault with everything I do to make him a nice home. He cannot stand the children and will only visit them when they are asleep. You would think that a round of golf each day plus all day oil Saturday and Sunday would be enough, but apparently it is only enough to whet his insatiable appetite.

During our late dinner he reads from Eagle-Ho texts and periodicals, often aloud. After dinner he polishes, waxes and caresses his clubs before the fire and has brandy with them. Lately he is having a slump in putting and he will rise in the middle of the night and tap balls across the bedroom rug toward the night light.

Doctor Golf, I am used to his late arrival, the fatherless children, his complete avoidance of anything domestic, and the steady tap-tap-tapping far into the early morning; but lately I have a new and deeper fear and one in which I hope you will offer some help. Last week my oldest boy, Robin, age 6, picked up a putter stick and began putting the balls with his father. At first I thought my husband would harm the boy, for a weird and strange light came into his eyes. It developed that my husband now thinks the boy has natural talent and he has set out a program to develop his game. His first move was to take the boy out of school. They ride to his office in the morning and there, I am told, lock the office door and putt all day.

I’ll not go on; the rest by now must be obvious. I am in desperate need of help. I have reconciled myself to the life of living with this man, but the thought of losing the boy in the same manner frightens me.

I realize I have painted a rather dark picture of my life with my husband; perhaps I have not been altogether truthful. Often we have whole days and week ends together. During the rainy days in February he stays home. During Hurricanes Carol and Edna we passed many happy hours together and he explained the true significance of Eagle-Ho. A wet season, however, is my only hope of seeing him with his children and then the wetness must be of an extreme quality. No ordinary rain or threat of lightning will keep him home, but when the hurricanes strike and the cold rains of February come I make the most of our brief encounters and End the happiness I need to sustain me throughout the long season. My only problem and fear is for the boy.

MRS. M. WILKINSON

Scarsdale, N. Y.

P.S. My husband’s handicap has been 11 for seventeen years.

Dear Mrs. Wilkinson,

There should be more women like you. I have often proclaimed that behind every good golfer stands a great woman. A woman given to long silences and a stately, steady, abiding love uncluttered by the frivolous ideas of togetherness and other trite and absurd philosophies. How fortunate Mr. Wilkinson is to have married such a splendid, understanding woman. Again let me express my respect and admiration to you and the most gratifying life you are surely living.

As to the boy, I believe your apprehensions are too accelerated. The years change not only handicaps but ambitions. Soon this lad will be in college, he will be among the friends he will make for life. Here the battle will be waged for his interest, his vocation, his calling.

I would like a more detailed account of the lad’s progress in golf, but I would like for you to wait at least six months before setting this information down. If by the age of seven he shows an indication toward an upright swing and is able to impart wrist action in his middle iron game, I would be interested in seeing movies of his game. At that time we will decide what should be the proper course his life should follow.

Mrs. Wilkinson, talent-true talent-in golf is one of the brightest stars in the constellation and if it can be discovered before the age of eight what a magnificent thing it can become.

As ever,

Doctor Golf

P.S. The club you referred to as putter stick is incorrect. The correct word is putter.

U.S.G.A.’s Library in NYC

Dear Doctor Golf,
How does your library at Eagle-Ho compare to the U.S.G.A.’s in New York City?
GEORGE EVANS
Palo Alto, Calif.

Dear Sir,

Occasionally I am very harsh on U.S.G.A. policies and the commercialization that has permeated their once glorious ranks. But someone, I feel, must be the standard bearer, and my obligation to Eagle-Ho and the Code of St. Andrews will not let me tolerate their many defections.

While the U.S.G.A. has been lax in many areas, they have persevered and done admirably in equipping and maintaining their library in New York. The collection of books and trophies is of wide range and of good quality. Their brownstone is in good repair, and the atmosphere of history pervades the quiet and dignified reading rooms.

Their research material, scholarly papers, and genealogical tables are not so complete or of the excellence as are ours at Eagle-Ho. I feel I can state without fear of successful contradiction that, while the U.S.G.A. library at New York can no more be compared to ours than it can to the first millennium one that stood at Alexandria, it is an excellent-if modest-establishment that the golfers of New York can well be proud of.

As ever,
Doctor Golf

About Doctor Golf

Fans of William Price Fox’s Doctor Golf:

P.G. Wodehouse: “It’s just the golf book that was needed… very funny!”

John Updike: Michael Murphy’s “Golf in the Kingdom” put me in mind of another curious devotional work, William Price Fox’s “Doctor Golf.” Doctor Golf, a fanatic even quainter and keener than Shivas Irons, runs a thirty-nine-member golf sanctuary in Arkansas called Eagle-Ho, refers to “young Hagen,” advocates caddy flogging, sells by mail order a clanking, cumbersome line of golf paraphernalia, and conducts a large correspondence. When one correspondent writes,”I am in my 65th year and I have been seized golf like by a mouse in the claws of a golden eagle,”Doctor Golf congratulates him:

Dear Sir, Only after the fetters of youth have been flung aside can golf enter. Only then can the man know the folly of his adolescent belief of the swing answering to the man and perceive the joy and the truth of the complete man answering to the swing. And, as the years and the eagles cascade by, the even greater joy is realized when he stands in the bright sunlight of complete fulfillment and comes to realize the the swing is the man.

The swing is the man, says Doctor Golf. The Dance of Shiva, Michael Murphy (“Golf in the Kingdom”) concludes, is at the heart of everything. Doctor Golf is more mystical still:

The swing by its very nature transcends the human form. The swing is there when you pass on… The swing, sir…is like the blue in the sky, immutable, eternal, indeed transcendental.

Walt Kelly (creator of Pogo): “True, bittersweet, hilarious, best and, thank God, the worst!”

Qualifying and Caddy Flogging

Dear Dr. Golf,

In April of this year our club was placed on the approved list of Eagle-Ho clubs and we inaugurated caddy flogging. I had grave doubts about this practice at first and I must confess I was fearful. It is now six months later and after following your books and manuscripts on the introduction and execution of caddy flogging we here at Sleepy Knoll, to the man, are delighted with the results. Our caddies thrive on this practice, and a new and deep respect for the members has replaced the old indifference of last year.

We were very fortunate in procuring Mr. H. Ashley through your services and we want to say he has truly done a remarkable job. I was very impressed in learning that Mr. Ashley got his background and training and handling bird dogs in the Florida Field Trials. Some of the men here believed his insistence on making the caddies “point” balls a trifle inhumane, but when Mr. H. Ashley had these same men question the caddies all doubt of inhumanity was removed. He maintains, and the caddies support his belief, that a caddy’s greatest joy is in “pointing” a ball in the classic position. Mr. H. Ashley has even introduced contests to make every caddy familiar with the classic “point” position. And how beautiful it is to watch two youthful caddies springing through the rough and quartering and requartering a field.

Dr. Golf, we have, however, run into one very sensitive problem. Unfortunately, our club is near a highway and motorists and pedestrians can see the caddy stocks Mr. H. Ashley built for flogging. We have had several complaints from the township and the church. Mr. H. Ashley insists that the flogging stations remain in full sight, but our local ministers and teachers are shouting that we must do away with the practice. We were wondering if you could advise us on this subject.

I remain,

RICHARD TROTHINGWELL

Dear Sir,

I am sending you along a copy of Dr. Golf’s “Caddies, the Care and Feeding Of.” You will please refer to Chapter 76 entitled “The Floggee-Flogger Relation.” This chapter will explain the master-caddy relation as well as the relation between your club and your township….

Mr. Trothingwell, there will always be enemies and narrow-minded people who do not approve of flogging. Why this is, I’m sure I’ll never know. But I must insist that as an Eagle-Ho qualified club you do not conceal this practice, that it be done in full view of your club, your wives, your town, indeed your church.

As ever,

Doctor Golf

Watusi Negroes

Dear Doctor Golf,

As a scholar of anthropology, I was rather amazed and puzzled about the reports I have been hearing that you are employing Watusi Negroes from Dahomey, Africa, as caddies at your Eagle-Ho course in Eagle-Ho, Arkansas. I would be most grateful for any information you would like to pass on to about these people. As you know I have written several extensive volumes on the history of the Watusi.

DR. H. FRONTIER

Harvard

Dear Dr. Frontier,

You are right, sir. We do employ Watusi Negroes as caddies at Eagle-Ho.

As ever,

Doctor Golf

Reading the Greens

Dear Doctor Golf,How much help should one reasonably expect from a caddy on reading greens?

ROBERT CONWAY

Rye, N. Y.

Dear Mr. Conway,

A good caddy – one who has been properly broken in, trained and, of course, well groomed – should give incalculable assistance on the greens. His duties not only require that he be able to advise his master on direction and amount of break but also the firmness or softness of imparting the club to the ball.

To evaluate and advise, a caddy should be, and at Eagle-Ho we deem it mandatory, knowledgeable in the following:

1. Type and grain of grass. This does not mean merely identifying but a thorough understanding of the biology (perhaps etiology would be a better

word), of the nature of the green. He should be able to forecast effects of wind, rain, excessive dryness, results of particular types of pollenization, etc., etc.

2. A caddy should carry a psychrometer with him at all times and be skillful in its use to determine amount of moisture in the air directly above the green. Moisture will of course vary from shadowy areas to sunny areas and here the caddy should take several readings, compute the average, and arrive at a mode. There is a simple calculus formula for integrating this which it is advisable for all caddies to know. In many cases a ball’s line will be through sun and shadow in varying amounts which obviously will slow and speed a ball in different increments. This rather tricky formulation is based on a rather complex ballistic integration. Once it is learned, however, the results are more than gratifying.

3. Two more lessons my International Caddy Corps utilizes with considerable success are detecting salinity in greens, and the simple but often overlooked physical law of gravitational pull. Salinity is too complex to discuss at this time and involves a rather complicated procedure. But a word on gravitational pull might be worthwhile here. A simple example of this would be the witnessing of water draining from a bath tub. In the northern hemisphere the water circles from left to right in the vortex. The converse of this is true in the southern hemisphere. Often this simple little axiom is overlooked and many have been the times that I’ve been aroused in the middle of the night by some frantic professional playing in Santiago or Johannesburg lamenting the sad state of his putting game. I need only remind him to reverse the line on all putts. The next day I usually find a lengthy cablegram of heartfelt thanks.

I had one particularly gifted lad at Eagle-Ho who when approaching a green would, without removing my bag from his shoulders, go down on his knees on the apron and smell the green. By virtue of this, this amazing chap could tell moisture, salinity, coarseness, effect of recent rain, wind, or fertilizer or excessive amounts of pollen. While this is an unusual case, I train all caddies at Eagle-Ho to become familiar with the taste of a green. A small portion properly chewed, with the background knowledge I have mentioned above, works wonders.

But all this is only an infinitesimal scratch on the surface of this most complex science. It is not enough for one to be able to merely “read” a green. One must in fact do more . . . one must “know” a green.

My books on reading greens are too numerous to list at this point. As a starter I would recommend the three volume “Reading Greens.” This set is leather-bound and boxed with forty six beautiful illustrations of this information in action. Complete set, $14.30 C.O.D., postage $2.40.

As ever,

Doctor Golf