Golf
Dermot Gillecee recalls the antics of some of golf’s celebrated bad boys
Golf writer Bernard Darwin, who, according to Henry Longhurst, got really cross at golf and had a kind of love-hate relationship with the game for the best part of 70 years.
Tantrums on the tees.. Bad temper in golf is a weakness for which the great Henry Longhurst, had profound sympathy. When questioned on the subject, he would justify his views by referring to his great contemporary in golf-writing, Bernard Darwin, who, according to Henry, got really cross at golf and had a kind of love-hate relationship with the game for the best part of 70 years. Indeed after a particularly upsetting incident when playing at Rye, Darwin was heard to mutter savagely to himself: ‘Why do I play this ****ing game? I do hate it so.’ By way of illustrating infuriating aspects of a pursuit which would dominate both their lives, Darwin told Longhurst about the unfortunate experience of a former leading Scottish amateur, prior to World War I. Longhurst wrote: ‘Though a big man, he made the discovery, as people do from time to time, that you can putt remarkably well one-handed, with a little putter about the size of a carpenter's hammer’.
As always happens, it lasted splendidly for a while but proved fallible in the end. The climax came when he missed a tiddler with it on the ninth green at Muirfield. Raising himself to his full height, he flung it against the grey stone wall bordering the green. 'You little bastard!' he cried. 'Never presume upon my good nature again! Which leads me to the discovery that all fishy tales in golf are not necessarily reserved for the 19th hole, nor with company well -nourished with seasonal cheer. The experience of the hapless Scot brings to mind a certain English gentleman by the name of Albert Haddock, who was famously brought to heel for repeated outbursts of intemperate language on the course. His story was revealed in a book titled Uncommon Law by a British member of parliament, AP Herbert, and published in 1936. Among 66 unusual legal cases which formed the basis of the book, the one about Haddock hinged on
58 Senior Times l March - April 2021 l www.seniortimes.ie
Writer AP Herbert, in a book which related 66 unusual legal cases , featured Albert Haddock’s exploits where he crossed swords with the law
the issue as to whether a golfer should also be a gentleman. We’re informed that Haddock was charged under the Profane Oats Act of 1745 with swearing and cursing on the Mullion course in Cornwall. A breach of the Act carried a fine of one shilling for each transgression, if one happened to be a labourer, soldier or seaman. If one were of higher social status but under the ‘degree of gentleman’, however, the fine was increased to two shillings and for a person
