Places
The Courses of Bernard Darwin’s 1910 Guide
The 62 courses Darwin features in The Golf Courses of the British Isles, from Sandwich to Lahinch, grouped by region and linked to the chapter where he describes each one.
All articles
The Journal
Stories, places, style and history — everything we’ve written, newest first.
The Library
The first tee is a promise of a better day.
A century on, P.G. Wodehouse’s golf stories still read like dispatches from your own clubhouse — and they begin with a young man trying to give his clubs away.
Places
A Quiet Corner on the Coast
Every golfer has one course they love beyond reason. Bernard Darwin’s was a small links on the Welsh coast, and he wrote about it like a man coming home.
The Good Life
The 19th Hole
On good food, great company and the traditions that make the clubhouse the best part of the day for so many golfers.
People & History
The Spirit of the Early Amateurs
Talent, character and a different kind of greatness. What the golfers of a century ago can still teach us about playing for the love of it.
The Library
A Golfer’s Bookshelf
Five classic golf books, free to read in full in the GolfProse Library — and where to begin with each.
People & History
Before Golf Was Golf
Dutch players on the ice, Scottish golfers in jail, and a Rembrandt etching. On the long, disputed and delightful prehistory of the game.
The Library
Harry Vardon’s Lessons, a Century On
The greatest golfer of his age grew up making clubs from hawthorn in Jersey. His book is part memoir, part manual, and still full of good sense.
Places
Where the fairway meets the sea.
Wind, sand and short grass by the shore: what makes seaside golf the oldest and still the most beguiling form of the game.
The Good Life
The pleasure of good company.
Polished shoes, a favourite sweater, a partner who knows when to say nothing. On the small rituals that make a round worth remembering.
People & History
Vardon in America
In 1900 the greatest golfer in the world spent the best part of a year touring the United States. He came home with a national championship, a sheaf of newspaper cuttings and a firm conviction that the young American game was going places.
The Library
The Oldest Member’s Guide to Love
In The Clicking of Cuthbert, Wodehouse’s clubhouse sage has firm views on romance — chiefly that it should never be allowed to interfere with a man’s short game.
Places
St Andrews Through Darwin’s Eyes
In 1910 Bernard Darwin walked the Old Course as an admiring pilgrim, bunker by bunker and plateau by plateau. His account is a portrait of a golfing town, and of a course that never once looked easy.
The Good Life
The Magic of Plus Fours
Can a pair of trousers make you a better golfer? P.G. Wodehouse thought it worth a story, and the question has never quite gone away. On dressing for the game.
People & History
The Great Match: Vardon v. Park
Seven thousand spectators, two referees, a pair of signal flags and £100 a side. Harry Vardon’s own account of the challenge match he called the event of his lifetime.
The Library
Rodney Spelvin and the Perils of Poetry
Across three stories in The Heart of a Goof, Wodehouse’s most insufferable poet pursues Jane Packard, torments William Bates, and runs into the one force more powerful than verse.
Places
Golf Within Reach of London
Heather, pine and sand south and west of the city, old commons where golfers wore red coats, and the weekend player with a long handicap. Bernard Darwin’s tour of London golf in 1910.
The Good Life
In Praise of the Caddie
Silent counsellor, blunt critic, keeper of the club’s best stories. Harry Vardon had firm views on what makes a good caddie, and most of them still hold.
The Library
Charles Van Loan and the American Locker Room
Four years before The Clicking of Cuthbert, an American sportswriter was filling the country-club locker room with slow foursomes, sharp old men and golfers who swear they’ll never play again.
People & History
Golf for Ladies in 1905
Harry Vardon devoted a chapter of The Complete Golfer to women’s golf. Read today, it is a curious mixture of Edwardian attitudes and advice that was well ahead of its time.
Places
The Links of Ireland in 1910
Cunning bunkers at Dollymount, a boat crossing to Portmarnock, champagne air at Portrush and the mountains above Newcastle. Bernard Darwin’s Irish chapter is one of the happiest in his book.
The Good Life
The Joys of Winter Golf
Frost on the fairways, the light gone by four, and the whole course to yourself. A case for keeping the clubs out of the cupboard when the weather turns.