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I moved house recently, for reasons other than keeping ahead of the posse or a member of the opposite sex. As I did so, I was reminded that I have a lot of books and a lot are golf books. I have more than enough socks (72 pairs) and ties (51), too, but here we are concerned with some of my thousands of books.
They are almost all hardbacks. A hardback book really is a book. One can feel its shiny cover, enjoy its heft and remember how many hours were spent ploughing through its pages. Paperbacks tend to fall apart, weigh next to nothing and easily become dog-eared. Hardbacks to paperbacks are as links to inland courses, Titleists to airflow balls.
Herbert Warren Wind, Bernard Darwin, Peter Dobereiner, Charles Price, Pat Ward-Thomas, Peter Ryde, John Feinstein, Bill Fields, Michael Bamberger, Henry Longhurst, Robert Browning, David Owen and James Dodson. These are some of the authors in my new home. A complete shelf of Darwins. Half a shelf of Feinsteins. A quartet of Winds. A slew of Steels. A kindle of Kindreds. A collection of Callahans. A wealth of Ward-Thomases.
And these are some of the subjects these people have written about: Tiger Woods (my 16th arrived last spring); the four major championships; Harry Vardon and his illegitimate son; a history of American golf; the Ryder Cup (12 volumes so far); club histories from Maidstone on Long Island to Machynlleth in mid Wales. After Woods, Seve Ballesteros is the second most-written-about golfer based on volumes in my collection.
Perhaps my most prized books are my Darwins. I believe I have almost every book he wrote, even those that have nothing to do with golf. All but a few are first editions and some were bought at considerable cost. Not that these days that means very much. Like brown furniture, books have plummeted in value recently.
The point about books is this. It is not only what is contained inside their covers. It’s where you bought them: at a pop-up store on Fifth Avenue, via an auction house in Shropshire, in a secondhand store in west Wales, at Rhod McEwan’s stand at the Open. Each book has a history that is unique to its owner. They provide memories every time you return to them.
When it was suggested that I should cull my book collection, I was horrified. I would cull my socks and my ties. Indeed I did. But cull my books? Never. I moved some to a less prominent place thus making clear in my own mind they are either first, second or third division.
They are, nevertheless, my greatest friends, undiminishable in the enjoyment they generate. A dog may be man’s best friend but books are this man’s top companions, whether on golf or not.
E-MAIL JOHN
John Hopkins