“The Art of Golf.”
Readers and writers of the game are discovering Sir Walter Simpson, whose “Art of Golf” is a classic not so much because of the instruction it contains as because of the graceful style in which the instruction is conveyed. In this respect it resembles “The Compleat Angler.” Old Izaak’s instruction to fishermen was sound enough, but we cherish his pages for something more than that. Sir Walter wrote the book himself, we conjecture—another peculiarity distinguishing it from most of the dull-thud volumes on the Five-Foot Shelf of Golf Books. Copies of it appear to be scarce; a gentleman writes to “The American Golfer” that he has a Simpson in his library, which “makes at least two copies in America.” We’ll make it three; there is a copy in the Chicago Public Library. And we shall be much surprised if Mr. Dana, the golfing librarian of Newark, N. J., hasn’t Simpson in his temple of erudition.