The Allure of Golf

In 1910 Arnold Hautlain wrote a very philosophical and at times confusing book called, The Mystery of Golf. For much of it he attempts to explain what draws us to it. "Why is it," he wrote, "that golf commands so large a share of attention, of serious and thoughtful attention? The literature of golf is now immense, and much of it good. Eminent men have devoted to it serious study; mathematicians try to solve its problems; prime ministers play it; multimillionaires resort to it; and grown men the world over jeopardize for it name and fame and fortune…no other game has so simple an object or one requiring, apparently, so simple an exertion of muscular effort. To knock a ball into a hole – that seems the acme of ease. It is a purely psychological matter of moving you muscles so, thus the tyro argues; and in order to move his muscles so, he expends more time and money and thought and temper than he cares, at the year’s end, to compute. Without doubt the ball must be impelled by muscular movement; how to coordinate that muscular movement – that is the physiological factor in the fascination of golf."

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