As part of the research for my new book, I visited the historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, where 570,000 people have been interred since 1838. Among the imposing mausoleums and impressive obelisks are also headstones so weather-worn that you can’t read the names on them, and others that have been knocked over by storms or vandals, or are missing. You see that in any cemetery, unfortunately, but each of these graves represents a life, a human soul, and it’s a shame to see their final resting places marred or neglected. It’s analogous to the people in my book; I don’t want them to be forgotten or abandoned. I want to honor the memory of real people and pay tribute to their legacy. I believe it is proper and fitting to do so.
Frederick Jackson Turner, the famous historian, wrote in 1891 that the aim of history is “to know the elements of the present by understanding what came into the present from the past. For the present is simply the developing past, the past the undeveloped present.” Many people long for the “good old days” that don’t exist anymore. They want to bring back the past for the sake of the past, while the historian strives to show the present by revealing its origins in the past.
Golf has a history stretching back 500 years that can inform our present, and the darker sides of human nature – drug and alcohol abuse, hedonism, mental illness, suicide, racism, and murder – have all spilled into it. I find these stories worthy of examination not only because they fall outside the stereotype of golf as a straight-laced game on a higher moral plane than others, but more importantly, because they are fascinating.
Not all is gloom, doom, and cautionary tales of woe in this book. On the brighter, hopeful side, it also reveals the better angels of our natures, showing us people who overcame the most trying personal and family circumstances, as well as physical disabilities and the challenges of old age. The stories of their strength of character and perseverance provide life lessons we can all learn from.
Finally, golf has had its own collection of oddball characters and misfits, and weird, head-shaking events, which illustrate the lighter side of the game. These varied and divergent stories – the sad and pathetic, the inspiring and uplifting, the odd and quirky – have all contributed to golf’s long-memory, and provide you, the reader, with something original and evocative.
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