Golf Classic Goes Online for First Time

A classic 19th-century golf book provides a rare and wry look at the state of the sport when Victoria still sat on Britain's throne and Scotland's national sport was spreading throughout the Empire. The book has been published online for the first time, where it may be read for free.

(PRWEB) July 29, 2005 -- On the Isle of Guernsey, little girl caddies will spit on the ground to exorcise any demons from your golf ball and make the sign of the cross over the lie of your putt.

The barefoot caddies of Cairo, though, take a more direct approach to assisting golfers. With a curl of their toe, they will pick up your badly lying ball and place it in a more advantageous spot.

At least that's how things were more than a century ago, when avid golfer J. McCullough wrote, Golf. Containing Practical Hints, with Rules of the Game." The book is a rare glimpse into the state of golf when Queen Victoria still sat on Britain's throne and the popularity of Scotland's national game was spreading throughout the Empire.

Now, McCullough's wry little book has been published online for the first time.

When Golf" first saw print, in 1899, the sport had only recently entered general public awareness, although it had been around for at least a couple of hundred years. As McCullough tells it:

It is only about fifteen years ago that any man traveling in England with golf clubs among his luggage was an object of no common interest and even of some suspicion to his fellow-travelers, and when they had made enquiry and ascertained the strange purpose of the leather-handled and heavy-headed sticks, they still regarded him as an amiable lunatic whose amiability was more questionable than his lunacy.

Today-that is, fifteen years later-more golf is played than any other game."

Although Golf" is definitely dated, modern fans of the sport can appreciate McCullough's good humor when he expounds on the everlasting human foibles, as they express themselves out on the links. Those fans can read the entire text of this classic, for free, at http://www.golf-in-the-year-2000.com/Golfhints/.

McCullough may be better known, under the pseudonym J.A.C.K.," for one of the oddest little books ever written, Golf in the Year 2000; or, What We Are Coming To." A bit of Victorian science fiction, published in 1892, it predicted bullet trains, television, digital watches, driverless golf caddies and women's liberation.

Golf in the Year 2000" is also available to read for free, at http://www.golf-in-the-year-2000.com/golf2000/.

Oh, and as to the relative merits of caddying styles in Guernsey and Egypt: McCullough simply observes that, Faith works wonders, but on the whole the Egyptian method is more to be relied on."

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