CURIOSITIES OF GOLF

A selection of bizarre ocurrences relating to golf, captured in words and cartoons. These stories range from a hole in one caused by an earthquake, to Chico the dog, who was made an honorary member of the Waihi Golf Club in New Zealand because of his gift for finding golf balls.

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Golf has been considered a strange pastime, by players and non-players alike, ever since its birth in Scotland half a millennium ago. Since it became a worldwide obsession in the early years of this century, events that have taken place in the name of golf have moved from the strange to the bizarre. Jonathan Rice has avoided the mere commonplace curiosities in his search for the unusual. But he has turned up stories - all authenticated, as far as any golf story can be - of a hole in one caused by an earthquake; of the 10-year-old boy who caddied for the winner of the 1913 US Open; and of Chico the dog, who was made an honorary member of the Waihi Golf Club in New Zealand in 1971, because of his "infallible gift for finding golf balls". The great and the good are here, too. As well as Bob Hope, who shot a hole in one at the age of 90, there is King Hassan of Morocco, whose personal golf course was turned into a prison camp during a coup attempt. Rice writes of Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister of Britain from 1902 to 1906, who won the parliamentary handicap three times; and of Princess Asuka of Japan, runnerup in the 1929 Ladies' Challenge Cup at Miyanosihita.
This book is a compilation of the most bizarre anecdotes relating to this truly curious game.