Monday, September 12, 2016

Wodehouse and golf

Many Americans are familiar with the duo of Jeeves and Wooster, even if they do not recognize the name of their creator, Sir Pelham Grenville (P. G.) Wodehouse (pronounced Wood-house). I have not read everything in the field, but it is hard for me to imagine anyone surpassing Sir Pelham in his ability to humorously describe the persons and lives of the British nobility. His novels are hilariously funny, especially those that deal with the theft of Earls' and baronets' prize pigs, or that inimitable bon vivant, Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, 6th Earl of good old Ickenham.

However, Sir Pelham was also a golfer, and his short stories about golf are also side-splitting, especially to those of us whose only efforts at the sport must be placed in the "Atrocious" category. When my excellent father-in-law was still living, he would frequently take me golfing, and it is a tribute to his patience that he did not in frustration decapitate me with a 3-iron. So, when Wodehouse describes a golf match between two thorough foozlers on the links, and says that one of them "romped home with a solid thirteen on the final hole," that is something with which I can readily identify.

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