Dear Clients and Friends,
We recently sourced ‘like-new’, uncirculated copies of the well-received 2016 publication, Why Are There Eighteen Holes? St Andrews and the Evolution of Golf Courses 1764-1890, authored by the acclaimed and award-winning golf historian, and our friend, Peter Lewis. This delightful and important volume was published by The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews and includes a plethora of images with permission from the Club from the Club’s wonderful collection of art, architectural drawings, and golf course cartography.
From the front flap of the book’s cover jacket:
Drawing on a wide range of contemporary sources, Peter Lewis takes readers on a journey from 1764 to 1890 to discover why there are eighteen holes on a course. He reveals that early courses had varying numbers of holes and were judged by the quality of their turf, putting greens and hazards. He shows why, during the 1880’s, as golf became more popular, the ideal number of holes was increasingly seen as being eighteen. In addition, he traces how St Andrews came to be perceived as the ‘metropolis of golf’ and why the Royal and Ancient Golf Club emerged as a governing body of the game. He draws multiple strands of evidence together to answer finally the questions of how and why eighteen holes became the ideal number for a golf course.
From the Foreword by Peter Dawson, OBE, a former Secretary of the Club:
The historical background so well described in Why Are There Eighteen Holes? is highly thought-provoking in considering the issues of today…
I know how much work Peter Lewis has put in to researching and writing this book. He deserves the thanks and congratulations of all of us with a passion for golf and its past. Perhaps the history he has uncovered holds lessons for our game’s future.
Below are the book’s jacket cover plus several excerpted pages, including Mr. Dawson’s Foreword, a map of the Old Course c. 1875, Mr. Lewis’s opening commentary, and the preambles to each of the three galleries of illustrations from the collections of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews:
Each copy is printed on acid-free paper and bound in cloth. Design is by The PPL Group in England and printing is by Bell & Bain in Scotland.
Price is £20, plus handling, postage, and insured tracked shipping.
Shipping weight is 0.8 kilograms.
Best regards,
D M Wilson, III
Publisher
Grant Books Ltd
Comments