Notice: for all order destinations to the US and non-Europe, please order via the USGA.
We have recently published for the United States Golf Association Foundation Swing Time: A Celebration of Golf and Music 1870-1939. The authors are two well-known and highly-respected golf historians, Dr. Rand Jerris and Peter Lewis, who also are excellent collaborators. This unique and important new entry in the Library of Golf is 324 pages, which includes a comprehensive Bibliography and Index, together with profuse colour illustrations. The book is printed on acid-free paper with an illustrated dust jacket in a limited edition of 1500 copies. The volume is casebound and weighs 1.759 kilograms.
The USGA’s Announcement for Swing Time includes the description:
From the 1870s until the start of the Second World War, leading American and British composers and lyricists created a profusion of songs and sheet music with golf themes. Though largely unknown today, a thriving tradition of golf music led to the publication of more than 600 golf songs during these decades. Once hugely popular, selling tens of thousands and in a few cases millions of copies, this remarkable corpus of golf music tells extraordinary stories about the connections between golf and popular culture.
Swing Time: A Celebration of Golf and Music 1870-1939 is a lavishly illustrated survey of golf music that features more than 200 golf songs, many created as stand-alone songs and some written to accompany theatrical productions and early films. Many of these songs were written by the premier composers and lyricists of the day; leading artists created the beautifully illustrated covers. The ephemeral nature of sheet music has rendered examples of golf sheet music exceedingly rare; only a single known copy survives for many of the songs featured in this volume. Most of songs highlighted in the book are published here for the first time for modern audiences.
Written by Dr. Rand Jerris and Peter Lewis, two of the game’s premier historians, Swing Time illuminates a rich tradition of golf music that runs long and deep, across every continent where the game is played.
Please note that 100% of the sale price of every copy of Swing Time will be donated to the USGA Foundation to support the mission and activities of USGA Golf Museum and Library.