Herbert Warren Wind (usgamuseum.com)

Ever wish you could sneak into the study of a great writer and rummage through their desk to see just where all that genius comes from.  Better yet, how about getting to read some personal letters from major celebrities and stars in the game they wrote so eloquently about.  Well here is your chance.

Golf Digest recently published this short piece called “Treasured Links:  Letters To Herbert Warren Wind” which are original letters written to him from people like Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Bing Crosby, Arthur Schlesinger, and others.

Herbert Warren Wind wrote about golf and other sports for The New Yorker
and Sports Illustrated for over 50 years,  His famous books include co-authoring Hogan’s “Five Lessons: Modern Fundamentals of Golf” and “Following Through-Writings On Golf” a collection of his writings about everything from The President’s Putter Competition to his first sight of the Links at Ballybunion.

There are some whimsical ones from fellow writers like George Plimpton and P.G. Woodhouse as well as a number of solemn letters from Byron Nelson and Gene Sarazen.  My favorite is the one from Bing Crosby thanking him for a wood shafted putter Wind had sent him as a present and giving Wind his thoughts about the U.S. Open coming to Pebble Beach for the first time in 1972.

Revealed in these short letters is evidence of his connection with all the central characters of golf over it’s developmental years.  These relationships helped fashion and enhance the intimacy of his writing.  This was another time when the relationships of writers and protagonists were shaped by mutual conciliation not confrontation.

Unfortunately, with just 13 of these letters, your stay in his study is too short,  There must have been a sound in the hallway that sent you scurrying back out the window.

(Click to read Golf Digest’s presentation of “Letters to Herbert Warren Wind”)

Golf Digest

May, 2012