The Architectural Side of Golf, written at the close of the golden era of golf architecture, is the discipline’s grandest literary gem. It is the last and most lavish of the several books on design published during the 1920s, with 44 plates drawn by Simpson and 26 etchings by Wethered. The authors reaped the benefit of seeing prior publications and crafted this to be as little like a textbook as possible, while exploring a wide variety of subjects directly and indirectly related to architecture. Excepting Sutton’s 1933 Golf Courses: Design, Construction and Upkeep, this would be the last book published on golf course architecture for decades. Familiar to designers, The Architectural Side of Golf should also be in the hands of amateurs and committee persons who tinker with re-design or contemplate alteration of their home courses. Wethered was the father of champion golfers Roger and Joyce Wethered.
This is the first edition published in 1929. 4to. xix + 212pp. Cream cloth with gilt design on front cover and gilt lettering on the spine. Apart for some flaws which I will describe, this copy would have been at least very good with the boards in nice clean unworn condition and the gilt design sharp. The book is tightly bound and has light spotting of the edges and mild scattered internal foxing with browning of the endpapers. The flaws are as follows: There is some moderate insect/fishmothing damage to both front and rear endpapers in the region of the hinges, with loss of paper down to the boards (worse at the rear). There are also some small insect holes in the inner margins (not affecting the text) of about 20 pages at the rear of the book of gradually diminishing size. The four index pages are the most affected. The accompanying images will hopefully give a clear idea of the damage. It can be seen that on page 210 there are 3 holes on each page, but by page 186 (the last page affected), there is but a single pinhole size hole. The pages in the front of the book are not similarly affected. Despite this flaw, the book remains attractive and a new set of endpapers would do the world of good.
- Binding Condition: VG with flaws as described.
- Overall Condition: Good
- Size: 4to.
- Sold By: Ronald Levine - Modern First Editions
- Contact Person: Ronald Levine
- Country: South Africa
- Email: [email protected]
- Telephone: 011643 8437
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