Golf: A Royal and Ancient Game.

CLARK, Robert. (Harry Vardon).

$5,000.00

Item Number: 90412

London: Macmillan and Co, 1899.

Third edition of this rare and early work on golf. Quarto, original red cloth with gilt titles to the spine, gilt vignette to the front panel, top edge gilt. Illustrated with numerous plates from photographs and wood engravings throughout the text. Association copy, affixed to the verso of the front panel is a letter signed and entirely in the hand of Harry Vardon to golf course architect A.W. Tillinghast. A.W. Tillinghast was one of the most prolific architects in the history of golf; he worked on more than 265 different courses and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2015. On Vardon’s letterhead and dated March 30th 1917, the letter reads in part, “Dear Mr. Tillinghast, I was very pelased to hear from you again and hope you are very well…glad you are doing such good work at golf-course making with P. Lee. I hope to come over and see you all once more before I shed my shoes providing this war will be over this century..Your friend, Harry Vardon.” Affixed to the front free endpaper is the original transmittal envelope addressed to Tillinghast in Vardon’s hand. Affixed to the half-title page is an original black and white photograph of Vardon, beneath which Tillinghast has noted in pencil, “Harry Vardon, Shawnee 1913, Photo by A.W.T.” In very good condition. A rare and desirable association.

"Widely regarded as one of the most significant, as well as best produced, early books on the history of golf, Clark's work is a compilation of the earliest literature on the game. In assembling the book, Clark, a well-known Edinburgh printer, collected early press reports, biographical sketches, significant acts of Parliament, municipal records, diaries, and extracts from the minutes of the earliest golf clubs" Murdoch 128; D&M 900.