Golf and the Problems of the World

We read this story about the 1929 stock market crash many years ago in a type of businessman's chain letter and were glad to find it again online at the Aircraft Resource Center:

Here is the story in the approximate version that we heard it 30 years ago:

"The question:

Over a generation ago, in 1923, who was:

1. President of the largest steel company?
2. President of the largest gas company?
3. President of the New York Stock Exchange?
4. Greatest wheat speculator?
5. President of the Bank of International Settlement?
6. Wheat Bear of Wall Street?

These men were considered some of the world's most successful of their day. Now, 80 years later, the history book asks us, if we know what ultimately became of them. The answer:

1. The president of the largest steel company, Charles Schwab, died a pauper.
2. The president of the largest gas company, Edward Hopson, went insane.
3. The president of the NYSE, Richard Whitney, was released from prison to die at home.
4. The greatest wheat speculator, Arthur Cooger, died abroad, penniless.
5. The president of the Bank of International Settlement, shot himself.
6. The Great Bear of Wall Street, Cosabee Livermore, also committed suicide.

However, in that same year, 1923, the PGA Champion and the winner of the most important golf tournament, the US Open, was Gene Sarazen. What became of him? He played golf until he was 92, died in 1999 at the age of 95. He was financially secure at the time of his death. The moral: Screw work. Play golf. You'll live longer and be better off in the end.

Origins:

This is a vintage piece of glurge, one which appears to have been in continuous circulation since at least 1948. Over the years it has been through a variety of alterations, with names being added and dropped from the list, the fates of the various men changing in severity, and different morals being tacked onto the end. In modern versions many of the names have become so distorted through mistranscription to be almost unrecognizeable." [link added by LawPundit]

To learn the TRUE STORY go to the Aircraft Resource Center.

Crossposted to LawPundit.

GolfPundit Word Cloud

Our current word cloud from Wordle.

Greg Norman Leads 2008 British Open by 2 after the Third Round

Tiger Who?

How can we not write about this?

Just when everyone thought that the professional golfing world was going to fall into a deep abyss because of the sudden prolonged absence of Tiger Woods due to a knee operation, a 53-year-old former Number One world golfer has resurfaced with a vengeance and brought an excitement to golf that no one would have thought possible just a few days ago.

Greg Norman, who many viewed as being virtually retired from high-level pro golf and surely far past his prime, has come out of nowhere to lead the British Open by two strokes after three rounds of golf against the best players in the world.

Win or lose in Sunday's last round, what Norman has already achieved in three rounds is great for golf, showing what a tremendous game it is, both for players and spectators alike.

When one champion goes, others take his place.

The King is gone. Long live the (new) King, whoever he may turn out to be.

Crossposted from LawPundit.

Equal on the Tee

The Golf Digest College Guide to Golf 2007-2008 ranks Stanford University at Number 1 for golf. We definitely agree. Stanford's championship course was one of the variables which in part determined our own choice of law school out of ten possibilities a number of years ago.

Man does not live by law alone. Golf matters.

As written at Golf Digest's Political Golf Rankings:

"... Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, a longtime player whose 14.5 Index hasn't been updated since 2000, declined to approximate his handicap, saying he hasn't been playing enough to have one."

This, obviously, is a regrettable lapse of judgment on the part of a Chief Justice who got where he is by p(l)aying golf its proper due in his formative years. We are certain that the Chief Justice's opinions would improve all the more if he played golf often enough to maintain a handicap rating. Let each man swing for what he is worth in a game which levels all classes of humanity.

Equal on the Tee*

After all, golf humbly teaches every golfer who has had the courage to swing a club, that on the tee, all men are equal**... unless, of course, you are Tiger Woods.

And even then, that Stanford grad has recently been brought to the "knee" by the Golf gods .... (see Woods to miss the rest of the year with knee surgery).

No one is spared. Everyone has to pay his just due.

Mike Park speaks for the soul of golf when he writes in Golf is good for you:

"Read the USGA rules of golf and you see the New England Primer, the U.S. Constitution, and the Rule of St. Benedict: words that bring structure and order to a stochastic universe. Playing golf, then, is a celebration of a way of life. How can you live without it. If you can't live without it, how can it be a luxury? Any way you look at it, a year of golf is cheaper than a year of Prozac and counseling, and better for you. How is that a luxury? Playing golf means you aren't flirting with women who aren't your wife, it means taking the time to think about the meaning of your life and your place in the world, and being a better person.

On the course, you are a better man than you are off of it. You let people through. You report your sins and assign your own punishment. You keep a respectful silence as other people go about their business. You offer to share your cigars. If all of the world adhered to golf etiquette, we would have none of the current mess we are in."

Amen.
__________

* The LawPundit phrase "equal on the tee"(TM) is hereby copyrighted and trademarked and may not be used in any golf or other context for commercial or other proprietary purposes of any kind without contractual permission from LawPundit. We do not plan to exploit this phrase commercially, but this notice means that no one else can (or should) either, as it is our invention (Google does not find that phrase today, prior to our coining of it).
** That all men are equal on the tee is something that some golfers, curiously enough, seem not yet to have learned.

Crossposted from LawPundit.