Taken From A Portion of a 1937 American Statesman Column "On The Fairways" by Morris Williams
"When a golfer executes an especially fine shot he rarely gives any indication that he is pleased; that is, there is no outward show of emotion. Inside he may feel a plesant warmth at his prowess, but seldom indeed does he go around telling his pals what a fine golf shot he has just made. Later on, at dinner table, he may recount at length to the ever-loving wife the details of the shot that lingers in his memory. Of course, the everloving wife does not pay any attiontion: she merely counters with description of how excellently she played a slam hand that afternoon at the bridge club.
Ah, but it remains for the shot or shots that are flubbed to bring out the true nature of the golfer. When he is cursed with a low, darting hook, or a large sweeping slice or missed puts, or dubbed approaches- then he gives vent to his wrath.
He throws clubs, he breaks clubs, he jumps up and down and tears his hair. In extreme cases golfers have been known to bend their clubs over their own heads. I am reminded of the sad case of my friend, Mr. Lewis Burr.
We played the other day: Ferd Fincher, Grip Penn, Mr. Burr and myself. Mr. Burr was my partner. When he hooked into the woods on Muny's No. 1, Mr Burr recognized that the signs wern't right but he struggled around to No. 3 green before displaying his disappointment in a wild heave of his seven-iron into the road. The club came uncomfortably close to Mr Fincher, or so he claimed, but the rest of us agreed. Mr. Burr had not intended bodily harm to Mr. Fincher and anyway, as we pointed out to Mr. Fincher, a man is rightfully entitled to a little room when he wishes to throw a club. At any rate Mr. Fincher walked to the rear of Br. Burr the rest of our day.
Mr. Burr struggled mightily to regain his usual form, and his usual temper, but as the afternoon wore on, we could see he was not accomplishing much in either endeavor, and while Mr. Burr is not one to scream when things go wrong, and to tell the truth seldom says anything what-ever, still we realized that all was not well with him.
When we reached the ninth tee, Mr. Burr's usual hook lightly skimmed the tops of the ditches, hit few high spots in the fairway and came to rest a good 150 yards away. Mr. Burr bore up bravely under this stress, however, and executed a really magnificent second shot to within eight feet of the pin.
No one expected Mr. Burr to sink this putt, and he didn't. He hit the ball past the cup about three feet. After a few choice words, Mr. Burr putted a second time, and the ball went about two and a half feet by. Mr. Burr followed,. The rest of us sat down, seeing that Mr. Burr apparently intended to make an afternoon of getting the ball down. He surprised us, however, getting down in two more strokes or a total of four putts. Mr Burr walked past the cup so many times that Mr. Tom Penick was forced to move the cup the next day, which is strictly against his policy, and we cannot blame him for being sore at Mr. Burr."
Mr Burr survived his four-putt ordeal and finally we reached the 18th tee. Here Mr. Burr hooked another one into the woods.
It was too much. Mr. Burr threw his club after the ball. Still boiling, he took three more clubs from his bag and hurled them after the first. Then Mr. Burr poured out the remaind balls in his golf bag, selected a club and furiously hit them all off into the woods, hurling the club after the last hall had been hit.
The rest of us arose from our positions on the ground and gathered together protectively as Mr. Burr looked around for something else to throw. Not seeing anything handy, Mr. Burr grabbed himself by the seat of his pants and hurled himself into a clump of cactus and it was with some difficulty we extracted him from this extremely uncomfortable spot.
