First ever book on golf

“The Goff. An Heroi-comical Poem”, first published by Scottish law clerk Thomas Mathison in 1743, is up for sale on February 14^th at the Sheraton Hotel in Pasadena, California, and is expected to fetch up to $60,000.

According to UK auction house Bonhams, “only 2 copies appear in the auction records for the last 40 years and only 10 copies are recorded in the census of the United States Golf Association published in the 1981 facsimile edition.”

We also have to say that 273 years ago, Thomas Mathison totally nailed it. Golf as a heroic yet comical endeavor: we hear you.

The Goff is about a round of golf played at the five-hole links of Leith, which would later become the Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, now known as Muirfield.

The two golfers are: "Pygmalion" (the author, "small is his size, but dauntless is his heart") and "Castalio" (modeled on Alexander Dunning, an Edinburgh bookseller, "great Castalio his whole force collects and on the orb a noble blow directs").

Taking its lead from Homer’s epic the Iliad, Goff kicks off with:

'Goff, and the Man, I sing, who, em'lous, plies,

The jointed club; whose balls invade the skies;

Who from Edina's [Edinburgh's] tow'rs, his peaceful home,

In quest of fame o'er Letha's [Leith's] plains did roam.

Long toil'd the hero, on the verdant field,

Strain'd his stout arm the weighty club to wield;

Such toils it cost, such labours to obtain

The bays of conquest, and the bowl to gain.'

Joseph Murdoch, who created one of the great golf libraries back in 1941, wrote of The Goff: "Standing alone in a century of silence, the first book entirely devoted to golf was published in 1743, more than twenty years after Glotta [James Arbuckle's 1721 poem with mention of golf] and ninety years before another book would appear. It, too, is poetry, and one of the classics of golf literature. The ultimate that any collector can attain is to have one of its three editions in his library.”

Muirfield remains one of the most exclusive courses in the world, and is where the Scottish legal set gathers to discuss how they named their Baronetcies.

Now, we’re not being chippy here, so to speak, but Muirfield certainly doesn’t have the reputation for being one of the most forward thinking and modern courses. And of course, if you are a woman, there’s still no chance, although they are reviewing this in an attempt to keep on the Open roster.

Muirfield is still as much about lunch as it is about golf. According to it’s notorious secretary, P.W.T. “Paddy Hanmer”, a retired Royal Navy Captain, playing Muirfield required “2½ hours, 2½ hours and 2½ hours”. Which translated into Muirfield lingo means 2 ½ hours for the first nine, 2 ½ hours for lunch, and 2 ½ hours for the back nine.

That’s actually pretty GolfPunk, come to think about it. We do lunch, if anyone’s asking.