The Kingdom of Golf in America by Richard J. Moss (review)

In his introduction Richard Moss describes The Kingdom of Golf in America as “a history of the golf community in the United States” and not “an exhaustive history of golf in America” (pp. x-xi). Despite this disclaimer, Moss covers most of the major topics in the history of golf in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present. He includes a highly condensed narrative of the United States Golf Association (USGA), the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA), and the leading country clubs, courses, tournaments, and champions, but his main focus is on the sport’s political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions. Over the past few decades scholars and sportswriters have examined the racial, gender, and social class aspects of the game in the United States, but Moss is only the second author to combine a brief narrative with a social and cultural history of American golf in one volume. (Full disclosure—I wrote the other one.) Like many sport historians, Moss aims to attract both an academic and a popular readership. His approach is unusual in that he inserts extensive first person editorial commentary.

Moss begins and ends this volume with a discussion of the appeal of golf to upper-class Americans and an explication of early golf literature. He examines the challenges that golf offers individuals, its nonviolent nature, beautiful and inspiring courses, promotion of character values through its code of behavior, and respect for golf’s history and traditions. After recounting the familiar story of the creation of the first elite country clubs, clubhouses, and courses, and the founding of the USGA and the PGA, he describes how American golf used charity exhibitions to survive the First World War. He then offers a fresh qualification to the standard view of golf’s first “Golden Age” during the 1920s. He acknowledges that the “Roaring Twenties” witnessed remarkable growth in the number of private country clubs and municipal and semi-private daily-fee facilities. He also notes the popularity of such champions as Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, and Gene Sarazen, who provided the star power that made golf a spectator sport. But he also sees reckless excessive spending by posh country clubs that led to the bankruptcy and closure of many of them during the Great Depression of the 1930s. He views the Second World War as even more damaging to American golf than the First World War.

The book’s second half covers the post-World War II golf boom and the phenomenal increase in the number of golfers and private and public courses during the 1950s and 1960s. Prize money and attendance also skyrocketed upward at PGA Tour events. Moss discusses the familiar list of contributing factors—the return of prosperity; a business culture that boosted golf; television; motorized golf carts; publicity provided by such celebrities as Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and President Dwight D. Eisenhower; the arrival of a new charismatic champion, Arnold Palmer; and Palmer’s rivalry with the upstart Jack Nicklaus. Especially illuminating are his discussions of conflicts between the leading professional golfers and the PGA over the control of lucrative television contracts and the battles over rule changes between the USGA and the PGA. Moss also expertly evaluates the impact of new rules and new equipment on the sport and the reaction of the conservative “old guard.” They tried unsuccessfully to turn back the clock to the nineteenth century, when amateurs walked eighteen holes and used wooden clubs to hit balls filled with feathers.

The central thesis of Moss’s book is that “the golf industry is wholly dependent on the existence of a golf community,” which he defines as millions of Americans who are emotionally bonded to the game” (pp. 316-317). At its core are avid golfers who play more than twenty-five rounds a year. Using statistics compiled by the National Golf Foundation, he describes them as predominantly male and wealthier and...