Copyright 1998: All Rights Reserved. Permission is hereby given to make single copies for personal use.
Author’s Preface: “She Knows You”
Cast of Characters: “Who plainly think themselves demigods”
Introduction: “Please Welcome Folly”
4. Original Sin: Why We Leave Putts Short
8. Where Did You Go, Joe DiMaggio?
10. The Follies of Guys and Dollies
11. Folly On Hollywood: Go Rattle Your Tin Cup
13. Stretching the Advertising Dollar and the Truth: It’s Showtime
15. “There’s A Ground Putt To Buckner”
17. Golf Beats Fishing and Vice Versa
18. Of Sandbaggers and Handicaps
21. Conclusion: The Ultimate Folly
You are about to listen to the voice of an old friend, someone who has been with you since childhood, especially if you are a golfer. Your wife, husband, girl friend, boy friend, can’t be jealous, for all of them have also spent time with her. Her name is Folly, and without her there is no golf, but neither is there anything else to enjoy or suffer in life. Knowing her better will make everything better, perhaps even your game.
As you read this, keep in mind the words of Sir Thomas Chaloner, who first translated The Praise of Folie into English in 1549: “Folie in all points is not so strange to us . . . she will be sure to beare a stroke in most of our doings.” [1] She means no harm, and neither does the author of the present work. At heart, both Folly and golf are serious fun.
1. The Praise of Folie, ed Clarence H. Miller, EETS, Oxford, 1965. In this work, all quotations and paraphrases from Praise of Folly that have weird spellings [and many that don’t] are taken from this edition. The author also hereby acknowledges a deeper debt to Betty Radice’s translation, first published by Penguin Books, 1971, with introduction and notes by A.H.T. Levi.
“Who plainly think themselves demigods.”
Folly, a pretty although well-endowed woman, definitely seductive, of a well-kept early 40-something years, but whose actual age is co-equal to that of the human race. She has a well-earned twenty handicap from the men’s tees. One of her better known press agents was a Dutchman, Desiderius Erasmus. (See below.).
Tom, also known as St. Thomas More, a most serious appearing English gentleman with a wry sense of humor. Plays to a genuine six handicap from the back tees, but is constantly trying to perfect his game. Cool and steady, he rarely three putts. Of a vigorous and lean middle-age, he is the author of Utopia, and was once heavily involved in politics, despite his own misgivings. Once despised Tyndale (see next), but now tolerates him for the sake of a good game of golf.
Bill, known to his readers as William Tyndale, also an Englishman, late thirties, feisty, a competitor, with an eight handicap from the men’s tees. Translated the Bible into English in the early sixteenth century and was executed for heresy in Belgium in 1536, the year after More’s beheading for treason. Not long off the tees, but rarely strays from the fairway. Will take chances on the course. Loves to tease More
Erasmus, given name Desiderius, but, like South American soccer stars, goes by his last name. Slightly older than More, but his closest friend, he sometimes has to act as a buffer, along with Folly, between Tyndale and More. A bogey golfer because he refuses to concentrate on the game, but capable of many well-struck shots. The most scholarly of the foursome, and the most likable of the men, he is the author of Praise of Folly.
Ourselves, that is all the golfers of the world, ranging from those playing once or twice a year to every day plus beating balls on the range and practicing putting in the living room and chipping in the backyard.