Golfers on the Coral Gables Country Club; William A. Fishbaugh Collection; Florida Memory
Golfers have always complained that the game takes too long.
I just didn't realize they'd already solved the problem... a hundred years ago.
Buried in a July 1926 newspaper was a column by the legendary sportswriter Damon Runyon about something called the Forty-Eighth Street One Clubbers Association. Whether it was a real club, an elaborate inside joke, or Runyon's own invention is honestly hard to tell. The whole thing walks a perfect line between sincerity and satire, which somehow makes it even funnier.
The proposal began innocently enough. A man named Mr. Sinnott had decided that every golfer should be allowed exactly one ball. Lose it, and your round was over. Not until you bought another one. Over.
His reasoning was spectacular:
"If a player is so inept as to knock his ball into the landscape where it cannot be found, he is too punk to play the company of gentlemen."
"Too punk to play" is one of those phrases that feels like it deserves to make a comeback.
Mr. Sinnott insisted this wasn't punishment; it was efficiency. Fewer lost balls would speed up play, reduce damage to the course, and save golfers money. The logic is strangely airtight right up until you remember that every golfer loses golf balls.
Then the proposal became even more ambitious. Why carry an entire bag when a single club could do everything? Their ideal club would function as a driver, iron, mashie, niblick, putter, and even a walking stick. At that point, Runyon could no longer resist joining the joke. If one club was going to replace everything else, he suggested, why not give it a compartment for a cup of coffee and a sandwich, make it fold up small enough to fit in your pocket "like a lead pencil," and have it carry itself home afterward?
And somehow, they still weren't finished.
The final proposal was to eliminate seventeen of golf's eighteen holes. According to the column, one properly designed hole contained every challenge the game had to offer. Players could simply walk back to the tee and play it again. And again.
Runyon eventually throws up his hands and asks, almost pleadingly:
"One club, one ball, one hole—can't you see the idea?"
Maybe just go for a walk…
See you tomorrow
-Chris
Source
Danville Register and Bee, July 11th, 1926