I was at the bookstore this weekend and noticed a new biography of J. Douglas Edgar. I couldn’t remember ever hearing of him before but was intrigued by the book. While I didn’t buy the book (yet), I did look him up and found some very interesting things on the internet about him.
He was born in England. He won the French Open in 1914 and emigrated to the United States in 1918. He was the head pro at Druid Hills Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia.
Won the Canadian Open by 16 strokes(!) over Bobby Jones and Tommy Armour
Wrote a book, published in 1920, called The Gate to Golf which is freely available on Google Books, is a quick read, and has some insights, IMO. books.google.com/books?id=GS8PAA … q=&f=false
In the book, while he’s promoting a device he created called The Gate, his real intention is to dispel some of the mysteries of the golf swing.
I thought I’d post something here since I found his book to be very interesting and I was shocked to read that some of the things I’ve learned from ABS were being taught be some of the bets 90 years ago!
Bonus: Interesting article that mentions J. Douglas Edgar, but also talks about hitting from the inside and how it relates to distance. golfdigest.com/golf-instruct … er_42yards
Arnie,
You should be able to find it if you go to books.google.com and search for “J. Douglas Edgar”.
If that doesn’t work. I can email you the PDF that’s available for download.
Russ
Pavaveda: Great link to Mr. Edgar, thanks…I love reading old stuff. I didn’t have any trouble finding it at Google-Books. I didn’t even know that Google-Books existed until your link. Heck, they have a lot of stuff over there!
This story is very interesting. It is likely that Edgar was murdered.
Someone had given me an article several years ago about Edgar, and I stumbled across it and contacted his grandson in England and bought the book, which included the “Gate”…a training device.
Tommy Armour said something along the lines of " Edgar will exceed us all." Edgar apparently was one of many UK pros that came to the US after WW1. Bobby Jones also knew him and said similar things. Jones grew up not far from Druid Hills, at East Lake in Atlanta. His teacher was Stuart Maiden.
Edgar has a grandson and son in the UK now, in the golf industry. I think it would be interesting for those nearby to look them up.
The book is a good read and short. There is an interesting aspect to it that I will go into later.
, but here is a link to the pdf file with pictures and all:
Heck, they have a lot of stuff over there!
RR
