To Win and Die in Dixie

February 8, 2010
Eubanks (Golf Freek
) tells the story of long-forgotten golf professional J. Douglas Edgar, an Englishman from Newcastle who was one of the best players of the early 1920s. Edgar, who Eubanks argues created the modern golf swing, moved to Atlanta in 1919, where he influenced young Bobby Jones. Edgar died there on West Peachtree Street on an August night in 1921 at the age of 36 from a mysterious puncture wound to his thigh. Comer Howell, a 20-year-old reporter and son of Clark Howell, influential owner of the Atlanta Constitution
, was one of three newspapermen who found a bleeding Edgar in the street and witnessed his last moments. The key question is whether Edgar was hit by a car, as first believed, or was the victim of murder by a jealous husband whom Edgar might have cuckolded. It makes for a fascinating tale, reviving Edgar’s legend and portraying the city of Atlanta and the game of golf in that era. Students of golf history and Atlanta’s past will find much of interest here. However, the narrative suffers from a lack of focus, with meandering passages that drift from the central story and overuse of dialect to recreate Edgar’s North English accent.

February 15, 2010
A champion golfer whose dalliances with women outside his marriage cause his personal life to implode, wreaking havoc on all concerned? No, not Tiger Woods. Tigers philanderings have attracted more headlines than those of J. Douglas Edgar, but their effects were nowhere near as lethal: Edgar, one of many Scottish golf pros to immigrate to the U.S. in the early twentieth centuryand arguably the creator of the modern golf swingwas murdered in Atlanta in 1921. The crime remains unsolved, but journalist Eubanks makes a compelling case that Edgars death was not the result of a hit-and-run, the assumption at the time, but, rather, was a cold-blooded murder committed by men determined to exact revenge for one of the golfers affairs. Edgar is almost totally unknown today, and Eubanks effectively reprises his career and innovative teaching techniques, which influenced, among others, the great Bobby Jones. Edgars death, just as he was hitting his competitive stride, may have robbed golf of a potential all-time great. A fine slice of golf history and a nifty true-crime tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)