(Tommy Armour's classic How to Play Your Best Golf All the...)
Tommy Armour's classic How to Play Your Best Golf All the Time provides timeless golf instruction on the following subjects:
* How to learn your best golf
* What can your best golf be?
* Taking you to the lesson tee
* How your clubs can help you
* The grip holds your swing together
* How to get ready to swing
* Footwork, the foundation of best golf
* The art of hitting with the hands
* The waggle, preliminary swing in miniature
* The pause that means good timing
* Assembling your game in good order
* Saving strokes with simple approach shots
* The fascinating, frustrating philosophy of putting
* The simple routine of an orderly golf shot
These classic bits of advice are accompanied by over four dozen two-color illustrations.
Thomas Dickson Armour was a Scottish-American professional golfer.
Background
Thomas Dickson Armour was born on September 24, 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was the son of a confectioner with an avid interest in golf (his parents' names are unknown).
Armour's childhood was spent primarily in the company of his older brother Alexander, a golfer who later won the Scottish Amateur Championship. The two boys also became friends with Bobby Cruickshank, from whom Tommy Armour learned the effective use of long irons and woods, which later characterized his game.
Education
When he was about eighteen years old Armour matriculated at Edinburgh University, but his formal education was cut short by World War I.
Career
He enlisted in 1914 and served with the Black Watch Highland Regiment as a machine gunner. He was severely gassed at the Battle of Ypres and lost the use of his left eye. Later in the war a shell hit his tank and shattered his arm. His golfing style, which included many waggles, was influenced by these injuries.
Rather than resuming his studies, after the war Armour competed in British amateur golf tournaments. His excellent long game enabled him to rise immediately to the forefront in the amateur ranks.
In 1919 he finished second in the Irish Amateur Open and won the Dispatch Trophy. By playing privately between tournaments against many of the top British professionals, he further sharpened his skills and was able to win four titles the next year, including the Scottish and French amateur championships.
His early successes enabled Armour to represent Britain on a team in a pre-Walker Cup international competition against the United States, where he won his match. The growing popularity of golf in America and the large number of tournaments there prompted Armour to emigrate in 1921. He won three minor tournaments that year (the New London, the Engineers, and the Nassau Amateurs).
Two years after becoming an American citizen in 1924, Armour represented America in a match against Britain, thus becoming the only golfer to compete on national teams from both countries. The height of Armour's competitive career came after he turned professional in 1924.
In the next eleven years he won fourteen major titles, including the United States Open in 1927, the Canadian Open three times between 1927 and 1934, the U. S. Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Championship in 1930, and the Miami Open in 1932 and 1935. His most important and gratifying victory came in the British Open of 1931, which was played for the first time at Carnoustie, Scotland, on a course that the London Times called "fierce enough and long enough" to defeat all but the most intrepid and long-driving competitors.
Armour, who was prematurely gray, became known in the 1920's as the "Silver Scot, " a sobriquet that could just as readily have referred to his growing reputation as a raconteur.
His love of sport and talent for telling stories became an increasingly important source of revenue in the interwar years, when he was a regular speaker on the banquet circuit. It also brought him into contact with wealthy Americans, one of whom, Estelle D. Andrews, the widow of an iron manufacturer, became his second wife soon after he divorced his first wife in 1929. Armour adopted Andrews' son.
After his competitive years, Armour established a reputation as a keen student of golf and one of its most successful teachers.
His students included the great golfers of his day, including Bobby Jones, as well as the rich and famous, notably Richard Nixon. Perhaps Armour's success came about because he was the most expensive instructor of his time, charging $50 an hour even though he provided only a few minutes of personal instruction in each lesson.
He also wrote three well-received books on golf: How to Play Your Best Golf All the Time (1953), A Round of Golf with Tommy Armour (1959), and Tommy Armour's ABC's of Golf (1967).
He died in Larchmont, New York, and was cremated at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York, but is not interred there.
Achievements
Armour was the third of only nine golfers in history to win the U. S. Open, The Open and the PGA Championship.
His impact on the sport for forty years was rivaled by few and surpassed by none.
Armour was elected a charter member of the PGA Hall of Fame in 1940.
Quotations:
"It is not solely the capacity to make great shots that makes champions, but the essential quality of making very few bad shots. "
Personality
In golf he was a stickler about the rules, correcting other players who tended to bend them. Nevertheless he was well liked and highly regarded by fellow professionals.
Connections
In 1919 he married Consuelo Carrera, whose wealth enabled him to concentrate exclusively on golf. They had two children.
Estelle D. Andrews, the widow of an iron manufacturer, became his second wife soon after he divorced his first wife in 1929.
