Judge, 1924-08-16 · page 15 of 36
Judge — August 16, 1924 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This article by Silas Spitzer mocks golf's overwhelming cultural penetration in 1920s America. The narrator—a non-golfer—complains that golf obsession has invaded every aspect of life: subway commutes, newspaper advertising, workplace conversation, and even his marriage. The satire targets several things: golf's association with upper-class pretension (expensive "four piece" suits, country club exclusivity), the incomprehensible jargon golfers use ("mashie," "foozled"), and most pointedly, the *social pressure* to participate. Non-golfers are dismissed as simps or social failures. His boss and colleagues waste work time discussing games; executives prioritize golf scores over business. The illustrations show golf's intrusive omnipresence—even during a high jump competition. The final caption, "Three sheets in the wind," suggests the narrator's exasperated (or intoxicated) state. Essentially, Spitzer satirizes how a leisure activity became a status marker and social obligation, excluding and marginalizing those who refused participation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
es The Golf Menace T= thing has gone far enough. Iam a mild man and not easily roused, but I can be pushed so far. I don’t play golf, don’t want to play golf and am sick of hearing about the blasted game. As a free-born American citi- zen, white and partially Nordic, I rise to protest against the in- sidious influence which has wig-' gled its way into the life of inno- cent members of this community. Everywhere I turn I am assailed by the idiotic propaganda of the links. On my way downtown to work on the subway I stumble over golf bags and feel upon my neck the cold caress of a niblick clutched by some zany in the next seat. Every pege of my newspaper bears the advertisement of some clothier announcing “four piece golf suits for tee and town, with the baggy, shaggy knicker favored by the Prince himself,” and embel- lished by the portrait of a boob at- tired like a clown on a holiday. The sporting section is overrun with stories bristling with strange and maddening phrases—“sliced into the rough,” “topped his mashie,” “250 yards in the clear,” “foozled his approach,” “holed out for a birdie.” “What's that little chap so chesty about?” “He’s the only man in the State who can watch a high jump without lifting his right leg.” At the office, my boss comes in, seats himself on a corner of the desk, and, with a fatuous smile, proceeds to relate, hole by hole, the history of his game last Sunday. The sales manager joins him. They seize my umbrella and my walking stick and, planting themselves in contorfed attitudes, go through a series of age f <st NX “Three sheets in the wind” ridiculous motions, sweating and panting in their enthusiasm. I can’t order them out. Jobs are scarce. At our Wednesday afternoon con- ference, all the executives, instead of talking business, swap golf stories and compare score cards. They patronize me in a manner which makes my red corpuscles sizzle. In their opinion, I am a simp. Any man who doesn’t play golf is a simp. There must be something wrong with his character. Perhaps a hid- den prison record prevents him from being put up at a country club. It’s getting so that I haven’t any- one around the place who will listen tomewhenI tell them about my truck garden, which I wouldn’t trade for the best eighteen hole course that ever desecrated a landscape. My own wife is beginning to desert me. She knows I’d “look perfect in knickers.” She thinks life at the country club is “too smart for any- thing.” The “best people” belong. The next guy who opens his mouth to say the word “golf” in my presence is going to wake up some place where everything’s white, clean, and very quiet. Stas SprtzER comicbooks.com