From the author’s point of view, why agree to undertake a club history book?
You’re absolutely right. I imagine that if I broke down the hours I spent working on the Essex book into dollars and cents, I’d confirm my suspicion that I lost money on the project. But that’s ok. As strange as it may seem to someone more business-minded, I didn’t take on the job for financial gain. I guess you could call it a ‘labour of love.’ Before the project actually took off in earnest, I had already researched the history of the golf course. I’d studied Donald Ross’ golf architecture, too, and tracked down his original plans for Essex at the Tufts Archive in Pinehurst, NC, along with a few old aerials of the course. That was easy for me, because of my interest in golf course design and the history of my home course. I had no idea how much work was going to be involved with putting together the entire book, though. At the start, I innocently viewed the project as a ‘hobby’ that really suited my interests. It turned out to be much more than that. But the experience has served me
