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Johnson, Owen, 1878-1952

"Murder in Any Degree"

When standing thirty-four for the first six
holes, he sliced into the jungle, and, after twenty minutes of frantic
beating of the bush, was forced to acknowledge a lost ball and no score,
he promptly sat down, tore large clutches of grass from the sod, and
expressed himself to the admiring delight of the caddies, who favorably
compared his flow of impulsive expletives to the choice moments of their
own home life. At other times he would take an offending club firmly in
his big hands and break it into four pieces, which he would drive into
the ground, hurling the head itself, with a last diabolical gesture,
into the Housatonic River, which, as may be repeated, wriggles its way
through the course as though convulsed with merriment.
There were certain trees into which he inevitably drove, certain waggish
bends of the river where, no matter how he might face, he was sure to
arrive. There was a space of exactly ten inches under the clubhouse
where his balls alone could disappear. He never ran down a long put, but
always hung on the rim of the cup.


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