Winston Churchill? Apocryphal? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: Winston Churchill played golf for a period of time, but he switched his avocation to painting. The following description of golf is sometimes attributed to him:
Like chasing a quinine pill around a cow pasture.
Did Churchill use this expression and did he coin it?
Reply from Quote Investigator: There is good evidence that Churchill did employ this simile. It is listed in the important reference “Irrepressible Churchill: A Treasury of Winston Churchill’s Wit” by Kay Halle with a date of 1915.1 The author labeled the quotation “Ear-witness” which meant that a friend shared by Halle and Churchill ascribed the witticism to Churchill. However, sayings of this type have a long history, and a close match for the above statement was in circulation by 1895. Hence, QI thinks it is unlikely that Churchill crafted the expression.
A jocular portrayal of a golf outing was presented in “The Harvard Lampoon” of Harvard University in 1892. The drinking of beer was accentuated in this account. Future comical accounts often mentioned multi-acre lots:2
THE WAY TO PLAY GOLF.
Get a foot-ball, two croquet mallets or old umbrella handles, and six cases of beer; carry the same to a ten-acre lot, then get out in the sun and swat the leather till you get a thirst. Every thirst counts ten, and the man with the biggest score to his credit when the beer gives out wins.
In December 1894 a profile of a Chicago golfer named Charles B. MacDonald was printed in multiple U.S. newspapers.3 The story included a saying that equated a golf ball and a quinine pill, and the attribution was anonymous. Boldface has been added to excerpts below:4
Four or five alleged matches for the championship of the United States and of America were held at different times this year, and the sport of knocking a quinine pill around a 40 acre lot, as some humorist describes the game, is now the rage from Maine to Texas.
In May 1895 “Scribner’s Magazine” printed an article about golf that included a humorous depiction of the game placed between quotation marks without an attribution. This statement was similar to the one ascribed to Churchill:5
The scoffer who speaks with a contempt not born of familiarity, or views it with assumed indifference, may assert that the game, with its system of strokes and score, will restore the unhealthy atmosphere of the croquet ground; that it will try the souls of the clergy and become the undoing of parishioners. “It is simply driving a quinine pill over a cow pasture.”
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
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