After Cambridge, Darwin became a court lawyer, but did not particularly enjoy that career, and gradually moved into journalism, despite having no formal training.

He played the game at an excellent level himself well into middle age, and competed in The Amateur Championship on 26 occasions across five decades between 1898 and 1935, with his best results being semi-final appearances in 1909 and 1921.

In 1922, while in the United States to report on the first Walker Cup amateur team match between Britain and Ireland and the U.S., and also appointed as non-playing captain, Darwin was pressed into service at the last minute as a player, when one of the British team members, Robert Harris, was unable to play.

Though mainly a golf writer, he also occasionally wrote on cricket, and prefaced the first edition of The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

Bernard Darwin's works were kept in print by Herbert Warren Wind through his curated Classics of Golf Library.

The society provided a complete medical service for the workers and their families in the Swindon rail works.