The Spirit Of The Links - free ebook by Henry Leach

THE SPIRIT OF THE LINKS

BY HENRY LEACH METHUEN &amp; CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON First Published in 1907 THE SPIRIT OF THE LINKS...

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I

T o discover the secret of its wonderful charm is not the least of the problems of golf. It is a game that encourages the reflective and philosophical mind to close investigation, and so it is not enough for the worthy player that he should take the things that he sees and feels for granted, with no questions concerning the mystic influences that seem constantly to brood over the links, and the people who are of them. Each day as we go forward to the game, and in particular if it marks the begin

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II

Men of other races, whose skins are not white, are afoot with this game. Black men are playing; yellow men are becoming expert; red men have achieved great skill. A few years since a golfer traveller found his way to the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, and he saw the wild Red Indian at golf, and thought that it suited him better than his old game of lacrosse. Spotted Horse drove off along the prairie—a plain prairie with only a few shrubs about—and he followed and played the ball for a couple

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III

Rulers, statesmen, diplomatists, begin to take more serious account of the sport-loving factor in human nature than has been their wont. Downing Street, Washington, the Quai d’Orsay, and all the other nerve-centres of international affairs, where there are housed all the cleverest modern masters of opportunism, have entered upon the study of its peculiarities and tendencies, recognising that here is an instrument of the most delicate perfection for the cultivation of amity between people and peo

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IV

“In spring,” we have been told in the Georgics , “heat returns to the bones.” And the blood runs eagerly through the golfer’s veins. April and May are the months of hope and of exultation. There is joy in the present, in the showers and the sunshine, and a great joy in prospect in the future. Each true golfer is a lover of Nature, and something of a philosopher, and at this season, as at no other, when he gets wakened on a bright morning and sees the country clean and fresh, and coming again int

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V

It behoves every earnest golfer to keep a match-book in which there shall be faithfully recorded the results, with some particulars, of all the matches whatsoever that he shall play in the course of each season. Yet it is likely that not more than two or three golfers in every club, if indeed so many, keep such a record of the golf that they have played, which is sinking away into the forgotten history of their golfing lives. The idea of the private match-book may have occurred to many golfers,

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VI

There is nothing like the winds of March for testing the golfer in every department of his play. Quite timid golfers are sometimes heard to say that they don’t mind rain; but if a man does not mind big winds, regards them both from the sporting and scientific standpoints, and manages to make some respectable golf while they are in charge of the air, he is a worthy player, and he may make his mark some day. It often happens that you can apply test after test to two different golfers, and they wil

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VII

In the spring the professionals come tumbling on to the stage of golf once more with their happy welcome cry, “Here we are again.” Sometimes in the middle of the summer season people are apt to say that we get at least enough of these professional competitions, and that it would be agreeable if we had a little more time to think of our own golf in all its varied charm, instead of our attention being invited day by day to the many permutations and combinations of “the quartette” in exhibition mat

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VIII

We may set it down with some conviction that William Shakespeare was a born golfer. It does not matter that golf was as rare in the glorious days in which he lived as are eagles in twentieth-century Britain. We do not say that he played golf, had seen it played, or had ever heard of it. So far as we are aware, there is no evidence to support any such propositions. Yet he was a born golfer, and if the game had come his way he would have played it, and one doubts not that he would also have excell

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IX

No class of man looks forward to the spring with keener anticipation than the golfer. Overburdened with his winter’s discontent, he fancies it as a time of sunshine, of dry courses, of sprouting young grass that holds up the ball on the suburban links and gives us the first good brassey lies that we have had for some months, of the frequent retirement of the energetic worm, of the quickening of the greens, of the leafing of the trees and the hedgerows, and the brightening of the face of Nature.

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I

F or one reason, if not for more, a Liberal Government is popular with golfers of true feeling—because it gives Mr. Arthur Balfour, the ex-Prime Minister, more to the links than when he is burdened with the care of Ministerial office. In the days of the sweet idleness of Opposition we find him at play on a golf links here and on another one there; now opening a new course and delighting the assembled players with a little speech, which is rich in the spirit of the game; and at some other time en

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II

It should not be set against a golfer for foolishness or faddism that he gives pet names to some of his favourite clubs that have served him well through many hard campaigns, and between him and which there has grown up a very close degree of intimacy, for some of the greatest players have given this rank of name to their trusted clubs. “My driver,” even “My best driver” or “My old driver,” is a cold term to apply to that fine head and shaft that you think have no equals on the links—at least fo

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III

Many golfers carry in their minds a fairly clear picture of a club that they regard as their ideal. They have some notion as to its looks, the shape of the head, and the length and the thickness of the shaft. Particularly do they know what that club feels like in their hands as they grip it to make the shot for which it, and it alone, is perfectly adapted. They have never seen such a club, and they fear sometimes that they never will. Some old favourite of theirs has some of the points that are

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IV

The 1st of September is a fine date for the golfer, for it seems to mark for him the beginning of the period of play which is the best of the whole year. The summer heats are cooling, the tints of Nature are turning to beautiful golds and browns and crimsons, and with a little rain the turf begins to yield more to the foot and the club, and play is pleasanter than it was in the dog days. We would have no sorrows to mar the pleasure of such a day; but the golfer need only be braced to skill and w

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V

Surely we must account old Tom Morris as one of the wonders of the sporting world, as he is indubitably in that relation to the world of golf. How many times have we heard that the light of that long and happy life was flickering towards its extinction, but the rumour has no sooner been spread than Tom comes forward in some activity to give it full denial. Long may he continue to do so; every time that we hear he is sick upon his bed may a telegram come to us from St. Andrews to say that again h

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VI

There are alarms and excursions in the ball business daily, and the player takes a devoted interest in them all. The trade is striving with might and main to put ten yards on to the drive of little Tomkins, and poor old grandfather, who began his golf at sixty, may think as he goes off to sleep at night that perhaps by the morning there will be a new ball on the market which will enable him to get his handicap down to 20. The good inventors are doing all that they can for him. They are trying ev

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VII

The man who has the courage to enter upon a medal round or a match with a keen opponent and play with a cheap, or cheaper, ball, is a rarity, and an admirable one. Faith goes for a long way in these matters. Give a man the most expensive ball on the market to play with, and he feels that he has got something which will do justice to his capabilities, and occasionally let him off with light penalties for some of his errors. Let him have a cheap ball and he is uneasy, with the idea that nothing is

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VIII

“The course is black with parsons,” was said one fine Monday at the outset of his game by a man who had been kept waiting for a most unconscionable time while a minor canon and a plain vicar had been worrying away in bunkers on opposite sides of the first short hole. In this observation there was some evident exaggeration, but it is being borne in upon us every day how more and more popular is this diversion becoming with the cloth, as indeed it should and might be expected to be, since golf mak

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IX

We have not that form and ceremony in the management of our golf clubs that our ancestors had, nor is there so much idea and sentiment employed. Golf in these days seems often to be regarded too much as a work-a-day affair, so that at few places besides St. Andrews is there any real preservation of the old feeling. Else, the true spirit dominating, why should there not still be chaplains to all the old-established golf clubs? How much the chaplain counted for in the great golfing days of old may

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X

In a day when the young school of golfers is making such a determined advance it is often difficult to make distinctions of merit and to determine who are the most promising and who will most probably become the really great golfers of the future. We are a little too much inclined to get into the way of saying that this man is likely to be an amateur champion of the future, and that that player is almost a certainty for the high honours of the game. When people talk in this irresponsible fashion

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XI

Perhaps it would be as well for the golf of some of us if now and again a time of quiet and inactive thought were enforced. It is certain that many men feel much the better in their game for having been deprived of play for a time, greatly irritated as they have been. The fact is that he who is a faithful golfer often plays it mentally when real shots on the links are denied to him. It turns out that this mental golf is of a very thorough order; never is the player so analytical and severely cri

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I

P robably it is true that golf carries its votaries farther in enthusiasm than does any other game or sport. It is characteristic of the golfing enthusiasm that it does but increase as time goes on, and that not in the case of one man in twenty does it show any diminution, while the game is such a jealous mistress that it is rarely the convert to golf maintains any regular association with other sports unless he is of such complete leisure that it is impossible for golf alone to fill up his hour

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II

It is an ancient game; but let no man think yet that we have realised a fair part of the curious situations that may arise on the links when the golfer hits a ball, or that we have a full appreciation of the possibilities of their complexity. Very quaint are some of the difficulties that twice a year are presented to the Rules of Golf Committee sitting at St. Andrews for the special purpose of discovering solutions thereto. From far Manawatu once there came a plaintive cry for help. These New Ze

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III

That which was regarded by our ancestors as a most amazing feat, namely, holing with the tee shot, has become exceeding common. One week not long ago it was done in five different parts of the country, and in three other separate weeks there were four cases reported. Why this increase, then, of doing holes in 1? The reason is simple after all. It is not that it is any easier to do the trick than it used to be. Probably it is rather harder, since it is more difficult to flop the rubber-cored ball

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IV

Curious, indeed, are some items in the list of the feats of golf. In the game heroic there is testimony to the pluck, perseverance, and enthusiasm of Mr. J. W. Spalding, who in the spring of a recent season came by an awful motor smash in France and lost an eye, but had no sooner risen from the hospital bed and been sent to Italy to recuperate than he was at his golf again, playing himself back with his single eye to the game of scratch quality that he enjoyed before, and—good for you, Mr. Spald

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V

Do we not sometimes hear one sort of sportsmen make it a complaint against golf, that the player does not run any personal risk of injury to his life or his limbs? Some of these men will tell you that you only arrive at real sport when such dangers are incurred. It may be so, but we shall not on that account seek to increase the risks of golf. It is one of the glories of the game that it is such fine sport and commands the wild enthusiasm of the best sportsmen, though it threatens the life neith

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VI

Rummaging through a second-hand book shop in Oxford Street one day, I came upon an old volume of sporting anecdotes published far back in 1867, and long since out of print and forgotten. Turning over the pages in the evening, and encountering therein many stories of doughty deeds by river and on field and moor, I came at last upon what must evidently be the original version of the story which has been more briefly told by others of the golf match at night for £500 a hole, and I cannot do better

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VII

In days gone by the position of the lady in the great world of golf was something of a doubtful quantity, but there can be no question that she is now an established institution, and that she will stay. There have been men who have said that golf is not a lady’s game, and many who still stoutly maintain that it is at all events only a game for very young ladies who have not taken upon themselves any serious domestic cares. But it makes little difference what they say. For the first time in histo

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VIII

Perhaps there is more to be said for keeping one’s score for the round when playing a match than is allowed by many people who occasionally discuss this matter with some heat. It may be agreed at once that the golfer who consistently subordinates the importance and interest of his match to his anxiety regarding his aggregate score is to be condemned, and more than ever so when his reckoning of his figures is done openly and audibly, and when he is guilty of remarking, for example, a splendidly f

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IX

There are many who hold that the most exasperating opponent of all is he who is afflicted with an amazing indecision when about to make his very shortest putts. For a minute he will stand with his putter to the ball as if in abject fear of his fate, and surely at such a time there are strange fancies flying through his brain. They must be like the fancies of a drowning man. It was agreed among a company of his friends that these must be the jerky thoughts of such a man whom they well know when h

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X

Some of those cantankerous people who have no sympathy with games, and but a limited confidence in the wise precept that the healthy mind is most frequently to be found in association with the healthy body—practical people they like to call themselves—will sometimes ask you what is the good of golf. It is generally useless to attempt to humour them by advancing the proposition that it returns a dividend of fifty per cent. in mental and physical efficiency, and seventy-five in the general happine

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XI

Is there not a considerable superstition of the links? Even great players have old clubs that they carry about with them, not so much for their practical value as for the luck of the thing, as they fancy it; and a man once said at Prestwick that he always carried in his bag a queer-shaped iron, though he never used it in these days. This was because on one famous occasion many years before, when he was seven down with eight to play, and won the match by a brilliancy that did not belong to him, h

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I

T he golfers and other people who know nothing of St. Andrews are often inclined to fancy that some of the enthusiasm professed by those who have a tolerable golfing acquaintance with it is affected, because it “is the proper thing,” and because it harmonises with the feelings of many revered members of the old school of the game. Perhaps such scepticism is pardonable, particularly when it is known that there have been many hundreds of golfers who have gone to St. Andrews once and failed to be i

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II

Hoylake is new in comparison, but Hoylake is old for England, and it is the leader of golf in the southern section of the kingdom. Hoylake has fine traditions of its own which it would not exchange for those of any other centre or club, and while it has always had the most perfect respect for the dignity and the conservation of the game, it has occasionally shown a commendable disposition towards useful progress. It was the Royal Liverpool Club at Hoylake that took the initiative in the establis

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III

Choosing a companion for a golfing holiday is at all times a serious business, and the light and thoughtless manner in which some young people perform the task is, in the interests of their own future golfing welfare, deplorable. Young people are mentioned advisedly, for you do not find the old golfers making their selections hastily, and they do not live to regret those that they make as do the hot-blooded youths who are swayed by the fancies of a moment. These select at haste, and often enough

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IV

There is an old golfer who says that it cost him many weeks of failure, and many hundreds of pounds, to come by that experience in conducting a golfing holiday as enabled him to make a complete success of such always afterwards. For the benefit of others of the smallest experience, who are liable to err grievously, he offers the following precepts:— “However keen one may be, and however much one may enjoy the excellent golf that is obtained on a good seaside course, it is a great mistake to play

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V

When you are one of a special party that sets out for a sojourn at some place, solely for the reason of the golf that it affords, and when in due course, the time having been well and enjoyably spent on the links, your friends determine that they will return home or depart to some other place for golf, do not on any account yield to an impulse to stay behind them, on feeling that you could enjoy still a little more play, and persuading yourself that among the people you know who are staying in t

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VI

The customary classification of our golf courses into the inland and seaside groups is crude and inadequate. Apart from that there are many inland courses, and still more seaside courses, that differ from each other more than some in the one class differ from the others in the second one. The golfer of experience comes subconsciously to put all the courses that he knows well into different groups, those in each group having some distinguishing characteristic that specially appeals to his fancy o

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VII

Of the links we know, those by the sea, to which do we return for the tenth or the twentieth time joyously as to a delightful friend in a charming home? Instantly we murmur the name of dear North Berwick. The old player has conviction in this immediate choice by instinct, though the question is not one which he answers lightly. In his heart he has corners for many old loves, and as he brings each one up for contemplation and counts her many charms, he thinks that surely she is the fairest of the

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VIII

In many sequestered places there are fine courses that the golfer in general knows little of. Demand of him suddenly that he shall tell you of a far-away seaside links where you may rest and play for a little while until the city calls you back, and by force of habit he will begin to murmur pleasantly about his Carnousties and his Gullanes and all the rest. They are excellent, most excellent; but we call for change, and where for the old wanderer is the change that is good enough? When he appeal

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IX

It is fine golf that is to be had now on Kent’s eastern seaboard, and each time one comes down into this neighbourhood with one’s bag of clubs, the more one is strengthened in the conviction as to its equal excellence with any other golfing district in the world, and the abundance of its fine prospects for the future. The magnificent character of the golf, chiefly that which is enjoyed under the authority of the Cinque Ports Club at Deal, is becoming better known and appreciated year by year, an

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X

When you think of it, there is no inconsiderable portion of our golfing lives that is spent in travelling to and from the links that are far from home, by railway and by motor-car, and if one falls into a reflective mood there are many experiences, some curious and some trying, that are to be called to mind in connection with these journeys. On the whole, perhaps, the reflection does not make for much joy, except in the knowledge that these are things of the past and are not likely to be repeate

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XI

But it is clear to me that the golfer who wishes to go golfing, and at the same time to live the richest and most adventurous life of the traveller, needs to take himself abroad and roam from course to course in Eastern and Central America. He will encounter many incidents that will interest and enliven him, as did the four eminent British professionals who some time since made a golfing expedition from here in the winter-time in search of Mexican treasure—dollars that were offered in open compe

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XII

A celebrated golfer, being in one of his lighter moods, discussed with me the future association of aeroplanes and golf, and he observed that when the flying machines came they would be such boons and blessings to the golfing fraternity above all others as nobody imagined at the present time. He opined that no sooner did the flying machine become workable and reliable than every golfer who considered himself at all thorough, and took any proper care of his game, would think it his bounden duty t

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XIII

Some footpaths count for very much in the playing of a hole, and at times call for and produce fine shots that would never be made if there were no path there. So sometimes they are good to the game; but generally they are merely an aggravation. You could hardly call a path or a road famous, but if you were asked which were the most notable you would probably call to mind first of all the path that goes across the first and eighteenth holes at St. Andrews, which is distinguished from others beca

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XIV

However humble its merits may be, it is well that a man should be faithful always to his mother course, respectful of her, and that he should not speak and very tardily admit to himself the blemishes of her features. For it is always for him to remember that she, and she alone, gave the game to him that has yielded him so much happiness, and he owes to her a debt that he can never repay, save in constancy and gratitude. Therefore it is to be reckoned as a good thing in a golfer that, wherever th

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I

O ne hears it said sometimes by versatile and thorough-going sportsmen, that of all the sweet sensations to be discovered and enjoyed occasionally in the whole world of sport, the hitting of a perfect tee shot is one of the best, one of the only two or three best. These men are probably right, for the hitting of a really spanking ball from the tee, when one feels the complete absence of a grating or a jerking anywhere in the system, showing that the whole of the most complicated movement has wor

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II

When the sun shines the putting greens get keen. There is an old saying that driving is an art, iron play a science, and putting is the devil. Just that—the devil. I agree entirely, and I have ascertained that the greatest exponents of the game are in sympathy with the suggestion. Well may the writers of text-books of the game declare, when they come to the chapter on putting, that there is really nothing to say, and that they must leave the reader to find out the whole business by instinct and

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III

Consciousness is often fatal in putting, and it is the conscience making a coward of the man that makes him miss his putt. To hole a three-feet putt over a flat piece of green is really one of the easiest things in the world; there can be no doubt about it. But while there is one ridiculously easy way of doing the putt, there are about a dozen more or less difficult ways of missing it, and these dozen are uppermost in the mind of the golfer when he comes to his effort. Thus the missing of the sh

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IV

Can anything in a mechanical sort of way be done to overcome this awful difficulty? I fear not, though one or two new putters are invented every week, and some of them are acclaimed as being the philosopher’s stone for which we have been looking. The golf world began to buzz as if its mainspring had got loose when Mr. Travis won the championship at Sandwich with that Schenectady putter—the most epoch-making putter of all. But where is it now? Very few people use it. Putters have been made of eve

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V

Golf is a jealous sport, and often takes it ill when any of its patrons devote their attention occasionally to other diversions of the open air, and exacts from them such a penalty in failures and aggravation when they come back to their true love as is calculated to make them hesitate before committing further offences. Perhaps it is natural in a way that golf, which has so much of wild nature about it, should be least inclined to brook the rivalry of games of the namby-pamby order. Fine field

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VI

Now the society season is most alive. The golfing society—without a course of its own and consisting generally of men who have some other common interest, usually business or professional, apart from their love for the game—is becoming an increasingly popular institution in the south, and some people who have had to find fault with the constitution and general scheme of such bodies, have now to confess that their protests have been completely without avail, and that, for good or ill, these combi

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VII

The other day there was a little house-party of golfers for a week-end, and it was a most delightful gathering in all respects—fine weather, a rattling good seaside links, with putting greens that inspired the soul of the player to fine flights of genius, and a host of the very best golfing type, in whom is embodied all the best traditions and sportsmanship of the game. Sternly contested singles in the morning of the first day, with the yellow autumn sun shining and that pleasant nip in the air

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VIII

One does not see St. Andrews at its best at a time of a championship, or at any other time when there are great crowds in the streets and on the courses, and swarming round about the clubhouse and outside the shops of the clubmakers overlooking the eighteenth green. It is not its natural self then; it is at its worst. I do not like it when the trippers pour in from Glasgow. One cannot resist the suspicion that many of them are not as good golfers as they ought to be, and that they love St. Andre

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IX

The sowing of seed upon a course may seem a dull business, and the average golfer leaves the consideration of all such matters to those whose duty it is to attend to them, and contents himself with his play on the resulting turf; but in this indifference he misses much that is interesting, and occasionally some most pleasant humours, as witness the true story of what happened on a suburban links. A very thorough club manager had bought many bags of two different kinds of seed, which were to be u

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X

When October comes we bid her a very loyal and joyful welcome, for we have come to regard her as the queen of months for golf. No soul so serene as that of the golfer as he tees the ball on a bright October morning. It sometimes seems to us of the links that we are glad of every change in the seasons. When it is spring, we look forward to the coming of summer, and then we sigh for the autumn, and in turn are glad even to sink back to the adventures and trials of the heroic golf that we are calle

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I

“ T he problem of the golf ball’s flight is one of very serious difficulty.” That is what was said to a gathering of savants by Professor Peter Guthrie Tait, one of the most brilliant scientists of the latter part of the last century, and the only man who has probed deeply into the real science of the game of golf. He was a wonderful man in many respects. He applied his marvellous scientific knowledge and powers of investigation to everything that came his way. One day he would be extracting cub

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II

It should be said that, while the Professor played a little golf himself, and was much in love with St. Andrews as a resort, what led him in the first place to make his investigations was watching the play of his famous golfing son, Fred Tait. A few idle, fanciful conjectures on the flight of the ball that was sent skimming through the air from Freddie’s driver led to a more serious calculation, and then, like a siren, the great mystery of golf drew him on. But early in his investigations he com

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III

While he was at work on these reckonings he dispelled one fallacy, which, notwithstanding, is commonly held by golfers to the present day. Most players think that when driving and following through well the ball hangs on the face of the club, as it were, for long enough for the club to do something in the way of guiding it. How brief is the time in which the actual stroke is made for good or ill was proved conclusively in a very striking manner, and that time was set down—the whole time of impac

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IV

Golfers are in the way of saying that this ball “flies well” or that the other ball “does not fly well.” Sometimes it is imagination born of lack of form; but when great players concur it is not imagination. Some balls are obviously better than others—made of better material, better elastic thread, and more carefully constructed. There is an evident reason why such balls should fly better than others; that is to say, why they should go off the club more quickly, keep their place in the air longe

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V

Now, however good the ball might be, the chances would be against a perfect stillness upon any axis during flight; that is, of course, when no initial spin was imparted to it by the way in which the stroke was played. It would very likely turn just a little upon an axis, and that little would unsteady and injure its flight, inasmuch as the wobble would be from side to side alternately. This difficulty can be got over by imparting an initial spin to the ball which will always be the same all thro

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VI

Now, in continuation of this brief and simple exposition of some of the points of the Professor’s theorising—backed up by constant practical experiment—upon the merits of under-spin in prolonging and lengthening the flight of the ball which created excited comment in the world of golf at the time, much smaller as that world was then than it is now, it may be mentioned that it was his fair conclusion that good driving lay not in powerful hitting, but in the proper apportionment of good hitting wi

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VII

The most interesting question arises, that if the well-driven ball starts off almost horizontally and then begins to ascend, what is the line of its flight or its trajectory? Golfers generally have the crudest notions on this point. For the most part they seem to assume that the trajectory is represented by an even segment of a circle, having its vertex or highest point just about half-way along. This is absolutely wrong. Even if there were no spin at all, this would not be the case, the vertex

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VIII

There are many other incontrovertible and very interesting conclusions arrived at as the result of the reckoning of this distinguished scientist which one would like to discuss if there were room for it. It is enough to say at the finish that while these reflections will serve to give the golfer a more intelligent view of the scientific aspect of the game and its mysteries, and very likely even tend to a change in his policy in some departments, he will not be led towards any disbelief in the st

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IX

What is the longest possible drive by our best driver under the best conditions? That is a question which it is impossible to answer, simply because the best conditions cannot be defined. In practical golf they are an impossible ideal, and one never knows how far in certain existing circumstances that ideal is approached. This brings us to see the futility of comparing one drive with another, or even of regarding any particular drive as the best on record, in the sense that it was the best that

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I

W e boast constantly of the traditions of our game of golf, and well may we do so, for they are glorious, and they bring with them a great responsibility for their perpetuation. Some day in the distant future a far-off generation may be moved to build a Temple of Golf. There is the nucleus of the idea already within the house of the Royal and Ancient Club. In stone and on canvas it will tell the story of the great deeds of the heroes of the past as it is told in the national palaces and halls of

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II

There are many full-blooded golfers who, if in the light of knowledge and experience they could have their choice to live their golfing lives over again, with the special advantage of picking their own period and place for play, would hold up their hands for Leith and the closing years of the seventeenth century. They could be greatly earnest about their golf in those days, and there was colour and richness about it. Here it was that King Charles was playing his game when the news came to him, a

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III

It must be seen to that the canker of commercialism is never permitted to eat its way into the game, for if it were the game would be ruined, as other games and sports have been ruined in that way. It is not that there is any serious danger of golf coming by such a fate, for its people are too well imbued with what might be called the moral sporting sense, and have too much discrimination to permit themselves to be deceived by the insidiousness of the temptations of the commercial adventurer. Bu

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IV

Just lately certain desperadoes, whom one need hardly say had no connection with the premier club, held a bogey competition over the new course at St. Andrews. A while previously some others were reported to have held a similar contest over the old course itself, which was worse. Here in St. Andrews it is almost held as a sin merely to mention the name of bogey, or even to refer to it somewhat indefinitely as “the Colonel.” All know that the Royal and Ancient Club will have nothing whatever to d

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V

So Keats did sing. And, alas! there are even strange golfers who are sighing always for newfanglements, feeling that the things they cannot or must not have, are much better than the things they are blessed with. Yet are the things that are in golf better than the things that might be if out-and-out Progressives had their way, and in this matter we shall sing a hymn of praise to the old school and its famous traditions, being something of a brake on these Progressives. Consider what were otherwi

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VI

Now and then a section of the golfing community has the appearance of fretting for a new government of the game. The freedom that it has always enjoyed, and in which it is superior to any other game that has a right to be compared to it for quality, interest, and popularity, has become irksome. It is felt that there can be disadvantages in too much freedom, and so these people sigh to be placed under a yoke—a yoke of their own choosing, but none the less stern and powerful and, above all, active

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I

W hen the winds blow and the rains pour down, we discover the true worth of the golfer. The game has no season; it allows no right of control to any weather. It is for all places and for all times, and in the law of the links it is clearly set down that he who is playing by strokes for a prize shall on no account whatsoever delay in the course of his round, nor take any shelter, though Pluvius should pour out upon him from the heavens their entire holding of the most drenching rain. If, in defia

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II

On a frosty day one is apt to damage clubs. The clubmaker does not mind his patrons playing on steely courses. The chances are that one man in a few will need something doing to his shafts or his wooden heads as the result of a day’s play. The list of casualties at sunset is considerable, and somewhat reminds one of the early days when a golf club was a much less lasting thing than it is at present. Old golfers are agreed that the breakage of a club by any kind of player is a thing of infinitely

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III

Sometimes, in the long and dark evenings, golfers like to play their games in thought by the fireside, and one may suggest to them a new kind of reflection and study which may prove at the same time interesting and not without educational profit, particularly if such reflections are uttered in company and comparisons of views are made. A golfer has no sooner come by some sort of a working knowledge of the different strokes of the game than he longs for adventures on strange courses, to play at h

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IV

Once a year there is a great foursome played between a Colonel and a Parson on the one side and an Author and an M.P. on the other, and they always look forward to it with great keenness. It is a compact among them that the match shall be played every year that all four are alive and within the United Kingdom. This is one of the most delightful kinds of matches, and no pleasure of reminiscence is so rich as that of golfers such as these in looking back over ten or twenty years of matches and com

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V

Golf remained impossible in the afternoon, and the M.P. filled up his time by working out some golf statistics with a view to indicating to the ignorant public what was comprised in a year of golf. “You see,” he said, “sooner or later some of the very high authorities will find it to be necessary to take very serious notice of this game, of the number of people whose time it claims, of the land it engages, of the capital sunk in it, and of the enormous current expenditure upon it. Golf has reall

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VI

“Now, just consider the ball,” the M.P. responded. “Pretty little pimpled thing, isn’t it? Stuffed full of delight! Full of promise for at least two hours’ fine health-giving enjoyment! We used to think a half-pound tin of our favourite tobacco was the most heartening sight to see; but a box of new balls has it now. One ball is such a tiny little thing. You can hold sixteen of them in one hand! I have seen a man hold eighteen, and possibly that is the record. Giving a ball four rounds of life, t

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VII

When the short days, wet and cold, come on, some golfers speak of the virtues of close seasons for games. There never can be any regularly ordained close season in golf; such is neither needed nor desired. But now and then some men will try the imposition of such a season on themselves. They oil and put away their clubs, give away their stock of balls, put everything connected with golf away into the box-room, and settle down to a course of winter reading, study, and attention to those domestic

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VIII

It is a glorious thing to play a game that one need never give up, however long one may live. And what is more, the game can be played well by the veteran, and he enjoys it almost as much as ever, and does not merely take part in it for the sake of the fresh air and the exercise. Possibly if he had not been a golfer in his middle age, and perhaps in his youth as well, he would not be able to play any game, even a fireside game, by the time he was due to become an octogenarian. For some years pre

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IX

In the dampest and gloomiest days of the British winter, the golfer’s fancy often flies to Riviera and Egyptian courses; and a while later the golfer follows his fancy, so that he may have a dry game in the sunshine again. Golf in Egypt is a thing to itself. “Through the green” it is mere sandy desert, for bunkers there are chiefly mud walls, and the putting “greens,” which vary a little on the different courses, are generally made of rolled mud. Yet this golf is eagerly participated in and most

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X

Many golfers, like others who are not golfers, have come to the conclusion that in the twentieth century it were better for them and their game to think and grow thin. One of the most enthusiastic and determined says that success in the game depends chiefly on the stomach, and one is half inclined to think that he is right. He is, to this extent, that it is hard to play fine golf when the interior mechanism is in bad working order. And it is quite apparent that we modern golfers, like other peop

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XI

And so, heigho! another full year of golf has run to its end, and we come to pause for a little while to reflect upon the new chapter that has been added to the long happy story of our play; for, indeed, it is true of us golfers, as it is of others, that “we spend our years as a tale that is told.” For some days now the links which have served us so faithfully and so well during all this year, have been at rest, asleep. Nature, the gentle considerate nurse, sometimes comes to the help of these p

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