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31928	----	Transcriber's Note The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully preserved. A GOLFING IDYLL [Illustration] A Golfing Idyll OR The Skipper's Round with the Deil On the Links of St Andrews Third Edition W.C. HENDERSON & SON, ST ANDREWS GEO. STEWART & CO., EDINBURGH AND LONDON SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, KENT & CO. LD., LONDON MDCCCXCVII. THE ILLUSTRATIONS ARE BY A. ISLAY BANNERMAN (BANNERMAN & STEEL, EDINBURGH) PREFACE As some prefatory explanation may reasonably be expected as to how I became acquainted with the subject of the following narrative,--'A Golfing Idyll,' I have had the presumption to call it,--I may inform the reader that circumstances induced me, a lady medical student, at present studying in London, to take my Autumn holiday in St Andrews. I know the old place well, and have many acquaintances there. As to Golf I can, I think, hold my own with most of the Golfing sisterhood, and am well up in the jargon of the Links and game. One day found me, sketch-book in hand, sitting on the brae side by the butts, behind the Club. As I sat, listlessly toying with my pencil, and quietly enjoying the scene before me, I remarked a man, whom I had not previously observed, also sitting, a few yards off, on the slope towards the sea. On closer inspection I recognised him to be an old Caddie, well known to most frequenters of the Links, but not very creditably, I am sorry to say, as he was one of the sad victims of the vice that has cut off so many poor fellows of his class. I noticed at the same time that he now looked very decent and respectable, was neatly dressed in blue serge, a bit of blue ribbon apparent on the lapel of his coat, and that altogether he had the appearance of a person well cared for. He seemed to be engaged in an agreeable conversation with himself. As he sat, smiling and muttering, he was shortly joined by another man, a stranger to me, a ruddy-faced jolly-looking personage, with a free and easy manner, who proved also to be a Caddie. As to how the latter accosted his old friend, and what followed, is all described in the 'Idyll.' As I was only a few yards distant from them, I could hear distinctly every word they uttered. The old man did not seem to mind my presence in the least. Before commencing his tale he looked round, saw me, and, with a back toss of his head which seemed to say to his friend, 'Oh, it is only a lassie,' proceeded with his story. Throughout the narrative he was exceedingly animated--rising, sitting down, and gesticulating, as if under the influence of considerable excitement and emotion, evidently earnestly intent on impressing on the listener the truth of what he was relating. The latter listened open-eyed and open-mouthed, uttering occasional ejaculations, such as, Oh Lord! Gude sake! Ay man! etc. The Skipper delivered himself of what he had to say in pure Scotch Doric, more or less, but occasionally broke out into good English, showing himself to be a man of better education than I believed him to be. This idea was strengthened by his reference to Bunyan; and the extravagant vision at the 'end hole,' with all its bathos and absurdity, suggested some acquaintance with Milton. I listened most attentively. I have a good memory, and when I got home I committed to paper all that I remembered, most carefully. Moreover, I had several interviews with the old gentleman, and have done my best to convey to the reader, as accurately as I could, his version of his extraordinary adventure. As to my reason for weaving the story into rhyming doggerel, I hold myself excused in that I did it for my own amusement, influenced also by a belief that it might possibly prove more readable and attractive in that shape to the persons I chiefly wished to peruse it, viz., my friends of the Caddie fraternity. VIOLET FLINT. TORRINGTON MANSIONS, LONDON. PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION Since I penned the first prefatory lines to this trifling work, I regret to inform my readers non-resident in St Andrews, that my interesting old friend the Skipper is no more. He died at the ripe age of 75. Peace to his memory! Some time before his death, I had what proved to be a final interview with him, when he rehearsed his queer weird story, adding some curious reminiscences of his early days in connection with the Links of St Andrews and his favourite pastime. As they may be interesting to some of my older golfing friends, I have interpolated them into the rugged doggerel of the text from the notes I took at the time. He also at the same time pathetically deplored the unreasoning and obstinate incredulity of friends who persisted in disbelieving his story, and suggested, with a view to convincing and converting them, that I should have some of the more striking incidents in the story illustrated. I have done so, but alas! his old eyes will never look upon them and acknowledge the credit due to Mr Bannerman, the clever draughtsman. At the close of our interview, he also alluded to his precious breeks with which, in his opinion, rest the _onus probandi_ of his adventure. It was his intention, he told me, to have them framed and glazed, with the fateful mark prominently displayed--the date, incident, etc., carefully printed--to be made over at his death to the local Museum, and safe custody of Mr Couttes. It was not every man, he proudly asserted, who could receive and survive a skelp o' the Deil's tail! V.F. TORRINGTON MANSIONS, LONDON. A GOLFING IDYLL Now Skipper frien', come tell me true What garred ye mount the ribbon blue? Gude sake! to think the like o' you Should e'er hae joined the Templar crew! How you accomplished your conversion It bangs poor me past comprehension. No six months gane, a drucken deevil, You led the ball in waste and revel; Were staggerin' on destruction's brink, Selling your very duds for drink. Now, there you sit, you grim auld sinner, And tell's the smell o't mak's you scunner, As mim as howdie at a christening, Or tinker to a sermon listening; Weel washed, weel clad, your blue beard shaved Like Dr Byd's, and weel behaved As toun-kirk elder 'fore the session-- Speak out, auld man, and mak' confession. The speaker was ane Jock Pitbladdie, A golfer good, and decent caddie, Who, drunk or sober, in 's vocation Had aye the grace o' moderation. A souter to his trade, he'd left the toun Sax months before to work in Troon, To carry clubs or mend auld shoon, At ilka t' ade a handy loon. Skipper and Jock were cronies thrang, Had kent and liked each other lang; Mony a gill they'd drunk thegither, And friendly treated ane anither. Jockie was like a bed of sand, The more he drank, the more he'd stand; But Skipper, wud, and wilder grew, And never stopped till roarin' fou. What wonder, then, at Jock's surprise To find his frien' in sic-like guise, Or Jock's ill-mannered exclamation And rough demand for explanation. The Skipper lookit sair offended, And muttering growled, his hand extended.-- Queer manners you hae brocht frae Troon; Come here, you jawing gowk, sit doon. Instead of coorse and ill reflections On my past life, and ways, and actions, Your greetin' might hae been more ceevil, You ill-condeetioned gabbin' deevil. Hoot, Skipper, nae offence was meant, For you and I are weel acquaint. Now dicht your mou', and tell me true How cam' ye by that bit o' blue? The Skipper gazed as wise and solemn As if he felt his hand on helm His cutter o'er the green waves guiding, Close hauled, through kittle channel gliding. Oh, Jock! I doot I'm rash to tell ye What strange and awfu' things befell me, Unless like me you'd warning tak', Ere sorrow lay you on your back. Sae, to avert sic dismal fate, My woful tale I'll now relate.-- He sighed and spat, then sighed again, And thus his simple tale began: 'Twas on a summer's afternoon, Just after you had gane to Troon, I foregather'd wi' ane Tammas Trail, Auld mate o' mine who bides in Crail. A man o' means, wi' nets and boat, A fisher keen, and much afloat; A very decent chappie Tam, Who, like me, dearly lo'ed his dram. He kent my weakness, nocht would serve him, But I maun tak' my supper wi' him. The supper was baith het and good-- No that I'm nice about my food; We'd rizzared haddies, if you please, Tripe and ingans, toasted cheese, And whiskey grand frae Cameron Brig, Better was never 'stilled by Haig. And, oh! a jolly time we had, For my pairt I was skirlin' mad, And Tammie, he was in his glory, Just ripplin' o'er wi' joke and story. But a' things good maun hae an end, Baith joys and pains o' human kind, And Time, the thief, wi' spitefu' stroke, Snecket our fun 'fore ten o'clock-- That nicht--the thocht o't gars me grue, Ahint the joy there cam' sic rue. Now, Jocky, I must here explain I wasna drunk, just fou ye ken; Just fresh and free and swaggerin' canty, And bauld as Wallace wight and vaunty. My hairt was licht, my feet were dancin' Like struttin' cock, or stallion prancin'. Bethought me, as I steered alang, I'll get my clubs, to the Links I'll gang. Should a' the folk to roost hae gane, I car'd na if I played alane. The nicht was fine, the moon was shinin', The time between the mirk and gloamin'; As far as I could view the green, No living soul could there be seen. [Illustration] Nigh the brig I drove a bonny shot, My second was the marrow o't, The third gaed in--I holed in three, As proud as Punch, I skirled wi' glee; And swaggerin' fou, and fit and fettle, Was wild to back my skill and mettle; And, madlike, shouted out aloud, You might hae heard me doon the road, 'Od! I'd play the very Deil himsel', Auld Nickey Ben, red wud frae H--l.' I heard a laugh! Was I mistaen? I thocht I was my lief alane, But turnin', near me stood a man, A strappin' chiel, wi' clubs in han',-- Lean-shankit, extra tall and spare, Wi' goatee beard and jet-black hair. 'Good evening, Skipper,' says he sprightly, Liftin' his cap to me politely. 'You want a match, I'll gladly play you For a hundred pounds, what say you?' 'You do me proud,' says I, astounded, My wits had left me quite confounded. 'Man, a hundred pounds, I hae nae got, I'm but a Caddie, poor my lot; To play you I am proud and willin', But I ne'er gang beyond a shillin'.' 'Oh, d--m your shilling!' says he so fine, 'Why, don't you see, your sure to win-- You are a strong, well-known professional, And play a game that's quite sensational; While my performance is but poor, That of a first-class amateur. But player good, I stand confessed, Who plays 'gainst me must play his best. But if you're shy, why odds I'll give you, A stroke a hole, will that not tempt you? And should I have the luck to win (He said this with a leering grin), Why what so simple, you engage To serve me faithful without wage, And as my Caddie with me stay Until your little debt you pay. Service with me will never tire you, Besides I like you and admire you.' Softly he spoke, while sweetly smilin' Like lover simple lass beguilin'; Then from his pooch a purse he pulled, A purse with golden guineas filled; The meshes thro' I saw them bright Glitterin' in the gloamin' light. 'Look, Skipper see these yellow boys, The source and fount of human joys; With them you grasp the dear delights Of festive days and glorious nights.' Dazed, dazzled, fou, and half-demented, Oh, Jocky! I was sairly tempted. No wonder that I soon consented, And muckle less that I repented. But to my tale--'All right,' says I, 'A bargain be it, I comply; A stroke a hole--I tak' your offer, Altho' you treat me like a duffer.' For troth I felt no little nettled To find my good game so belittled. But, Skipper, you have yet to tell What he was like, this bloomin' swell. I said he was a strappin' chiel, Six feet and mair frae head to heel; On's head he wore a Hieland bannet, A blackcock's feather stickin' in it. On either side his lugs I noted Were large and high and sharply nookit; A nose like mine, and fine black een, A big moustache and pointed chin; In troth a very handsome felley, Though black-a-vized and somewhat yelley, Like they foreign chaps that gang wi' puggies, And play on pipes and hurdy-gurdies. His dress was black, good velveteen, His stockin's red and cravit green, And on his feet were yellow boots,-- _I little dreamed they covered cloots_! I kent na wha I was to play wi', The truth it never dawned upon me; I thocht he was some Glasgow billy, Or chap frae Sooth, Golf-mad and silly, Wi' little wit and siller plenty, The country's rife wi' sic like gentry. 'And what's your honour's name,' quoth I? I felt no whit abashed or shy-- 'My name is Dr Nicholas Ben Clootie, Hades my home, a place of radiant beauty; A region warm, perhaps a trifle sooty, Still an alluring and delicious place is Hades, Frequented much by lords and ladies. So charming and so pleasant is it That multitudes to Paradise prefer it.' 'Hades, ne'er heard o't, is't in the Hielands?' 'No, Skipper friend, 'tis in the Netherlands.' 'But come, our game, I'm eager to begin; Strike off,' said I, 'I long those yellow boys to win. Tak' you the honour noo, for ne'er again You'll hae the chance, or I'm sair mistaen.' He grinned, and said, 'You hold me very cheap; Believe me, I intend those yellow boys to keep.' He drove a rattlin' shot from off the tee; I followed with as good, as far as he. Our next we dropped upon the green. Twa bonny strokes as e'er were seen. Stane dead I lay, he ten feet aff, He missed his putt--wi' careless laugh, 'First blood,' cried I, 'the hole is mine.' 'Yes,' quo' he, 'the Devil's luck is thine.' So cocky was I with this fine beginnin', I offered straight to play him even. 'No, no,' he said, 'to that I can't agree, You'll need your odds before you've done wi' me.' He looked and said this with a wicked leer, I felt my flesh to creep with sudden fear. Such confidence and pluck, I could not understand, And funkit something strange, uncanny, underhand. But spite of funk and fancy, all the same I played weel up a rattlin' game; Holes three and four they fell to me, The taen at four, the tither at three. His Highness meanwhile skipped alang, Whiles he whistled and whiles he sang; But whenever I turned, his leerin' e'e Was glarin', glowerin', lookin' at me! [Illustration] At 'Hole Across,' the bunker of H--l, To my surprise he kent it well; He girned and cackled and looked excited As if wi' secret thoughts delighted. I drove weel o'er, wi' grand precision, And lay serene on sod Elysian. Clootie on purpose missed his ba', And landed slap intil its maw. Then, Jock, a sicht I saw, so strange and awfie, Unseen, unheard o', and unlawfie! Loud laughter rose from H--l within, Wild shouts and cries o' welcomin'; While over the edge, peepin' and peerin' Through the long grass, and disappearin', Were seen strange forms, like horned apes, And other brutes wi' fearsome shapes, Goblins grinning wi' blazing een, Bogles or ghaists, or a cross between. But strange, when we the bunker neared, They'd vanished all and disappeared. And nocht remained but an infernal smell Of brimstone reek, true stink o' H--l. Clootie gaed smilin' in, rejoiced to be At hame, his bonny bairns to see; His ball he found, both safe and playable. 'Play quick,' cried I, 'this smell is d--able.' 'Pause, Skipper, 'tis my favourite scent,' says he, 'Bouquet d'Enfer, a perfume sweet to me. You lack good taste, you drunken sot, To me this is a charming spot; But play I must,' and, as he spoke, He drove forthwith a splendid stroke; But of little good it proved to be, For again I took the hole in three. 'Four up,' I said, 'my gallant foe; If this goes on you'll come to woe.' 'All right,' says he, 'my chance will come, I'll show you play when we turn home. To see your game was such a treat, Great was my luck with you to meet; You are indeed a beauty without paint, The picture of a drouthy saint.' And thus he sneered and scoffed and chaffed, While at my speech he mocked and laughed; From fearing I began to hate him, And vow'd I'd do my best to beat him. But man is frail, and human vows Aye come to nocht, when they oppose The powers that rule for good or evil, And my opponent was the Deevil. Blind, stupid, and wi' drink demented, I couldna see nor comprehend it; But soon, alas! I learned the truth, Wi' mental pain and muckle ruth. The moon still shed its blessed light And calm and lovely was the night. Oh, Daavid! had you but been there, Wi' your leemonade and your ginger-beer, You might have saved me from despair, And a' the horrors that befell me, Which, Jockie, I am now to tell ye. My game, I told you had been good, Nine holes to play, eight up I stood. Sick o' the game, and sicker far o' Clootie, I'd ceased to care about the booty. I thocht I'd bounce him wi' my swagger, And get the better o' the beggar. 'Doctor,' says I, 'I've licked you into fits, Throw up the sponge, play double or quits!' 'What!' shouted he, 'such cheek, you sot, Dost think me daft, you silly Scot? That wise old saw hast thou forgot, "That he who suppers wi' the Deil, Lang spoon maun hae to sup his kail!"' Here, Jockie, I my temper lost, I'd hae my say whate'er the cost. 'D--n you,' says I, 'you ca' yoursel' the Deil, You are na blate my bonnie chiel. The Deil's a saunt compared wi' you, You yelley-livered, bandy-leggèd Jew; Quack doctor, purse-proud swaggerin' Jack, I'faith I'll lay you on your back.' He listened, looked, and gravely smiled To hear his Majesty reviled By simple clay so easily beguiled. Thoughtful he stood, and stroked his beard, Then, Presto, vanished--disappeared! Gone like a flash, I looked and wondered, And as I gaped and gazed and pondered, Beneath my feet the ground began to tremble, With earthquake shock to rock and rumble; And o'er the scene thick darkness crept, Deep gloom prevailed, the soft wind slept, Then lightning flared with vivid sheen, Blinding and dazzling my bewildered een! And thunder bellowed forth with awful roar, Echoing from shore to sea, from sea to shore. From Lucklaw to Drumcarrow, from Drumcarrow to Kinkell, Roaring and rattling with resounding swell, Peal followed peal, and flash on flash, Hissing and rumbling with terrific crash; The wind subdued burst forth anew, And howling, whistling, wilder blew; Deep groans and wailing filled the air, Of souls in anguish and despair! Loud shouts of 'fore,' and clash of cleeks, And demon golfers' yells and shrieks, Commingling with the mournful wail Of sea-birds swept before the gale! [Illustration] At last the thunder ceased and all was still, Deep silence reigned o'er dale and hill; Then forth a lurid radiance glowed, Fan-like from earth to heaven it flowed, Deep ruby red, the hue of blood, And in the midst an awful presence stood-- Majestic, pale, towering in aspect grand, Hell's chieftain, prince of the rebel band, Who fell defying Heaven's command. O'er lofty brow tossed his dishevelled hair, A front deep lined with thought and care, And eyes with shaggy eyebrows pent, Which fierceness to their glances lent; Those eyes which blazed with hate and sadness, Strangers alike to hope, to love, and gladness. With lips of scorn, whence insults leap, And lies and calumnies and curses deep; Scoffings, revilings, blasphemies malign Against Omnipotence and laws divine! With awe and terror struck, I trembling gazed, Spell-bound, bewildered, and amazed To think that I should hap to contemplate The lineaments of H--l's great potentate! With shuddering dread, I feared his eagle eye Should wretch like me by cruel chance espy. Alas, my fate! The hated glance it fell, Nought could escape the blighting eye of H--l; Staggering, I fell like riven oak Struck to the earth by lightning stroke! Jockie, my lad, I swooned away; Of sense bereft, how long, I cannot say. Hard by where old Daa drives his trade O' ginger-beer and leemonade. I felt the cool, soft morning air To fan my cheek and raise my hair; Conscious at last, I raised my eyes, Conceive my horror and surprise, To see friend Clootie stand before me, Leering and grinning, bending o'er me! My heart was well-nigh like to burst With fear and hatred and disgust. I cried, beseeched him to forgive me, And begged him on my knees to leave me. He laughed, and told me hold my jargon, To stir my stumps, make good my bargain. 'The match you know,' he said, 'ain't ended, And luck may turn, and mine be mended, The remaining holes may fall to me, Then Skipper dear, where will you be? I've not had one, and eight you've taken, You need one more to save your bacon-- _One little hole, to save your soul!_ I stand to lose name, fame, and purse, Not that I care a tinker's curse; But you, should fortune now forsake you, Your freedom gone, my slave I make you. Play up, and man-like save your skin, Strike for your name and native green.' [Illustration] I heard, and as I gazed upon him, Transformed he seemed, some change come o'er him; He caught my eye, divined my thought, And gave the explanation sought.-- 'To honour you I've changed my suit, My taste and style none can dispute; I now assume my sporting dress, The garb I wear when I mean business; I've donned my tail, and doffed my boots, You see me in my native cloots.' Man's fond, familiar, friendly devil Aye gracious, debonair and civil; Smiling he stood, his arms akimbo, The Deil himself, the Prince o' Limbo. Oh, Jockie, crushed wi' grief and shame, A prey to fear, remorse and blame, Like vessel storm-stressed in the bay, Her rudder gone, her masts away; Left to the mercy of the waves, and tossed A helpless hulk and well-nigh lost. Belief in succour still remained, The distant life-boat hope sustained. So, stranded in this awful hole, I turned to Heaven to save my soul. I prayed, beseeched the powers on high, To help me in my agony. I prayed, as ne'er I prayed before; In anguish keen I vowed and swore, This trouble gone, this sorrow ended, My wicked life should be amended; This struggle o'er, this combat passed, This drucken bout should be my last. Then hope, sweet hope, began to flow, And swell my breast with genial glow; Self-trust and courage that had gane Wi' fiery rush, cam' back again. My native pride, love o' the game, Blazed in my heart like altar flame. I felt that tho' a fool I'd been, I still could battle for the green. Resolved, restored, I rose defiant, O'er doubts and fears I sprang triumphant. 'Clootie,' says I, as cool and cheeky As lawyer lad frae gude Auld Reekie, 'I'm willin' to resume the game, A stroke a hole, and terms the same. But had I kent what I ken noo, And sober been, instead o' fou, I'd seen you fried in your ain brimstane Ere I had linked to sic a bargain. A bargain ca' it, wi' changed condeetions That won't admit of defineetions. The man I bargained wi', in boots, Is now a beast wi' tail and cloots, And----' 'Confound your cheek, you old transgressor, You phrase and jaw like a Professor. Enough of all this d--d palaver, Your blasted bletherin' and haver. My tail, it is a thing of beauty, By Jove, you'll find it do its duty. Between us you will see such golf, Ere long you'll cry "I've had enough." Then tee your ball, resume your game, Strike off once more for purse and fame.' But Skipper, pause and kindly tell us About that tail, it is so curious. Why, Jock, the thocht o't gars me scunner, With it he dealt me sic dishonour. Albeit, it was indeed a stunner, I canna think o't without wunner. It was at least a fathom lang, And tapered, at the end a stang Like harpoon dart or arrow head, Glittering and gleaming fiery red. 'Twas nae doot gey thick at the root, But that was covered by his coat. So soople, he could gi'e a skelp wi't, Could licht his pipe, or pick his teeth wi't; And at his pleasure, short or lang, It telescoped up to the stang. Besides it was a choice dumb caddie, And quite as helpful as a laddie, By his left side he made it swirl Around his clubs, like snake to twirl. They stood erect quite near and handy As 'neath the arm o' Jock or Sandy. To see him like a puddock squattin', His tail stiff oot, the sod pat, pattin', Viewing his putt to find the line, 'Twas enough to mak' a cuddy grin. There was little grin in me that mornin', I wasna in a mood for scornin'. [Illustration] The game I was about to witness, It wasna in my power to compass. My fears they soon were realised, And my poor play that I so prized I saw eclipsed and beaten hollow-- A bitter pill for me to swallow. Hole after hole he stole away, With masterly and brilliant play. And ever and anon he jeered me, And with his cursed tail he skeered me. That tail! It curled and squirmed and gleamed, The stang it glowed, red-hot it seemed; Whate'er it touched it brunt and bristled, The very sod it scorched and frizzled. I played my best, I strove and swat; Wha could contend 'gainst foe like that? A stroke a hole, what use to me Against a Deil who averaged three? Gude three-score years I'd kent the green, And many a gallant match I'd seen, Lang, lang before I was a caddie, When golfin' daft a fisher laddie. Wi' keen delight I still remember The glorious gatherin's o' September, When eager golfers came to seek, And share the joys o' 'Medal Week.' They mustered strong, a manly band. The wale o' gentry o' the land; Among them golfers known to fame, Old hands, scratch players o' the game, The Woods, Sir Hope, the gallant Grant; That swiper grand, R. Oliphant; Pattullo, Stirling, Messieux, Condie, Holcroft, Playfair, Haig, and Fairlie; Sir David Baird, Sir Ralph Anstruther, All players stout, and many another; Forby of course, a wheen o' duffers, Second fiddles, middlin' golfers, Most worthy men, but poor performers, Like Mr Patton, Puddle Mudie, Or cheery Small, the laird o' Foodie; The rattlin' red-nosed Craigie Halket; Flash Jim, the swell, for slang and racket; Clanranald, spruce, the tartan dandy, And, 'dem it,' sweet as sugar candy; Mount Melville's laird, aye debonair, True gentleman beyond compare; Dundas, Gillespie, Wemyss, and Craigie, Pitarro's bard, the wag Carnegie, And stalwart Saddle, big and burly, Tho' grim his look, he ne'er was surly, 'Twas he that swore or e'en pretended That nature's laws were clean suspended (Save us, mortals, sic a shame!) To 'spite and spoil _his_ little game!!' Of handsome men a grand display, As rarely seen on Summer's day. Kilgraston's sons, Sir Frank the chief, Falkland, Charlton, and Moncrieff; And mony mair o' birth and name That came to view the Royal game. Blythe Allan then was in his prime, The finest player o' his time. Tom Morris, too, a lad of twenty, Ere long renowned for honours plenty, Good player still, an honest man, As ever lifted club in han', Long may he live the green to guard, And at his pleasure sand the sward, And when at last 'neath sod he's landed, Wi' blessings may his grave be sanded. And ither lads, professionals o' mark, Kirks, Straths, and Pirie, Herds, and Park; Besides a lot I canna' mind, All clever players o their kind. But ne'er a one a club could handle, Play sic a game, or haud the candle, To that auld limb o' sin, the rip, Who had me in his ugly grip. Frae the 'Hole Across' in 'Hell' he landed, That I foresaw it was intended. As I gaed by I heard him laughin', And with the little deils a-daffin'. I fondly hoped he'd come to grief, And with hole or half I'd get relief; But no such luck, alas for me, For again he nailed the hole in three! The next three holes he did in seven, And, Heaven preserve me, we were even! My eight holes gane, the game a' square, Oh, Jock, I shuddered in despair. What skill o' mortal could prevail Against a foe wi' cloots and tail! The tail it now was blazin' red, And from the point bright sparks it shed, And squirmed and curled as if wi' glee, Possessed wi' joy at leatherin' me. Tremblin', abashed, depressed, I stood; My threatened fate, it chilled my blood, Cold swat bedewed me, froze my marrow, I felt like puddock 'neath a harrow, Or thief that views the rope a danglin' Prepared and ready for his stranglin'. The morning breeze blew cool and free, Sweet, fresh, and caller frae the sea; The sun, with ruddy cheek, had risen Not long from forth his watery prison; The strand was bathed with golden light, And all was beautiful and bright. As for auld Sin, he stood serene, He little cared to view the scene. His arms were crossed, one hand on chin, And on his face sardonic grin. With keen and glittering eye he viewed me, And seemed to look right thro' and thro' me, My poor heart throbbing with affright, Full well he gauged my sorry plight. 'Skipper,' quoth he, 'how dost thou feel? You've had your tussle with the Deil; Hast got a lesson, eh, in Golf? Just one hole more and then--enough! I've seen your swagger, heard your boast, Methinks I've got you now--on toast.' Oh, Jock, so horrible his smile, Just like a loathsome crocodile, Wi' sea-green een, and dreadfu' snigger, About to supper on a nigger! Cool and composed I tried to look, As calm as might an aged rook On tree top perched, or giddy mast Exposed to wild and stormy blast; But still a shadowy hope remained By my late fervent vow sustained, That should the powers aboon preserve me, Good play or fickle fortune save me, To mend my life I would endeavour, And cursed drink forswear for ever. 'Satan, you say, I'm yours to roast; But you prefer me served on toast, Like a fat kidney fried wi' bacon, You'll find me teugh or I'm mistaken. The honour's great, the compliment I feel, To be a chosen tit-bit for the Deil. But michty strange it seems to be, Sic honour should be kept for me, When you might have made selection From swells and sinners o' distinction: Ginerals, Cornels, and sodger gentry; Gude kens! there's wale o' them and plenty! 'Mong Clairgy, Lawyers, and Professors, Poor folk in trade, and sma' transgressors. Save us man! You micht hae grippet A Provost wi' an ermine tippet, Or eke a consequential Bailie, Or Councillor fu' wise and wily. Instead, to nab a poor auld caddie, 'Twas _mean_,' I tell't him, Jock Pitbladdie. 'Cocksure you hae me in your grip-- There's mony a slip 'tween cup and lip. Eneugh! I'm weary and half dead, Lost or saved, I maun win hame to bed.' At my free speech old Sooty growled, And at me glared malevolent and scowled; Then tee'd wi' care, his ball addressed, And stood a golfer grand confessed. Oh, Jock, I think I see him yet; That scene I never can forget, Broad-shouthered, slight o' powerful bield, Long-armed, lean-shankit, strapping chield; His fearfu' tail, red, stiff, and stark, And at the end the gleamin' spark! Gudesake, to think the Prince o' H--l, At oor grand game should bear the bell! He drove a long, low ripping shot, O'er brig and road to the green he got. I followed true, for me right good, But, alas, I landed on the road! My heart it sank, but I lay clean, For muckle waur I might hae been. I took my cleek--Oh, blessed happy lick! Home went the ball fornent the stick, Dead as a corp, or Julius Cæsar, Baalam's ass, or Nebuchenezzar. Forward I ran, richt eager, to the green To see how good my luck had been. Fortune indeed had smiled upon me, I lay a dead and perfect stymie! Auld Sin he looked as black as thunder To be so foiled, I dinna wonder. I sprang wi' glee, and gied a howl,-- 'I've stymed the Deil and saved my sowl!' 'Villain!' he roared, 'You sot, you've done me, My malison and curse be on ye!' With that he struck me wi' his tail Right on the stern, just like a flail, So cruel, strong, severe a lounder, In faith it felled me flat's a flounder. [Illustration] I ken nae mair, all was confusion, How long I lay I have nae notion. My friends they tell me I was found Senseless, and dead-like, on the ground; Home to my bed they kindly bore me, Made fruitless efforts to restore me, But all in vain, for fever seized me, And friendly death well-nigh released me. Seven days and nights I raved and tossed, For ever screaming lost, lost, lost! The ravings of a fevered brain, As I went o'er and o'er again The scenes and horrors of that night, Freezing my listeners with affright. A weary time; but, to be brief, Kind Heaven in mercy sent relief. At last, far gane, I found my head, And kent the folk about my bed; Among them I was pleased to view My worthy friend Nurse Killiegrew, For she had with her presence blessed me, And thro' my illness watched and nursed me. I had their warm congratulations, And their demands for explanations About my ravings wild and furious (Women are aye sae keen and curious). 'Poor man,' quoth Nurse, 'you've had a lesson, 'Twill ease your mind to mak' confession.' Abashed, ashamed, I hesitated, At last, with pain, my tale related. My yarn, of course, made great sensation; They groaned and grat at the narration, Save Nurse, who shook her head in sadness, Incredulous, declared my story madness. Said she, 'You fancy you have seen the Deevil, And golfed and bargained wi' the Prince o' Evil; You've had the horrors, it would seem, And what you tell us was a drunkard's dream.' 'Pardon,' said I,--I felt quite nettled,-- 'I do not think you've fairly settled The nature of my strange distraction, At least not to my simple satisfaction. To clear myself, my honour tells me, A stern necessity compels me, Against your most injurious explanations I have strong proof in bodily sensations. For obvious reasons, I would fain refrain From reference to the region of my pain. The cause I've in my story tell't ye, The skelp wi' tail Auld Hooky dealt me; Further, my breeks, or I'm mistaen, Will furnish proof both strong and plain. Bring forth the breeks; as sure as leeks is leeks You'll find the proof upon the breeks.' The breeks they brought, o' good grey tweed, And laid them oot upon the bed. It was indeed a solemn moment, Mysel', six worthy women present,-- A wise, discreet, respectable sederunt. Auld Meg Kilgour, a clever howdie; That virtuous woman, Jenny Braidie, As dink and braw as ony lady; The aged clack wife, Nelly Gourlay; Good Jeanie Tosh, and stout Bell Lonie; And last, the wisest o' the crew, My worthy nurse, Miss Killiegrew. The carlines they put on their specs, Six pair o' een bore on the breeks; Awe-struck they saw upon the seat, Brunt black and deep, the mark complete Of Clootie's tail, like the broad arrow, Clear and distinct as tooth o' harrow! The sicht o't caused great consternation, Hech sirs! Gudesake! and sic-like exclamation. Jean Tosh she gat as white's a sheet; And Nell and Bell began to greet, But Meg had nae sic trepidation, And wanted mair investigation. 'Cummers,' says she, 'let's see his sark, Aiblins it likewise bears the mark.' 'Fie!' Jenny cried, wi' blushing cheeks, 'Eneugh! we've seen the Skipper's breeks, Sic zeal may weel become a howdie, I draw the line at breeks,' quo' Jenny Braidie. 'What!' Meg rejoined, 'you pented jade, You dare to scorn my honest trade! 'Tis ill for you to mak' reflection, Your ain will scarcely stand inspection.' And snorting red, on mischief bent, She turned to me for my consent. I saw that things were getting serious, And feared they jauds so keen and curious. Meg's birse was up and no mistake, Her match she had in Jean the rake. 'Twas time to still the wordy clatter, And pour the ile on troubled water. 'Leddies,' said I, 'your sympathy is precious, To me you've been most kind and gracious, With all your care I'm deeply gratified, And as to proof, completely satisfied.' [Illustration] Nurse heard me, saw the cummer's zeal, And looked as if diverted weel. She laughed, amused at the sensation, But flat refused the explanation, And chaffed and scoffed in huge derision, Declaring they had lost their reason. 'You doited women, don't you see What is so evident,' says she, 'This good-for-nothing drunken wight Has sat upon his pipe alight, No doubt the cause of mark and pain. To me it is as porridge plain.' 'Nurse!' I exclaimed, enraged, indignant, 'Your explanation is repugnant To reason, sense, and proof, and feelin'; Don't think that with a fool you're dealin', For though to drink a slave I've been, I say it, with contrition keen, I ne'er had horrors, what they ca' _D.T._ In Latin tongue, whatever that may be; You hand your ain, and I keep my opinion, I ken my failin's, I'm but human.' ('Twas nae use arguing wi' a woman.) Now Jock my story's told, my yarn is ended, Some things there be that can't be mended; As broken hearts, and damaged reputation, Like club-held gane past reparation, Beyond the savin' powers o' glue, New leather face, or nails, or screw. Not so, thank God, an evil habit, Heaven spare me that I live to prove it. I've tottered on destruction's brink, Have wallowed in the slough o' drink, Have good despised and lived for evil, And golfed and bargained wi' the Deevil. Thank goodness, that's all gone and changed, By other hands my life's arranged. I'm like the chield in Bunyan's story, That pilgrim on his road to glory, Sair hudden doon wi' muckle sack Chokefu' o' sins upon his back, Warstlin' and pechin' on his weary way, The burden heavier growin' every day. Heaven heard his prayer, the burden fell, And rolled behind him to the jaws o' H--l. Joyous and free, gone all his sadness, Grateful he sang, and danced in gladness. I, grim auld pilgrim, in like manner, Compared wi' him a hardened sinner, Thro' forty years I've burden borne, By self despised, of men the scorn. Now, safe forever from the curse That starved my body, toomed my purse, I've anchored in a peacefu' haven, No more for drink the cruel cravin'. No more the 'Public' haunts for me, The drunkard's shout, the maddening glee, The ribald jokes, and songs, and laughter, The sickening pangs that follow after. Gone, gone forever, all the filth and folly, The aches, the woes, the melancholy; I've cast the old, put on the new, Three cheers then for the ribbon blue, And blessings on Nurse Killiegrew! [Illustration] 
37323	----	[Illustration: POEMS ON GOLF] POEMS ON GOLF [Decoration] EDINBURGH Printed for Private Circulation 1867 [Illustration: J.M. CORNER] Some Members of THE EDINBURGH BURGESS GOLFING SOCIETY having resolved to collect and print a few fugitive pieces in verse relating to the game of GOLF, the following Poems and Songs have been after some labour procured, and are now printed (some for the first time) for private circulation among the Subscribers whose names are appended. EDINBURGH, _April 1867_. CONTENTS. PAGE THE GOFF, an Heroi-comical Poem 1 GOLFIANA--Address to St. Andrews 20 " The Golfiad 22 " The first Hole at St. Andrews on a crowded day 29 " Another Peep at the Links 36 THE NINE HOLES OF ST. ANDREWS LINKS 48 SCRAP--"The following scrap" &c. 56 SONG--The Golfers' Garland 57 " The Links o' Innerleven 60 " In praise of Gutta Percha 63 " "Far and Sure" 66 " "Gae bring my guid auld clubs" 68 " "Come, leave your dingy desks" 73 " "When Tom and me were laddies" 77 LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. BANNATYNE, ADAM B., Advocate. BARCLAY, JAS., Writer. BAYLEY, GEO., W.S. BELL, W. H., A.C.S. BEVERIDGE, WILL. T. R., A.C.S. BRODIE, WM., R.S.A. BROWN, W. A., Advocate. BROWN, THOMAS, Writer. BURN, GEORGE, W.S. CALDER, A., Insurance Manager. CHISHOLM, JOHN K., Dentist. CLARK, AND. R., Advocate. CLARK, R., Printer. CURROR, D., S.S.C. DRUMMOND, JAMES, R.S.A. DRYSDALE, WILLIAM, D.C.S. FRASER, WM. N., of Tornaveen. GOUGH, OWEN, Holyrood Palace. HAY, JAMES, Esq., Leith. HENDERSON, ANDREW, Writer. HENDERSON, DAVID, Writer. HUTCHISON, H., Writer. HUTTON, WM., Writer. JACK, JNO., Writer. JAMIESON, JAMES T., S.S.C. JOHNSTON, ROB., Solicitor. KINNEAR, JAS., Writer. KIRKWOOD, JAMES, Merchant. LANDALE, THO., S.S.C. LEE, ROBERT, Advocate. LEGGAT, JAMES, Coal Master. LEISHMAN, JOHN, W.S. MACKENZIE, JOHN, W.S. MACMILLAN, H., Writer. M'EWEN, J., Writer. MANN, W., Writer. MELVILLE, F. SUTHER, A.C.S. MILLAR, WM., Board of Supervision. MITCHELL, A., Banker. MONCREIFF, JAMES, M.P., Dean of the Faculty of Advocates. MONCRIEFF, A., Advocate. MORRISON, AD., S.S.C. MURRAY, ANDW., Jun., W.S. PATTISON, G. H., Advocate. REID, WILLIAM, Writer. SHAW, ROBERT B., Assistant Clerk of the Bills. SMITH, DANIEL, Corn Factor. STEVEN, ROBERT, Writer. STEVENSON, PETER, Philosophical Instrument Maker. THOMS, GEO. H., Advocate. THOMPSON, J. GIBSON. THOMSON, JOHN, S.S.C. THOMSON, W. M., Advocate. WADDELL, ALEX. PEDDIE, W.S. WELCH, C., Writer, Cupar. WILLIAMSON, JAMES, Traveller. WILSON, GEO. B., Accountant. YOUNG, J. WM., 22 Royal Circus. * * * * * [Decoration] THE GOFF. By THOMAS MATHISON, originally a Writer in Edinburgh, and afterwards Minister of Brechin. Reprinted from the second edition of the Poem.--1763. CANTO I. Goff, and the _Man_, I sing, who, em'lous, plies The jointed club, whose balls invade the skies, Who from _Edina's_ tow'rs, his peaceful home, In quest of fame o'er _Letha's_ plains did roam. Long toil'd the hero, on the verdant field, Strain'd his stout arm the weighty club to wield; Such toils it cost, such labours to obtain The bays of conquest, and the bowl to gain. O thou GOLFINIA, Goddess of these plains! Great Patroness of GOFF! indulge my strains; Whether beneath the _thorn-tree_ shade you lie, Or from _Mercerian_ tow'rs the game survey, Or round the green the flying ball you chase, Or make your bed in some hot sandy _face_: Leave your much-lov'd abode, inspire his lays Who sings of GOFF, and sings thy fav'rite's praise. North from _Edina_ eight furlongs and more, Lies that fam'd field, on _Fortha's_ sounding shore. Here _Caledonian_ Chiefs for health resort, Confirm their sinews by the manly sport. _Macdonald_ and unmatch'd _Dalrymple_ ply Their pond'rous weapons, and the green defy; _Rattray_ for skill, and _Corse_ for strength renown'd, _Stewart_ and _Lesly_ beat the sandy ground, And _Brown_ and _Alston_, Chiefs well known to fame, And numbers more the Muse forbears to name. Gigantic _Biggar_ here full oft is seen, Like huge behemoth on an _Indian_ green; His bulk enormous scarce can 'scape the eyes, Amaz'd spectators wonder how he plies. Yea, here great _Forbes_,[1] patron of the just, The dread of villains and the good man's trust, When spent with toils in serving human kind, His body recreates, and unbends his mind. Bright _Phoebus_ now had measur'd half the day, And warm'd the earth with genial noon-tide ray; Forth rush'd _Castalio_ and his daring foe, Both arm'd with clubs, and eager for the blow. Of finest ash Castalio's shaft was made, Pond'rous with lead, and fenc'd with horn the head (The work of _Dickson_, who in _Letha_ dwells, And in the art of making clubs excels), Which late beneath great _Claro's_ arm did bend, But now is wielded by his greater friend. Not with more fury _Norris_ cleav'd the main, To pour his thund'ring arms on guilty _Spain_; Nor with more haste brave _Haddock_ bent his course To guard _Minorca_ from _Iberian_ force,-- Than thou, intrepid hero, urg'd thy way O'er roads and sands, impatient for the fray. With equal warmth _Pygmalion_ fast pursu'd (With courage oft are little wights endued), 'Till to GOLFINIA'S downs the heroes came, The scene of combat and the field of fame. Upon a verdant bank by _Flora_ grac'd, Two sister Fairies found the Goddess plac'd; Propp'd by her snowy hand her head reclin'd, Her curling locks hung waving in the wind. She eyes intent the consecrated green, Crowded with waving clubs and vot'ries keen, And hears the prayers of youths to her address'd, And from the hollow face relieves the ball distress'd. On either side the sprightly Dryads sat, And entertained the Goddess with their chat. First VERDURILLA, thus: O rural Queen! What chiefs are those that drive along the green? With brandish'd clubs the mighty heroes threat, Their eager looks foretell a keen debate. To whom GOLFINIA: Nymph, your eyes behold _Pygmalion_ stout, _Castalio_ brave and bold. From silver _Ierna's_ banks _Castalio_ came, But first on _Andrean_ plains he courted fame. His sire, a Druid, taught (one day of seven) The paths of virtue, the sure road to heaven. In _Pictish_ capital the good man passed His virtuous life, and there he breath'd his last. The son now dwells in fair _Edina's_ town, And on our sandy plains pursues renown. See low _Pygmalion_, skilled in GOFFING art, Small is his size, but dauntless is his heart: Fast by a desk in _Edin's_ domes he sits, With _saids_ and _sicklikes_ length'ning out the writs. For no mean prize the rival chiefs contend, But full rewards the victor's toils attend. The vanquish'd hero for the victor fills A mighty bowl containing thirty gills; With noblest liquor is the bowl replete; Here sweets and acids, strength and weakness meet. From _Indian_ isles the strength and sweetness flow, And _Tagus'_ banks their golden fruits bestow; Cold _Caledonia's_ lucid streams controul The fiery spirits, and fulfil the bowl; For _Albion's_ peace and _Albion's_ friends they pray, And drown in _Punch_ the labours of the day. The Goddess spoke, and thus GAMBOLIA pray'd: Permit to join in brave _Pygmalion's_ aid, O'er each deep road the hero to sustain, And guide his ball to the desired plain. To this the Goddess of the manly sport: Go, and be thou that daring chief's support. Let VERDURILLA be _Castalio's_ stay; I from this flow'ry seat will view the fray. She said: the nymphs trip nimbly o'er the green, And to the combatants approach unseen. END OF CANTO I. [Footnote 1: Duncan Forbes, Lord President of the Court of Session in Scotland.] [Decoration] [Decoration] CANTO II. Ye rural powers that on these plains preside, Ye nymphs that dance on Fortha's flow'ry side, Assist the Muse that in your fields delights, And guide her course in these uncommon flights. But chief, thee, O GOLFINIA! I implore, High as thy balls instruct my Muse to soar: So may thy green for ever crowded be, And balls on balls invade the azure sky. Now at that hole the chiefs begin the game, Which from the neighb'ring _thorn-tree_ takes its name; Ardent they grasp the ball-compelling clubs, And stretch their arms t' attack the little globes; Not as our warriors brandish'd dreadful arms, When fierce _Bellona_ sounded war's alarms; When conqu'ring _Cromwell_ stain'd fair _Eska's_ flood, And soak'd her banks with _Caledonian_ blood; Or when our bold ancestors madly fought, And clans engaged for trifles or for nought. That _Fury_ now from our bless'd fields is driv'n, To scourge unhappy nations doom'd by heav'n. Let _Kouli Kan_ destroy the fertile East, Victorious _Vernon_ thunder in the West; Let horrid war involve perfidious _Spain_, And GEORGE assert his empire o'er the main: But on our plains _Britannia's_ sons engage, And void of ire the sportive war they wage. Lo, tatter'd _Irus_, who their armour bears, Upon the green two little pyr'mids rears; On these they place two balls with careful eye, That with _Clarinda's_ breasts for colour vie,-- The work of _Bobson_, who, with matchless art, Shapes the firm hide, connecting ev'ry part,-- Then in a socket sets the well-stitched void, And thro' the eyelet drives the downy tide; Crowds urging crowds the forceful brogue impels, The feathers harden and the leather swells; He crams and sweats, yet crams and urges more, Till scarce the turgid globe contains its store; The dreadful falcon's pride here blended lies With pigeons' glossy down of various dyes; The lark's small pinions join the common stock, And yellow glory of the martial cock. Soon as _Hyperion_ gilds old _Andrea's_ spires, From bed the artist to his cell retires, With bended back, there plies his steely awls, And shapes, and stuffs, and finishes the balls. But when the glorious God of day has driv'n His flaming chariot down the steep of heav'n, He ends his labour, and with rural strains Enchants the lovely maids and weary swains: As thro' the streets the blythsome piper plays, In antic dance they answer to his lays; At ev'ry pause the ravish'd crowd acclaim, And rends the skies with tuneful _Bobson's_ name. Not more rewarded was old _Amphion's_ song, That reared a town, and this drags one along. Such is fam'd _Bobson_, who in _Andrea_ thrives, And such the balls each vig'rous hero drives. First, bold _Castalio_, ere he struck the blow, Lean'd on his club, and thus address'd his foe: Dares weak _Pygmalion_ this stout arm defy, Which brave _Matthias_ doth with terror try? Strong as he is, _Moravio_ owns my might, Distrusts his vigour, and declines the fight. Renown'd _Clephanio_ I constrain'd to yield, And drove the haughty vet'ran from the field. Weak is thine arm, rash youth! thy courage vain; Vanquish'd, with shame you'll curse the fatal plain. The half-struck balls your weak endeavours mock, Slowly proceed, and soon forget the stroke. Not so the orb eludes my thund'ring force, Thro' fields of air it holds its rapid course; Swift as the balls from martial engines driv'n, Streams like a comet thro' the arch of heav'n. Vaunter, go on! (_Pygmalion_ thus replies); Thine empty boasts with justice I despise! Hadst thou the strength Goliah's spear to wield, Like its great master thunder on the field, And with that strength _Culloden's_ matchless art, Not one unmanly thought should daunt my heart. He said: and sign'd to _Irus_, who before With frequent warnings fill'd the sounding shore. Then great _Castalio_ his whole strength collects, And on the orb a noble blow directs; Swift as a thought the ball obedient flies, Sings high in air, and seems to cleave the skies; Then on the level plain its fury spends; And _Irus_ to the chief the welcome tidings sends. Next in his turn _Pygmalion_ strikes the globe; On the upper half descends the erring club; Along the green the ball confounded scours; No lofty flight the ill-sped stroke impow'rs. Thus, when the trembling hare descries the hounds, She from her whinny mansion swiftly bounds; O'er hills and fields she scours, outstrips the wind; The hounds and huntsmen follow far behind. _Gambolia_ now afforded timely aid, She o'er the sand the fainting ball convey'd; Renew'd its force, and urg'd it on its way, Till on the summit of the hill it lay. Now all on fire the chiefs their orbs pursue, With the next stroke the orbs their flight renew; Thrice round the green they urge the whizzing ball, And thrice three holes to great _Castalio_ fall: The other six _Pygmalion_ bore away, And saved a while the honours of the day. Had some brave champion of the sandy field The chiefs attended, and the game beheld, With ev'ry stroke his wonder had increas'd, And em'lous fires had kindled in his breast. END OF CANTO II. [Decoration] [Decoration] CANTO III. Harmonious Nine, that from _Parnassus_ view The subject world, and all that's done below; Who from oblivion snatch the patriot's name, And to the stars extol the hero's fame; Bring each your lyre, and to my song repair, Nor think _Golfinia's_ train below the Muses' care. Declining _Sol_ with milder beams invades The _Scotian_ fields, and lengthens out the shades; Hastes to survey the conquered golden plains, Where captive _Indians_ mourn in _Spanish_ chains, To gild the waves where hapless _Hosier_ dy'd, Where _Vernon_ late proud _Bourbon's_ force defied, Triumphant rode along the wat'ry plain, _Britannia's_ glory and the scourge of _Spain_. Still from her seat the _Power_ of GOFF beheld Th' unwearied heroes toiling on the field: The light-foot fairies in their labours share, Each nymph her hero seconds in the war; PYGMALION and _Gambolia_ there appear, And VERDURILLA with _Castalio_ here. The Goddess saw, and op'd the book of Fate, To search the issue of the grand debate. Bright silver plates the sacred leaves enfold, Bound with twelve shining clasps of solid gold. The wond'rous book contains the fate of all That lift the club, and strike the missive ball; Mysterious rhymes, that thro' the pages flow, The past, the present, and the future show. GOLFINIA reads the fate-foretelling lines, And soon the sequel of the war divines; Sees conquest doom'd _Castalio's_ toils to crown, _Pygmalion_ doom'd superior might to own. Then at her side VICTORIA straight appears, Her sister goddess, arbitress of wars; Upon her head a wreath of bays she wore, And in her hand a laurel sceptre bore; Anxious to know the will of Fate, she stands, And waits obsequious on the Queen's commands. To whom GOLFINIA: Fate-fulfilling maid, Hear the Fates' will, and be their will obey'd: Straight to the field of fight thyself convey, Where brave _Castalio_ and _Pygmalion_ stray; There bid the long-protracted combat cease, And with thy bays _Castalio's_ temples grace.-- She said; and swift, as _Hermes_ from above Shoots to perform the high behests of _Jove_, VICTORIA from her sister's presence flies, Pleased to bestow the long-disputed prize. Meanwhile the chiefs for the last hole contend, The last great hole, which should their labours end; For this the chiefs exert their skill and might, To drive the balls, and to direct their flight. Thus two fleet coursers for the Royal plate (The others distanc'd) run the final heat; With all his might each gen'rous racer flies, And all his art each panting rider tries, While show'rs of gold and praises warm his breast, And gen'rous emulation fires the beast. His trusty club _Pygmalion_ dauntless plies: The ball ambitious climbs the lofty skies; But soon, ah! soon, descends upon the field, The adverse winds the lab'ring orb repell'd. Thus when a fowl, whom wand'ring sportsmen scare, Leaves the sown land, and mounts the fields of air, Short is his flight; the fiery _Furies_ wound, And bring him tumbling headlong to the ground. Not so _Castalio_ lifts th' unerring club, But with superior art attacks the globe; The well-struck ball the stormy wind beguil'd, And like a swallow skimm'd along the field. An harmless sheep, by Fate decreed to fall, Feels the dire fury of the rapid ball; Full on her front the raging bullet flew, And sudden anguish seiz'd the silent ewe; Stagg'ring, she falls upon the verdant plain, Convulsive pangs distract her wounded brain. Great PAN beheld her stretch'd upon the grass, Nor unreveng'd permits the crime to pass: Th' _Arcadian_ God, with grief and fury stung, Snatch'd his stout crook, and fierce to vengeance sprung; His faithful dogs their master's steps pursue; The fleecy flocks before their father bow,-- With bleatings hoarse salute him as he strode; And frisking lambkins dance around the God. The sire of sheep then lifted from the ground The panting dam, and piss'd upon the wound: The stream divine soon eas'd the mother's pain; The wise immortals never piss in vain. Then to the ball his horny foot applies, Before his foot the kick'd offender flies. The hapless orb a gaping face detain'd; Deep sunk in sand the hapless orb remain'd. As VERDURILLA mark'd the ball's arrest, She with resentment fired _Castalio's_ breast. The nymph assum'd _Patrico's_ shape and mien, Like great _Patrico_ stalk'd along the green; So well his manner and his accent feign'd, _Castalio_ deemed _Patrico's_ self complain'd. Ah, sad disgrace! see rustic herds invade GOLFINIAN plains, the angry fairy said: Your ball abus'd, your hopes and projects cross'd, The game endanger'd, and the hole nigh lost. Thus brutal PAN resents his wounded ewe, Tho' chance, not you, did guide the fatal blow. Incens'd _Castalio_ makes her no replies, T' attack the God, the furious mortal flies; His iron-headed club around he swings, And fierce at PAN the pond'rous weapon flings. Affrighted PAN the dreadful missive shunn'd, But blameless _Tray_ receiv'd a deadly wound: Ill-fated _Tray_ no more the flocks shall tend, In anguish doom'd his shorten'd life to end. Nor could great PAN afford a timely aid; Great PAN himself before the hero fled: Even he--a God--a mortal's fury dreads, And far and fast from bold _Castalio_ speeds. To free the ball the chief now turns his mind, Flies to the bank where lay the orb confined; The pond'rous club upon the ball descends, Involv'd in dust th' exulting orb ascends. Their loud applause the pleas'd spectators raise; The hollow bank resounds _Castalio's_ praise. A mighty blow _Pygmalion_ then lets fall, Straight from th' impulsive engine starts the ball, Answ'ring its master's just design, it hastes, And from the hole scarce twice two clubs' length rests. Ah! what avails thy skill, since fate decrees Thy conqu'ring foe to bear away the prize? Full fifteen clubs' length from the hole he lay A wide cart-road before him cross'd his way; The deep-cut tracks th' intrepid chief defies; High o'er the road the ball triumphing flies, Lights on the green, and scours into the hole; Down with it sinks depress'd _Pygmalion's_ soul. Seiz'd with surprise, th' affrighted hero stands, And feebly tips the ball with trembling hands. The creeping ball its want of force complains, A grassy tuft the loit'ring orb detains. Surrounding crowds the victor's praise proclaim, The echoing shore resounds _Castalio's_ name. For him _Pygmalion_ must the bowl prepare, To him must yield the honours of the war; On fame's triumphant wings his name shall soar Till time shall end, or GOFFING be no more. [Decoration] [Decoration] ADDRESS TO ST. ANDREWS. St. Andrews! they say that thy glories are gone, That thy streets are deserted, thy castles o'erthrown: If thy glories _be_ gone, they are only, methinks, As it were, by enchantment, transferr'd to thy Links. Though thy streets be not now, as of yore, full of prelates, Of abbots and monks, and of hot-headed zealots, Let none judge us rashly, or blame us as scoffers, When we say that instead there are Links full of Goffers, With more of good heart and good feeling among them Than the abbots, the monks, or the zealots who sung them: We have red coats and bonnets, we've putters and clubs; The green has its bunkers, its hazards, and _rubs_; At the long hole across we have biscuits and beer, And the Hebes who sell it give zest to the cheer: If this make not up for the pomp and the splendour Of mitres, and murders, and mass--we'll surrender; If Goffers and caddies be not better neighbours Than abbots and soldiers, with crosses and sabres, Let such fancies remain with the fool who so thinks, While we toast old St. Andrews, its Goffers and Links. [Decoration] [Decoration] THE GOLFIAD. _Arma, virumq. cano._--VIRGIL, _�n._ i. l. 1. Balls, clubs, and men I sing, who first, methinks, Made sport and bustle on North Berwick Links, Brought coin and fashion, betting, and renown, Champagne and claret, to a country town, And lords and ladies, knights and squires, to ground Where washerwomen erst and snobs were found! Had I the powers of him who sung of Troy-- Gem of the learned, bore of every boy-- Or him, the bard of Rome, who, later, told How great �neas roam'd and fought of old-- I then might shake the gazing world like them; For who denies I have as grand a theme? Time-honour'd Golf!--I heard it whisper'd once That he who could not play was held a dunce On old Olympus, when it teem'd with gods. O rare!--but it's a lie--I'll bet the odds! No doubt these heathen gods, the very minute They knew the game, would have delighted in it! Wars, storms, and thunders--all would have been off! Mars, Jove, and Neptune would have studied Golf, And swiped--like Oliphant and Wood below-- Smack over hell[2] at one immortal go! Had Mecca's Prophet known the noble game Before he gave his paradise to fame, He would have promis'd, in the land of light, Golf all the day--and Houris all the night! But this is speculation: we must come, And work the subject rather nearer home; Lest, in attempting all too high to soar, We fall, like Icarus, to rise no more. The game is ancient--manly--and employs, In its departments, women, men, and boys: Men play the game, the boys the clubs convey, And lovely woman gives the prize away, When August brings the great, the medal day! Nay, more: tho' some may doubt, and sneer, and scoff, The female muse has sung the game of Goff, And trac'd it down, with choicest skill and grace, Thro' all its bearings, to the human race; The tee, the start of youth--the game, our life-- The ball when fairly bunkered, man and wife. Now, Muse, assist me while I strive to name The varied skill and chances of the game. Suppose we play a match: if all agree, Let Clan and Saddell tackle Baird and me. Reader, attend! and learn to play at Goff; The lord of Saddell and myself strike off! He strikes--he's in the ditch--this hole is ours; Bang goes my ball--it's bunker'd, by the pow'rs. But better play succeeds, these blunders past, And in six strokes the hole is halved at last. O hole! tho' small, and scarcely to be seen, Till we are close upon thee, on the green; And tho' when seen, save Golfers, few can prize, The value, the delight that in thee lies; Yet, without thee, our tools were useless all-- The club, the spoon, the putter, and the ball: For all is done--each ball arranged on tee, Each stroke directed--but to enter thee! If--as each tree, and rock, and cave of old, Had _its_ presiding nymph, as we are told-- Thou hast _thy_ nymph; I ask for nothing but Her aid propitious when I come to putt. Now for the second: And here Baird and Clan In turn must prove which is the better man: Sir David swipes sublime!--into the quarry![3] Whiz goes the chief--a sneezer,[4] by Old Harry! "Now, lift the stones, but do not touch the ball, The hole is lost if it but move at all: Well play'd, my cock! you could not have done more; 'Tis bad, but still we may get home at four." Now, near the hole Sir David plays the odds; Clan plays the like, and wins it, by the gods! "A most disgusting _steal_;[5] well, come away, They're one ahead, but we have four to play. We'll win it yet, if I can cross the ditch: They're over, smack! come, there's another _sich_."[6] Baird plays a trump--we hole at three--they stare, And miss their putt--so now the match is square. And here, who knows but, as old Homer sung, The scales of fight on Jove's own finger hung? Here Clan and Saddell; there swing Baird and I,-- Our merits, that's to say; for half an eye Could tell, if _bodies_ in the scales were laid, Which must descend, and which must rise ahead. If Jove were thus engaged, we did not see him, But told our boys to clean the balls and tee 'em. In this next hole the turf is most uneven; We play like tailors--only in at seven, And they at six; most miserable play! But let them laugh who win. Hear Saddell say, "Now, by the piper who the pibroch played Before old Moses, we are one ahead, And only two to play--a special _coup_! Three five-pound notes to one!" "Done, sir, with you." We start again; and in this dangerous hole[7] Full many a stroke is played with heart and soul: "Give me the iron!" either party cries, As in the quarry, track, or sand he lies. We reach the green at last, at even strokes; Some caddy chatters, _that_ the chief provokes, And makes him miss his putt; Baird holes the ball; Thus, with but one to play, 'tis even all! 'Tis strange, and yet there cannot be a doubt, That such a snob should put a chieftain out: The noble lion, thus, in all his pride, Stung by the gadfly, roars and starts aside; Clan did _not_ roar--_he_ never makes a noise-- But said, "They're very troublesome, these boys." His partner muttered something not so civil, Particularly, "scoundrels"--"at the devil!" Now Baird and Clan in turn strike off and play[8] Two strokes, the best that have been seen to-day. His spoon next Saddell takes, and plays a trump-- Mine should have been as good but for a bump That turn'd it off. Baird plays the odds--it's all But in!--at five yards, good, Clan holes the ball! My partner, self, and song--all three are done! We lose the match, and all the bets thereon! Perhaps you think that, tho' I'm not a winner, My muse should stay and celebrate the dinner; The ample joints that travel up the stair, To grace the table spread by Mrs. Blair; The wine, the ale, the toasts, the jokes, the songs, And all that to such revelry belongs;-- It may not be! 'twere fearful falling off To sing such trifles after singing Golf In most majestic strain; let others dwell On such, and rack their carnal brains to tell A tale of sensuality!--Farewell! [Footnote 2: Hell is a range of broken ground on St. Andrews Links, bearing probably the same proportion to the _ordinary_ course of the Links as hell would to heaven in the opinion of these immortals.] [Footnote 3: A place on North Berwick Links, so awkward, that in playing out of it one is allowed to remove everything, provided the position of the ball is not altered.] [Footnote 4: A long and scientific stroke at golf.] [Footnote 5: _Steal_, the act of holing the ball contrary to probability.] [Footnote 6: A slang term for _such_.] [Footnote 7: Fifth hole.] [Footnote 8: Sixth hole.] [Decoration] THE FIRST HOLE AT ST. ANDREWS ON A CROWDED DAY. _Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit._--�N. i. l. 208. 'Tis morn! and man awakes, by sleep refresh'd, To do whate'er he has to do with zest; But at St. Andrews, where my scene is laid, _One_ only thought can enter every head; The thought of Golf, to wit--and that engages Men of all sizes, tempers, ranks, and ages; The root--the _primum mobile_ of all, The epidemic of the club and ball; The work by day, the source of dreams by night, The never-failing fountain of delight! Here, Mr. Philp, club-maker, is as great _As Philip_--as any minister of state! And every caddy as profess'd a hero As Captain Cook, or Wellington, or Nero! For instance--Davie, oldest of the cads, Who gives _half-one_ to unsuspicious lads, When he _might_ give them _two_, or even _more_, And win, perhaps, three matches out of four, Is just as politic in _his_ affairs As Talleyrand or Metternich in _theirs_. He has the statesman's elements, 'tis plain, Cheat, flatter, humbug--_anything_ for gain; And had he trod the world's wide field, methinks, As long as he has trod St. Andrews Links, He might have been prime minister, or priest, My lord, or plain _Sir David_ at the least! Now, to the ground of Golf my muse shall fly, The various men assembled to descry, Nine-tenths of whom, throughout the rolling year, At the first hole _unfailingly_ appear; Where, "How d'ye do?" "Fine morning," "Rainy day," And, "What's the match?" are preludes to the play. So full the meeting that I scarcely can, In such a crowd, distinguish man from man. We'll take them as they come:--He next the wall, Outside, upon the right, is Mr. Saddell; And well he plays, though, rising on his toes, Whiz round his head his _supple_ club he throws. There, Doctor Moodie, turtle-like, displays His well-filled paunch, and swipes beyond all praise; While Cuttlehill, of slang and chatter chief, Provokes the bile of Captain George Moncrieffe. See Colonel Playfair, shaped in form _rotund_, Parade, the unrivall'd Falstaff of the ground; He laughs and jokes, plays, "what you like," and yet You'll rarely find him make a foolish bet. Against the sky, display'd in high relief, I see the figure of Clanranald's Chief, Dress'd most correctly in the _fancy_ style, Well-whisker'd face, and radiant with a smile; He bows, shakes hands, and has a word for all-- So did Beau Nash, as master of the ball! Near him is Saddell, dress'd in blue coat plain, With lots of Gourlays,[9] free from spot or stain; He whirls his club to catch the proper _swing_, And freely bets round all the scarlet ring; And swears by _Ammon_, he'll engage to drive As long a ball as any man alive! That's Major Playfair, a man of nerve unshaken-- He knows a thing or two, or I'm mistaken; And when he's press'd, can play a tearing game, He works for _certainty_ and not for _Fame_! There's none--I'll back the assertion with a wager-- Can play the _heavy iron_ like the Major. Next him is Craigie Halkett, one who can Swipe out, for distance, against any man; But in what _course_ the ball so struck may go, No looker on--not he himself--can know. See Major Holcroft, he's a steady hand Among the best of all the Golfing band; He plays a winning game in every part, But near the hole displays the greatest art. There young Patullo stands, and he, methinks, Can drive the longest ball upon the Links; And well he plays the spoon and iron, but He fails a _little_ when he comes to _putt_. Near Captain Cheape, a sailor by profession (But not so good at Golf as navigation), Is Mr. Peter Glass, who once could play A better game than he can do to-day. We cannot last for ever! and the _gout_, Confirmed, is wondrous apt to put us out. There, to the left, I see Mount-Melville stand Erect, his _driving putter_ in his hand; It is a club he cannot leave behind, It works the balls so well against the wind. Sir David Erskine has come into play, He has not won the medal _yet_, but _may_. Dost love the greatest laugher of the lot?-- Then play a round with little Mr. Scott: He is a merry cock, and seems to me To win or lose with equal ecstasy. Here's Mr. Messieux, he's a noble player, But something _nervous_--that's a bad affair; It sadly spoils his putting, when he's _press'd_-- But let him _win_, and he will beat the _best_. That little man that's seated on the ground In red, must be Carnegie, I'll be bound! A most conceited dog, not slow to _go it_ At Golf, or anything--a _sort_ of poet; He talks to Wood--John Wood--who ranks among The tip-top hands that to the Club belong; And Oliphant, the rival of the last, Whose play, at times, can scarcely be surpass'd. Who's he that's just arrived?--I know him well; It is the Cupar Provost, John Dalzell: When he _does_ hit the ball, he swipes like blazes-- It is but _seldom_, and _himself_ amazes; But when he winds his horn, and leads the chase, The Laird of Lingo's in his proper place. It has been _said_ that, at the _break of day_ His Golf is better than his evening play: That must be scandal; for I am sure that none Could think of Golf before the rise of sun. He now is talking to his lady's brother, A man of politics, Sir Ralph Anstruther: Were he but once in Parliament, methinks, And working _there_ as well as on the _Links_, The burghs, I'll be bound, would not repent them That they had such a man to represent them: There's _one thing_ only--when he's _on the roll_, He must not lose his _nerve_, as when he's near the hole. Upon his right is Major Bob Anstruther; Cobbet's _one_ radical--and he's _another_. But when we meet, as here, to play at Golf, Whig, Radical, and Tory--all are off-- Off the contested politics, I mean-- And fun and harmony illume the scene. We make our matches from the love of playing, Without one loathsome feeling but the _paying_, And that is lessened by the thought, we _borrow_ Only to-day what we shall _win_ to-morrow. Then, here's prosperity to Golf! and long May those who play be cheerful, fresh, and strong; When _driving_ ceases, may we still be able To play the _shorts_, _putt_, and be comfortable! And to the latest may we fondly cherish The thoughts of Golf--so let St. Andrews flourish! [Footnote 9: Meaning plenty of balls, made by Mr. Gourlay of Bruntsfield Links, a famous artist. The gentleman alluded to generally has, at _least_, twelve dozen.] [Decoration] ANOTHER PEEP AT THE LINKS. _Alter erit tum Typhys, et altera quæ vehat Argo Dilectos heroas--erunt etiam altera bella._ VIRG. GEORGIC. Awake, my slumb'ring Muse, and plume thy wing, Our former theme--the Game of Golf--to sing! For since the subject last inspired my pen, Ten years have glided by, or nearly ten. Still the old hands at Golf delight to play-- Still new succeed them as they pass away; Still ginger-beer and parliament are seen Serv'd out by Houris to the peopled green; And still the royal game maintains its place, And will maintain it through each rising race. Still Major Playfair shines, a star at Golf; And still the Colonel--though a _little_ off; The former, skill'd in many a curious art, As chemist, mechanist, can play his part, And understands, besides the pow'r of swiping, _Electro-Talbot_ and Daguerreotyping. Still Colonel Holcroft steady walks the grass, And still his putting nothing can surpass-- And still he drives, unless the weather's rough, Not quite so far as _once_, but far enough. Still Saddell walks, superb, improved in play, Though his blue jacket now is turn'd to grey; Still are his balls as rife and clean as wont-- Still swears by Ammon, and still bets the _blunt_-- Still plays all matches--still is often beat-- And still in iced punch drowns each fresh defeat. Still on the green Clanranald's chief appears, As gay as ever, as untouch'd by years; He laughs at Time, and Time, perhaps through whim, Respects his nonchalance, and laughs at him; Just fans him with his wings, but spares his head, As loth to lose a subject so well bred. Sir Ralph returns--he has been absent long-- No less renown'd in Golfing than in song; With continental learning richly stored, Teutonic Bards translated and explored; A _literaire_--a German scholar now, With all _Griselda's_ honours on his brow! The Links have still the pleasure to behold Messieux, complete in matches, as of old; He, modest, tells you that his day's gone by: If any think it _is so_--let them try! Still portly William Wood is to be seen, As good as ever on the velvet green, The same unfailing trump; but John, methinks, Has taken to the _Turf_, and shies the Links. Whether the _Leger_ and the _Derby_ pay As well as _Hope Grant_, I can scarcely say; But let that be--'tis better, John, old fellow, To pluck the _rooks_, than _rook_ the _violoncello_. Permit me just a moment to digress-- Friendship would chide me should I venture less-- The poor Chinese, there cannot be a doubt, Will shortly be demolish'd out and out; But--O how blest beyond the common line Of conquer'd nations by the Power divine!-- _Saltoun_ to cut their yellow throats, and then _Hope Grant_ to play their requiem-notes--Amen! Still George Moncrieffe appears the crowd before, _Lieutenant-Colonel_--Captain now no more; Improv'd in ev'rything--in looks and life, And, more than all, the husband of a wife! As in the olden time, see Craigie Halkett-- Wild strokes and swiping, jest, and fun, and rackett; He leaves us now. But in three years, I trust, He will return, and sport his _muzzle dust_, Play Golf again, and patronise all cheer, From noble _Claret_ down to _bitter beer_. Mount-Melville still erect as ever stands, And plies his club with energetic hands, Plays short and steady, often is a winner-- A better Captain never graced a dinner. But where is _Oliphant_, that artist grand? He scarce appears among the Golfing band. No doubt he's married; but when that befalls Is there an end to putters, clubs, and balls? Not so, methinks: _Sir David Baird_ can play With any Golfer of the present day; The _Laird of Lingo_, Major Bob Anstruther-- Both married, and the one as good's the other. Dalgleish and Haig, two better men to play You scarce will meet upon a summer's day; Alike correct, whatever may befall, Swipe, iron, putter, quarter-stroke, and all. Old Robert Lindsay plays a decent game, Tho' not a Golfer of _enormous_ fame. Well can he fish with minnow as with fly, Paint, and play _farthing-brag_ uncommonly; Give jolly dinners, justice courts attend-- A good companion and a steady friend. But _Cuttlehill_, that wonderful _buffoon_, We meet him now no more, as wont, at noon; No more along the green his jokes are heard, And some who _dared_ not _then_, now take the word. Farewell! facetious Jem--too surely gone-- A loss to us--_Joe Miller_ to _Boulogne_. Poor Peter Glass, a worthy soul and _blue_, Has paid the debt of nature--'tis too true! Long did his candle flicker with the gout-- One puff, a little stronger, _blew it out_. And good Patullo! he who drove as none, Since him, have driven--he is also gone! And Captain Cheape--who does not mourn the day That snatch'd so good, so kind a friend away? One more I name--and only one--but he Was older far, and lower in degree-- Great Davie Robertson, the eldest cad, In whom the good was stronger than the bad; He sleeps in death! and with him sleeps a skill Which Davie, statesmanlike, could wield at will! Sound be his slumbers! yet if he should wake In worlds where Golf is play'd, himself he'd shake, And look about, and tell each young beginner, "I'll gie half-ane--nae mair, as I'm a sinner." He leaves a son, and Allan is his name, In Golfing far beyond his father's fame; Tho' in diplomacy, I shrewdly guess, His skill's inferior, and his fame is less. Now for the _mushrooms_--old, perchance, or new-- But whom my former strain did not review: I'll name an _old one_, Patton, Tom, of Perth, Short, stout, grey-headed, but of sterling worth! A Golfer perfect--something, it may be, The worse for _wear_, but few so true as he; Good-humour'd when behind as when ahead, And drinks like blazes till he goes to bed. His friend is Peddie, not an awful swiper, But at the putting he's a very _viper_: Give him a man to drive him through the green, And he'll be bad to beat, it will be seen-- Patton and Peddie--Peddie and Patton, Are just the people one should bet upon. There Keith with Andrew Wauchope works away, And most respectable the game they play; The navy Captain's steadiness and age Give him, perhaps, the _pull_--but I'll engage, Ere some few months, or rather weeks, are fled, Youth and activity will take the lead. See Gilmour next--and he can drive a ball As far as any man among them all; In ev'ry hunting-field can lead the van, And is throughout a perfect gentleman. Next comes a handsome man, with Roman nose And whiskers dark--Wolfe Murray I suppose; He has begun but lately, still he plays A fairish game, and therefore merits praise; Ask him when at his _worst_, and he will say, "'Tis bad--but, Lord! how I play'd _yesterday_!" Another man with whiskers--stout and strong-- A Golfer too who swipes his balls along, And well he putts, but I should simply say, His _own opinion's_ better than his play; Dundas can sing a song, or glee, or catch, I think far better than he makes a match. But who is he whose hairy lips betray Hussar or Lancer? Muse, oh kindly say! 'Tis Captain Feilden. Lord, how hard he hits! 'Tis strange he does not knock the ball to bits! Sometimes he hits it fair, and makes a stroke Whose distance Saddell's envy might provoke; But take his _common_ play; the worst that ever Play'd Golf might give him _one_, and beat him clever. Bad tho' he be, the Captain has done more Than ever man who play'd at Golf before: _One_ thund'ring ball he drove--'twas in despair-- Wide of the hole, indeed, but kill'd a _hare_! Ah! Captain Campbell, old Schehallion, see! Most have play'd longer, few so well as he;-- A sterling Highlander, and that's no trifle,-- So thinks the _Gael_--a workman with a rifle; Keeps open house--a very proper thing-- And, tho' rheumatic, _fiddles_ like a king! Sir Thomas of Moncrieffe--I cannot doubt But he will be a Golfer out-and-out; Tho' now, perhaps, he's off, and careless too-- His misses numerous, his hits are few; But he is zealous; and the time will be When few will better play the game than he. Balbirnie and Makgill will both be good-- Strong, active, lathy fellows; so they should. But for John Grant, a clever fellow too, I really fear that Golf will never do. 'Tis strange, indeed; for he can paint, and ride, And hunt the hounds, and many a thing beside; Amuse his friends with anecdote and fun; But when he takes his club in hand--he's _done_! Stay! I retract!--Since writing the above, I've seen him play a better game, by Jove; So much beyond what one could have believ'd, That I confess myself for once deceived; And if he can go on the season through, There's still a _chance_ that he may really _do_. I've kept a man, in _petto_, for the last-- Not an old Golfer, but by few surpassed-- Great Captain Fairlie! When he drives a ball-- One of his _best_--for he don't hit them all, It then requires no common stretch of sight To watch its progress, and to see it light. One moment: I've another to define-- A famous sportsman, and a judge of wine-- Whom faithful Mem'ry offers to my view; He made the game a study, it is true; Still, many play as well but, for _position_ John Buckle fairly beggars competition! And now farewell! I am the worse for wear-- Grey is my jacket, growing grey my hair! And though my play is pretty much the same, Mine is, at best, a despicable game. But still I like it--still delight to sing Clubs, players, caddies, balls, and everything. But all that's bright must fade, and we who play, Like those before us, soon must pass away; Yet it requires no prophet's skill to trace The royal game thro' each succeeding race: While on the tide of generations flows, It still shall bloom, a never-fading rose; And still St. Andrews Links, with flags unfurl'd, Shall peerless reign, and challenge all the world! [Decoration] [Decoration] THE NINE HOLES OF THE LINKS OF ST. ANDREWS. IN A SERIES OF SONNETS. I. THE FIRST OR BRIDGE HOLE. Sacred to hope and promise is the spot-- To Philp's and to the Union Parlour near, To every Golfer, every caddie dear-- Where we strike off--oh, ne'er to be forgot, Although in lands most distant we sojourn. But not without its perils is the place; Mark the opposing caddie's sly grimace, Whispering: "He's on the road!" "He's in the burn!" So is it often in the grander game Of life, when, eager, hoping for the palm, Breathing of honour, joy, and love and fame, Conscious of nothing like a doubt or qualm, We start, and cry: "Salute us, muse of fire!" And the first footstep lands us in the mire. R. C. II. THE SECOND OR CARTGATE HOLE. Fearful to Tyro is thy primal stroke, O Cartgate! for behold the bunker opes Right to the _teeing_-place its yawning chops, Hope to engulf ere it is well awoke. That passed, a Scylla in the form of rushes Nods to Charybdis which in ruts appears: He will be safe who in the middle steers; One step aside, the ball destruction brushes. Golf symbols thus again our painful life, Dangers in front, and pitfalls on each hand: But see, one glorious cleek-stroke from the sand Sends Tyro home, and saves all further strife! He's in at six--old Sandy views the lad With new respect, remarking: "That's no bad!" R. C. III. THE THIRD HOLE. No rest in Golf--still perils in the path: Here, playing a good ball, perhaps it goes Gently into the _Principalian Nose_, Or else _Tam's Coo_, which equally is death. Perhaps the wind will catch it in mid-air, And take it to _the Whins_--"Look out, look out! Tom Morris, be, oh be, a faithful scout!" But Tom, though _links-eyed_, finds not anywhere. Such thy mishaps, O Merit: feeble balls Meanwhile roll on, and lie upon the green; 'Tis well, my friends, if you, when this befalls, Can spare yourselves the infamy of spleen. It only shows the ancient proverb's force, That you may further go and fare the worse. R. C. IV. THE FOURTH OR GINGER-BEER HOLE. Though thou hast lost this last unlucky hole, I say again, betake thee not to swearing, Or any form of speech profanely daring, Though some allege it tendeth to console. Better do thou thy swelling griefs control, Sagacious that at hand a joy awaits thee (Since out of doubt a glass of beer elates thee), Without that frightful peril to thy soul. A glass of beer! go dip thine angry beak in it, And straight its rage will melt to soft placidity, That solace finding thou art wise to seek in it; Ah, do not thou on this poor plea reject it, That in thy inwards it will breed acidity-- One glass of Stewart's brandy will correct it. P. A. V. THE HELL HOLE. What daring genius first yclept thee Hell? What high, poetic, awe-struck grand old Golfer, Much more of a mythologist than scoffer! Whoe'er he was, the name befits thee well. "All hope abandon, ye who enter here," Is written awful o'er thy gloomy jaws, A threat to all save Allan might give pause: And frequent from within come tones of fear-- Dread sound of cleeks, which ever fall in vain, And--for mere mortal patience is but scanty-- Shriekings thereafter, as of souls in pain, Dire gnashings of the teeth, and horrid curses, With which I need not decorate my verses, Because, in fact, you'll find them all in Dante. P. A. VI. THE HEATHER HOLE. Ah me! prodigious woes do still environ-- To quote verbatim from some grave old poet-- The man who needs must meddle with his _iron_; And here, if ever, thou art doomed to know it. For now behold thee, doubtless for thy sins, Tilling some bunker, as if on a lease of it, And so assiduous to make due increase of it; Or wandering homeless through a world of whins! And when, these perils past, thou seemest _dead_. And hop'st a half--O woe, the ball goes crooked, Making thy foe just one more hole ahead, Surely a consummation all too sad, Without that sneering devilish "Never lookit," The parting comment of the opposing cad. P. A. VII. THE HIGH OR EDEN HOLE. The shelly pit is cleared at one fell blow, A stroke to be remembered in your dreams! But here the Eden on your vision gleams, Lovely, but treach'rous in its solemn flow. The hole is perched aloft, too near the tide, The green is small, and broken is the ground Which doth that little charmed space surround! Go not too far, and go not to a side; Take the short spoon to do your second stroke; Sandy entreats you will the wind take heed on, For, oh, it would a very saint provoke, If you should let your ball plump in the Eden. You do your best, but who can fate control? So here against you is another hole. R. C. Jr. VIII. THE SHORT HOLE. Brief but not easy is the next adventure; Legend avers it has been done in _one_, Though such long _steals_ are now but rarely done-- In _three_ 'twere well that you the hole should enter. Strangely original is this bit of ground, For, while at hand the smooth and smiling green, One bunker wide and bushy yawns between, Where Tyro's gutta is too often found. Nervous your rival strikes and heels his ball-- From that whin-bush at six he'll scarce extract it: Yours, by no blunder this time counteracted, Is with the grass-club lofted over all. There goes a hole in your side--how you hug it! Much as th' Australian digger does a nugget. R. C. Jr. IX. THE END HOLE. The end, but not the end--the distance-post That halves the game--a serious point to thee, For if one more thou losest, 'twill be _three_: Yet even in that case, think not all is lost. Men four behind have been, on the return, So favoured by Olympus, or by care, That all their terrors vanished into air, And caddies cried them _dormy_ at the burn! I could quote proverbs, did I speak at random: Full many a broken ship comes into port, Full many a cause is gained at last resort, But Golf impresses most, _Nil desperandum_. Turn, then, my son, with two against, nor dread To gain the winning-post with one ahead. R. C. Jr. [Decoration] [Decoration] The following SCRAP relative to GOLF occurs in a very rare work entitled _Westminster Drollery_, 12mo, 1671, p. 28. A Song called-- "And to each pretty lass We will give a green gown." Thus all our life long we are frolick and gay, And instead of Court revels we merrily play At Trap, at Rules, and at Barly-break run, At GOFF and at Foot-Ball; and when we have done These innocent sports, we'll laugh and lie down, And to each pretty lass We will give a green gown. _N.B._--The above was copied from a book containing many curious Scraps relating to Golfing, Archery, and Curling, belonging to JAMES MAIDMENT, Esq., advocate. [Decoration] THE GOLFER'S GARLAND.[10] Of rural diversions, too long has the chase All the honours usurped, and assumed the chief place; But truth bids the muse from henceforward proclaim, That Golfing of field sports stands foremost in fame. With a fal-the-ral-a, etc. At Golf we contend without rancour or spleen, And bloodless the laurels we reap on the green; From vig'rous exertions our pleasures arise, And to crown our delight no poor fugitive dies. With a fal-the-ral-a, etc. O'er the green see our heroes in uniform clad, In parties well matched how they gracefully spread, Whilst with long strokes, and short strokes, they tend to the goal, And with putt well directed plump into the hole. With a fal-the-ral-a, etc. From exercise keen, from strength active and bold, We traverse the green, and forget to grow old; Blue devils, diseases, dull sorrow and care, Are knock'd down by our balls as they whiz through the air. With a fal-the-ral-a, etc. The strong-sinew'd son of Alcmena would drub, And demolish a monster when armed with a club; But what were the monsters which Hercules slew, To those fiends which each week with our balls we subdue? With a fal-the-ral-a, etc. Health, happiness, harmony, friendship, and fame, Are the fruits and rewards of our favourite game: A sport so distinguished the fair must approve; So to Golf give the day and the evening to love. With a fal-the-ral-a, etc. Our first standing toast we to Golfing assign, No other amusement so truly divine; It has charms for the aged, as well as the young, Then as first of field sports let its praises be sung. With a fal-the-ral-a, etc. And to crown our devotion, and grateful goodwill, A bumper brimhigh to their healths let us fill; Our charming instructresses--blessings attend them, And cursed be the clown who would dare to offend them! With a fal-the-ral-a, etc. The next we shall drink to our friends far and near; To the mem'ry of those who no longer appear, Who have play'd their last round, and passed over that bourne From which the best Golfer can never return. With a fal-the-ral-a, etc. Then fill up your glass, and let each social soul Drink to the putter, the balls, and the hole; And may every true Golfer invariably find His opponent play fair, and his fair one prove kind. With a fal-the-ral-a, etc. [Footnote 10: From Mathieson's Poem "The Goff" 1743, with the exception of the 5th verse, which was copied by a member of the Burgess Club from a version of the song found on an old bookstall.] [Decoration] THE LINKS O' INNERLEVEN. SUNG AT THE AUTUMN MEETING OF THE INNERLEVEN GOLFING CLUB, 1841. TUNE--_Dainty Davie._ Wha wad be free from doctor's bills-- From trash o' powders and o' pills-- Will find a cure for a' his ills On the Links o' Innerleven. For there whar lassies bleach their claes, And bairnies toddle doun the braes, The merry Golfer daily plays On the Links o' Innerleven. Sae hie ye to the Golfer's ha', And there, arranged alang the wa', O' presses ye will see a raw, At the Club o' Innerleven. There from some friendly box ye'll draw A club and second-handed ba',-- A Gourlay pill's the best o' a' For health at Innerleven. And though the Golfer's sport be keen, Yet oft upon the putting-green He'll rest to gaze upon the scene That lies round Innerleven-- To trace the steamboat's crumpled way Through Largo's loch-like silvery bay, Or to hear the hushing breakers play On the beach o' Innerleven. When in the evening of my days, I wish I could a cottage raise Beneath the snugly-sheltering braes O'erhanging Innerleven. There in the plot before the door I'd raise my vegetable store, Or tug for supper at the oar In the bay near Innerleven. But daily on thy matchless ground I and my caddie would be found, Describing still another round On thy Links, sweet Innerleven! Would I care then for fortune's rubs, And a' their Kirk and State hubbubs, While I could stump and swing my clubs On the Links o' Innerleven? And when the e'ening grey sat doun, I'd cast aside my tacket[11] shoon, And crack o' putter, cleek, and spoon,[12] Wi' a friend at Innerleven. Syne o'er a glass o' Cameron Brig,[13] A nightcap we would doucely swig, Laughing at Conservative and Whig, By the Links o' Innerleven. [Footnote 11: Golfers wear tacks in their shoes that they may stand firm when they strike.] [Footnote 12: Names for different kinds of clubs.] [Footnote 13: The name of a noted distillery.] [Decoration] IN PRAISE OF _GUTTA PERCHA_. (1856.) TUNE--_Dainty Davie._ Of a' the changes that of late Have shaken Europe's social state-- Let wondering politicians prate, And 'bout them mak a wark a'-- A subject mair congenial here, And dearer to a Golfer's ear I sing--the change brought round last year By balls of _Gutta Percha_! Tho' Gouf be of our games most rare, Yet truth to speak, the tear and wear O' balls was felt to be severe, And source o' great vexation; When Gourlay's balls cost half-a-croun, And Allan's no a farthing doun, The feck o's wad been harried soon, In this era of taxation. But times are changed--we dinna care Though we may ne'er drive leather mair, Be't stuffed wi' feather or wi' hair-- For noo we're independent. At last a substance we hae got, Frae which for scarce mair than a groat, A ba' comes that can row and stot-- A ba' the most transcendent. Hail, _Gutta Percha_, precious gum! O'er Scotland's links lang may ye bum; Some purse-proud billies haw and hum, And say ye're douf at fleein'; But let them try ye fairly out, Wi' ony balls for days about, Your merits they will loudly tout, And own they hae been leein'. And noo that a' your praise is spent, Ye'll listen to a friend's comment, And kindlier tak on wi' paint, Then ye wad be perfection. And sure some scientific loon, On Golfing will bestow a boon, And gie ye a cosmetic soon, And brighten your complexion. [Decoration] [Decoration] "FAR AND SURE!" BY THE LATE SHERIFF LOGAN. "Far and sure! far and sure!" 'twas the cry of our fathers, 'Twas a cry which their forefathers heard; 'Tis the cry of their sons when the mustering gathers: When we're gone may it still be the word. "Far and sure!" there is honour and hope in the sound; Long over these Links may it roll! It will--O it will! for each face around Shows its magic is felt in each soul. Let it guide us in life; at the desk or the bar, It will shield us from folly's gay lure; Then, tho' rough be the course, and the winning post _far_, We will carry the stakes--O be _sure_! Let it guide us in Golf, whether "Burgess" or "Star;" At the last round let none look demure: All Golfers are brothers when _driving_ is _far_, When putting is canny and _sure_. "Far and sure! far and sure!" fill the bumper and drain it, May our motto for ever endure; May time never maim it, nor dishonour stain it; Then drink, brothers, drink, "Far and sure!" [Decoration] [Decoration] SONG. TUNE--_Scotland yet._ Gae bring my guid auld clubs ance mair-- Come, laddie, bring them fast, For I maun hae anither game, E'er the autumn season's past; And trow ye as I play, my lads, My song shall ever be, "Auld Scotland's royal game o' Gouf-- Our country's game for me." Then here's a toast to Goufin' yet, Wi' a' the honours three. Throw by that walloping surtout-- On wi' my auld red jacket-- Haul aff thae gripless Wellingtons For yon shoon wi' mony a tacket. Hang up that snoring Albert hat-- Yon foraging-cap for me; And now a Golfer I walk forth, Frae worldly care set free. Then here's a toast, etc. Now, laddie, pouch thae Gourlay ba's, Wi' joy they'll dance a reel-- My play-club capers in my hand, As supple as an eel. And see! my partner's on the green, His ba' upon the tee-- Impatient, round he swings his club, Making heads o' gowans flee. Then here's a toast, etc. How sweet's the air upon the links That stretch along the sea! Where, bending down white clover heads. In silence sips the bee. Our steps how light! as on we speed O'er buoyant knowes o' balm, To where our balls in distance lie, Like mushrooms on the lawn. Then here's a toast, etc. And 'tween each stroke how socially Abreast in crack we go, And shape o' club and mak o' ba' Discuss wi' sportsman's glow. Then hale-lung'd laughter peals aloud, And banter stingless flies, And tears o' mirth astonished run From sad dyspeptics' eyes. Then here's a toast, etc. And when some rounds demand a rest, And appetite is keen, How sweet to taste the Golfer's fare, Reclining on the green! Ne'er aldermen at turtle feast Washed over with champagne, Rejoiced like us, as baps we tear, And jugs o' "Berwick's" drain. Then here's a toast, etc. Our caddies at our feet reclined, Their sheaves o' clubs at rest-- Happy to hear the Golfers' lore, Chew on wi' silent zest. But up, like giants flushed with wine, Again our clubs we wield-- We feel new vigour in our arms, And ardent take the field. Then here's a toast, etc. Thus on we've toiled at Dubbieside, But 'neath the Lomond hill The sun has sunk, and the whirling din Has ceased at Kirkland Mill. The sand-eel crowd is thickening black By the mouth o' Leven stream, And the wearied _Tar_ in Largo Bay Lets off the roaring _steam_. So here's a toast, etc. So here's a health to our ain club, St. Andrews next, our mither-- A bumper to Dunbarnie next, Our neibour and our brither: Auld Dubbieside salutes ye a'; And if you wish to meet her, You'll find her ready at a ca', Wi' her gallant captain PETER. So here's a toast, etc. [Decoration] [Decoration] A GOLFING SONG. BY MR. JAMES BALLANTINE. TUNE--_Let Haughty Gaul._ Come, leave your dingy desks and shops. Ye sons of ancient Reekie, And by green fields and sunny slopes, For healthy pastime seek ye. Don't bounce about your "_dogs of war_," Nor at our _shinties_ scoff, boys, But learn our motto, "_Sure and Far_," Then come and play at Golf, boys. _Chorus_--Three rounds of Bruntsfield Links will chase All murky vapours off, boys; And nothing can your sinews brace Like the glorious game of Golf, boys. Above our head the clear blue sky, We bound the gowan'd sward o'er, And as our balls fly far and high, Our bosoms glow with ardour; While dear Edina, Scotland's Queen, Her misty cap lifts off, boys, And smiles serenely on the green, Graced by the game of Golf, boys. _Chorus_--Three rounds, etc. We putt, we drive, we laugh, we chat, Our strokes and jokes aye clinking, We banish all extraneous fat, And all extraneous thinking. We'll cure you of a summer cold, Or of a winter cough, boys, We'll make you young, even when you're old, So come and play at Golf, boys. _Chorus_--Three rounds, etc. When in the dumps with mulligrubs, Or doyte with barley-bree, boys, Go get you of the green three rubs, 'Twill set you on the "_Tee_," boys. There's no disease we cannot cure, No care we cannot doff, boys; Our aim is ever "_Far and Sure_"-- So come and play at Golf, boys. _Chorus_--Three rounds, etc. O blessings on pure cauler air, And every healthy sport, boys, That makes sweet Nature seem more fair, And makes long life seem short, boys; That warms your hearts with genial glow, And makes you halve your loaf, boys, With every needy child of woe-- So bless the game of Golf, boys. _Chorus_--Three rounds, etc. Then don your brilliant scarlet coats, With your bright blue velvet caps, boys. And some shall play the _rocket shots_ And some the _putting paps_, boys. No son of Scotland, man or boy, Shall e'er become an oaf, boys, Who gathers friendship, health, and joy, In playing at the Golf, boys. _Chorus_--Three rounds, etc. [Decoration] [Decoration] GOLFING SONG. TUNE--_Clean Pease Strae._ When Tom and me were laddies, Oor pastimes were but sma'-- A game at common shinty, Or playin' at the ba'; But lang since then a game we ken, Enticin' great and sma': A king I ween aroun' Leith green Has often gowff'd the ba'. Wi' glorious Gowff brave Scotia's game, Oor youth comes back ance mair, When, swift and free as birds on wing, Oor balls fly through the air. The rays o' fortune's golden star Most earthly ills can cure; Gowff helps to keep the others "_far_," Or makes their absence "_sure_." When ice is keen the curlin' steen Wi' birr gaes straught awa', And cricket on the meadow green, Seems manly, brisk, and braw; But, laddie, tak a club in han', Then tee and drive the ba'; Ye'll find the royal game o' Gowff Is better than them a'. Oor volunteers wi' guns and spears Keep foreign foes in awe; Noo Britain's youth shield north an' south, Laigh cot and stately ha'; Sae ne'er a foe shall Scotland fear While Scotland's game we play, Though we should leave the _puttin'_ green To buckle for the fray. [Decoration] _Printed by_ R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Italics are indicated by _underscores_. Small caps are indicated by ALL CAPS. [Decoration]s are predominantly intertwined animals in the Celtic style, used to mark the beginning or end of a canto or poem. Dialect and archaic spelling abound in the original and are retained here. Variations in hyphenation, punctuation, and use of accents appear as in the original, except as noted below. Page vii: added comma (DRYSDALE,) Page 10: _this_ to this (_Pygmalion_ this stout arm) Page 10: spelling retained from original (Goliah's spear) Page 37: hyphen removed before "and" (_Electro-Talbot_ and) Page 69: "bouyant" to "buoyant" (O'er buoyant knowes) 
38683	----	+======================================================================+ | | | Transcriber's notes | | | | Illustrations have been moved to directly below the article | | they refer to and some pages of this work have been moved from the | | original sequence to enable the contents to continue without | | interruption. The page numbering remains unaltered. | | | | Text printed in italics in the original is represented here between | | underscores, as in _text_. | | | | Text printed in small capitals in the original work have been | | changed to ALL CAPITALS. | | | +======================================================================+ [Illustration: GOLF STORIES] * * * * * PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR Edited by J.A. HAMMERTON Designed to provide in a series of volumes, each complete in itself, the cream of our national humour, contributed by the masters of comic draughtsmanship and the leading wits of the age to "Punch," from its beginning in 1841 to the present day. MR. PUNCH'S GOLF STORIES [Illustration: GOLFER] * * * * * [Illustration: THE GOLFER'S DREAM] * * * * * MR. PUNCH'S GOLF STORIES TOLD BY HIS MERRY MEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY PHIL MAY, GEORGE DU MAURIER, L. RAVEN-HILL, F.H. TOWNSEND, HARRY FURNISS, E.T. REED, BERNARD PARTRIDGE, F. PEGRAM, A.S. BOYD, A.T. SMITH, A. WALLIS MILLS, DAVID WILSON, C.E. BROCK, GUNNING KING, C. HARRISON, G.L. STAMPA, TOM BROWNE AND OTHERS [Illustration: GOLFER] _WITH 136 ILLUSTRATIONS_ PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE PROPRIETORS OF "PUNCH" * * * * * THE EDUCATIONAL BOOK CO. LTD. * * * * * THE PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR _Twenty-five volumes, crown 8vo, 192 pages fully illustrated_ LIFE IN LONDON COUNTRY LIFE IN THE HIGHLANDS SCOTTISH HUMOUR IRISH HUMOUR COCKNEY HUMOUR IN SOCIETY AFTER DINNER STORIES IN BOHEMIA AT THE PLAY MR. PUNCH AT HOME ON THE CONTINONG RAILWAY BOOK AT THE SEASIDE MR. PUNCH AFLOAT IN THE HUNTING FIELD MR. PUNCH ON TOUR WITH ROD AND GUN MR. PUNCH AWHEEL BOOK OF SPORTS GOLF STORIES IN WIG AND GOWN ON THE WARPATH BOOK OF LOVE WITH THE CHILDREN [Illustration] * * * * * [Illustration] THE HUMOUR OF GOLF There are few pastimes that supply their followers with more innocent merriment than is afforded by "the royal and ancient." Certainly no outdoor game can make the neophyte feel more utterly worm-like in his ability, for it is the peculiar quality of golf to appear to be absurdly easy to the onlooker and preposterously difficult to the unpractised player. It may be taken that there is no better way of reducing a man's self-conceit than to place him on the teeing ground for the first time, present him with a driver and invite him to strike a little rubber-cored ball to a distance of 200 yards in a given direction. Consequently we have here most excellent material for fun; and you may depend upon it MR. PUNCH has not had his eyes long shut to the humours of the links. Despite the royalty and antiquity of golf, it has been thoroughly democratised in modern times, and its popularity, in the wide proportions to which it has attained, is chiefly a matter of recent years. Despite the shortness of the period that is represented by what we may call the vogue of golf--a vogue that is by no means in danger of passing--MR. PUNCH has evidently found the game so rich in fun that his merry knights of the pen and the pencil have contributed to his pages as many pictures as to illustrate very lavishly this volume and a good deal more literary matter than could be used. In the days when croquet was as popular as golf is to-day--the days of Leech and Keene--doubtless a volume could have been drawn from PUNCH devoted entirely to that sport. But it is worthy of note that an examination of these old croquet pictures and jokes for a comparison of them with the contents of the present volume leaves one with the conviction that the humour of the present day is infinitely superior to the humour of the days of Leech and Keene. Admirable draughtsmen though these artists were, both of them, but Leech particularly, were often content to let their masterly drawings appear with the feeblest jokes attached. The standard of humour has been immensely raised of late years, and MR. PUNCH'S GOLF STORIES is no bad evidence of that. [Illustration] * * * * * MR. PUNCH'S GOLF STORIES "GOLFERS AS I 'AVE KNOWN" (_By a Caddie_) [Illustration: MR. PUNCH] Golfers I divides in me own mind into three clarses; them as 'its the ball, them as skratches it, and them as neither 'its nor skratches the blooming ball but turns rarnd and wants to 'it or skratch anyone as is small and 'andy. The first clars is very rare, the second is dreadfull plentifull, and the third, thank 'evins, can jeneraly be kep clear of by them as knows the ropes. Sich as meself. Any himprovement in golfers, as a clars, is doo to the 'uge morril hinfluence of us caddies, 'oom some pretends to look down on. Much can be done, even wif the most 'ardened (and some of them golfers is dreadfull 'ardened), by firmness and hexample. "Show 'em from the fust as you'll stand no nonsense," is allus my words when the yunger caddies gathers ararn me fer hadvice. Me being older than me years, as the sying is, and much looked up to. If, as I often 'ears say, there's less of langwidge and more of golf upon these 'ere links, it's doo in no small part to 'im 'oo pens these lines. 'Oo's 'onnered nime is 'Enery Wilks. I seldom demmeans meself to speak to the kulprits, for severil reasons which I shall not go into, but I 'ave other meffods. There's sniffing, fer instance. Much can be done by jerdishous sniffing, which can be chinged to soot all cases. Or there's a short, 'ard, dryish larf, but that ain't allus sife. As a blooming rule, I rellies upon me sniff, me smile and me eye. There's few of them as can meet the last when I chuses to turn it on. Not as I objecs very strongly to a little 'onnest cussing; it's hinjustice and false haccusashun as I will not stand. Sich are me meffods to them as needs 'em, but don't think, becos at times I'm cold like and 'ard and stern, that I cannot be jentle wif them as call fer jentleness. No blooming errer! 'Enery Wilks is the lad to 'oom old gents in need of keerfull nussing should be hintrusted by their wives and keepers. I'm not allooding now to old tigers 'oos stiple food is red pepper in 'uge quantitties, 'oo turn upon yer like blooming manniacks if yer blows yer nose quite inercent, and 'oo report yer before yer know if you're standing on yer 'ead or yer 'eels. No, I'm not allooding to old gentlemen like them! 'Enery Wilks 'as very little use fer sich unguvverned creetures. In 'is erpinyun they should not be let abrord without a chine. But I am allooding to them 'oos pashuns age 'as tamed, insted of blooming well hincreesed, to jentle 'armless old fellers, 'oo will almost eat out of yer 'and, as the sying is, an sich a one is Mister Perceval Giggington. Over sixty 'e is, and allus kind and civvil and respeckfull, but 'e 'as no more haptitood fer golf than a jeerarf. Sometimes I thinks, musing kindly like, as 'ow the old cove 'ud be yunger if 'e took the gime less seerius. But 'Enery Wilks 'as little to reproche 'imself about; 'e, at least, 'as done what 'e could to 'elp old Giggs. 'Is wife came down to the Club 'Ouse wif 'im larst Toosday, jest as nice an old lidy as 'e's a gent. She drew me on one side and spoke konfidenshul like, while the old man was fussing and bleeting about 'is clubs. It seems as she'd 'eard of me, and 'eard nuthing but good. Which is only right. "'Enery," she ses, "me 'usband 'as set 'is 'art, as you well know, on going rarnd the course in under an 'undred and thirty strokes. It's beginning to tell on 'is 'ealth, the strine and diserpointment, and I wants it stopped. 'E's going rarnd allone wif you now, as the course is clear, and I wants," she ses, "_I wants you to see as 'e does it!_" she ses. Well, nobody, excep one ignerrant, gellous, preggerdiced skoolmaster, 'as ever dared to call 'Enery Wilks a fool. I took 'er meaning in a moment, and I touched me cap, quiet and konfident like. "Mike yer mind easy, mum," I ses in my korteous way. "It shall be done, this very day, if 'Enery Wilks is spared," I ses. She nods and smiles and slips a bob into me 'and, and then old Giggs finishes wurrying abart 'is clubs and we makes a start. The old 'un 'ands 'is card to me to keep, and I speaks to 'im, kind like but firm. "I'll keep the score, sir," I ses. "Don't yer wurry abart yer strokes at all. What you've got to do is to koncentrite yer mind upon yer gime. For we're a-goin to do it to-day," I ses. 'E 'ears me wif a little sorrerful smile, and I lived up to them remarks. 'E'd arsk me at the end of an 'ole, that 'e'd fairly bitten along, 'ow many 'e'd taken, but I would never tell 'im. I jest kep 'im upon 'is legs wif kindly, jerdishous praise. Even after that 'ole where 'e'd strook me wif 'is ball from the drive, although standing well be'ind 'im, and been in each bunker twice or more, I give 'im a word of 'ope. It was niblick play and 'ope all rarnd the blooming course. And at the end, when I added up 'is card, strike me pink if 'is score weren't an 'undred and twenty-nine! And I sent 'im 'ome to 'is wife, as pleased as any child. There's some, I dessay, as would 'ave made 'is score an 'undred and nineteen or even less, but 'Enery Wilks 'as allus known the virtew of modderation. * * * * * [Illustration: _Caddie (visiting)._ "What kind o' player is he?" _Caddie (engaged)._ "_'Im?_ He just plays as if it was for pleesure!"] * * * * * [Illustration: _McFoozler (after a steady sequence of misses)._ "Ah--er--is there a _limit_ for these links?"] * * * * * [Illustration: _Policeman._ "Where did you get that bag?" _Bill Sykes_ (_indignantly_). "There you are! Nice thing, in a free country, that a man can't have a quiet hundred up without the police interfering!"] * * * * * [Illustration: Jones has recently taken up golf. He is already proficient in one department--the art of addressing the ball.] * * * * * II. There's some as takes their golf too seerius fer their strength, like that pore old Mister Giggington, of 'oom I've told yer, and there's some as don't take it seerius enuff. Under this 'eading I places Mister 'Erminius Brellett. 'E's what they call a litterry cove in privit life, and, wifout wishing to be undoolly 'arsh, I must say as I beleeves it of 'im. Strike me pink, if I didn't know as 'e was litterry, I should go away sometimes after 'earing 'im talk, and swear a hinfer-mashun of loonacy agin 'im! But Chawley Martin, one of our caddies, 'oo once spoke quite hintermate and friendly like wif a reporter feller, in connecshun wif a biking accerdent caused by Chawley's unforchernate pashun fer trick riding, ses as 'ow all these pore riters is alike. So you and me should only pitty them. As fer 'is golf, exsentrick ain't the word fer it. 'E stands wif both 'is feet quite klose together, springs 'igh into the air wif a tremenjus swing, and strikes the ball afore 'e comes to earth agin. The erstonishing thing is that 'e does strike it abart once in three, and when 'e does it goes like old Gewillikins. It just shows as there ain't no rules abart some peeple's golf. But the sad part is as 'e's quite proud of 'is stile, insted of laberring to kerrect it under my tewishun. [Illustration: "Keep your head still" is the first rule in golf, and Binks means to do so.] "I'm a mishonnery, a pyoneer of golf, 'Enery," 'e ses to me quite recent. "'Ow I plays it to-day, the rest of the silly 'ide-bound creetures will play it to-morrow," 'e ses. "Let's 'ope not, sir," I ses, quite respeckfull and reely meaning the words; fer, if yer think of it, a course full of Mister 'Erminius Brelletts would be an 'iddeous sight. 'E glared at me fer a moment quite dangerous, and then 'e began to larf. What wif 'is livver, at which 'e's allus cussing, and 'is kurious 'arf-irriterble, 'arf-manniackal temper, I can tell yer 'e takes some 'andling. But 'Enery Wilks knows 'is 'Erminius Brellett by this time. "Your one chawnce of fime, you retched child," 'e ses, and I found 'is stile of speaking jest a little gorling, "will rest on the fact that you karried the clubs of 'Erminius Brellett, pyoneer of golf and unerpreshiated riter of himmortal books," 'e ses. Well, yer can't argue wif a man like that. Yer can only yumour 'im by respeckful silence, and be reddy all the time to dodge if 'is manyer turns 'ommersidal all of a sudden. 'E took on Mister Washer the other day, a member 'oom both 'e and I 'ave little liking fer. At least, I can arnser fer meself. Fer 'e's one of your pompus, strutting sort of fellers, 'oo thinks 'e's good at golf, but ain't. I 'eard 'im chalenge Mister Brellett to play a rarnd fer 'arf-a-crown, and a less skilful stoodent of yuman nachure than 'Enery Wilks could 'ave told as they didn't love each other. I 'ad a privit tuppence on the match meself, wif old Washer's caddy, although not very 'opeful. 'Owever, when 'Enery Wilks' money is down, as the sying is, 'e's 'ard to beat. But things went badly wif us from the start. I could see as 'ow Mister Brellett was wurried abart somethink, and in addition to that 'e was acktaly trying to play a keerful, sientifick gime. Oh, lumme, it was orful, I can tell yer! We was skarcely touching a ball, and old Washer, as pleesed as a turkey-kock but far less hornimental, was playing right above 'isself. Fer a man like meself, 'oo'd staked above 'is means, it was 'art-breaking. We lost five 'oles bang orf, and then Mister Brellett spoke 'arf to me and 'arf to 'isself as we walked to the sixth tee. "It's all that cussed nime!" 'e ses. "If I could only think of that, I'd be orlright. A female nime fer a kerrecter in my new book. 'Enery, what's the nime of your yung woman?" 'e ses, joking like. Well, love ain't much in my line, me ambishuns not letting me 'amper meself wif wimmen, but still a feller 'as to keep 'is 'and in. I won't say as I 'aven't been more run after than most, but some'ow that ain't one of my temptashuns. 'Owever, more to pleese 'er than meself, I lets one of them, jest a school kiddy, walk out wif me at times. She means well, I do believe, but I've allus reckoned as 'ow 'er nime's agin 'er. "Hervangeline's 'er nime, Mister Brellett," I ses, deprerkating like. "But she can't 'elp it," I ses. "By Jewpiter!" 'e 'owls. "Hervangeline's the very nime I've been 'unting for. And now I'll win this match!" 'e ses. "You'll win it orlright, sir," I ses, ernest like. "But, for 'evin's sake, stop playing sientifick! Play the old gime as you're pyoneer on, sir," I ses. "I beleeve as 'ow you're right, 'Enery," 'e ses, thoughtful like; and then we come to the tee and watched old Washer drive 'is yusual straight, shortish ball. Then Mister Brellett grips 'is club, takes 'is yusual wicked, himmoril stance, springs 'igh into the air wif an 'arf-styfled yell, and, by Gewillikins, drives sich a ball as the pro. 'isself might 'ave been proud on! It knocked the kowardly 'art out of old Washer, did that tremenjus drive; and 'e's a man as only plays 'is best when 'e's winning easy. They 'ad a narsty lead, but we stuck to 'em like wax, 'itting a turriffick ball once out of three, or even oftener, and we won at last quite 'andsomely by three and two. I remember as I bought bull's-eyes fer Hervangeline wif that 'ere tuppence, becos in a meshure, as you may say, she'd 'ad an 'and in the winning of it. 'Owever, wif a jenerosity unyusual in wimmen, she hinsisted on sharing 'em wif 'Enery Wilks, 'oos skilful leedership 'ad reely won the match. * * * * * [Illustration: _Short-sighted Old Lady_ (_to little Binks, who is going to the golf-links_). "How much will you charge me to mend this umbrella?"] * * * * * [Illustration: TRIALS OF A NOVICE.--"_Something_ must be wrong. That's the third time running I've used this club!"] * * * * * [Illustration: ! ! ! ! _Lily_ (_from Devonshire, on a visit to her Scotch Cousin Margy in St. Andrews, N.B._). "What a strange thing fashion is, Margy! Fancy a game like golf reaching up as far north as this!"] * * * * * THE HANDY CADDY _Why Jones sold his Big St. Bernard and substituted a Tame Caribou, which a friend brought him home from Canada._ [Illustration: IT WAS SO HANDY WHEN GOING OUT GOLFING. IT MADE SUCH A CAPITAL CADDY. AND JONES COULD INDULGE IN EXPLETIVES WITHOUT BEING A BAD EXAMPLE IF THE WEATHER SUDDENLY TURNED OFF COLD HE HAD ONLY TO HELP HIMSELF TO A TOP COAT; & IF IT RAINED TO AN UMBRELLA AND SOU'WESTER. ALSO IT GAVE QUITE A PARK-LIKE APPEARANCE TO JONES' BACK GARDEN.] * * * * * III. Taking it all in all, 'Enery Wilks 'as very little use for wimmen. Excep, of course, as playthings and rellaxashuns after toil. As sich I regards Hervangerline, of 'oom I've told yer. That is, when 'er mood is dosile. At sich times, when she is not trying to be yumourous or utherwise acting the goat, the child can listen, wif doo respekt, whilst 'im she loves so well unbends 'isself. It is 'er privviledge to see 'Enery Wilks remove 'is stern cold marsk. Yuss, I tollerates Hervangerline, but I 'ave little use fer uther wimmen. Speaking quite frenkly, I can find little to kommend in the hexeckertive of these 'ere links, but there is one of their resent hinnervashuns in pertickler that fills me wif cold rage. This is the rule permitting lidy members to play on the course, excep' on Satterday and Sunday. Lord knows as 'ow the men is bad enuff to deal wif. 'Eadstrong, vain, irriterble and pig-'eaded they mostly is, but oh! strike me pink and purple, if they ain't fair angels, wings and all, kompared to those dredfull, onreasoningable wimmen! Onreasoningable is the one word as I can use to deskribe them. And that don't do 'em justise. Wif a man, to some eggstent, you do know where you are. You do know from eggsperiense 'ow fur you may go wif 'im, before 'e katches you a clump on the side of the 'ead. But wif wimmen no eggsperiense will 'elp yer. Becos there ain't no rules abart them. Lord knows as 'ow I started out wif the idear of pleesing 'em. I ses to Hervangerline, the evening I 'eard abart it, "We're going to 'ave lidies on the course, kid," I ses. "Your 'Enery will 'ave to smarten 'isself up a bit fer their dear sakes," I ses. Womanlike she begun to snif. "You take care, 'Enery Wilks," she ses worningly. "You take care of them desining 'ussies. There's many of 'em as will be after you, I knows it well. Fer some wimmen," she ses, sort of sarkastic, "some wimmen will go after anythink in trarsers," she ses. Well, I wears nickers meself as a general rule, but I knowed what she meant. And, though of course I 'id it from her, pertending to be kontemptewous, I found 'er words quite pleesing. I thort to meself, komplasent like, as 'ow some of these lidy members might show a prefferrence fer that one of our caddies as is pollished and korteous and older than 'is years. But, apparriently, both I and Hervangerline was rong--iddeously rong. Fer it's no good konseeling from meself, at anyrate, as 'ow I 'aven't been a komplete success so fur wif our lidy members. Why sich should be the case I cannot tell, but there it is. There's a preggerdise agin me as is kep' alive by the ontiring, revengfull tungs of Miss Trigsie Kornish and Missis Jossephus 'Askins. And this is 'ow that preggerdise begun. They come along one morning and say as 'ow they're going to play a rarnd, and they'll share a caddy between them. And to my ondying greef they picked on 'Enery Wilks. Not as there was anythink surprising in their doing that. In their place I'd 'ave picked on 'im meself. And I'm bound in justise to say as there was nothing in _their_ appeerance to set me agin them. Missis 'Askins is very yung and plessant-looking, although she _is_ married, and Miss Kornish is darkish and carries 'erself wif a sort of swing. No, their looks was rite enuff; it was only their dredfull 'abit of cheating as made the trubble. They started as frendly as love-birds, but by the second 'ole the fur was beginning to stand up stiff upon their backs. It was their orful onguvernabul keenness as did it. On the third green Missis 'Askins asks Miss Kornish 'ow many she's played, and she tells 'er, nine, quite brisk like. Now both Misses 'Askins and meself _knew_ quite well as 'ow Miss Kornish 'ad played ten; indeed, I could see as ow Misses 'Askins thort it were eleven. They rangles a bit abart it, growing gradewally more 'eated, and then Misses 'Askins erpeals to me, and I gives it in 'er favour, trying very 'ard to rap it up plessant like. Miss Kornish glares at me like a cat 'oom you've mannidged to 'it wif a brick whilst it's taking a stroll quite inercent and leshurely; but she doesn't say much and we goes on. Two 'oles later it all 'appens agin, only this time it's Missis 'Askins 'oo 'as kondescended to redooce 'er score. They rages rarnd upon the green, and then Miss Kornish erpeals to me, and truth kompels me to erward the 'ole to 'er. This time it's Missis 'Askins 'oo glarnces at me as though she'd like to cut orf my yung life. But 'Enery Wilks can stand a lot of that. So we goes on agin, wif the air growing 'eavier like, and three 'oles later they both erpeals to me, fer both is cheating. It was an 'ard posishun fer a yung feller as is only wishfull to pleese. 'Owever, I desided to give pore old Truth another chawnce; although misdoubtfull. So I ses to them quite respeckfull like, as 'ow both their scores is inakkerite and should I keep them both in fuchure? Oh Lumme, I'd like to forgit what 'appened then! All in a moment those two young wimmen grew frendly agin to each other and konsentrited all their rage and spite on 'Enery Wilks. They fell upon me wif their tungs, and I felt as though I was being 'it wif barbed wire and nettels. They called me "impudent little boy," me the chosin 'ero of the yunger caddies, and I could only garsp and trimble. Their crewel thretts brought tears even to my proud eyes, and I almost beleeve as 'ow I grovvellel before them. It 'urts me to remember it. When at last they 'ad tired themselves out, they finished their rarnd as though they 'ad never 'ad an unkind thort towards each other, and I slunk be'ind them, dased and silent, like a puppy 'oos been kicked. And that's--that's what comes of edmitting wimmen to a golf corse! * * * * * [Illustration: "THE BOGEY COMPETITION"] * * * * * [Illustration: _Little Albert_ (_always thirsting for knowledge_). "Uncle, do they pronounce that rico_chay_ing or rico_chet_ting?"] * * * * * [Illustration: 1. "Carry your clubs, guvnor, for sixpence!" "No, thanks, I don't require a caddie." 2. "Carry yer clubs for fourpence, boss!" "Go away, boy, I'll carry 'em myself." 3. "Carry 'em for thrippence, mister" (no response). 4. A smash! 5. (_After the smash_). "I say, captain, I'll carry _your_ clubs for nothin', _jist for the fun of the thing_!"] * * * * * [Illustration: MR. PUNCH'S PATENT CADDIE CAR] * * * * * [Illustration: Golf is now being played on the Norman Coast] * * * * * [Illustration: Golf is being played very much in Egypt] * * * * * [Illustration: A NEW DISEASE--THE GOLF TWIST] * * * * * [Illustration: The above caddie (in the course of his third round with Colonel Foozle, who always takes out a collection of two dozen clubs, if only for the look of the thing) begins to doubt if he, the caddie, really belongs to the idle classes, as stated in the papers.] * * * * * [Illustration: "HOW'S THAT, UMPIRE?" _Golf Player._ "Now then, what are you grinning at, boy? Don't you know where the ball is?" _Caddie._ "Yus, sir, I know, sir. Please, sir, that there dun cow 've swallered it!"] * * * * * [Illustration: SCENE--_Country Police Court_ _Magistrate._ "My boy, do you fully realise the nature of an oath?" _Boy._ "Well, I oughter, considerin' the times I've caddied for yer!"] * * * * * [Illustration: _Miggs and Griggs, who have got away for a week-end holiday, have strayed on to the golf links, and have been watching the colonel, who has been bunkered for the last ten minutes--and the language!!_ _Miggs._ "What's he doing?" _Griggs._ "I dunno. Think he's trying to kill something."] IV. Yumin nachure is a kurius thing. I dunno whether this thort 'as okkurred to other peeple, but I sees the truth of it more clearly every day. You may studdy a man fer weeks and think as 'ow you know 'im inside out, and then, when you try to make some use of 'is pecooliarities, they ain't working that day, or else some little hannoying trifle spiles your well lade skeems. Sich was the sad case of Mister Hoctavius Glenwistle and my friend Chawley Martin. Mister Glenwistle is an oldish jentleman now, but in 'is day 'e 'as been a famus eggsplorer. Jeograffy never being my strong point, I dunno egsackly where 'e went eggsploring, or why 'e did it. Chawley Martin, 'oo's jenerally 'is caddie, is my hinformant, and some days 'e will 'ave it that Mister Glenwistle would once 'ave reached the Pole if 'is boots 'adn't guv out, and at other times 'e hinsists that it was Africer that 'e visited. I dunno, meself; per'aps the old jentleman 'as been to both them regins in 'is time. But any'ow all is agreed that once 'e lived for nearly three weeks upon an oldish poodle dawg--which is an orfull thort. Sich an eggspeerience must leeve its mark upon any man, 'owever strong. It 'as left its mark upon Mister Hoctavius Glenwistle. Every blade of 'air 'as vannished from 'is skalp, and 'is face is a sort of dark brick colour wif light eyebrows. 'E still suffers from sunstroke, and Chawley Martin 'as to carry a large red umbereller round the links to pertect 'is 'ead. I dunno whether it's the sunstroke, or whether it's 'is ondying remorce for that pore faithfull poodle, but Mister Glenwistle suffers terrible from absentmindedness. 'E 'as been known to swing up 'is great, red umbereller upon the tee and try to drive wif that, and Chawley Martin allus 'as to watch 'im keerfull to see what 'e'll be up to next. 'E 'ates to be disturbed when in one of 'is mooning fits, and is apt to swear terrible in some forrin' langwidge, which Chawley thinks is Eskimo; but still 'e's a jentleman all over, is Mister Hoctavius Glenwistle. 'Is tips is 'andsome, and it don't give 'im no pleshure to repport an 'armless lad. One Sunday lately 'e came down wif a frend for an 'ole day's golf. Chawley Martin, as yusual, was 'is caddie, and I ondertook the manidgement of the frend. All went well in the morning, excep' that Mister Glenwistle fell into a sort of dream upon the seventh green and 'ad to be rarsed by Chawley. It may 'ave been Eskimo that 'e spoke to the boy when 'e'd touched 'im jently on the arm, but it sounded wuss--much wuss. 'Owever, we comes back at one to the club-'ouse, red umbereller and all, like _Robbinson Crewso_, and they goes into lunch. Whilst they're still laying into the grub like winking, I and Chawley Martin, 'aving eaten our own frugil meal, sit down near the 'club-'ouse and begin to polish up their clubs. We fell a-talking about the great science of golf, getting quite 'eated in a little while, and at last Chawley, to illerstrate 'is own mistakin theery, gets upon 'is 'ind legs. 'E takes Mister Glenwistle's best driver from 'is bag and shows me what 'e calls "a full swing, wif every ounce of weight and rist and mussel crammed into it." I was afeard 'ow it would be. The length of the club mastered 'im. 'E 'it the onoffending turf a crewel blow, and there was a narsty crack. 'E sits down beside me wif a garsp, and we looks at Mister Glenwistle's pet driver wif the 'ead 'arf off. "What's to be done, 'Enery?" 'e ses, after a sort of sickly pawse. Fer my part I'd been thinking 'ard, me brain being better than most. "There's three courses open to you, Chawley, me lad," I ses quietly. "You can do a guy at once, and not come back--that's one; or you can tell Mister G. as you've been fooling wif 'is clubs--that's another," I ses, and waited fer 'is risponse. "Let's 'ear the third," he ses gloomily. "Deceat is aborrent to my nachure," I ses. "But you're made diferent, Chawley. You could make use of 'is absentmindedness and let 'im think as 'e broke it 'isself. 'Old it out to 'im wif a sort of winning smile, when 'e comes, and say as 'ow you're afrade it will 'ave to be mended after all. It's a fair sportin' chawnce," I ses. "'Enery, you're a fair marvel!" 'e ses, after pondering fer a minute. "I'll try it on," he ses. And so we left it. I didn't see the meeting between Mister Glenwistle and 'is well-meaning caddie, becos my klient sent me to get him a ball, but when I came back I seed as 'ow Chawley was sniffing slightly, and 'is large outstanding ears was reddened. 'Is manner was coldish like to me, but when the two 'ad drivin, I asked 'im what 'ad 'appened. "'E just boxed me ears," Chawley ses, "and told me as 'ow 'e'd repport me if I lied to 'im agen," 'e ses. Fer once I was reely taken aback. "I can't make it out, Chawley," I ses. "Where was 'is yusual absentmindedness? It just shows as 'ow you can't depend on nuthing in this world! Did you do as I told you, winning smile and all?" I asks 'im. "Yuss, I did," 'e ses, snappish like. "But it seems as 'ow 'is interfeering frend 'appened to look out of the club-'ouse when I was showing you that swing, and seed it all. Anuther time you can keep your winning smiles and your fat-'eaded hadvice to yourself, 'Enery Wilks!" 'e ses. I didn't answer 'im, remembering 'ow 'is 'uge progecting ears was tingling, but I ses to meself, "So much, 'Enery Wilks, for yumin gratitood!" * * * * * [Illustration: Mr. Mothdriver, the famous, yet absent-minded, golf-naturalist, invariably carries a butterfly-net in his golf-bag--for he agrees with Mr. Horace Hutchinson that some of the best entomological specimens can be captured in the course of playing the royal and ancient game.] * * * * * [Illustration: _Brer Rabbit._ "I suppose you haven't seen such a thing as a golf-ball about anywhere, have you?"] * * * * * [Illustration: _First Enthusiast._ "I say, will you play another round with me on Thursday?" _Second Enthusiast._ "Well, I'm booked to be married on that day--_but it can be postponed_!"] * * * * * [Illustration: THE GOLF STREAM.--Flows along the eastern coast of Scotland during the summer and autumn. (Vide _Report of British Association--Section V._).] * * * * * [Illustration: REAL ENJOYMENT.--_Non-Golfer_ (_middle-aged, rather stout, who would like to play, and has been recommended it as healthy and amusing_). "Well, I cannot see where the excitement comes in in this game!" _Caddie._ "Eh, mon, there's more swearing used over golf than any other game! D'ye no ca' that excitement?"] * * * * * V. A little success at golf, as I've notised, jenerally makes a man wish for more. Like the appertite of a young girl for chocerlates. I dunno if you remember that nice old Mister Giggington, of 'oom I told you. Under my skillfull gidance, and with the ade of a little inercent 'anky-panky, 'e kontrived to wander rarnd these 'ere links in an 'undred and twenty-nine. Well, ever since that serprising triemph, 'e 'as been 'ungering for fresh feelds to konker, as you might say. "I want to meet someone, 'Enery, as I can beat," 'e kep' saying, quite truckewlent like. "I don't pretend as 'ow I'm brillyent, but on my day I do fancy that there's wuss." "You keep on practising steddy, sir," was my invariable words, "and one of these days we shall see you winning cups and medils." As nice and kind an old jentleman as ever smashed a club is Mister Giggington, but I allus 'ave to 'andle 'im like eggs to prevent 'im losing 'art. I didn't think as 'ow even 'Enery Wilks would be able to grattify 'is 'armless ambishun, but the uther day I saw my chawnce. It was a Toosday morning, and the course was quite disserted, excep' for Mister G., 'oo was waiting to start a practice rarnd wiv 'is pashunt teecher. Which is me. And then a new member come along 'oo was wishfull for a game, and dirrectly I set eyes on 'im, somethink, hinstink, I suppose, seemed to tell me that 'ere was the man for 'oom I 'ad been waiting. 'E was French, and I shall not attempt to rite 'is name, the 'ang of which I never reely kawt. 'E was a small, darkish, jornty man, and 'is garmints was a little briter and more cheerfull-looking than you see in England. 'E wore, among uther things, a deer-storker 'at wiv a fevver stuck in it. But 'is manners was reelly bewtifull. It was quite a site to see 'im click 'is 'eels togevver, and bow to my himployer, and in a minute they 'ad fixed their match. I 'ad 'inted to Mister G. that 'e must hinsist on 'aving a stroke an 'ole, and that was 'ow they settled it. I never lerned what the Frenchman's 'andicap was, but if the Champyon 'isself 'ad offered to take strokes from 'im 'e would 'ave closed gladly wiv the offer. And yet there was reelly nuthing erfensive about the little man. I could see as 'ow pore old Mister G. was trimbling wiv a sort of serpressed egsitement, and I wispered to 'im that 'e must play steddy and use the niblick whenever possibul. The niblick, from long practice in the bunkers, is 'is club. Me frend, Chawley Martin, was the Frenchman's caddie, and 'e took ercasion to remmark to me that we seemed in for somethink warmish. I checked the boy wiv one of my glawnces, and then we waited while 'is hemployer took the 'onner. That jentleman danced up to the tee, waving rarnd 'is head the longest and the bendiest driver that I 'ave ever seen, and 'e didn't trubble to address the ball at all. 'E just sprung at it and 'it it wiv all 'is might, and somethink fairly wistled past Chawley's 'ead as 'e stood a little be'ind the tee box. The Frenchman 'ad sliced at rite angels, and for anythink I know 'is ball is still in the air. Certingly, we never saw it agin. That slite misforchune appeered to egsite and dimmoralise Chawley's himployer, 'oo may 'ave been quite a brillyent player on 'is day, and I may say at once that 'e never reelly found 'is game. On the uther 'and it seemed to put new life and vigger into Mister G. Our erponent was appariently trying 'ard to do each 'ole in a brillyent one, but we was quite content to win them in a steddy nine. We 'ad our misforchunes, of course. 'Is deerest frend wouldn't 'ardly say as 'ow Mister G.'s game is a long one, and each bunker seems to 'ave a sort of magnettick attrackshun for 'is ball, but whilst the Frenchman's brassey remained unbroken we knew that there was allus a chawnce for the 'ole. For 'arf the rarnd it stood the crewel strane and then it didn't break. It jest seemed to sort of dissolve into small peaces. But we was two up by then and our tails was 'igh in air. As for the Frenchman, 'is meffods at times was reelly serprising. After that first drive Chawley lade 'isself down flat when 'is hemployer drove, but even in that posishun it didn't seem 'ardly safe. That long, thin, bendy driver sent the ball to all 'ites and all angels, but never once in a strate line. After a wile 'e diskarded it, and guv a fair, 'onnest trial to every club in 'is bag in turn. I should never 'ave been serprised to see 'im drive desperit like wiv 'is putter, but even then Chawley wouldn't 'ave dared say nuthink. 'E was quite a plessant, jentlemanly little man, but it didn't do to argue wiv 'im. 'E begun to scream and stamp at once, and Chawley saw pretty soon that it was best and safest to let 'im play 'is own game. It was on the fiftienth green that the great match was ended. Mister Giggington's pluck and stamminer 'ad been amasing for 'is age, but the strane and the joyfull egsitement was beginning to tell on 'im. The Frenchman tried to bring off a thirty-yard putt to save the 'ole, and failed by some forty yards. But 'e took 'is defeet like a nero. They shook 'ands on the green and 'e said that it warmed 'is 'art to reflect on the glory that 'is frendly foe 'ad won. I beleeve as 'ow there was tears in the old jentleman's eyes. 'E turned to me and I quite thort 'e was going to grasp my 'and, but instead of that 'e put a bob into it which was pretty near as good. 'E 'll never make a golfer, but 'Enery Wilks will allus be pleesed and proud to gide 'im rarnd the course. * * * * * [Illustration: A RULING PASSION.--_Mr. Meenister MacGlucky_ (_of the Free Kirk, after having given way more than usual to an expression "a wee thing strong"--despairingly_). "Oh! Aye! Ah, w-e-el! I'll hae ta gie 't up!" _Mr. Elder MacNab._ "Wha-at, man, gie up gowf?" _Mr. Meenister MacGlucky._ "Nae, nae! Gie up the meenistry!"] * * * * * [Illustration: A POSER.--"Farmers always grumbling? Well, supposin' your pigs were down wi' th' fever, an' your sheep had got th' influenza, if your crops were drownded in eighteen inches o' water, an' your rent were overdue--what would you do?" "I? I'd give it up and start a golf club!"] * * * * * [Illustration: INGRATITUDE _Brown._ "Why doesn't Walker stop to speak? Thought he knew you!" _Smith._ "Used to; but I introduced him to the girl he married. Neither of them recognises me now!"] * * * * * GOLF (_As "Put" by D. Crambo Junior._) [Illustration: "Putting" on the "links" The "tee" and the "caddie" A showy manner of handling the "clubs" A full drive A beautiful "iron" shot The "spoon" The "cleek" "Holed out"] * * * * * [Illustration: A MORNING PERFORMANCE] * * * * * [Illustration: FORE! "Now, sir, be judge yourself, whether I in any just term am affin'd to love the Moor." [_Othello_, Act I., Sc. 1.] ] * * * * * VI. 'Onnesty is the best pollicy, and, 'Evin knows, 'Enery Wilks 'as allus tried 'is levil best to live up to them golden words. But I reckon there is certain excepshuns to the cast-iron 'onnesty of all of us, and every yumin being 'as 'is little weakness. Mine is golf balls. Tips is well enuff in their way, and I 'ave nuthing at all to say agin them, but the present of a good ball is far more pleesing to the 'art of 'Enery Wilks. Praps it's becos of 'is allmost inkonquerabul pride which shrinks at times from taking munney from them 'oom 'e feels to be 'is equils or hinfeeriors; or praps it grattifies 'is artistick nachure to be given the himplements of that great sience which 'e onderstands so well. Any'ow golf balls is my temptashun, and one which once or twice in the course of my 'onnerabul kareer I 'ave allowed meself to yeeld to. Some golfers will ercashunally 'and you tuppence or an 'arf-used ball, wif a jenial word of thanks for your attenshuns which is worth more to a proud nachure than the gift itself. And there's uthers 'oo never think of doing nuthink of the sort. Among _them_ is Mister Schwabstein, 'oo is not French or Scotch, as you might think from 'is name, but German, wiv praps a touch of Jentile. 'E's a man what catches the eye on the links, it being 'is constant and hannoying 'abbit to were a peaked yotting cap, large specks, and a white silk coat which was once a good deal whiter. An egsellent sort of person, I dessay, in the 'ome sircle, but 'ardly what you'd call a brillyent success upon the links. They say as 'ow 'e 'as more munney than 'e ritely knows what to do wiv, but I fancy 'e's made it by never giving any of it away. 'Owever, 'Enery Wilks 'as done 'is best to put that rite. Let me diskribe to you a rarnd which 'e played the uther day wiv Mister 'Erminius Brellett, our litterry member, 'oo allus seems to go out of 'is way to play wiv kurious people. I 'ave taken Mister Schwabstein in charge before, but never 'ave I seen 'is pecooliarities so noticeabul as on that day. 'E took the 'onner, and for about three minutes 'e addressed the ball wiv 'is 'uge, thick, ugly driver, which 'as always rarsed my perfessional hindignashun. 'E swung at last, quite slow like, but wiv all 'is great weight and strength piled into it. I shall never know egsackly what 'e did, becos the tees was dry, and for the moment I was 'arf blinded by the dust. But there was a thud and a krackling snap, and two things was flying through the thick, dusty air. Them two missils was the ball and the 'ead of the driver, and they fell togevver thirty yards from the tee. 'E said somethink which I couldn't catch and didn't want to, and walked rarnd in a slow sircle, smiling to 'isself. 'E's a man 'oo allus smiles. It often seems to me that it is 'is misforchune. Then Mister Brellett took one of 'is yusual springing drives, which 'appened to come off, and 'e won that fust 'ole on 'is head. Mister Schwabstein kontrived to redooce 'is brassey to fragmints at the second 'ole; and after that he took out 'is niblick, and nuthing wouldn't perswade 'im to put it back. 'E drove wiv that niblick, and 'e played 'is many shots through the green wiv it. And the way that thick strong niblick eat into the turf was enuff to brake the 'art of 'Enery Wilks. We moved slowly forward, leaving be'ind us a line of crewel deep kassims, which nuthink wouldn't fill up. And 'is stile of bunker play was equilly distrucktive. 'Is noshun of getting out was to distroy the wall of the bunker wiv reppeated blows, and then to force 'is ball throo the rewings. I wouldn't 'ave belleeved that meer wood and iron could 'ave done the work that that one German niblick did wivout turning an 'air. 'E only smiled 'is slow smile when Mister Brellett or meself venchured a remmonstrance, and 'e would never pick up 'is ball. 'E persevered wiv each 'ole until at last 'e 'ad pushed the ball into the tin, and then 'e would turn and pat my 'ead wiv 'is large 'and. After the fust time I jenerally dodged, and once 'e turned and patted Mister Brellett's 'ead by accerdent. Like most litterry jents, the latter is rather touchy, and there was neerly trouble; but some'ow, thanks to Mister Schwabstein's apparent onconshusness of offense, it was erverted. At the thirteenth 'ole Mister Brellett was five up. Mister Schwabstein put down a new ball, wiv a sort of groan, and pulled it wiv 'is niblick right rarnd into the rough. For a long two minnutes we 'unted 'igh and low, but nowhere could we find that ball. If I'd seen it I would 'ave handed it over at once, sich being my boundin dooty. But I never did see it. There was jest one little place in that rough where some'ow it didn't seem worth while looking. We 'ad to erbandon it at last; and Mister Schwabstein lost the 'ole and the match. Later in the day I wandered down on a sort of ferlorn 'ope to that bit of rough, and kuriously enuff I walked bang on to that ball. There was severil courses open to me. I might 'ave 'anded it over to the orthorities, or I might 'ave kep' it as a memmentoe of Mister Schwabstein's unfaling jenerosity and kortesy. But 'Enery Wilks didn't see 'is way to doing either of them two things. 'E jest disposed of that fine new ball to the very best hadvantage. * * * * * GOLFING NOTES "Denmark is the latest of the Continental nations to receive golf."--_The Tatler._ [Illustration: But golf must have flourished at Denmark in Hamlet's time, judging by the above reproduction of a very ancient mural decoration which has just come to light. See also quotation _Hamlet_, Act II., Scene 2:--" ... drives; in rage, strikes wide!"] * * * * * [Illustration: ENCOURAGEMENT.--_Professional Golfer_ (_in answer to anxious question_). "Weel, no, sir, at your time o' life, ye can never hope to become a _player_; but if ye practise hard for three years, ye may be able to tell good play from bad when ye see it!"] * * * * * [Illustration: _Bertie_ (_to caddie, searching for lost ball_). "What are you looking there for? Why, I must have driven it fifty yards further!" _Diplomatic Caddie._ "But sometimes they hit a stone, sir, and bounce back a terrible distance!"] * * * * * [Illustration: _Old Hand._ "Ah, I heard you'd joined. Been round the links yet?" _New Hand._ "Oh, yes. Went yesterday." _Old Hand._ "Whot did you go round in?" _New Hand._ "Oh, my ordinary clothes!"] * * * * * [Illustration: GOLFING AMENITIES. (_Overheard on a course within 100 miles of Edinburgh_).--_Hopeless Duffer_ (_who continually asks his caddy the same question, with much grumbling at the non-success of his clubs_). "And what shall I take now?" _His Unfortunate Partner_ (_whose match has been lost and game spoilt, at last breaking out_). "What'll ye tak noo! The best thing ye can tak is the fower fifteen for Edinburgh!"] * * * * * THE PEDANTRY OF SPORT.--_First Golf Maniac._ I played a round with Captain Bulger the other day. _Second G.M._ When did you get to know him? _First G.M._ Oh, about the end of the Gutty Ball period. * * * * * [Illustration: _Cheerful Beginner_ (_who has just smashed the Colonel's favourite driver_). "Oh, now I see why you have to carry so many clubs!"] * * * * * [Illustration: Golfer] TEE, TEE, ONLY TEE! (_Song of the Golf Enthusiast. After Thomas Moore_) AIR--"_Thee, thee, only thee._" The dawn of morn, the daylight's sinking, Shall find me on the Links, and thinking, Of Tee, Tee, only Tee! When rivals meet upon the ground, The Putting-green's a realm enchanted, Nay, in Society's giddy round My soul, (like Tooting's thralls) is haunted By Tee, Tee, only Tee! For that at early morn I waken, And swiftly bolt my eggs and bacon, For Tee, Tee, only Tee! I'm game to start all in the dark, To the Links hurrying--resting never. The Caddie yawns, but, like a lark, I halt not, heed not, hastening ever To Tee, Tee, only Tee! Of chilly fog I am no funker, I'll brave the very biggest bunker, For Tee, Tee, only Tee! A spell that nought on earth can break Holds me. Golf's charms can ne'er be _spoken_; But late I'll sleep, and early wake, Of loyalty be this my token, To Tee, Tee, only Tee! * * * * * Golf caddies are now very much in the public eye. The education of some of them is certainly not all that it should be. "Here's an honour for us!" cried one of them excitedly the other day, as he pointed to a paragraph in the paper headed, "King Alfonso visits Cadiz." * * * * * THE SCIENCE OF GOLF [A certain make of field-glasses is advertised just now as "suitable for golf-players, enabling them before striking to select a favourable spot for the descent of their ball." There can be little doubt that this brilliant hint will be further developed, with some such results as those outlined in the following anticipation.] As I told Jones when he met me at the clubhouse, it was a year or more since I had last played, so the chances were that I should be a bit below form. Besides, I was told that the standard of play had been so raised---- "Raised? I should just think it has!" said Jones. "Why, a year ago they played mere skittles--not what you could properly call golf. Got your clubs? Come along then. Queer old-fashioned things they are, too! And you're never going out without your theodolite? "Well," I said with considerable surprise, "the fact is, I haven't got one. What do you use it for?" "Taking levels, of course. And--bless me, you've no inflater, or glasses--not even a wind-gauge! Shall I borrow some for you?--Oh, just as you like, but you won't be able to put up much of a game without them." "Does your caddie take all those things?" I asked, pointing to the curious assortment of machinery which Jones had put together. "My caddies do," he corrected. "No one takes less than three nowadays. Good; there's only one couple on the first tee, so we shall get away in half an hour or so." "I should hope so!" I remarked. "Do you mean that it will be half an hour before those men have played two shots?" "There or thereabouts. Simkins is a fast player--wonderful head for algebra that man has--so it may be a shade less. Come and watch him; then you'll see what golf is!" And indeed I watched him with much interest. First he surveyed the country with great care through a field-glass. Then he squinted along a theodolite at a distant pole. Next he used a strange instrument which was, Jones told me, a wind-gauge, and tapped thoughtfully at a pocket-barometer. After that he produced paper and pencil, and was immersed apparently in difficult sums. Finally, he summoned one of his caddies, who carried a metal cylinder. A golf ball was connected to this by a piece of india-rubber tubing, and a slight hissing noise was heard. "Putting in the hydrogen," explained Jones. "Everything depends upon getting the right amount. New idea? Not very; even a year ago you must have seen pneumatic golf balls--filled with compressed air? Well, this is only an obvious improvement. There, he's going to drive now." And this he did, using a club unlike anything I had seen before. Then he surveyed the putting-green--about half a mile away--through his glasses, and remarked that it was a fairish shot, the ball being within three inches of the hole. His companion, who went through the same lengthy preliminaries, was less fortunate. In a tone of considerable disgust he announced that he had over-driven the hole by four hundred yards. "Too much hydrogen," murmured Jones, "or else he got his formulæ muddled. Well, we can start now. Shall I lead the way?" I begged him to do so. He in turn surveyed the country, consulted instruments, did elaborate sums, inflated his ball. "Now," he said, at length settling into his stance, "now I'll show you." And then he missed the ball clean. ... Of course he ought not to have used such language, and yet it was a sort of relief to find _something_ about the game which was entirely unchanged. * * * * * [Illustration: A LAST RESORT.--_Miss Armstrong_ (_who has foozled the ball six times with various clubs_). "And which of the sticks am I to use now?" _Weary Caddie._ "Gie it a bit knock wi' the bag!"] * * * * * [Illustration: _Caddie_ (_in stage whisper to Biffin, who is frightfully nervous_). "Don't you get nervous, sir. It's all right. I've told every one of 'em you can't play!"] * * * * * [Illustration: _Fitzfoozle_ (_a beginner, who is "teaching" a lady on the men's links, and loses a club_). "Pardon me, sir. Have you seen a lady's club anywhere?" _Admiral Peppercorn_ (_very irate at being delayed, wishes ladies would play on their own course_). "No, sir, but there's a goose club at the 'Pig and Whistle,' I believe. Try that!"] * * * * * ROYAL AND ANCIENT RECORDS.--The _Glasgow Evening Times_ displayed the following headings on the occasion of His Majesty's visit to North Berwick:-- VISIT TO THE GOLF COURSE. A DRIVE THROUGH THE TOWN. This, of course, constitutes a new record, the old one standing at about 330 yards. * * * * * THE GOLFER'S FRIEND AFTER LONG DRIVES--The Tea-Caddy. * * * * * GOLF MOTTO.--The "Hole" hog or none. * * * * * [Illustration: _Golfer, whose ball has lodged under stone, has had several unsuccessful shots, and finally, with a tremendous stroke, smashed his club._ _Old Man._ "You put me in moind of my old jackass." _Golfer._ "What d'you mean, you idiot?" _Old Man._ "Yer've got more strength than knowledge!"] * * * * * THE MOAN OF THE MAIDEN (_After Tennyson_) Golf! Golf! Golf! By the side of the sounding sea; And I would that my ears had never Heard aught of the "links" and the "tee." Oh, well for the man of my heart, That he bets on the "holes" and the play; Oh, well for the "caddie" that carries The "clubs," and earns his pay. He puts his red coat on, And he roams on the sandy hill; But oh! for the touch of that golfer's hand, That the "niblick" wields with a will. Golf! Golf! Golf! Where the "bunkers" vex by the sea; But the days of Tennis and Croquet Will never come back to me! * * * * * VIRGIL ON GOLF.--"Miscueruntque herbas et non innoxia verba." _Georgics_, 3, 283. * * * * * TO CORRESPONDENTS.--"An Inexperienced Golfer" writes to inquire whether what he has heard about "the Tee Duty" will in any way affect the "caddies." * * * * * [Illustration: WILLING TO COMPENSATE.--_Mrs. Lightfoot._ "Oh, wait a minute, Mr. Sharp--don't drive yet. My husband is still on the green." _Mr. Sharp._ "Never mind. I'll risk it. For if I _do_ bowl him over, why, I'm ready to replace him any time!"] * * * * * CAPABLE CADDIES Rumour has it that a movement is on foot amongst a certain section of the golfing public to ensure that for the future all caddies on English links shall be compelled to furnish satisfactory proof that they are physically and morally qualified for the porterage and cleaning of clubs, and acquainted with the more rudimentary principles of the game. To this end, it is reported, an entrance examination paper is in course of preparation, in which individuals aspiring to official recognition as caddies will be required to obtain a percentage of at least eighty marks. The following questions are said to have been already drafted:-- 1. Write your name, legibly if possible, in the top right-hand corner of the sheet. (Do not trouble to insert your nickname, as it is a matter of indifference to the examiners whether you are locally known as "Tiger," "Ginger," or "Bill Bailey.") 2. State your age. If this is less than six, or more than seventy-five years, you may omit the remaining questions and retire at once from the examination. 3. Are you married or single? Give reasons for your answer. 4. Illustrate the finer points of distinction between (_a_) a niblick and a gutty; (_b_) a bye and a bulger. 5. Are you a Protectionist or a Total Abstainer? 6. Rewrite the following passage, correcting anything that may strike you as an error or an incongruity:--"In an 18-hole match, X., a scratch player with a handicap of 20, stood dormy 12 at the 17th hole, but while half-way through the final green was unfortunate enough to get badly bunkered behind the tee-box. Being required to play 'two more' to his opponent Y., who had laid himself dead in 6, he only played one of them, thus holing out in 5, and securing a victory by the narrow margin of 4 up and 7 to play." 7. Given that the regulation charge for a round is a shilling, would you consider yourself justified in attempting to exact an extra half-crown for club-cleaning from a player in spectacles, with a handicap of 27 and a wistful expression? (Candidates are advised to say "No" to this question.) * * * * * [Illustration: STIMIED.--_Golfer._ "Fore!" _Tinker._ "What?" _Golfer._ "Get out of the way!" _Tinker._ "What for?" _Golfer._ "I might hit you." _Tinker._ "Thee'd best _not_, young man!"] * * * * * [Illustration: _Licensed Caddy._ "Carry your clubs, sir?" _Jones_ (_who has chartered a small boy at a cheap rate_). "No, I've got a caddy." _Licensed Caddy._ "Carry your caddy, sir?"] * * * * * "AS SHE IS SPOKE."--(_In the train from Nice._) _Enthusiastic Golfer_ (_to friend, as train stops at Golfe-Juan_): "Oh, here we are! This must be the place. '_Golfe_,' golf. '_Juan_,' _jeu_, play, you know. Yes, this is evidently the station for the links!" * * * * * THE NATURAL CREST OF EVERY GOLF CLUB.--The lynx. * * * * * FIVE-O'CLOCK "TEES."--Suburban golf. [Illustration: Punch] * * * * * [Illustration: THE RULING PASSION.--_Laden and perspiring stranger._ "Could you kindly tell me how far it is to the station?" _Sportsome Native._ "About a full drive, two brassies and a putt."] * * * * * THE GOLF WIDOWS (_After E.B. Browning_) Do you hear the widows weeping, O my brothers, Wedded but a few brief years? They are writing home complaining to their mothers, And their ink's suffused with tears. The young lads are playing in the meadows, The young babes are sleeping in the nest; The young men are flirting in the shadows, The young maids are helping them, with zest. But the young golf widows, O my brothers, Are weeping bitterly, They are weeping in the playtime of the others, While you're swiping from the tee. Do you ask their grazing widows in their sorrow Why their tears are falling so? "Oh--yesterday--to-day again--to-morrow-- To the links you ALWAYS go! Your golf 'shop,'" they say, "is very dreary, You speak of nothing else from week to week; A really patient wife will grow a-weary Of talk about a concentrated cleek." Yes, the young golf widows, O my brothers, Do you ask them why they weep? They are longing to be back beside their mothers, While you're playing in a sweep. And well may the widows weep before you When your nightly round is done; They care nothing for a stymie, or the glory Gained by holing out in one. "How long," they say, "how long in careless fashion Will you stand, to drive the Dyke, upon our hearts, Trample down with nailèd heel our early passion, Turning homeward only when the light departs? You can hear our lamentations many a mile hence, Can you hearken without shame, When our mourning curseth deeper in the silence Than a strong man off his game?" * * * * * [Illustration: "---- HE WOULD HAVE SAID" _A beautiful stroke missed! A favourite club broken! No words to bring relief!_ _American Friend (in the background, after a long pause)._ "Wa'al, Brown, I guess that's the most profane silence I've ever listened to!"] * * * * * [Illustration: "A BEAUTIFUL DRIVE."] * * * * * [Illustration: SUBTLE.--"Aren't you a little off your game this morning, Mr. Smythe?" "Oh, I'm not playing this morning, Miss Bertha. Only just amusing myself."] * * * * * SHOULD MARRIED MEN BE ALLOWED TO PLAY GOLF? (_Extract from a Golfer's Diary_) _July 21._--Played Robinson, who would never win a match if it wasn't for his wife. Think that I shall start a links for bachelors only. (Mem.--Suggest to the committee that no married man is allowed to play golf in the mornings or afternoons.) Hole I. I played perfectly, holing beautiful long putt. Robinson hopeless. One up. Hole II. R. bunkered. Entirely his own fault. Two up. Hole III. Holed my approach, allowing for both wind and slope of green; really a grand shot. Caught sight of Mrs. R. as I walked to the next tee. Three up. Hole IV. Thought that I might have to speak to Mrs. R. at any minute. Missed my drive in consequence. Disgusting! Two up. Hole V. R. seemed to be looking for his wife instead of attending to what I was saying. My drive lay on a buttercup, and who the deuce can be expected to play off buttercups? One up. Hole VI. Stymied R. quite perfectly. He pretended to think that we were not playing stymies. We were. Two up. Hole VII. Saw Mrs. R. looking aimlessly out to sea. These loafing ladies are enough to put any man off his game. Why can't they do something? One up. Hole VIII. R. may say what he likes, but he waved to his wife. I was also annoyed by his stockings, which I should think Mrs. R. knitted. The sort of useless thing she would do. All square. Hole IX. Got well away from Mrs. R., and though my caddy coughed as I was approaching I laid my ball dead. Beautiful shot. One up at the turn. Hole X. Had the hole in my pocket when R. laid his approach dead. Ridiculous luck. All square. Hole XI. Just as I was driving I saw Mrs. R. still looking at the sea. I complained, but R. took no notice. At any rate she cost me the hole. One down. Hole XII. Vardon couldn't have played better than I did, and even R. had to say "Good shot!" twice. All square. Hole XIII. As I was putting I had a feeling in my back that Mrs. R. had arrived at last. Missed my putt and only halved the hole. Hole XIV. Couldn't see Mrs. R. anywhere. Wondered where on earth she had got to, or whether she was drowned. Of course I lost the hole. One down. Hole XV. A little dispute, as R. claimed that his ball--which was under a wheelbarrow--was on ground under repair. Absolutely foolish, and I told him so. All square. Hole XVI. Made a perfect drive, approach and putt. Looked everywhere for Mrs. R. and couldn't see her. One up. Hole XVII. Completely put off by wondering when I should see Mrs. R. Most unfair. Told my caddy I should report him to the committee. All square. Hole XVIII. Saw Mrs. R. on a hill half a mile away. Got on my nerves. R. said, "Halloa, there's my wife! I thought she wasn't coming out this morning." Lost the hole and the match, and told the secretary that R.'s handicap ought to be reduced. * * * * * [Illustration: "SHE WAS NOT A GOLFER" _Husband._ "What on earth has happened to my driver?" _Wife._ "Oh, I couldn't find the hammer, so I used that thing. It wasn't much use, though."] * * * * * [Illustration: OUR VILLAGE The Golf-Club in full swing.] * * * * * [Illustration: _She._ "Why, Mr. Smith, you don't mean to say you have taken up golf?" _Smith (age 78)._ "Yes. I found I was getting a bit too old for lawn tennis!"] * * * * * [Illustration: ERRATIC _Pedestrian (anxious for his safety)._ "Now, which way are you going to hit the ball?" _Worried Beginner._ "Only wish to goodness I knew myself!"] * * * * * [Illustration: Punch] * * * * * [Illustration: SWEET SIMPLICITY _Diffident Man (who does not know to how much of an ingénue he is talking)._ "Have you been out long, Miss Grace?" _Miss Grace (consulting her wrist-strap)._ "Oh, about three-quarters of an hour. You see we were asked to come punctually."] * * * * * LINES ON THE LINKS Hard by the biggest hazard on the course, Beneath the shelter of a clump of gorse, Secure from shots from off the heel or toe, I watch the golfers as they come and go. I see the fat financier, whose "dunch" Suggests too copious draughts of "fizz" at lunch; While the lean usher, primed with ginger beer, Surmounts the yawning bunker and lies clear. I see a member of the House of Peers Within an ace of bursting into tears, When, after six stout niblick shots, his ball Lies worse than if he had not struck at all. But some in silent agony endure Misfortunes no "recovery" can cure, While others, even men who stand at plus, Loudly ejaculate the frequent cuss. An aged Anglo-Indian oft I see Who waggles endlessly upon the tee, Causing impatience of the fiercest kind To speedy couples pressing from behind. Familiar also is the red-haired Pat Who plays in rain or shine without a hat, And who, whenever things are out of joint, "Sockets" his iron shots to cover point. Before ten thirty, also after five, The links with lady players are alive, At other seasons, by the rules in force, Restricted to their own inferior course. One matron, patient in her way as Job, I've seen who nine times running missed the globe; But then her daughter, limber maid, can smite Close on two hundred yards the bounding Kite. * * * Dusk falls upon the bracken, bents and whins; The careful green-keeper removes the pins, To-morrow being Sunday, and the sward Is freed from gutty and from rubber-cored. Homeward unchecked by cries of "Fore!" I stroll, Revolving many problems in my soul, And marvelling at the mania which bids Sexagenarians caracole like kids; Which causes grave and reverend signiors To talk for hours of nothing but their scores, And worse, when baffled by a little ball, On the infernal deities to call; Which brightens overworked officials' lives; Which bores to tears their much-enduring wives; Which fosters the consumption of white port, And many other drinks, both long and short. Who then, in face of functions so diverse, Will call thee, golf, a blessing or a curse? Or choose between the Premier's predilection And Rosebery's deliberate rejection? Not mine to judge: I merely watch and note Thy votaries as they grieve or as they gloat, Uncertain whether envy or amaze Or pity most is prompted by the craze. * * * * * [Illustration: _Foreigner (who has "pulled" badly, and hit his partner in a tender spot),_ "Mille pardons, monsieur! My clob--he deceived me!"] * * * * * [Illustration: _Tommy._ "I say, do you know who's winning?" _Ethel._ "I think uncle must be--I heard him offer to carry auntie's clubs."] * * * * * THE HOLE CONCERN SCENE--_Any golf-club where an alteration of the course is in prospect._ TIME--_Any time, from dawn to dusk._ CHARACTERS--_Any number of_ Members, _plus (on this occasion) an_ Inoffensive Stranger. _First Member._ (_catching sight of_ Inoffensive Stranger). Look here, Nobbs, you're an impartial judge, we'll have your opinion. What I say is this. If you take the present 4th hole and make it the 13th, putting the tee back ten yards behind the 12th, and carry the lower green fifteen yards to the right, and play the 2nd, 5th and 16th holes in reverse order, keeping clear of the ditch outside the 4th green, you'll bring---- _Second Member._ Oh, that's rubbish. Anybody with a grain of sense would see that you'd utterly ruin the course that way. My plan is to take the first three, the 11th, and the 14th--you understand, Nobbs?--(_slowly and emphatically_) the first three, the 11th, and the 14th. _Inoffensive Stranger._ Yes? _Second M._ (_quickly_). And leave 'em as they are. Leave 'em just exactly as they are. Then you do away with the next, make the 3rd into the 7th, and---- _I.S._ (_horribly confused_). But---- _Third M._ Yes, I know--you're thinking of the crossing from the 14th. And you're perfectly right. Simply fatal, that would be; too dangerous altogether. What we really want is a 2nd hole, and my plan would make a splendid one--really sporting, and giving these gentlemen who fancy their play a bit to do. _Second M._ Don't know about _that_. Tried that patent 2nd hole of yours this morning out of curiosity. Holed it with my third, and might have done it in two, with a bit of luck. _Third M._ (_whistles expressively_). Oh, _come_! Splendid player you are, and all that--handicap's fifteen, isn't it?--but there aren't _many_ of us who would stand here and say calmly that we'd done a hole of 420 yards in three! _Really_, you know---- _Second M._ 420 yards? 130, you mean. _Third M._ (_defiantly_). 420, if an inch. _Second M._ But look here, you told me yourself only yesterday---- _Third M._ (_slightly taken aback_). Oh, ah, yes. I understand now. I _did_ think, at one time, of making the 2nd a short hole. But this is quite a different idea. Miles better, in fact. It flashed across me quite suddenly at dinner-time last night. Sort of inspiration--kind of thing you can't account for--but there it _is_, you see. _Fourth M._ Well, what you fellows can argue about like this beats me altogether. There's only one _possible_ way of improving the course, and I showed you the plan of it last week. It won't be adopted--not likely. So good, and simple, and inexpensive that the committee won't look at it. Couldn't expect anything else. Anyhow (_with an air of unappreciated heroism_)--I've done _my_ best for the club! (_Sighs heavily, and picks up a newspaper._) _Fifth M._ (_brutally_). Oh, _we_ know all about that blessed plan of yours. Now, I'm open to conviction. Mind you, I don't condemn anybody else's scheme. All that _I_ say is, that if a man doesn't see that my plan is the best, he's a dunder-headed jackass, and that's all about it. What do _you_ think, Mr. Nobbs? _I.S._ (_rather nervously_). Well, really--I hardly know--perhaps---- _First M._ (_compassionately_). Ah, it's those whins below the 17th that are bothering _you_. But if you exchange the 8th and the 10th---- _Second M._ (_abruptly_). Rot! (_The battle continues. The_ Inoffensive Stranger _stealthily withdraws._ (_Curtain._)) [Illustration: Punch] * * * * * [Illustration: A TOWN MOUSE _Jones._ "Well, my little man, what are _you_ thinking about?" _London Boy_ (_who has never been out of Whitechapel before_). "I'm thinkin' it's time yer mother put yer into _trousers_!"] * * * * * [Illustration: A MARTYR TO APPEARANCES _Young Lady._ "I say, caddie, what _does_ Mr. McFadjock do with all these clubs?" _Caddie (wofully preparing to follow his tyrant)._ "He makes me carry them!"] * * * * * [Illustration: LINK(S)ED SWEETNESS _The Real Caddie_ (_audibly_). "This club is going to ruin--allowing all these ladies to join!" _Miss Sharp._ "They evidently can't get gentlemen!"] * * * * * [Illustration: _Sanguine Golfer._ "Is that on the 'carpet,' caddie?" _Caddie_ (_as the ball swerves into cottage window_). "Yus, sir; front parlour, sir!"] * * * * * [Illustration: THE OLD TYPE OF LINK MAN. Supper time.] * * * * * [Illustration: THE NEW TYPE OF LINK MAN. Tee time.] * * * * * "A THREE-CARD LAY" Long ago in Sweet September, Oh! the day I well remember, I was playing on the Links against the winsomest of maids; In a "cup" my ball was lying, And the "divots" round were flying, And with eyes-a-dance she said to me, "Your iron's the King of Spades!" Now a foe, on such occasion, Of the feminine persuasion, Fair and twenty to the game a sort of subtlety imparts; And I felt its potent glamour, And I answered with a stammer Shy and nervous, "It was rash of me to play the Queen of Hearts!" Any further explanation Of my inward admiration Very likely had exposed me to the deadliest of snubs! But a snigger from behind me Just in time came to remind me Of the presence of my caddie--and I blessed the Knave of Clubs! * * * * * [Illustration: GLORIOUS UNCERTAINTY SCENE--_At the Golf Club._ _She._ "Good-bye, Major. What's the programme for to-morrow?" _The Major._ "Oh, either skating or punting, according to the weather."] * * * * * GOLF AND GOOD FORM (_By the Expert Wrinkler_) Is it good form to golf? That is a question I have been so repeatedly asked of late by correspondents that I can no longer postpone my answer. Now to begin with, I fear there is no doubt that golf is a little on the down grade--socially. Golf is no longer the monopoly of the best set, and I am told that artisans' clubs have actually been started in certain districts. The other day, as I was travelling in Lancashire, a man in the same compartment--with the most shockingly ill-cut trousers I ever saw--said to a friend, "I like 'Oylake, it's 'ealthy, and it's 'andy and within 'ail of 'ome." And it turned out that the chief attraction to him at Hoylake was the golf. Such an incident as this speaks volumes. But I always try to see both sides of every question, and there is unquestionably a great deal to be said in favour of golf. It was undoubtedly played by kings in the past, and at the present moment is patronised by grand dukes, dukes, peers and premiers. * * * * * [Illustration: BETWEEN FRIENDS.--_Mr. Spooner, Q.C._ (_a Neophyte_). "This is my ball, I think?" _Colonel Bunting_ (_an adept_). "By Jove, that's a jolly good 'lie'!" _Mr. Spooner._ "Really, Bunting, we're very old friends, of course. But I do think you might find a pleasanter way of pointing out a perfectly unintentional mistake!"] * * * * * GOLF AND DRESS. But the real and abiding attraction of golf is that it mercifully gives more opportunities to the dressy man than any other pastime. Football and cricket reduce everyone to a dead level in dress, but in golf there is any amount of scope for individuality in costume. Take the case of colour alone. The other day at Finsbury Park station I met a friend on his way home from a day's golfing, and I noticed that he was sporting the colours of no fewer than five different clubs. On his cap was the badge of the Camberwell Crusaders; his tie proved his membership of the Bickley Authentics; his blazer was that of the Tulse Hill Nondescripts; his brass waistcoat buttons bore the monogram of the Gipsy Hill Zingari; the roll of his knickerbocker stockings was embroidered with the crest of the Kilburn Incogs. The effect of the whole was, if I may be allowed the word, spicy in the extreme. Of course it is not everyone who can carry off such a combination, or who can afford to belong to so many first-class clubs. But my friend is a very handsome man, and has a handicap of _plus_ two at Tooting Bec. KNICKERBOCKERS OR TROUSERS. The burning question which divides golfers into two hostile camps is the choice between knickerbockers and trousers. Personally I favour the latter, but it is only right to explain that ever since I was gaffed in the leg by my friend Viscount ---- when out cub-sticking with the Cottesmore I have never donned knickers again. To a man with a really well-turned calf and neat ankles I should say, wear knickerbockers whenever you get a chance. The late Lord Septimus Boulger, who had very thick legs, and calves that seemed to begin just above the ankles, used to wear knickerbockers because he said it put his opponent off his play. If I may say so without offence, he was a real funny chap, though a careless dresser, and I am told that his father, old Lord Spalding, has never been the same man since his death. STOCKINGS AND CALVES. Another advantage of knickerbockers is the scope they afford for the display of stylish stockings. A very good effect is produced by having a little red tuft, which should appear under the roll which surmounts the calf. The roll itself, which should always have a smart pattern, is very useful in conveying the impression that the calf is more fully developed than it really is. I noticed the other day at Hanger Hill that Sir Arlington Ball was playing in a pair of very full knickers, almost of the Dutch cut, and that his stockings--of a plain brown colour--had no roll such as I have described. Then of course Sir Arlington has an exceptionally well-modelled calf, and when in addition a man has £30,000 a year he may be allowed a certain latitude in his dress and his conduct generally. BOOTS AND SHOES. The question of footwear at golf is one of considerable difficulty, but there is a general feeling in favour of shoes. My friend the Tooting Bec _plusser_ affects a very showy sort of shoe with a wide welt and a sort of fringe of narrow strips of porpoise hide, which fall over the instep in a miniature cataract. As regards the rival merits of india rubber studs on the soles and of nails, I compromise by a judicious mixture of both. If a waistcoat be worn it should be of the brightest possible colour. I saw Lord Dunching the other day at Wimbledon Park in a charming waistcoat. The groundwork was a rich spinach green with discs of Pompeian red, and the buttons were of brass with his monogram in blue and white enamel in the centre. As it was a cold day he wore a mustard-coloured Harris tweed Norfolk jacket and a sealskin cap. Quite a large crowd followed him, and I heard afterwards that he had raised the record for the links to 193. QUALIFICATIONS FOR A VALET. One thing is certain--and that is we cannot all be first-class players. Personally, owing to the accident I have already referred to, I hardly ever play at all, but I always make it a point, if I am going on a visit to any place in the country where I know there are no golf links, to take a few niblicks with me. A bag for clubs only costs a few shillings, and it looks well amongst your other paraphernalia on a journey. In engaging a valet again, always remember to ascertain whether he knows the rules of the "royal and ancient game." I shall never forget my humiliation when down at Lord Springvale's. As I was taking part in a foursome with the Hon. Agrippa Bramble, Lady Horace Hilton, and the second Mrs. Bunkeray, I got stuck in a furze-bush and my man handed me a putter. I could have cried with vexation. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. CAVENDISH, CHATSWORTH.--As to the treatment of divots, different methods are recommended by different authorities. My plan, and I am not aware of a better, is to put them in my pocket when the caddie is not looking. When thoroughly dried they form an excellent peat for burning, or can be used for bedding out rhododendrons. "NIL DESPERANDUM," BECKENHAM.--The best stimulant during match play is a beaten-up egg in a claret glass of sloe gin. The eggs are best carried in the pocket of your club-bag. A. FLUBB, WOKING.--No, it is not good form to pay your caddie in stamps. ALCIBIADES, WEMBLEY PARK.--If you must play golf on Sunday, I call it nothing short of hypocritical to go down to the links in a tall hat. * * * * * [Illustration: A HERO "FIN DE SI�CLE."--_Podgers_ (_of Sandboys Golf Club_). "My dear Miss Robinson, golf's the only game nowadays for the _men_. Lawn-tennis is all very well for you _girls_, you know."] * * * * * [Illustration: If you should find a stray bull in possession of the links, and who is fascinated by your little red landmarks, don't try and persuade poor Mr. Littleman to drive him away. He is very plucky--but it isn't golf.] * * * * * [Illustration: HIS FIRST ROUND.--_Caddie_ (_pointing to direction flag_). "You'd better play right on the flag, sir." _Curate._ "Thank you very much. But I have very grave doubts as to my ability to hit such a very small mark at this distance!"] * * * * * [Illustration: EAR BLINKERS.--A suggestion for caddies of tender age in attendance on hot-tempered Anglo-Indian military gentlemen learning golf.] * * * * * [Illustration: EVERY MAN TO HIS TRADE.--_Exasperated Amateur_ (_to fore-caddie, who will_ NOT _go on ahead_). "Go along, man. _Do_ get on towards the next green." _Caddie._ "Beg parding, Capting. You won't never get him to go no more than twenty yards ahead. 'E's been used to carrying a flag in front of a steam-roller."] * * * * * LAYS FROM THE LINKS I.--THE HISTORY OF A MATCH. Let A be the Links where I went down to stay, And B the man whom I challenged to play:-- * * * C was the Caddie no golfer's without, D was the Driver I used going "out": E was the Extra loud "Fore!" we both holloa-ed, F was the Foozle which commonly followed: G was the Green which I longed to approach, H was the Hazard which upset the coach: I was B's Iron-shot (he's good for a younker), J was his Joy when I pitched in the bunker. K was the Kodak, that mischief-contriver, L was B's Likeness--on smashing his driver: M was the Moment he found out 'twas taken. N was his Niblick around my head shaken: O was the Oil poured on waters so stormy, P was the Putt which, next hole, made me dormy. Q was the Quality--crowds came to look on: R the Result they were making their book on: S was the Stymie I managed to lay, T was Two more, which it forced him to play; U was the Usual bad work he let fly, V was the Vengeance he took in the bye. * * * W the Whisky that night: I must own X was its quantity--wholly unknown; Y were the Yarns which hot whisky combine with, Z was the Zest which we sang "_Auld Lang Syne_". * * * * * [Illustration: _Short-sighted Lady Golfer._ "Hi! have you seen a golf-ball fall anywhere here, please?" [_Victim regards ball with remaining eye._] ] * * * * * II.--A TOAST. Fill up your glasses! Bumpers round Of Scotland's mountain dew! With triple clink my toast you'll drink, The Links I pledge with you: The Links that bind a million hearts, There's magic in their name, The Links that lie 'neath every sky, And the Royal and Ancient Game! A health to all who "miss the globe," The special "stars" who don't; May thousands thrive to tee and drive As Jehu's self was wont! No tee without a caddie--then The caddies will acclaim! A health, I say, to all who play The Royal and Ancient Game! Long life to all who face the foe, And on the green "lie dead"!-- An envied lot, as all men wot, For gallant "lads in red": Where balls fly fast and iron-shots plough Win medals, trophies, fame; Your watchword "Fore!" One cheer--two more-- For the Royal and Ancient Game! Then "_toe_ and _heel_ it" on the green (You'll make your partner swear), But I'll be bound your dance, a round, With luck will end all square Win, lose, or halve the match--what odds? We love our round the same; Though luck take wing, "the play's the thing," The Royal and Ancient Game! * * * Then, Royal and Ancient Game, accept This tribute lay from me; From me then take, for old sake's sake, This toast--Long life to thee! A long, long life to thee, old friend-- None worthier the name-- With three times three, long life to thee, O Royal and Ancient Game! [Illustration: Punch] * * * * * [Illustration: _Very mild Gentleman_ (_who has failed to hit the ball five times in succession_). "Well ----" _Up-to-date Caddy_ (_producing gramophone charged with appropriate expletives_). "Allow me, sir!" [_Mild Gentleman_ DOES _allow him, and moreover presents him with a shilling for handling the subject in such a masterly manner._] ] * * * * * [Illustration: _First Golfer_ (_to Second Golfer, who is caught in a bunker_). "Well, Jones told me this morning he did this hole yesterday in four." _Second Golfer_ (_who stammers_). "If Jones s-s-said he did it in four, he was a l-l-l-l----" _First Golfer._ "Steady, friend, steady!" _Second Golfer._ "----he was a l-lucky beggar!"] * * * * * GOLF-LAND--HOLE BY HOLE _Match for a suit of oil-skins between Sunny Jack and Dismal Jimmy._ "The rain has beaten all records."--_Daily Papers._ "Play the game."--_Modern motto._ _Hole 1._--Halved in 28. D.J. gets into the current with his 16th (a beauty) and is rescued by life-boat. _Hole 2._--Abandoned. A green-finder with a divining-rod, which is convertible into an umbrella, states that Primitive Baptists are using the green for purposes of total immersion. _Hole 3._--Abandoned. A regatta is found to be taking place in the big bunker. _Hole 4._--Halved in 23. S.J. discovered with life-belt round him which he has stolen from the flag. Reported death of a green-keeper, lost in trying to rescue two caddies from the bunker going to the 11th hole. _Hole 5._--Abandoned out of sympathy with the green-keeper. _Hole 6._--Abandoned. S.J. gets his driver mixed in his life-belt, with the result that his braces burst. D.J. claims hole on the ground that no player may look for a button for more than two minutes. Mr. Vardon, umpiring from balloon, disallows claim. Both players take to canoes. _Hole 7._--D.J.'s canoe upset by body of drowned sheep as he is holing short put. Mr. Vardon decides that corpses are rubs on the green. _Hole 8._--Abandoned, owing to a fight for life-belt. _Hole 9._--Halved in 303, Mr. Vardon keeping the score. _Hole 10._--D.J. saves S.J.'s life. Hole awarded to S.J. by Mr. Vardon out of sympathy. S.J. one up. _Hole 11._--S.J. saves D.J.'s life and receives the Humane Society's monthly medal and the hole from Mr. Vardon as a reward of courage. S.J. two up. _Hole 12._--Abandoned. Collection made for the widows of drowned golfers, which realises ninepence. S.J. subsequently returns from a long, low dive. _Holes 13 and 14._--Won by D.J. in the absence of S.J., who attends funeral water-games in honour of the green-keeper. All square. _Holes 15 and 16._--Abandoned by mutual consent, whisky being given away by the Society of Free-drinkers. Instant reappearance of the green-keeper. _Holes 17 and 18._--Unrecorded. Mr. Vardon declares the match halved. [Illustration: Punch] * * * * * [Illustration: FORE and AFT] * * * * * [Illustration: _Short-sighted Golfer_ (_having been signalled to come on by lady who has lost her ball_). "Thanks _very_ much. And _would_ you mind driving that sheep away?"] * * * * * [Illustration: _Extract from the rules of a local golf club:_--"RULE V.--The committee shall have the power at any time to fill any vacancy in their body."] * * * * * A LESSON IN GOLF "You won't dare!" said I. "There is nothing else for it," said Amanda sternly. "You know perfectly well that we must practise every minute of the time, if we expect to have the least chance of winning. If she _will_ come just now--well!" Amanda cocked her pretty chin in the air, and looked defiant. "But--_Aunt Susannah!_" said I. "It's quite time for you to go and meet her," said Amanda, cutting short my remonstrances; and she rose with an air of finality. My wife, within her limitations, is a very clever woman. She is prompt: she is resolute: she has the utmost confidence in her own generalship. Yet, looking at Aunt Susannah, as she sat--gaunt, upright, and formidable--beside me in the dogcart, I did not believe even Amanda capable of the stupendous task which she had undertaken. She would never dare---- I misjudged her. Aunt Susannah had barely sat down--was, in fact, only just embarking on her first scone--when Amanda rushed incontinently in where I, for one, should have feared to tread. "Dear Aunt Susannah," she said, beaming hospitably, "I'm sure you will never guess how we mean to amuse you while you are here!" "Nothing very formidable, I hope?" said Aunt Susannah grimly. "You'll never, never guess!" said Amanda; and her manner was so unnaturally sprightly that I knew she was inwardly quaking. "We want to teach you--what do you think?" "I think that I'm a trifle old to learn anything new, my dear," said Aunt Susannah. I should have been stricken dumb by such a snub. Not so, however, my courageous wife. "Well--golf!" she cried, with overdone cheerfulness. Aunt Susannah started. Recovering herself, she eyed us with a stony glare which froze me where I sat. "There is really nothing else to do in these wilds, you know," Amanda pursued gallantly, though even she was beginning to look frightened. "And it is such a lovely game. You'll like it immensely." "_What_ do you say it is called?" asked Aunt Susannah in awful tones. "Golf," Amanda repeated meekly; and for the first time her voice shook. "Spell it!" commanded Aunt Susannah. Amanda obeyed, with increasing meekness. "Why do you call it 'goff' if there's an 'l' in it?" asked Aunt Susannah. "I--I'm afraid I don't know," said Amanda faintly. Aunt Susannah sniffed disparagingly. She condescended, however, to inquire into the nature of the game, and Amanda gave an elaborate explanation in faltering accents. She glanced imploringly at me; but I would not meet her eye. "Then you just try to get a little ball into a little hole?" inquired my relative. "And in the fewest possible strokes," Amanda reminded her, gasping. "And--is that all?" asked Aunt Susannah. "Y--yes," said Amanda. "Oh!" said Aunt Susannah. A game described in cold blood sounds singularly insignificant. We both fell into sudden silence and depression. "Well, it doesn't sound _difficult_" said Aunt Susannah. "Oh, yes, I'll come and play at ball with you if you like, my dears." "_Dear_ Auntie!" said Amanda affectionately. She did not seem so much overjoyed at her success, however, as might have been expected. As for me, I saw a whole sea of breakers ahead; but then I had seen them all the time. We drove out to the Links next day. We were both very silent. Aunt Susannah, however, was in good spirits, and deeply interested in our clubs. "What in the world do you want so many sticks for, child?" she inquired of Amanda. "Oh, they are for--for different sorts of ground," Amanda explained feebly; and she cast an agonised glance at our driver, who had obviously overheard, and was chuckling in an offensive manner. We both looked hastily and furtively round us when we arrived. We were early, however, and fortune was kind to us; there was no one else there. "Perhaps you would like to watch us a little first, just to see how the game goes?" Amanda suggested sweetly. "Not at all!" was Aunt Susannah's brisk rejoinder. I've come here to play, not to look on. Which stick----?" "_Club_--they are called clubs," said Amanda. "Why?" inquired Aunt Susannah. "I--I don't know," faltered Amanda. "Do you Laurence?" I did not know, and said so. "Then I shall certainly call them sticks," said Aunt Susannah decisively. "They are not in the least like clubs." "Shall I drive off?" I inquired desperately of Amanda. "Drive off? Where to? Why are you going away?" asked Aunt Susannah. "Besides, you can't go--the carriage is out of sight." "The way you begin is called driving off," I explained laboriously. "Like this." I drove nervously, because I felt her eye upon me. The ball went some dozen yards. "That seems easy enough," said Aunt Susannah. "Give me a stick, child." "Not that end--the _other_ end!" cried Amanda, as our relative prepared to make her stroke with the butt-end. "Dear me! Isn't that the handle?" she remarked cheerfully; and she reversed her club, swung it, and chopped a large piece out of the links. "Where is it gone? Where is it gone?" she exclaimed, looking wildly round. "It--it isn't gone," said Amanda nervously, and pointed to the ball still lying at her feet. "What an extraordinary thing!" cried Aunt Susannah; and she made another attempt, with a precisely similar result. "Give me another stick!" she demanded. "Here, let me choose for myself--this one doesn't suit me. I'll have that flat thing." "But that's a putter," Amanda explained agonisedly. "What's a putter? You said just now that they were all clubs," said Aunt Susannah, pausing. "They are all clubs," I explained patiently. "But each has a different name." "You don't mean to say you give them names like a little girl with her dolls?" cried Aunt Susannah. "Why, what a babyish game it is!" She laughed very heartily. "At any rate," she continued, with that determination which some of her friends call by another name, "I am sure that this will be easier to play with!" She grasped the putter, and in some miraculous way drove the ball to a considerable distance. "Oh, splendid!" cried Amanda. Her troubled brow cleared a little, and she followed suit, with mediocre success. Aunt Susannah pointed out that her ball had gone farther than either of ours, and grasped her putter tenaciously. "It's a better game than I expected from your description," she conceded. "Oh, I daresay I shall get to like it. I must come and practise every day." We glanced at each other in a silent horror of despair, and Aunt Susannah after a few quite decent strokes, triumphantly holed out. "What next?" said she. I hastily arranged her ball on the second tee: but the luck of golf is proverbially capricious. She swung her club, and hit nothing. She swung it again, and hit the ground. "_Why_ can't I do it?" she demanded, turning fiercely upon me. "You keep losing your feet," I explained deferentially. "Spare me your detestable slang terms, Laurence, at least!" she cried, turning on me again like a whirlwind. "If you think I have lost my temper--which is absurd!--you might have the courage to say so in plain English!" "Oh, no, Aunt Susannah!" I said. "You don't understand----" "Or want to," she snapped. "Of all silly games----" "I mean you misunderstood me," I pursued, trembling. "Your foot slipped, and that spoilt your stroke. You should have nails in your boots, as we have." "Oh!" said Aunt Susannah, only half pacified. But she succeeded in dislodging her ball at last, and driving it into a bunker. At the same moment, Amanda suddenly clutched me by the arm. "Oh, Laurence!" she said in a bloodcurdling whisper. "_What_ shall we do? Here is Colonel Bartlemy!" The worst had happened. The hottest-tempered man in the club, the oldest member, the best player, the greatest stickler for etiquette, was hard upon our track; and Aunt Susannah, with a red and determined countenance, was urging her ball up the bunker, and watching it roll back again. "Dear Auntie," said Amanda, in her sweetest voice, "you had much better take it out." "Is that allowed?" inquired our relative suspiciously. "Oh, you may always do that and lose a stroke!" I assured her eagerly. "I shan't dream of losing a stroke!" said Aunt Susannah, with decision. "I'll get it out of this ditch by fair means, if I have to spend all day over it!" "Then do you mind waiting one moment?" I said, with the calmness of despair. "There is a player behind us----" "Let him stay behind us! I was here first," said Aunt Susannah; and she returned to her bunker. The Links rose up in a hillock immediately behind us, so that our successor could not see us until he had reached the first hole. I stood with my eye glued to the spot where he might be expected to appear. I saw, as in a nightmare, the scathing remarks that would find their way into the Suggestion Book. I longed for a sudden and easy death. At the moment when Colonel Bartlemy's rubicund face appeared over the horizon, Aunt Susannah, flushed but unconquered, drew herself up for a moment's rest from toil. He had seen her. Amanda shut her eyes. For myself, I would have run away shamelessly, if there had been any place to run to. The Colonel and Aunt Susannah looked hard at each other. Then he began to hurry down the slope, while she started briskly up it. "Miss Cadwalader!" said the Colonel. "Colonel Bartlemy!" cried Aunt Susannah; and they met with effusion. I saw Amanda's eyes open, and grow round with amazed interest. I knew perfectly well that she had scented a bygone love affair, and was already planning the most suitable wedding-garb for Aunt Susannah. A frantic hope came to me that in that case the Colonel's affection might prove stronger than his zeal for golf. They were strolling down to us in a leisurely manner, and the subject of their conversation broke upon my astonished ears. "I'm afraid you don't think much of these Links, after yours," Colonel Bartlemy was saying anxiously. "They are rather new----" "Oh, I've played on many worse," said Aunt Susannah, looking round her with a critical eye. "Let me see--I haven't seen you since your victory at Craigmory. Congratulations!" "Approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley!" purred the Colonel, evidently much gratified. "You will be here for the twenty-seventh, I hope?" "Exactly what I came for," said Aunt Susannah calmly. "Though I don't know what our ladies will say to playing against the Cranford Champion!" chuckled the Colonel; and then they condescended to become aware of our existence. We had never known before how exceedingly small it is possible to feel. "Aunt Susannah, what am I to say? What fools you must think us!" I murmured miserably to her, when the Colonel was out of earshot looking for his ball. "We are such raw players ourselves--and of course we never dreamt----" Aunt Susannah twinkled at me in a friendly manner. "There's an ancient proverb about eggs and grandmothers," she remarked cheerfully. "There should be a modern form for golf-balls and aunts--hey, Laurence?" Amanda did not win the prize brooch; but Aunt Susannah did, in spite of an overwhelming handicap, and gave it to her. She does not often wear it--possibly because rubies are not becoming to her: possibly because its associations are too painful. * * * * * [Illustration: THE RETORT COURTEOUS.--(_The Major-General waiting to drive, to girl carrying baby, who blocks the way_). "Now then, hurry on please with that baby." _Girl._ "Garn! Baby yerself, playing at ball there in your knickerbockers an' all!"] * * * * * [Illustration: A GOLF TOURNAMENT IN YE TIME OF YE ROMANS _From a rare old frieze (not) in ye British Museum._] * * * * * [Illustration: "Anyway, it's better to break one's ---- clubs than to lose one's ---- ---- temper!!"] * * * * * [Illustration: A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING.--_Obstructive Lady (in reply to the golfer's warning call)._ "The whole world wasn't made for golf, sir." _Youngster._ "No; but the links _wis_. 'Fore!"] * * * * * [Illustration: Unenviable position of Mr. Pottles, whose record drive has just landed fairly in the ribs of irascible old Colonel Curry, out for his constitutional canter.] * * * * * [Illustration: _Aunt Jabisca (pointing to earnest golfer endeavouring to play out of quarry)._ "Dear me, Maud, what a respectably dressed man that is breaking stones!"] * * * * * [Illustration: Suggestion for a rainy day. Spillikins on a grand scale.] * * * * * [Illustration: GOLF � LA WATTEAU--AND OTHERWISE] * * * * * [Illustration: _Major Brummel (comparing the length of his and his opponent's "drives")._ "I think I'm shorter than Mr. Simkins?" _Small Caddie (a new hand, greatly flattered at being asked, as he thinks, to judge of their personal appearance)._ "Yes, sir, and fatterer too, sir!" [_Delight of the gallant Major._] ] * * * * * [Illustration: ARRY AT GOLF.] * * * * * [Illustration: _Miss Dora (to Major Putter, who is playing an important match, and has just lost his ball)._ "Oh, Major, do come and take your horrid ball away from my little dog. He won't let me touch it, and I know he must be ruining his teeth!"] * * * * * THE LOST GOLFER [The sharp decline of ping-pong, whose attractions at its zenith seduced many golfers from the nobler sport, has left a marked void in the breasts of these renegades. Some of them from a natural sense of shame hesitate to return to their first love. The conclusion of the following lines should be an encouragement to this class of prodigal.] Just for a celluloid pillule he left us, Just for an imbecile batlet and ball, These were the toys by which Fortune bereft us Of Jennings, our captain, the pride of us all. Shopmen with clubs to sell handed him rackets, Rackets of sand-paper, rubber and felt, Said to secure an unplayable service, Pestilent screws and the death-dealing welt. Oft had we played with him, partnered him, sworn by him, Copied his pitches in height and in cut, Hung on his words as he delved in a bunker, Made him our pattern to drive and to putt. Benedick's with us, the major is of us, Swiper the county bat's still going strong; He alone broke from the links and the clubhouse, He alone sank in the slough of ping-pong. We have "come on"--but not his the example; Sloe-gin has quickened us--not his the cash; Holes done in 6 where a 4 would be ample Vexed him not, busy perfecting a smash. Rased was his name as a decadent angel, One more mind unhinged by a piffulent game, One more parlour-hero, the worshipped of school-girls Who once had a princely "plus 5" to his name. Jennings is gone; yet perhaps he'll come back to us, Healed of his hideous lesion of brain, Back to the links in the daytime; at twilight Back to his cosy club corner again. Back for the medal day, back for our foursomes, Back from the tables' diminishing throng, Back from the infantile, ceaseless half-volley, Back from the lunatic lure of ping-pong. * * * * * [Illustration: _Tennis Player (from London)._ "Don't see the fun o' this game--knockin' a ball into a bush, and then 'untin' about for it!"] * * * * * [Illustration: THE AMERICAN HUSBAND] * * * * * [Illustration: THE ENGLISH WIFE] * * * * * [Illustration: A TOO-FEEBLE EXPLETIVE _MacSymon._ "I saw you were carrying for the professor yesterday, Sandy. How does he play?" _Sandy._ "Eh, yon man'll never be a gowffer. Div ye ken what he says when he foozles a ba'?" _MacSymon._ "No. What does he say?" _Sandy._ "'_Tut-tut!_'"] * * * * * THE LINKS 'Tis a brilliant autumn day, And the breeze has blown away All the clouds that lowered gray; So methinks, As I've half an hour to spare, I will go and take the air, While the weather still is fair, On the Links. I admire the splendid view, The delicious azure hue Of the ocean and--when, _whew_! With a crack, Lo! there drops a little ball Which elects to break its fall By alighting on the small Of my back. In the distance someone cries Some remark about my eyes, None too pleasant, I surmise, From the tone; So away my steps I turn Till a figure I discern, Who is mouching by the burn All alone. He has lost a new "Eclipse," And a little word that slips From his sulky-looking lips Tells me true That, besides the missing ball, Which is gone beyond recall, He has lost--what's worst of all-- Temper, too. I conclude it will be best If I leave him unaddressed, Such a melancholy quest To pursue; And I pass to where I spy Clouds of sand uprising high Till they all but hide the sky From the view. They proceed, I understand, From a bunker full of sand, Where a golfer, club in hand, Freely swears As he hacks with all his might, Till his countenance is quite As vermilion as the bright Coat he wears. I observe him for a while With a highly-tickled smile, For it is the queerest style Ever seen: He is very short and stout, And he knocks the ball about, But he never gets it out On the green. Still I watch him chop and hack, Till I hear a sudden crack, And the club-head makes a track In the light-- There's a startled cry of "FORE!" As it flies, and all is o'er!-- I remember nothing more Till to-night, When I find myself in bed With a lump upon my head Like a penny loaf of bread; And methinks, For the future I'll take care When I want a little air, That I won't go anywhere Near the Links. [Illustration: Punch] * * * * * [Illustration: THE MISERIES OF A _VERY_ AMATEUR GOLFER He is very shy, and unfortunately has to drive off in front of the lady champion and a large gallery. He makes a tremendous effort. The ball travels at least five yards!] * * * * * [Illustration: _Golfer._ "And what's your name?" _Caddie._ "They ca' me 'breeks, but ma maiden name is Christy."] * * * * * [Illustration: "Mummy, what's that man for?"] * * * * * [Illustration: DISTINCTION WITHOUT DIFFERENCE.--_Sensitive Golfer (who has foozled)._ "Did you laugh at me, boy?" _Caddie._ "No, sir; I wis laughin' at anither man." _Sensitive Golfer._ "And what's funny about him?" _Caddie._ "He plays gowf awfu' like you, sir!"] * * * * * [Illustration: Jones cannot see his ball anywhere, although he is positive it fell about there somewhere.] * * * * * [Illustration: Caddie] NEVER HAVE A CADDIE WITH A SQUINT! (_A Lay of the Links_) They told me he was skilful, and assiduous, and true, They told me he had "carried" for the bravest and the best. His hair was soldier-scarlet, and his eyes were saucer blue, And one seemed looking eastward, whilst the other fronted west. His strabismus was a startler, and it shook my nerve at once; It affected me with dizziness, like gazing from a height. I straddled like a duffer, and I wavered like a dunce, And my right hand felt a left one, and my left felt far from right. As I watched him place my ball with his visual axes crossed, The very sunshine glimmered, with a queer confusing glint, I felt like a sick lubber on Atlantic surges tossed-- Oh! never have a caddie with a squint! I'm an "irritable duffer"--so my enemies declare,-- That is I'm very sensitive, and play a modest game. A very little puts me off my stroke, and, standing there, With his boot-heels at right angles, and his optics much the same, He maddened me--no less, and I felt that all success Against bumptious young McBungo--was impossible that day. I'd have parted with a fiver to have beaten him. His dress Was so very very swagger, and his scarlet cap so gay. He eyed my cross-eyed caddie with a supercilious smirk, I tried to set my features, and my nerves, like any flint; But my "knicker'd" knees were knocking as I wildly set to work. Oh! _never_ have a caddie with a squint! [Illustration: Golfer] I tried to look away from the spoiler of my play, But for fiendish fascination he was like a squinting snake; All the muffings man can muff I contrived to muff that day; My eyes were all askew and my nerves were all ashake. I seemed to squint myself, and not only with my eyes, My knees, my hands, my elbows, with obliquity were rife. McBungo's sleek sham sympathy and sinister surprise Made almost insupportable the burden of my life. He _was_ so beastly friendly, and he _was_ so blazing fair, So fulsomely effusive with suggestion, tip, and hint! And all the while that caddie stood serenely cock-eyed there. Oh! _never_ have a caddie with a squint! Miss Binks was looking on! On that maiden I was gone, Just as she was gone on golf, in perfervid Scottish style. On my merits with McBungo I should just about have won, But my shots to-day were such as made even Effie smile; Oh, the lumps of turf I lifted! Oh, the easy balls I missed! Oh, the bunkers I got bogged in! And at last a gentle scorn Curled the lips I would have given my pet "Putter" to have kissed. Such a bungler as myself her loved links had never borne; And all the while McBungo--the young crocodile!--bewailed What he called my "beastly luck," though his joy was plain as print, Whilst that squint grew worse and worse at each shot of mine which failed. Oh! never have a caddie with a squint! [Illustration: Lady Golfer] In "playing through the green" with my "brassie" I was seen At most dismal disadvantage on that miserable day; _He_ pointed through the rushes with cock-eyed, sardonic spleen,-- I followed his squint guidance, and I struck a yard away; But, oh! 'twas worst of all, when I tried to hole the ball. Oh, the ogre! _How_ he squinted at that crisis of the game! His hideous strabismus held me helpless, a blind thrall Shattered my nerves completely, put my skill to open shame. That squint would, I am sure, have upset the solar system-- Oho! the impish impudence, the gruesome goggle-glint! The low, malicious chuckle, as he softly muttered, "Missed 'im!" No, _never_ have a caddie with a squint! Yet all the same McBungo did _not_ get that rich Miss Binks, Who was so sweet in every way, especially on golf. He fancied he had cut me out that day upon those links, But although he won the game--at golf, his love-game came not off. He and that demon caddie tried between them very hard To shame me in the eyes of that dear enthusiast, But--well, my clubs she carries, whilst McBungo, evil-starred, Was caught by a Scotch vixen with an obvious optic cast! _That's_ Nemesis, I say! And she will not let him play At the game he so adores. True she's wealthy as the Mint. At golf, with Effie, I have passed many a happy day, But--we never have a caddie with a squint! A caddie who's a duffer, or a caddie who gets drunk; A caddie who regards all other caddies as his foes; A caddie who will snigger when you fumble, fail or funk; A caddie who will whistle, or seems ever on the doze; A caddie who's too tiny, or too big and broad of bulk; A caddie who gets playing with your clubs upon the sly; A caddie who will chatter, or a caddie who will sulk; All these are calculated a golf devotee to try; All these are most vexatious to a golfer of repute; And still more so to a novice. But just take a friendly hint! Take a caddie who's a duffer, or a drunkard, or a brute, _But never try a caddie with a squint!!!_ * * * * * [Illustration: ANOTHER LENTEN SACRIFICE.--_Golf Caddie (to Curate)._ "High tee, sir?" _Curate._ "No; put it on the ground. I give up sand during Lent."] * * * * * [Illustration: _Voice from the Hill._ "Now then, you young coward, don't stand about all day. Why don't you _take it away_ from the dog?"] * * * * * [Illustration: _Boy (to young lady, who has been unfortunate enough to upset Colonel Bunker)._ "You'd better ride on before 'e gets 'is breath, miss!" _Young Lady._ "Why?" _Boy._ "_I've 'eard 'im play golf!!!_"] * * * * * A GROWL FROM GOLFLAND Bores there are of various species, of the platform, of the quill, Bores obsessed by Christian Science or the Education Bill, But the most exasperating and intolerable bore Is the man who talks of nothing but the latest "rubber core." Place him in the Great Sahara, plant him on an Arctic floe, Or a desert island, fifteen thousand miles from Westward Ho! Pick him up a twelvemonth later, and I'll wager that you find Rubber filling _versus_ gutty still and solely on his mind. O American invaders, I accept your beef, your boots, Your historical romances, and your Californian fruits; But in tones of humble protest I am tempted to exclaim, "Can't you draw the line at commerce, can't you spare one British game?" I am but a simple duffer; I am quite prepared to state That my lowest round on record was a paltry 88; That my partner in a foursome needs the patience of a Job, That in moments of excitement I am apt to miss the globe. With my brassy and my putter I am very far to seek, Generally slice to cover with my iron and my cleek; But I boast a single virtue: I can honestly maintain I've escaped the fatal fever known as Haskell on the brain. * * * * * [Illustration: A golf case was recently before the Court of Appeal. Why not a Golf Court on the links?] * * * * * GOLF VICTOR! Sir Golf and Sir Tennis are fighting like mad-- Now Sir Tennis is blown, and Sir Golf's right above him, And his face has a look that is weary and sad, As he hastily turns to the ladies who love him, But the racket falls from him, he totters, and swirls, As he hears them cry, "Golf is the game for the girls!" * * * The girls crave for freedom, they cannot endure To be cramped up at tennis in courts that are poky And they are all of them certainly, perfectly sure That they'll never again touch "that horrible croquet," Where it's quite on the cards that they may play with papa, And where all that goes on is surveyed by mamma, To golf on the downs for the whole of the day Is "so awfully jolly," they keep on asserting, With a good-looking fellow to teach you the way, And to fill up the time with some innocent flirting, And it may be the maiden is woo'd and is won, Ere the whole of the round is completed and done. Henceforward, then, golf is the game for the fair-- At home, and abroad, or in pastures colonial, And the shouts of the ladies will quite fill the air For the links that will turn into bonds matrimonial, And for husbands our daughters in future will seek With the powerful aid of the putter and cleek! * * * * * [Illustration: Finis] BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE. 
11041	----	THE HALF-BACK A Story of School, Football, and Golf By RALPH HENRY BARBOUR Illustrated by B. West Clinedinst [Illustration] TO EVERY AMERICAN BOY WHO LOVES HONEST, MANLY SPORT, THIS STORY IS DEDICATED. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I.--THE BOY IN THE STRAW HAT. II.--STATION ROAD AND RIVER PATH. III.--OUTFIELD WEST. IV.--THE HEAD COACH. V.--A RAINY AFTERNOON. VI.--THE PRACTICE GAME. VII.--A LETTER HOME. VIII.--THE GOLF TOURNAMENT. IX.--AN EVENING CALL. X.--THE BROKEN BELL ROPE. XI.--TWO HEROES. XII.--THE PROBATION OF BLAIR. XIII.--THE GAME WITH ST. EUSTACE. XIV.--THE GOODWIN SCHOLARSHIP. XV.--THE BOAT RACE. XVI.--GOOD-BY TO HILLTON. XVII.--THE SACRED ORDER OF HULLABALOOLOO. XVIII.--VISITORS FROM MARCHDALE. XIX.--A VARSITY SUB. XX.--AN OLD FRIEND. XXI.--THE DEPARTURE. XXII.--BEFORE THE BATTLE. XXIII.--HARWELL _vs_. YATES--THE FIRST HALF. XXIV.--HARWELL _vs_. YATES--A FAULT AND A REQUITAL. XXV.--THE RETURN. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. A leap in the nick of time. Joel's arrival at school. His next drive took him cleanly over Rocky Bunker. "Stay where you are; the fellows are bringing a boat". The left-guard bore down straight upon Joel. Instantly the crimson crew seemed to lift their boat from the water. DIAGRAMS. Plan of Hillton Academy Golf Links. Diagram of Second Play. Diagram of Third Play. Positions, Harwell _vs_. Yates. CHAPTER I. THE BOY IN THE STRAW HAT. "How's craps, Country?" "Shut up, Bart! he may hear you." "What if he does, ninny? I want him to. Say, Spinach!" "Do you suppose he's going to try and play football, Bart?" "Not he. He's looking for a rake. Thinks this is a hayfield, Wall." The speakers were lying on the turf back of the north goal on the campus at Hillton Academy. The elder and larger of the two was a rather coarse-looking youth of seventeen. His name was Bartlett Cloud, shortened by his acquaintances to "Bart" for the sake of that brevity beloved of the schoolboy. His companion, Wallace Clausen, was a handsome though rather frail-looking boy, a year his junior. The two were roommates and friends. "He'd better rake his hair," responded the latter youth jeeringly. "I'll bet there's lots of hayseed in it!" The subject of their derisive remarks, although standing but a scant distance away, apparently heard none of them. "Hi, West!" shouted Bartlett Cloud as a youth, attired in a finely fitting golf costume, and swinging a brassie, approached. The newcomer hesitated, then joined the two friends. "Hello! you fellows. What's up? Thought it was golf, from the crowd over here." He stretched himself beside them on the grass. "Golf!" answered Bartlett Cloud contemptuously. "I don't believe you ever think of anything except golf, Out! Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night trying to drive the pillow out of the window with a bed-slat?" "Oh, sometimes," answered Outfield West smilingly. "There's a heap more sense in being daft over a decent game like golf than in going crazy about football. It's just a kid's game." "Oh, is it?" growled Bartlett Cloud. "I'd just like to have you opposite me in a good stiff game for about five minutes. I'd show you something about the 'kid's game!'" "Well, I don't say you couldn't knock me down a few times and walk over me, but who wants to play such games--except a lot of bullies like yourself?" "Plenty of fellows, apparently," answered the third member of the group, Wallace Clausen, hastening to avert the threatening quarrel. "Just look around you. I've never seen more fellows turn out at the beginning of the season than are here to-day. There must be sixty here." "More like a hundred," grunted "Bart" Cloud, not yet won over to good temper. "Every little freshman thinks he can buy a pair of moleskins and be a football man. Look at that fellow over yonder, the one with the baggy trousers and straw hat. The idea of that fellow coming down here just out of the hayfield and having the cheek to report for football practice! What do you suppose he would do if some one threw a ball at him?" "Catch it in his hat," suggested Wallace Clausen. "He _does_ look a bit--er--rural," said Outfield West, eying the youth in question. "I fear he doesn't know a bulger from a baffy," he added sorrowfully. "What's more to the subject," said Wallace Clausen, "is that he probably doesn't know a touch-down from a referee. There's where the fun will come in." "Well, I'm no judge of football, thank goodness!" answered West, "but from the length of that chap I'll bet he's a bully kicker." "Nonsense. That's what a fellow always thinks who doesn't know anything about the game. It takes something more than long legs to make a good punter." "Perhaps; but there's one thing sure, Bart: that hayseed will be a better player than you at the end of two months--that is, if he gets taken on." "I'll bet you he won't be able to catch a punt," growled Cloud. "A fool like him can no more learn football than--than--" "Than you could learn golf," continued West sweetly. "Oh, shut up! I know a mule that plays golf better than you do." "Well, I sha'n't attempt to compete with your friends, Bart." "There you both go, quarreling again," cried Clausen. "If you don't shut up, I'll have to whip the pair of you." Wallace Clausen was about two thirds the size of Cloud, and lacked both the height and breadth of shoulder that made West's popular nickname of "Out" West seem so appropriate. Clausen's threat was so absurd that Cloud came back to good humor with a laugh, and even West grinned. "Come on, Wall--there's Blair," said Cloud. "You'd better come too, Out, and learn something about a decent game." West shook his head, and the other two arose and hurried away to where the captain of the school eleven was standing beneath the west goal, surrounded by a crowd of variously attired football aspirants. West, left to himself, sighed lazily and fell to digging holes in the turf with his brassie. Tiring of this amusement in a trice, he arose and sauntered over to the side-line and watched the operations. Some sixty boys, varying in age from fifteen to nineteen, some clothed in full football rig, some wearing the ordinary dress in which they had stepped from the school rooms an hour before, all laughing or talking with the high spirits produced upon healthy youth by the tonic breezes of late September, were standing about the gridiron. I have said that all were laughing or talking. This is not true; one among them was silent. For standing near by was the youth who had aroused the merriment of Cloud and Clausen, and who West had shortly before dubbed "rural." And rural he looked. His gray and rather wrinkled trousers and his black coat and vest of cheap goods were in the cut of two seasons gone, and his discolored straw hat looked sadly out of place among so many warm caps. But as he watched the scene with intent and earnest face there was that about him that held West's attention. He looked to be about seventeen. His height was above the ordinary, and in the broad shoulders and hips lay promise of great strength and vigor. But it was the face that attracted West most. So earnest, honest, and fearless was it that West unconsciously wished to know it better, and found himself drawing nearer to the straw hat and baggy gray trousers. But their owner appeared to be unconscious of his presence and West paused. "I don't believe that chap knows golf from Puss-in-the-Corner," mused West, "but I'll bet a dozen Silvertowns that he could learn; and that's more than most chaps here can. I almost believe that I'd loan him my new dogwood driver!" Wesley Blair, captain of the eleven, was bringing order out of chaos. Blair was one of the leaders in school life at Hillton, a strongly built, manly fellow, beloved of the higher class boys, adored from a distance by the youngsters. Blair was serving his second term as football captain, having been elected to succeed himself the previous fall. At this moment, attired in the Crimson sweater, moleskin trousers, and black and crimson stockings that made up the school uniform, he looked every inch the commander of the motley array that surrounded him. "Warren, you take a dozen or so of these fellows over there out of the way and pass the ball awhile. Get their names first.--Christie, you take another dozen farther down the field." The crowd began to melt away, squad after squad moving off down the field to take position and learn the rudiments of the game. Blair assembled the experienced players about him and, dividing them into two groups, put them to work at passing and falling. The youth with the straw hat still stood unnoticed on the side-line. When the last of the squads had moved away he stepped forward and addressed the captain: "Where do you want me?" Blair, suppressing a smile of amusement as he looked the applicant over, asked: "Ever played any?" "Some; I was right end on the Felton Grammar School team last year." "Where's Felton Grammar School, please?" "Maine, near Auburn." "Oh! What's your name?" "Joel March." "Can you kick?" "Pretty fair." "Well, show me what you consider pretty fair." He turned to the nearest squad. "Toss me the ball a minute, Ned. Here's a chap who wants to try a kick." Ned Post threw the ball, and his squad of veterans turned to observe the odd-looking country boy toe the pigskin. Several audible remarks were made, none of them at all flattering to the subject of them; but if the latter heard them he made no sign, but accepted the ball from Blair without fumbling it, much to the surprise of the onlookers. Among these were Clausen and Cloud, their mouths prepared for the burst of ironical laughter that was expected to follow the country boy's effort. "Drop or punt?" asked the latter, as he settled the oval in a rather ample hand. "Which can you kick best?" questioned Blair. The youth considered a moment. "I guess I can punt best." He stepped back, balancing the ball in his right hand, took a long stride forward, swung his right leg in a wide arc, dropped the ball, and sent it sailing down the field toward the distant goal. A murmur of applause took the place of the derisive laugh, and Blair glanced curiously at the former right end-rush of the Felton Grammar School. "Yes, that's pretty fair. Some day with hard practice you may make a kicker." Several of the older fellows smiled knowingly. It was Blair's way of nipping conceit in the bud. "What class are you in?" "Upper middle," replied the youth under the straw hat, displaying no disappointment at the scant praise. "Well, March, kindly go down the field to that last squad and tell Tom Warren that I sent you. And say," he continued, as the candidate started off, and he was struck anew with the oddity of the straw hat and wrinkled trousers, "you had better tell him that you are the man that punted that ball." "That chap has got to learn golf," said Outfield West to himself as he turned away after witnessing the incident, "even if I have to hog-tie him and teach it to him. What did he say his name was? February? March? That was it. It's kind of a chilly name. I'll make it a point to scrape acquaintance with him. He's a born golfer. His calm indifference when Blair tried to 'take him down' was beautiful to see. He's the sort of fellow that would smile if he made a foozle in a medal play." West drew a golf ball from his pocket and, throwing it on the turf, gave it a half-shot off toward the river, following leisurely after it and pondering on the possibility of making a crack golfer out of a country lad in a straw hat. Over on the gridiron, meanwhile, the candidates for football honors were limbering up in a way that greatly surprised not a few of the inexperienced. It is one thing to watch the game from the grand stand or side-lines and another to have an awkward, wobbly, elusive spheroid tossed to the ground a few feet from you and be required to straightway throw yourself upon it in such manner that when it stops rolling it will be snugly stowed between you and the ground. If the reader has played football he will know what this means. If he has not--well, there is no use trying to explain it to him. He must get a ball and try it for himself. But even this exercise may lose its terrors after a while, and when at the end of an hour or more the lads were dismissed, there were many among them, who limped back to their rooms sore and bruised, but proudly elated over their first day with the pigskin. Even to the youth in the straw hat it was tiresome work, although not new to him, and after practice was over, instead of joining in the little stream that eddied back to the academy grounds, he struck off to where a long straggling row of cedars and firs marked the course of the river. Once there he found himself standing on a bluff with the broad, placid stream stretching away to the north and south at his feet. The bank was some twenty feet high and covered sparsely with grass and weeds; and a few feet below him a granite bowlder stuck its lichened head outward from the cliff, forming an inviting seat from which to view the sunset across the lowland opposite. The boy half scrambled, half fell the short distance, and, settling himself in comfort on the ledge, became at once absorbed in his thoughts. Perhaps he was thinking a trifle sadly of the home which he had left back there among the Maine hills, and which must have seemed a very long way off; or perhaps he was dwelling in awe upon the erudition of that excellent Greek gentleman, Mr. Xenophon, whose acquaintance, by means of the Anabasis, he was just making; or perhaps he was thinking of no more serious a subject than football and the intricate art of punting. But, whatever his thoughts may have been, they were doomed to speedy interruption, as will be seen. Outfield West left the campus behind and, with the little white ball soaring ahead, took his way leisurely to the woods that bordered the tiny lake. Here he spent a quarter of an hour amid the tall grass and bushes, fighting his way patiently out of awkward lies, and finally driving off by the river bank, where a stretch of close, hard sod offered excellent chances for long shots. Again and again the ball flew singing on its way, till at last the campus was at hand again, and Stony Bunker intervened between West and Home. Stony Bunker lay close to the river bluff and was the terror of all Hillton golfers, for, while a too short stroke was likely to leave you in the sand pit, a too vigorous one was just as likely to land you in the river. West knew Stony Bunker well by reason of former meetings, and he knew equally well what amount of swing was necessary to land just over the hazard, but well short of the bluff. Perhaps it was the brassie that was to blame--for a full-length, supple-shafted, wooden driver would have been what you or I would have chosen for that stroke--or perhaps West himself was to blame. That as it may be, the fact remains that that provoking ball flew clear over the bunker as though possessed of wings and disappeared over the bluff! With an exclamation of disgust West hurried after, for when they cost thirty-five cents apiece golf balls are not willingly lost even by lads who, like Outfield West, possess allowances far in excess of their needs. But the first glance down the bank reassured him, for there was the runaway ball snugly ensconced on the tiny strip of sandy beach that intervened between the bank and the water. West grasped an overhanging fir branch and swung himself over the ledge. Now, that particular branch was no longer youthful and strong, and consequently when it felt the full weight of West's one hundred and thirty-five pounds it simply broke in his hand, and the boy started down the steep slope with a rapidity that rather unnerved him and brought an involuntary cry of alarm to his lips. It was the cry that was the means of saving him from painful results, since at the bottom of the bank lay a bed of good-sized rocks that would have caused many an ugly bruise had he fallen among them. But suddenly, as he went falling, slipping, clutching wildly at the elusive weeds, he was brought up with a suddenness that drove the breath from his body. Weak and panting, he struggled up to the top of the jutting ledge, assisted by two strong arms, and throwing himself upon it looked wonderingly around for his rescuer. Above him towered the boy in the straw hat. CHAPTER II. STATION ROAD AND RIVER PATH. Traveling north by rail up the Hudson Valley you will come, when some two hours from New York, to a little stone depot nestling at the shoulder of a high wooded hill. To reach it the train suddenly leaves the river a mile back, scurries across a level meadow, shrills a long blast on the whistle, and pauses for an instant at Hillton. If your seat chances to be on the left side of the car, and if you look quickly just as the whistle sounds, you will see in the foreground a broad field running away to the river, and in it an oval track, a gayly colored grand stand, and just beyond, at some distance from each other, what appear to the uninitiated to be two gallows. Farther on rises a gentle hill, crowned with massive elms, from among which tower the tops of a number of picturesque red-brick buildings. Then the train hurries on again, under the shadow of Mount Adam, where in the deep maple woods the squirrels leap all day among the tree tops and where the sunlight strives year after year to find its way through the thick shade, and once more the river is beside you, the train is speeding due north again, and you have, perhaps without knowing it, caught a glimpse of Hillton Academy. From the little stone station a queer old coach rumbles away down a wide country road. It carries the mail and the village supplies and, less often, a traveler; and the driver, "Old Joe" Pike, has grown gray between the station and the Eagle Tavern. If, instead of going on to the north, you had descended from the train, and had mounted to the seat beside "Old Joe," you would have made the acquaintance of a very worthy member of Hillton society, and, besides, have received a deal of information as the two stout grays trotted along. "Yes, that's the 'Cademy up there among them trees, That buildin' with the tower's the 'Cademy Buildin', and the squatty one that you can just see is one of the halls--Masters they call it, after the man that founded the school. The big, new buildin' is another of 'em, Warren; and Turner's beyond it; and if you look right sharp you can see Bradley Hall to the left there. "Here's where we turn. Just keep your foot on that mail-bag, if you please, sir. There's the village, over yonder to the right. Kind of high up, ain't it? Ev'ry time any one builds he goes higher up the hill. That last house is old man Snyder's. Snyder says he can't help lookin' down on the rest of us. He, he! "That road to the left we're comin' to 's Academy Road. This? Well, they used to call it Elm Street, but it's generally just 'the Station Road' nowadays. Now you can see the school pretty well, sir. That squatty place's the gymnasium; and them two littler houses of brick's the laboratories. Then the house with the wide piazza, that's Professor Wheeler's house; he's the Principal, you know. And the one next it, the yellow wooden house, I mean, that's what they call Hampton House. It's a dormatory, same as the others, but it's smaller and more select, as you might say. "Hold tight, sir, around this corner. Most of them, the lads, sir, live in the village, however. You see, there ain't rooms enough in the 'Cademy grounds. I heard the other day that there's nigh on to two hundred and twenty boys in the school this year; I can remember when they was'nt but sixty, and it was the biggest boardin' school for boys in New York State. And that wa'n't many years ago, neither. The boys? Oh, they're a fine lot, sir; a bit mischievous at times, of course, but we're used to 'em in the village. And, bless you, sir, what can you expect from a boy anyhow? There ain't none of 'em perfect by a long shot; and I guess I ought to know--I've raised eight on 'em. There's the town hall and courthouse, and the Methodist church beyond. And here we are, sir, at the Eagle, and an hour before supper. Thank you, sir. Get ap!" * * * * * Hillton Academy claims the distinction of being well over a century old. Founded in 1782 by one Peter Masters, LL.D., a very good and learned pedagogue, it has for more than a hundred years maintained its high estate among boys' schools. The original charter provides "that there be, and hereby is, established ... an Academy for promoting Piety and Virtue, and for the Education of Youth in the English, Latin, and Greek Languages, in Writing, Arithmetic, Music, and the Art of Speaking, Practical Geometry, Logic, and Geography, and such other of the Liberal Arts and Sciences or Languages as opportunity may hereafter permit, and as the Trustees, hereinafter provided, shall direct." In the catalogue of Hillton Academy you may find a proud list of graduates that includes ministers plenipotentiary, members of cabinets, governors, senators, representatives, supreme court judges, college presidents, authors, and many, many other equally creditable to their alma mater. The founder and first principal of the academy passed away in 1835, as an old record says, "full of honor, and commanding the respect and love of all who knew him." He was succeeded by that best-beloved of American schoolmasters, Dr. Hosea Bradley, whose portrait, showing a tall, dignified, and hale old gentleman, with white hair, and dressed in ceremonious broadcloth, still hangs behind the chancel of the school chapel. Dr. Bradley resigned a few years before his death, in 1876, and the present principal, John Ross Wheeler, A.M., professor of Latin, took the chair. As Professor Wheeler is a man of inordinate modesty, and as he is quite likely to read these words, I can say but little about him. Perhaps the statement of a member of the upper middle class upon his return from a visit to the "office" will serve to throw some light on his character, Said the boy: "I tell _you_ I don't want to go through with that again! I'll take a licking first! He says things that count! You see, 'Wheels' has been a boy himself, and he hasn't forgotten it; and that--that makes a difference somehow!" Yes, that disrespectful lad said "Wheels!" I have no excuse to offer for him; I only relate the incident as it occurred. The buildings, many of them a hundred years old, are with one exception of warm-hued red brick. The gymnasium is built of red sandstone. Ivy has almost entirely hidden the walls of the academy building and of Masters Hall. The grounds are given over to well-kept sod, and the massive elms throw a tapestry of grateful shade in summer, and in winter hold the snow upon their great limbs and transform the Green into a fairyland of white. From the cluster of buildings the land slopes away southward, and along the river bluff a footpath winds past the Society House, past the boathouse steps, down to the campus. The path is bordered by firs, and here and there a stunted maple bends and nods to the passing skiffs. Opposite the boat house, a modest bit of architecture, lies Long Isle, just where the river seemingly pauses for a deep breath after its bold sweep around the promontory crowned by the Academy Buildings. Here and there along the path are little wooden benches to tempt the passer to rest and view from their hospitable seats the grand panorama of gently flowing river, of broad marsh and meadow beyond, of tiny villages dotting the distances, and of the purple wall of haze marking the line of the distant mountains. Opposite Long Isle, a wonderful fairyland inaccessible to the scholars save on rare occasions, the river path meets the angle of the Station Road, where the coach makes its first turn. Then the path grows indistinct, merges into a broad ten-acre plot whereon are the track, gridiron, baseball ground, and the beginning of the golf links. This is the campus. And here is Stony Bunker, and beyond it is the bluff and the granite ledge; and lo! here we are back again at the point from which we started on our journey of discovery; back to Outfield West and to the boy in the ridiculous straw hat. CHAPTER III. OUTFIELD WEST. It was several moments before West recovered his breath enough to speak, during which time he sat and gazed at his rescuer in amazement not unmixed with curiosity. And the rescuer looked down at West in simple amusement. "Thanks," gasped West at length. "I suppose I'd have broke my silly neck if you hadn't given me a hand just when you did." The other nodded. "You're welcome, of course; but I don't believe you'd have been very much hurt. What's that thing?" nodding toward the brassie, still tightly clutched in West's hand. "A bras--a golf club. I was knocking a ball around a bit, and it went over the cliff here." "I should think golf was a rather funny sort of a game." "It isn't funny at all, if you know anything about it," replied West a trifle sharply. The rescuer was on dangerous ground, had he but known it. "Isn't it? Well, I guess it is all in getting used to it. I don't believe I'd care much for tumbling over cliffs that way; I should think it would use a fellow up after a while." "Look here," exclaimed West, "you saved me an ugly fall, and I'm very much obliged, and all that; but--but you don't know the first thing about golf, and so you had better not talk about it." He made an effort to gain his feet, but sat down again with a groan. "You sit still a while," said the boy in the straw hat, "and I'll drop down and get that ball for you." Suiting the action to the word, he lowered himself over the ledge, and slid down the bank to the beach. He dropped the golf ball in his pocket, after examining it with deep curiosity, and started back. But the return was less easy than the descent had been. The bank was gravelly, and his feet could gain no hold. Several times he struggled up a yard or so, only to slip back again to the bottom. "I tell you what you do," called West, leaning over. "You get a bit of a run and get up as high as you can, and try and catch hold of this stick; then I'll pull you up." The other obeyed, and succeeded in getting a firm hold of the brassie, but the rest was none so easy. West pulled and the other boy struggled, and then, at last, when both were out of breath, the straw hat rose above the ledge and its wearer scrambled up. Sitting down beside West he drew the ball from his pocket and handed it over. "What do they make those of?" he asked. "Gutta percha," answered West. "Then they're molded and painted this way. You've never played golf, have you?" "No, we don't know much about it down our way. I've played baseball and football some. Do you play football?" "No, I should say not," answered West scornfully. "You see," more graciously, "golf takes up about all my time when I haven't got some lesson on; and this is the worst place for lessons you ever saw. A chap doesn't get time for anything else." The other boy looked puzzled. "Well, don't you want to study?" West stared in amazement. "Study! Want to? Of course I don't! Do you?" "Very much. That's what I came to school for." "Oh!" West studied the strange youth dubiously. Plainly, he was not at all the sort of boy one could teach golf to. "Then why were you trying for the football team awhile ago?" "Because next to studying I want to play football more than anything else. Don't you think I'll have time for it?" "You bet! And say, you ought to learn golf. It's the finest sport going." West's hopes revived. A fellow that wanted sport, if only football, could not be a bad sort. Besides, he would get over wanting to study; that, to West, was a most unnatural desire. "There isn't half a dozen really first-class players in school. You get some clubs and I'll teach you the game." "That's very good of you," answered the boy in the straw hat, "and I'm very much obliged, but I don't think I'll have time. You see I'm in the upper middle, and they say that it's awfully hard to keep up with. Still, I should really like to try my hand at it, and if I have time I'll ask you to show me a little about it. I expect you're the best player here, aren't you?" West, extremely gratified, tried to conceal his pleasure. "Oh, I don't know. There's Wesley Blair--he's captain of the school eleven, you know--he plays a very good game, only he has a way of missing short puts. And then there's Louis Whipple. The only thing about Whipple is that he tries to play with too few clubs. He says a fellow can play just as well with a driver and a putter and a niblick as he can with a dozen clubs. Of course, that's nonsense. If Whipple would use some brains about his clubs he'd make a rather fair player. There are one or two other fellows in school who are not so bad. But I believe," magnanimously, "that if Blair had more time for practicing he could beat _me_." West allowed his hearer a moment in which to digest this. The straw hat was tilted down over the eyes of its wearer, who was gazing thoughtfully over the river. "I suppose he's kept pretty busy with football." "Yes, he's daft about it. Otherwise he's a fine chap. By the way, where'd you learn to kick a ball that way?" "On the farm. I used to practice when I didn't have much to do, which wasn't very often. Jerry Green and I--Jerry's our hired man--we used to get out in the cow pasture and kick. Then I played a year with our grammar-school eleven." "Well, that was great work. If you could only drive a golf ball like that! Say, what's your name?" "Joel March." "Mine's Outfield West. The fellows call me 'Out' West. My home's in Pleasant City, Iowa. You come from Maine, don't you?" "Yes; Marchdale. It's just a corner store and a blacksmith shop and a few houses. We've lived there--our family, I mean--for over a hundred years." "Phew!" whistled West. "Dad's the oldest settler in our county, and he's been there only forty years. Great gobble! We'd better be scooting back to school. Come on. I'm all right now, though I _was_ a bit lame after that tumble." The two boys scrambled up the bank and set out along the river path. The sun had gone down behind the mountains, and purple shadows were creeping up from the river. The tower of the Academy Building still glowed crimson where the sun-rays shone on the windows. "Where's your room?" asked West. "Thirty-four Masters Hall," answered Joel March; for now that we have twice been introduced to him there is no excuse for us to longer ignore his name. "Mine's in Hampton House," said West. "Number 2. I have it all to myself. Who's in with you?" "A fellow named Sproule." "'Dickey' Sproule? He's an awful cad. Why didn't you get a room in the village? You have lots more fun there; and you can get a better room too; although some of the rooms in Warren are not half bad." "They cost too much," replied March. "You see, father's not very well off, and can't help me much. He pays my tuition, and I've enough money of my own that I've earned working out to make up the rest. So, of course, I've got to be careful." "Well, you're a queer chap!" exclaimed West. "Why?" asked Joel March. "Oh, I don't know. Wanting to study, and earning your own schooling, and that sort of thing." "Oh, I suppose your father has plenty of money, hasn't he?" "Gobs! I have twenty dollars a month allowance for pocket money." "I wish I had," answered March. "You must have a good deal saved up by the end of the year." West stared. "Saved? Why, I'm dead broke this minute. And I owe three bills in town. Don't tell any one, because it's against the rules to have bills, you know. Anyhow, what's the good of saving? There's lots more." It was March's turn to stare. "What do you spend it for?" he asked. "Oh, golf clubs and balls, and cakes and pies and things," answered West carelessly. "Then a fellow has to dress a little, or the other fellows look down on you." "Do they?" March cast a glance over his own worn apparel. "Then I guess I must try their eyes a good deal." "Well, I wouldn't care--much," answered West halfheartedly. "Though of course that hat--" "Yes, I suppose it is a little late for straws." West nodded heartily. "I was going to get a felt in Boston, but--well, I saw something else I wanted worse; and it was my own money." "What was it?" asked West curiously. "A book." West whistled. "Well, you can get a pretty fair one in the village at Grove's. And--and a pair of trousers if you want them." March nodded, noncommittingly. They had reached the gymnasium. "I'm going in for a shower," said West. "You'd better come along." March shook his head. "I guess not to-night. It's most supper time, and I want to read a little first. Good-night." "Good-night," answered West. "I'm awfully much obliged for what you did, you know. Come and see me to-morrow if you can; Number 2 Hampton. Good-night." Joel March turned and retraced his steps to his dormitory. He found his roommate reading at the table when he entered Number 34. Sproule looked up and observed: "I saw you with Outfield West a moment ago. It looks rather funny for a 'grind,' as you profess to be, hobnobbing with a Hampton House swell." "I haven't professed to be a 'grind,'" answered Joel quietly, as he opened his Greek. "Well, your actions profess it. And West will drop you quicker than a hot cake when he finds it out. Why, he never studies a lick! None of those Hampton House fellows do." March made no answer, but presently asked, in an effort to be sociable: "What are you reading?" "The Three Cutters; ever read it?" "No; what's it about?" "Oh, pirates and smuggling and such." "I should think it would be first rate." "It is. I'd let you take it after I'm through, only it isn't mine; I borrowed it from Billy Cozzens." "Thanks," answered Joel, "but I don't believe I'd have time for it." "Humph!" grunted Sproule. "There you are again, putting on airs. Just wait until you've been here two or three months; I guess I won't hear so much about study then." Joel received this taunt in silence, and, burying his head in his hands, tackled the story of Cyrus the Younger. Joel had already come to a decision regarding Richard Sproule, a decision far from flattering to that youth. But in view of the fact that the two were destined to spend much of their time together, Joel recognized the necessity of making the best of his roommate, and of what appeared to be an unsatisfactory condition. During the two days that Joel had been in school Sproule had nagged him incessantly upon one subject or another, and so far Joel had borne the persecution in silence. "But some day," mused Joel, "I'll just _have_ to punch his head!" Richard Sproule was a member of the senior class, and monitor for the floor upon which he had his room. He had, perhaps, no positive meanness in him. Most of his unpleasantness was traceable to envy. Just at present he was cultivating a dislike for Joel because of the latter's enviable success at lessons and because a resident of Hampton House had taken him up. Sproule cared nothing for out-of-door amusements and hated lessons. His whole time, except when study was absolutely compulsory, was taken up with the reading of books of adventure; and Captain Marryat and Fenimore Cooper were far closer acquaintances than either Cicero or Caesar. Richard Sproule was popularly disliked and shunned. In the dining hall that evening Joel ate and relished his first hearty meal since he had arrived at Hillton. The exercise had brought back a naturally good appetite, which had been playing truant. The dining hall takes up most of the ground floor of Warren Hall. Eight long, roomy tables are arranged at intervals, with broad aisles between, through which the white-aproned waiters hurry noiselessly about. To-night there was a cheerful clatter of spoons and forks and a loud babel of voices, and Joel found himself hugely enjoying the novelty of eating in the presence of more than a hundred and fifty other lads. Outfield West and his neighbors in Hampton House occupied a far table, and there the noise was loudest. West was dressed like a young prince, and his associates were equally as splendid. As Joel observed them, West glanced across and saw him, and waved a hilarious greeting with a soup spoon. Joel nodded laughingly back, and then settled in his chair with an agreeable sensation of being among friends. This feeling grew when, toward the end of his meal, Wesley Blair, in leaving the hall, saw him and stopped beside his chair. "How did you get on this afternoon?" Blair asked pleasantly. "Very well, thanks," Joel replied. "That's good. By the way, go and see Mr. Beck to-morrow and get examined. Tell him I sent you. You'll find him at the gym at about eleven. And don't forget to show up to-morrow at practice." The elder youth passed on, leaving Joel the center of interest for several moments. His left-hand neighbor, a boy who affected very red neckties, and who had hitherto displayed no interest in his presence, now turned and asked if he knew Blair. "No," replied Joel. "I met him only to-day on the football field." "Are you on the 'Leven?" "No, but I'm trying for it." "Well, I guess you'll make it; Blair doesn't often go out of his way to encourage any one." "I hope I shall," answered Joel. "Who is Mr. Beck, please?" "He's director of the gym. You have to be examined, you know; if you don't come up to requirements you can't go in for football." "Oh, thank you." And Joel applied himself to his pudding, and wondered if there was any possibility of his not passing. Apparently there was not; for when, on the following day, he presented himself at the gymnasium, he came through the ordeal of measurement and test with flying colors, and with the command to pay special attention to the chest-weights, was released, at liberty to "go in" for any sport he liked. Despite his forebodings, the studies proved not formidable, and at four o'clock Joel reported for football practice with a comforting knowledge of duties performed. An hour and a half of steady practice, consisting of passing, falling, and catching punts, left the inexperienced candidates in a state of breathless collapse when Blair dismissed the field. West did not turn up at the gridiron, but a tiny scarlet speck far off on the golf links proclaimed his whereabouts. On the way back to the grounds a number of youthful juniors, bravely arrayed in their first suits of football togs, loudly denounced the vigor of the practice, and pantingly made known to each other their intentions to let the school get along as best it might without their assistance on its eleven. They would be no great loss, thought Joel, as he trudged along in the rear of the procession, and their resignation would probably save Blair the necessity of incurring their dislikes when the process of "weeding-out" began. Although no special attention had been given to Joel during practice, yet he had been constantly aware of Blair's observation, and had known that several of the older fellows were watching his work with interest. His feat of the previous day had already secured to him a reputation throughout the school, and as the little groups of boys passed him he heard himself alluded to as "the country fellow that punted fifty yards yesterday," or "the chap that made that kick." And when the three long, steep flights of Masters confronted him he took them two steps at a time, and arrived before the door of Number 34 breathless, but as happy as a schoolboy can be. CHAPTER IV. THE HEAD COACH. "Upper Middle Class: Members will meet at the gym at 2.15, to march to depot and meet Mr. Remsen." "Louis WHIPPLE, _Pres't_." This was the notice pasted on the board in Academy Building the morning of Joel's fifth day at school. Beside it were similar announcements to members of the other classes. As he stood in front of the board Joel felt a hand laid on his shoulder, and turned to find Outfield West by his side. "Are you going along?" asked that youth. "I don't believe so," answered Joel. "I have a Latin recitation at two." "Well, chuck it! Everybody is going--and the band, worse luck!" "Is there a band?" West threw up his hands in mock despair. "Is there a _band? Is_ there a band! Mr. March, your ignorance surprises and pains me. It is quite evident that you have never heard the Hillton Academy Band; no one who has ever heard it forgets. Yes, my boy, there _is_ a band, and it plays Washington Post, and Hail Columbia, and Hilltonians; and then it plays them all over again." "But I thought Mr. Remsen was not coming until Saturday?" "That," replied West, confidentially, "was his intention, but he heard of a youngster up here who is such an astonishingly fine punter that he decided to come at once and see for himself; and so he telegraphed to Blair this morning. And you and I, my lad, will March--see?--with the procession, and sing--" "'Hilltonians, Hilltonians, your crimson banner fling Unto the breeze, and 'neath its folds your anthem loudly sing! Hilltonians! Hilltonians! we stand to do or die, Beneath the flag, the crimson flag, that waves for victory!'" And, seizing Joel by the arm, West dragged him out of the corridor and down the steps into the warm sunlight of a September noon, chanting the school song at the top of his voice. A group of boys on the Green shouted lustily back, and the occupant of a neighboring window threw a cushion with unerring precision at West's head. Stopping to deposit this safely amid the branches halfway up an elm tree, the two youths sped across the yard toward Warren Hall and the dinner table. "You sit at our table, March," announced West. "Digbee's away, and you can have his seat. Come on." Joel followed, and found himself in the coveted precincts of the Hampton House table, and was introduced to five youths, who received him very graciously, and invited him to partake of such luxuries as pickled walnuts and peach marmalade. Joel was fast making the discovery that to be vouched for by Outfield West invariably secured the highest consideration. "I've been telling March here that it is his bounden duty to go to the station," announced West to the table at large. "Of course it is," answered Cooke and Cartwright and Somers, and two others whose names Joel did not catch. "The wealth, beauty, and fashion will attend in a body," continued Cooke, a stout, good-natured-looking boy of about nineteen, who, as Joel afterward learned, was universally acknowledged to be the dullest scholar in school. "Patriotism and--er--school spirit, you know, March, demand it." And Cooke helped himself bountifully to West's cherished bottle of catsup. "This is Remsen's last year as coach, you see," explained West, as he rescued the catsup. "I believe every fellow feels that we ought to show our appreciation of his work by turning out in force. It's the least we can do, I think. Mind you, I don't fancy football a little bit, but Remsen taught us to win from St. Eustace last year, and any one that helps down Eustace is all right and deserves the gratitude of the school and all honest folk." "Hear! hear!" cried Somers. "I'd like very well to go," said Joel, "but I've got a recitation at two." Cooke looked across at him sorrowfully. "Are you going in for study?" he asked. "I'm afraid so," answered Joel laughingly. "My boy, don't do it. There's nothing gained. I've tried it, and I speak from sad experience." "But how do you get through?" questioned Joel. "I will tell you." The stout youth leaned over and lowered his voice to a confidential whisper. "I belong to the same society as 'Wheels,' and he doesn't dare expel me." "I wish," said Joel in the laugh that followed, "that I could join that society." "Easy enough," answered Cooke earnestly. "I will put your name up at our next meeting. All you have to do is to forget all the Greek and Latin and higher mathematics you ever knew, give your oath never to study again, and appear at chapel two consecutive mornings in thigh boots and a plaid ulster." Despite West's pleas Joel refused to "cut" his recitation, promising, however, to follow to the station as soon as he might. "It's only a long mile," West asserted. "If you cut across Turner's meadow you'll make it in no time. And the train isn't due until three. You'll see me standing on the truck." And so Joel had promised, and later, from the seclusion of the schoolroom, which to-day was well-nigh empty, had heard the procession take its way down the road, headed by the school band, which woke the echoes with the brave strains of the Washington Post March. To-day the Aeneid lost much of its interest, and when the recitation was over Joel clapped his new brown felt hat on his head--for West had conducted him to the village outfitter the preceding day--and hurried up to his room to leave his book and pad. "Dickey" Sproule was stretched out upon the lounge--a piece of personal property of which he was very proud--reading Kenilworth. "Hello!" cried Joel, "why aren't you over at the lab? Isn't this your day for exploding things?" Sproule looked up and yawned. "Oh, I cut it. What's the good of knowing a lot of silly chemistry stuff when you're going to be an author?" "I should say it might be very useful to you; but I've never been an author, and perhaps I'm mistaken. Want to go to the station?" "What, to meet that stuck-up Remsen? I guess not. Catch me walking a mile and a half to see him!" "Well, I'm going," answered Joel. An inarticulate growl was the only response, and Joel took the stairs at leaps and bounds, and nearly upset Mrs. Cowles in the lower hall. "Dear me, Mr. March!" she exclaimed, as together they gathered up a load of towels, "is it only you, then? I thought surely it was a dozen boys at least." "I'm very sorry," laughed Joel. "I'm going to the station. Mr. Remsen is coming, you know. Have I spoiled these?" "No, indeed. So Mr. Remsen's coming. Well, run along. I'd go myself if I wasn't an old woman. I knew Mr. Remsen ten years ago, and a more bothersome lad we never had. He had Number 15, and we never knew what to expect next. One week he'd set the building on fire with his experiments, and the next he'd break all the panes in the window with his football. But then he was such a nice boy!" And with this seemingly contradictory statement the Matron trudged away with her armful of towels, and Joel took up his flight again, across the yard to Academy Road, and thence over the fence into Turner's meadows, where the hill starts on its rise to the village. Skirting the hill, he trudged on until presently the station could be seen in the distance. And as he went he reviewed the five days of his school existence. He remembered the strange feeling of loneliness that had oppressed him on his arrival, when, just as the sun was setting over the river, he had dropped down from the old stage coach in front of Academy Hall, a queer-looking, shabbily dressed country boy with a dilapidated leather valise and a brown paper parcel almost as big. He remembered the looks of scorn and derision that had met him as he had taken his way to the office, and, with a glow at his heart, the few simple, kindly words of welcome and the firm grasp of the hand from the Principal. Then came the first day at school, with the dread examinations, which after all turned out to be fairly easy, thanks to Joel's faculty for remembering what he had once learned. He remembered, too, the disparaging remarks of "Dickey" Sproule, who had predicted Joel's failure at the "exams.". "Who ever heard," Sproule had asked scornfully, "of a fellow making the upper middle class straight out of a country grammar school, without any coaching?" But when the lists were posted, Joel's name was down, and Sproule had taken deep offense thereat. "The school's going to the dogs," he had complained. "Examinations aren't nearly as hard as they were when _I_ entered." The third day, when he had kicked that football down the field, and, later, had made the acquaintance of Outfield West, seemed now to have been the turning point from gloom to sunshine. Since then Joel had changed from the unknown, derided youth in the straw hat to some one of importance; a some one to whom the captain of the school eleven spoke whenever they met, a chum of the most envied boy in the Academy, and a candidate for the football team for whom every fellow predicted success. But, best of all, in those few days he had gained the liking of well-nigh all of the teachers by the hearty way in which he pursued knowledge; for he went at Caesar as though he were trying for a touch-down, and tackled the Foundations of Rhetoric as though that study was an opponent on the gridiron. Even Professor Durkee, known familiarly among the disrespectful as "Turkey," lowered his tones and spoke with something approaching to mildness when addressing Joel March. Altogether, the world looked very bright to Joel to-day, and when, as presently, he drew near to the little stone depot, the sounds of singing and cheering that greeted his ears chimed in well with his mood. Truly "all Hillton" had turned out! The station platform and the trim graveled road surrounding it were dark with Hilltonian humanity and gay with crimson bunting. Afar down the road a shrill long whistle announced the approach of the train, and a comparative hush fell on the crowd. Joel descried Outfield West at once, and pushed his way to him through the throng just as the train came into sight down the track. West was surrounded on the narrow baggage truck by some half dozen of the choice spirits from Hampton House, and Joel's advent was made the occasion for much sport. "Ah, he comes! The Professor comes!" shouted West. "He tears himself from his studies and joins us in our frivolity," declaimed Cooke. "That's something you'll never have a chance of doing, Tom," answered Cartwright, as Joel was hauled on to the truck. "You'll never get near enough to a study to have to be torn away." "Study, my respected young friend," answered Cooke gravely, "is the bane of the present unenlightened age. In the good old days when everybody was either a Greek or a Roman or a barbarian, and so didn't have to study languages, and--" "Shut up! here's the train," cried West. "Now every fellow cheer, or he'll have me to fight." "Hooray! hooray! hooray!" yelled Cooke. "Somebody punch him, please," begged West, and Somers and another obliging youth thrust the offender off the truck and sat on his head. The train slowed down, stopped, and a porter appeared laden with a huge valise. This was the signal for a rush, and the darkey was instantly relieved of his burden and hustled back grinning to the platform. Then Joel caught sight of a gentleman in a neat suit of gray tweed descending the steps, and saw the pupils heave and push their ways toward him; and for a sight the arrival was hidden from view. Then the cheers for "Coach!" burst enthusiastically forth, the train was speeding from sight up the track, the band was playing Hilltonians, and the procession took up its march back to the Academy. When he at last caught a fair sight of Stephen Remsen, Joel saw a man of about twenty-eight years, gayly trudging at the head of the line, his handsome face smiling brightly as he replied to the questions and sallies of the more elderly youths who surrounded him. Joel's heart went out to Stephen Remsen at once. And neither then nor at any future time did he wonder at it. "That," thought Joel, "is the kind of fellow I'd like for a big brother. Although I never _could_ grow big enough to lick him." CHAPTER V. A RAINY AFTERNOON. The following day Joel arrived on the football field to discover the head coach in full charge. He was talking earnestly to Wesley Blair. His dress was less immaculate than upon the preceding afternoon, although not a whit less attractive to Joel. A pair of faded and much-darned red-and-black striped stockings were surmounted by a pair of soiled and patched moleskin trousers. His crimson jersey had faded at the shoulders to a pathetic shade of pink, and one sleeve was missing, having long since "gone over to the enemy." In contrast to these articles of apparel was his new immaculate canvas jacket, laced for the first time but a moment before. But he looked the football man that he was from head to toe, and Joel admired him immensely and was extremely proud when, as he was passing, Blair called him over and introduced him to Remsen. The latter shook hands cordially, and allowed his gaze to travel appreciatingly over Joel's five feet eight inches of bone and muscle. "I'm glad to know you, March," he said, "and glad that you are going to help us win." The greeting was so simple and sincere that Joel ran down the field a moment later, feeling that football honors were even more desirable than before. To-day the throng of candidates had dwindled down to some forty, of whom perhaps twenty were new men. The first and second elevens were lined up for the first time, and Joel was placed at left half in the latter. An hour of slow practice followed. The ball was given to the first eleven on almost every play, and as the second eleven were kept entirely on the defensive, Joel had no chance to show his ability at either rushing or kicking. Remsen was everywhere at once, scolding, warning, and encouraging in a breath, and the play took on a snap and vim which Wesley Blair, unassisted, had not been able to introduce. After it was over, Joel trotted back with the others to the gymnasium and took his first shower bath. On the steps outside was West, and the two boys took their way together to the Academy Building. "Did you hear Remsen getting after Bart Cloud?" asked West. "No. Who is Cloud?" "He plays right half or left half, I forget which, on the first eleven," answered West, "and he's about the biggest cad in the school. His father's an alderman in New York, they say, and has lots of money; but he doesn't let Bart handle much of it for him. He played on the team last year and did good work. But this season he's got a swelled head and thinks he doesn't have to play to keep his place; thinks it's mortgaged to him, you see. Remsen opened his eyes to-day, I guess! Whipple says Remsen called him down twice, and then told him if he didn't take a big brace he'd lose his position. Cloud got mad and told Clausen--Clausen's his chum--that if he went off the team he'd leave school. I guess few of us would be sorry. Bartlett Cloud's a coward from the toes up, March, and if he tries to make it unpleasant for you, why, just offer to knock him down and he'll change his tune." "Thank you for telling me," responded Joel, "but I don't expect to have much to do with him; I don't like his looks. I know the boy you mean, now. He's the fellow that called me names--'Country,' you know, and such--the first day we had practice. I heard him, but didn't let on. I didn't mind much, but it didn't win my love." West laughed uproariously and slapped Joel on the back. "Oh, you're a queer sort, March. I'd have had a fight on the spot. But you--Say, you're going to be an awful grind, March, if you keep on in your present terrible course. You won't have time for any fun at all. And I was going to teach you golf, you know. It's not nice of you, it really isn't." "I'll play golf with you the first afternoon we don't have practice, West, honestly. I'm awfully sorry I'm such a crank about lessons, but you see I've made up my mind to try for the--the--what scholarship is that?" "Carmichael?" suggested West. Joel shook his head. "No, the big one." West stared. "Do you mean the Goodwin scholarship?" "Yes, that's the one," answered Joel. West whistled. "Well, you're not modest to hurt, March. Why, man, that's a terror! You have to have the Greek alphabet backward, and never miss chapel all term to get a show at that. The Goodwin brings two hundred and forty dollars!" "That's why I want it," answered Joel. "If I win it it will pay my expenses for this year and part of next." "Well, of course I hope you'll make it," answered West, "but I don't believe you have much show. There's Knox, and Reeves, and--and two or three others all trying for it. Knox won the Schall scholarship last year. That carries two hundred even." "Well, anyhow, I'll try hard," answered Joel resolutely. "Of course. You ought to have it; you need it. Did I tell you that I won a Masters scholarship in my junior year? Yes, I did really. It was forty dollars. I remember that I bought two new putters and a jolly fine caddie bag." "You could do better than that if you'd try, West. You're awfully smart." "Who? Me?" laughed West. "Pshaw! I can't do any more than pass my exams. Of course I'm smart enough when it comes to lofting out of a bad lie or choosing a good club; but--" He shook his head doubtfully, but nevertheless seemed pleased at the idea. "No, I mean in other ways," continued Joel earnestly. "You could do better than half the fellows if you tried. And I wish you would try, West. You rich fellows in Hampton House could set such a good example for the youngsters if you only would. As it is, they admire you and envy you and think that it's smart to give all their time to play. I know, because I heard some of them talking about it the other day. 'You don't have to study,' said one; 'look at those swells in Hampton. They just go in for football and golf and tennis and all that, and they never have any trouble about passing exams.'" West whistled in puzzled amazement. "Why, March, you're setting out as a reformer; and you're talking just like one of those good boys in the story books. What's up?" Joel smiled at the other boy's look of wonderment. "Nothing's up, except that I want you to promise to study more. Of course, I know it sounds cheeky, West, but I don't mean to meddle in your business. Only--only--" Joel hesitated. "Only what? Out with it!" said West. They had reached the Academy Building and had paused on the steps. "Well, only--that you've been very kind to me, West, and I hate to see you wasting your time and know that you will wish you hadn't later, when you've left school, you know. That's all. It isn't that I want to meddle--" There was a moment of silence. Then: "The idea of your caring!" answered West. "You're a good chap, March, and--I tell you what I'll do. I _will_ go in more for lessons, after next week. You see there's the golf tournament next Saturday week, and I've got to put in a lot of hard practice between now and then. But after that I'll try and buckle down. You're right about it, March, I ought to do more studying, and I will _try_; although I don't believe I'll make much of a success as a 'grind.' And as to the--the--the rest that you said, why, I haven't been extraordinarily kind; I just sort of took to you that day on the campus because you looked to be such a plucky, go-ahead, long-legged chap, you know. I thought I'd rescue you from the ranks of the lowly and teach you golf and make a man of you generally. Instead of that"--West gave one of his expressive whistles--"instead of that, why, here you are turning me into a regular 'Masters Hall grind.' Thus do our brightest dreams fade. Well, I'm oil. Don't forget the upper middle class meeting to-night. They're going to vote on the Class Crew question, and we want all the votes we can get to down the fellows that don't want to pay the assessment. Good-night." And Outfield West took himself off toward his room, his broad shoulders well back, and his clear, merry voice singing the school song as he strode along. Joel turned into the library, feeling well satisfied with the result of his meddling, to pore over a reference book until supper time. The following morning Joel awoke to find a cold rain falling from a dull sky. The elms in the yard were dripping from every leaf and branch, and the walks held little gray pools that made the trip to breakfast a series of splashes. In the afternoon Joel got into his oldest clothes and tramped over to Hampton House. The window of West's room looked bright and cheerful, for a big wood fire was blazing on the hearth within. Joel kicked the mud from his shoes, and passing through the great white door with its old-fashioned fanlight above, tapped at West's room. A faint response from beyond the portal summoned him in. The owner of the room was sandpapering a golf shaft before the fire, and a deep expression of discontent was on his face. But his countenance lighted up at sight of his visitor, and he leaped to his feet and drew a second armchair before the hearth. "You're a brick, March! I was just wishing you roomed near enough so that I could ask you to come over and talk a bit. Isn't it a horrible day?" "It's awfully wet; but then it has to rain sometimes, I suppose," answered Joel as he took off his overcoat. "Yes, but it doesn't have to rain just when a fellow has fixed to practice golf, does it?" West growled. Joel laughed. "I thought the real, simon-pure golfer didn't mind the weather." "He doesn't as long as he can get over the ground, but the links here is like a quagmire when it rains. But never mind, we'll have a good chummy afternoon. And I've got some bully gingersnaps. Do you like gingersnaps?" Joel replied in the affirmative, and West produced a box of them from under the bed. "I have to keep these kinds of things hid, you know, because Blair and Cooke and the rest of the fellows would eat them all up. By the way, I made up a list of the things you'll have to get if you're going in for golf. Here it is. Of course, I only put down one of each, and only a dozen balls. I'll get the catalogue and we'll reckon up and see how much they come to." "But I don't think I can afford to buy anything like this, West," answered Joel doubtfully. "Nonsense! you've got to! A fellow has to have _necessities_! What's the first thing on the list? Read 'em off, will you?" "Driving cleek," read Joel. "Yes, but never mind the clubs. There are seven of them on the list and you can get pretty fair ones for a dollar and a half each. What's next?" "But that makes ten dollars and a half," cried Joel. "Of course it does. And cheap enough, too. Why, some of mine cost three dollars apiece! What's next?" "One dozen Silvertowns." "Correct; four dollars. Mark it down. Next?" "Caddie bag," responded Joel faintly. "A dollar and a half. Next." "But, West, I can't afford these things." "Nonsense, March! Still--well, you can call the bag a dollar even; though the dollar ones aren't worth much. Mine cost five." "But you have coat and trousers down. And shoes, and--" "Well, you can leave the shoes out, and get some hobnails and put them on the soles of any good heavy shoes. Then there's gloves. They cost about a dollar and a half. As for trousers, you _can_ do with ordinary ones, but--you've got to have a coat, March. A chap can't swing a club in a tight-fitting jacket like the one you've got on. Now let's reckon up." "There's no use in doing that, West," laughed Joel. "I can't buy one of these things, to say nothing of the whole list. I'm saving up for my football togs, and after I have those I sha'n't be able to buy anything else for months." West settled his chin in his hand and scowled at the flames. "It's too bad, March; and I put your name up for the Golf Club, too. You will join that, won't you? You must, now that I've put you up. It's only a dollar initiation fee and fifty cents dues." "Very well, then, I'll join the club," answered Joel. "Though I don't see what use there is in it, since I haven't anything to play with and wouldn't know how to play if I had." "Well, I'm going to teach you, you know. And as for clubs and things, why, I've got some oldish ones that will do fairly well; a beginner doesn't need extra good ones, you see. And then, for clothes--well, I guess fellows _have_ played in ordinary trousers and coat; and I've played myself in tennis shoes. And if you don't mind cold hands, why, you needn't have gloves. So, after all, we'll get on all right." West was quite cheerful again and, with a wealth of clubs--divers, spoons, bulgers, putters, baps, niblicks, and many other sorts--on the rug before him, chattered on about past deeds of prowess on the links until the room grew dark and the lamps in the yard shone fitfully through the rain, by which time a dozen clubs in various states of repair had been laid aside, the gingersnaps had been totally demolished, and West had forgotten all about the meanness of the weather and his lost practice. Then Cooke and Somers demanded admission, to the annoyance of both West and Joel, and the lamps were lighted, and Joel said good-night and hurried back to his room in order to secure a half hour's study ere supper time. CHAPTER VI. THE PRACTICE GAME. "First and second Eleven rushes and quarters down the field and practice formations. Backs remain here to kick!" shouted Wesley Blair. It was a dull and cold afternoon. The last recitation was over and half the school stood shivering about the gridiron or played leapfrog to keep warm. Stephen Remsen, in the grimiest of moleskins, stood talking to the captain, and, in obedience to the command of the latter, some fifteen youths, clad for the coming fray, were trotting down the field, while eight others, backs and substitute backs on the two teams, passed and dropped on the pigskin in an endeavor to keep warm. The first and second elevens were to play their first real game of the season at four o'clock, and meanwhile the players were down for a stiff thirty minutes of practice. Joel March shivered with the rest of the backs and waited for the coach and the captain to finish their consultation. Presently Blair trotted off down the field and Remsen turned to the backs. "Browne, Meach, and Turner, go down to about the middle of the field and return the balls. Cloud, take a ball over nearer the side-line and try some drop-kicks. Post, you do the same, please. And let me see, what is your name?" addressing a good-looking and rather slight youth. "Ah, yes, Clausen. Well, Clausen, you and Wills try some punts over there, and do try and get the leg swing right. March, take that ball and let me see you punt." Then began a time of sore tribulation for Joel; for not until ten minutes had passed did the ball touch his toe. His handling was wrong, his stepping out was wrong, and his leg-swing was very, very wrong! But he heard never a cross word from his instructor, and so shut his lips tight and bore the lecture in good-humored silence. "There," announced Remsen finally, "that's a lot better. Now kick." Joel caught the ball nicely, and sent it sailing far down the field. "That's a good kick, but it would have been better had you landed higher up on your foot. Try and catch the ball just in front of the arch of the foot. You take it about on the toe-cap. Remember that the broader the surface that propels the ball the greater will be the accuracy--that is, the ball has less chance of sliding off to one side when the striking surface is large. Here's your ball coming. Now try again, and remember what I have said about the swing at the hip. Forget that you have any joints at all, and just let the right side of you swing round as it will." Then Remsen passed on to the next man and Joel pegged away, doing better and better, as he soon discovered, every try, until a whistle blew from the middle of the field and the players gathered about the captains on the fifty-five-yard line. Joel was down to play left half on the second eleven, and beside him, at right, was Wills, a promising lower middle boy, who was an excellent runner, but who, so far, had failed to develop any aptitude for kicking. Cloud and Clausen occupied similar positions on the first eleven, and behind them stood Wesley Blair, the best full-back that Hillton Academy had possessed for many years. The full-back on the second eleven was Ned Post, a veteran player, but "as erratic as a mule," to use the words of Stephen Remsen. The first eleven was about six pounds heavier in the line than the team captained by Louis Whipple, who played at quarter, and about the same weight behind the line. It was a foregone conclusion that the first would win, but whether the second would score was a mooted point. Joel felt a bit nervous, now that he was in his first game of consequence, but forgot all about it a moment later when the whistle blew and Greer, the big first eleven center, tore through their line for six yards, followed by Wallace Clausen with the ball. Then there was a delay, for the right half when he tried to arise found that his ankle was strained, and so had to limp off the ground supported by Greer and Barnard, the one-hundred-and-sixty-pound right tackle. Turner, a new player, went on, and the ball was put in play again, this time for a try through left tackle. But the second's line held like a stone wall, and the runner was forced back with the loss of a yard. Then the first eleven guards fell back, and when the formation hit the second's line the latter broke like paper, and the first streamed through for a dozen yards. And so it went until the second found itself only a few yards from its goal line. There, with the backs pressed close against the forwards, the second held and secured the ball on downs, only to lose it again by a fumble on the part of Post. Then a delayed pass gained two yards for the first and a mass at left tackle found another. But the next play resulted disastrously, for when the ball was passed back there was no one to take it, and the quarter was borne back several yards before his own astounded players could come to his assistance. "That about settles Cloud," whispered Post to Joel, as they hurried up to take the new position. "That was his signal to take the leather through right end, and he was fast asleep. Remsen's laying for him." But the advantage to the second was of short duration, for back went the first's guards again, and down came the ball to their goal line with short, remorseless gains, and presently, when their quarter knelt on the last white line, the dreaded happened, and Blair lay between the posts with half the second eleven on top of him, but with the ball a yard over the line. An easy goal resulted, and just as the teams trotted back to mid-field the whistle sounded, and the first twenty-minute half was done. The players wrapped themselves warmly in blankets and squatted in the protection of the fence, and were immediately surrounded by the spectators. Remsen and Blair talked with this player and that, explaining his faults or saying a good word for his work. In the second half many of the second eleven went into the first, the deposed boys retiring to the side-lines, and several substitutes were put into the second. Joel went back to full, Ned Post taking Clausen's place at right half on the first eleven and Turner becoming once more a spectator. It was the second eleven's ball, and Joel raced down the field after the kick-off as far as their twenty-yard line, and there caught Blair's return punt very neatly, ran three yards under poor interference, and was then seized by the mighty Greer and hurled to earth with a shock that completely took the breath out of him for a moment. But he was soon on his feet again, and Whipple gave him an encouraging slap as he trotted back to his place. The next play was an ordinary formation with the ends back, and the ball passed to left end for a run back of quarter and through the line outside of guard. It worked like a charm, and left end sped through with Joel bracing him at the turn and the left half going ahead. Four yards were netted, Meach, the substitute left half, being tackled by Post. In the mix-up that followed Joel found himself sprawling over the runner, with Cloud sitting astride the small of his back, a very uncomfortable part of the body with which to support a weighty opponent. But he would not have minded that alone; but when Cloud arose his foot came into violent contact with Joel's head, which caused that youth to see stars, and left a small cut back of his ear. "That wasn't an accident," muttered Joel, as he picked himself up and eyed Cloud. But the latter was unconcernedly moving to his position, and Joel gave his head a shake or two and resolved to forgive and forget. A play similar to the last was next tried with an outlet on the other side, outside tackle. But it resulted in a loss of a yard, and at the next down the ball was thrown back to Joel, who made a poor catch and followed it with a short high punt to the opponent's forty yards. "Your head's cut, March," said Wills, as they took up the new position. Joel nodded. "Cloud," he answered briefly. "Punch him," answered Wills. "He's mad because he made such a bull of his play in the other half. If he tries tricks with me--" "If he does, let him alone, if you want to stay on the team," said Joel. "That sort of thing doesn't help. Watch your chance and spoil a play of his. That's the best way to get even." The next ten minutes were spent in desperate attack on the part of the first and an equally desperate defense by the second eleven. Twenty yards of gain for the former was the result, and the half was nearly up. On a first down Blair ran back and Joel, whispering "Kick!" to himself, turned and raced farther back from the line. Then the ball was snapped, there was a crossing of backs, and suddenly, far out around the right end came Cloud with the pigskin tightly clutched, guarded by Post and the left end. It was an unexpected play, and the second's halfs saw it too late. Meach and Wills were shouldered out of the way, and Cloud ran free from his interference and bore down on Joel, looking very big and ugly. It was Cloud's opportunity to redeem himself, and with only a green full-back between him and the goal line his chances looked bright indeed. But he was reckoning without his host. Joel started gingerly up to meet him. The field was streaming down on Cloud's heels, but too far away to be in the running. Ten yards distant from Joel, Cloud's right arm stretched out to ward off a tackle, and his face grew ugly. "Keep off!" he hissed as Joel prepared for a tackle. But Joel had no mind for keeping off; that cut in his head was aching like everything, and his own advice to Wills occurred to him and made him grin. Cloud swerved sharply, but he was too heavy to be a good dodger, and with a leap Joel was on him, tackling hard and true about the runner's hips. Cloud struggled, made a yard, another, then came to earth with Joel's head snugly pillowed on his shoulder. A shout arose from the crowd. The field came up and Joel scrambled to his feet. Cloud, his face red with chagrin and anger, leaped to his feet, and stepping toward Joel aimed a vicious blow at his face. The latter ducked and involuntarily raised his fist; then, ere Greer and some of the others stepped between, turned and walked away. "That will do, Cloud," said Remsen in sharp, incisive tones. "You may leave." And with a muttered word of anger Cloud strode from the field, passing through the silent and unsympathetic throng with pale face and black looks. "First's ball down here," cried Greer, and play went on; but Joel had lost his taste for it, and when, a few minutes later, neither side having scored again, time was called, he trotted back to the gymnasium in a depressed mood. "You did great work," exclaimed Outfield West, as he joined Joel on the river path. "That settles Cloud's chances. Remsen was laying for him anyhow, you know, and then that 'slugging!' Remsen hates dirty playing worse than anything, they say." "I'm sorry it happened, though," returned Joel. "Pshaw! don't you be afraid of Cloud. He's all bluster." "I'm not afraid of him. But I'm sorry he lost the team through me. Of course I couldn't have let him go by, and I don't suppose it could have been helped, but I wish some one else had tackled him." "Of course, it couldn't have been helped," responded West cheerfully. "And I'm glad it couldn't. My! isn't Cloud mad! I passed him a minute or two ago. 'You ought to try golf, Bart,' said I. You should have seen the look he gave me. I guess it was rather like 'rubbing it in.'" And West grinned hugely at the recollection. "How about the tournament, West?" asked Joel. "Fine! There are twelve entries, and we're going to begin at nine in the morning. I did the fourth hole this afternoon in two, and the eighth in three. No one has ever done the fourth in two before; it's the Bogey score. Don't forget that you have promised to go around with me. They say Whipple is practicing every morning over in Turner's meadow. What with that and football he's a pretty busy lad, I dare say. Don't forget, nine o'clock day after to-morrow." And Outfield West waved his hand gayly and swung off toward Hampton House, while Joel entered the gymnasium and was soon enjoying the luxury of a shower bath and listening to the conversation of the others. "There'll be a shake-up to-morrow," observed Warren as he rubbed himself dry with a big, crimson-bordered towel. "Mr. Remsen wasn't any too well pleased to-day. He's going to put Greer on the scrub to-morrow." "That's where you might as well be," answered the big center good-naturedly. "The idea of playing a criss-cross with your right end on the side-line!" "We took two yards just the same," replied Warren. "We gave it to you, my lad, because we knew that if you lost on such a fool play your name would be--well, anything but Thomas 'Stumpy' Warren." The reply to this sally was a boot launched at the center rush, for Tom Warren's middle name was in reality Saalfield, and "Stumpy" was a cognomen rather too descriptive to be relished by the quarter-back. Greer returned the missile with interest, and the fight grew warm, and boots and footballs and shin-guards filled the air. In the dining hall that evening interest was divided between the golf match to be played on the following Saturday morning and the football game with the Westvale Grammar School in the afternoon. Golf had fewer admirers than had the other sport, but what there were were fully as enthusiastic, and the coming tournament was discussed until Joel's head whirled with such apparently outlandish terms as "Bogey," "baffy," "put," "green," "foozle," and "tee." Whipple, Blair, and West all had their supporters, and Joel learned a number of marvelous facts, as, for instance, that Whipple had "driven from Purgatory to The Hill in five," that Blair was "putting better than Grimes did last year," and that "West had taken four to get out of Sandy." All of which was undoubtedly intensely interesting, but was as so much Sanskrit to Joel; and he walked back to his room after supper with a greatly increased respect for the game of golf. CHAPTER VII. A LETTER HOME. One of Joel's letters written to his mother at about this time contains much that will prove of interest to the reader who has followed the fortunes of that youth thus far. It supplied a certain amount of information appreciated only by its author and its recipient: facts regarding woolen stockings; items about the manner in which the boy's washing was done; a short statement of his financial condition; a weak, but very natural, expression of home-longing. But such I will omit, as being too private in character for these pages. "... I don't think you need worry. Outfield West is rather idle about study, but he doesn't give Satan much of a show, for he's about the busiest fellow I know in school. He's usually up a good hour before breakfast, which we have at eight o'clock, and puts in a half hour practicing golf before chapel. Then in the afternoon he's at it again when the weather will let him, and he generally spends his evenings, when not studying, in mending his clubs or painting balls. Then he's one of the canvassers for the class crew; and belongs to the Senior Debating Club, which draws its members from the two upper classes; and he's president of the Golf Club. So you can see that he's anything but idle, even if he doesn't bother much about lessons. "He's naturally a very bright fellow; otherwise he couldn't get along with his classes. I grow to like him better every day; he's such a manly, kind-hearted fellow, and one of the most popular in school. He's rather big, with fine, broad shoulders, and awfully good-looking. He has light-brown hair, about the color of Cousin George's, and bright blue eyes; and he always looks as though he had just got out of the bath-tub--only stopped, of course, to put his clothes on. I guess we must be pretty old-fashioned in our notions, we Maine country folks, because so many of my pet ideas and beliefs have been changed since I came here. You know with us it has always gone without dispute that rich boys are mean and worthless, if not really immoral. But here they're not that way. I guess we never had much chance to study rich people up our way, mother. At the grammar school all the fellows looked down on wealthy boys; but we never had any of them around. The richest chap was Gilbert, whose father was a lumberman, and Gilbert used to wear shoes that you wouldn't give to a tramp. "I suppose West's father could buy Mr. Gilbert out twenty times and not miss the money. Outfield--isn't it a queer name?--spends a lot of money, but not foolishly; I mean he has no bad habits, like a few of the fellows. I hope you will meet him some time. Perhaps I could have him up to stay a few days with me next summer. He'd be glad to come. "No, my roommate, Sproule, doesn't improve any on acquaintance. But I've got so I don't mind him much. I don't think he's really as mean as he makes you believe. He's having hard work with his studies nowadays, and has less time to find fault with things. "You ask how I spend my time. Dear little mother, you don't know what life in a big boarding school like Hillton is. Why, I haven't an idle moment from one day's end to the next. Here's a sample. This morning I got up just in time for chapel--I'm getting to be a terrible chap for sleeping late--and then had breakfast. By that time it was quarter to nine. At nine I went to my mathematics. Then came Latin, then English. At twelve I reported on the green and practiced signals with the second squad until half past. Then came lunch. After lunch I scurried up to my room and dug up on chemistry, which was at one-thirty. Then came Greek at half past two. Then I had an hour of loafing--that is, I should have had it, but I was afraid of my to-morrow's history, so put in part of the time studying that. At a little before four I hurried over to the gymnasium, got into football togs, and reached the campus 'just in time to be in time.' We had a stiff hour's practice with the ball and learned two new formations. When I got back to the 'gym' it was a quarter past five. I had my bath, rubbed down, did two miles on the track, exercised with the weights, and got to supper ten minutes late. West came over to the room with me and stayed until I put him out, which was hard work because he's heavier than I am, and I got my books out and studied until half an hour ago. It is now just ten o'clock, and as soon as I finish this I shall tumble into bed and sleep like a top. "I can't answer your question about Mr. Remsen, because I do not know him well enough to ask about his home or relatives. But his first name is Stephen. Perhaps he is a relative of the Remsens you mention. Some day I'll find out. Anyhow, he's the grandest kind of a fellow. I suppose he's about thirty. He has plenty of money, West says, and is a lawyer by profession. He has coached Hillton for three years, and the school has won two out of three of its big games during those years. The big game, as they call it, is the game on Thanksgiving Day with St. Eustace Academy, of Marshall. This fall it is played here.... "Please tell father that I am getting on well with my studies, but not to hope too much for the Goodwin Scholarship. There are so many, many smart fellows here! Sometimes I think I haven't a ghost of a show. But--well, I'm doing my best, and, after all, there are some other scholarships that are worth getting, though I don't believe I shall be satisfied with any other. West says I'm cheeky to even expect a show at the Goodwin.... All the professors are very nice; even 'Turkey.' His real name is Durkee, and he is professor of English. He is not popular among the fellows, but is an awfully good instructor. The principal, Professor Wheeler, is called 'Wheels,' but it sounds worse than it is. Every one likes him. He is not at all old, and talks to the fellows about football and golf; and West says he can play a fine game of the latter when he tries. "I have been elected to the Golf Club and have joined. It costs a dollar and a half for this year, but West wanted me to join so much that I did. There are a lot of nice fellows in it--the sort that it is well to know. And I am going to try for the Senior Debating Club after the holidays.... Tell father that he wouldn't be so down on football if he could see the fellows that play it here at Hillton. Mr. Remsen is head coach, as I have told you. Then there is an advisory committee of one pupil, one graduate, and one professor. These are Wesley Blair, Mr. Remsen, and Professor MacArthur. Then there is a manager, who looks after the business affairs; and a trainer, who is Professor Beck; and, of course, a captain. Wesley Blair is the captain. The second eleven is captained by Tom Warren, who is a fine player, and who is substitute quarter-back on the first or school eleven. In a couple of weeks both the first and second go to training tables: the first at one of the boarding houses in the village and the second in the school dining hall. When that happens we go into training for sure, and have to be in bed every night at ten sharp and get up every morning at seven. I'm pretty sure now of a place on the second, and may possibly make the first before the season's done.... "Of course, I want the overcoat. But you had better send it as it is, and I will have the tailor here in the village cut it over. He is very moderate in charges and does good work, so West tells me, and in this way it will be sure to fit right. Thank father for me, please.... Good-night.... "Your loving son, "JOEL." The opportunity to inquire regarding Stephen Remsen's family connections presented itself to Joel on the day preceding the golf tournament and the football game with Westvale. On account of the latter there had been only a half hour of light practice for the two squads, and Joel at half past four had gone to his room to study. But when it came time to puzzle out some problems in geometry Joel found that his paper was used up, and, rather than borrow of his neighbors, he pulled on his cap and started for the village store. October had brought warm weather, and this afternoon, as he went along the maple-bordered road that leads to the post office he found himself dawdling over the dusty grasses and bushes, recognizing old friends and making new ones, as right-minded folks will when the sun is warm and the birds sing beside the way. He watched a tiny chipmunk scamper along the top of the stone wall and disappear in the branches of a maple, looked upward and saw a mass of fluffy white clouds going northward, and thought wistfully of spring and the delights it promised here in the Hudson Valley. The golden-rod had passed its prime, though here and there a yellow torch yet lighted the shadowed tangles of shrub and vine beneath the wall, but the asters still bloomed on, and it was while bending over a clump of them that Joel heard the whir of wheels on the smooth road and turned to see a bicyclist speeding toward him from the direction of the academy. When the rider drew near, Joel recognized Stephen Remsen, and he withdrew toward the wall, that the Coach might have the benefit of the level footpath and avoid the ruts. But instead of speeding by, Remsen slowed down a few feet distant and jumped from his wheel. "Hello, March!" was his greeting as he came up to that youth. "Are you studying botany?" Joel explained that he had been only trying to identify the aster, a spray of which he had broken off and still held in his hand. "Perhaps I can tell you what it is," answered Remsen as he took it. "Yes, it's the Purple-Stemmed, _Aster puniceus_. Isn't it common where you live?" "I've never noticed it," answered Joel. "We have lots of the _Novoe-Anglioe_ and _spectabilis_ in Maine, and some of the white asters. It must be very lovely about here in spring." "Yes, it is. Spring is beautiful here, as it is everywhere. The valley of the Hudson is especially rich in flora, I believe. I used to be very fond of the woods on Mount Adam when I was a boy here at Hillton, and knew every tree in it." They were walking on toward the village, Remsen rolling his bicycle beside him. "It's a long while since then, I suppose, sir?" queried Joel. "I graduated from Hillton ten years ago this coming June. I rowed stroke in the boat that spring, and we won from Eustace by an eighth of a mile. And we nearly burned old Masters down to the ground with our Roman candles and sky rockets. You room there, don't you, March?" "Yes, sir; Number 34." "That was Billy Mathews's room that year. Some time if you look under the carpet you'll find a depression in the middle of the floor. That's where Billy made a bonfire one night and offered up in sacrifice all his text-books. It took half an hour to put that fire out." Remsen was smiling reminiscently. "But what did he burn his books for, sir? Was it the end of the year?" "No, but Billy had been expelled that day, and was celebrating the fact. He was a nice old chap, was Billy Mathews. He's president of a Western railroad now." Joel laughed. "That bonfire must have made as much commotion as some of the explosions in Number 15, Mr. Remsen." "Hello! Are my efforts in pursuit of science still remembered here? Who told you about that, March?" "Mrs. Cowles. She said you were forever doing something terrible, but that you were such a _nice_ boy." Remsen laughed heartily as he replied: "Well, don't pattern your conduct on mine or Mathews's, March. We weren't a very well-behaved lot, I fear. But I don't believe our pranks did much harm. In those days football wasn't as popular as it is to-day, at Hillton, and fellows couldn't work off their surplus animal spirits thumping a pigskin as they can now. Football is a great benefactor in that way, March. It has done away with hazing and street brawls and gate stealing and lots of other deviltry. By the way, how are you getting on with the game?" "I think I'm getting the hang of it, sir. I'm having a hard time with drop kicking, but I guess I'll learn after a while." "I'm sure you will. I'm going to have Blair give you a bit of coaching in it next week. He'll have more time then, after he has finished with this golf business. Don't get discouraged. Peg away. It's worth the work, March, and you have the making of a good back as soon as you learn how to kick a goal and run a little faster. And whenever you're puzzled about anything come to me and we'll work it out together. Will you?" "Yes, sir, thank you." "That's right. Well, here's where I turn off. Have you time to come and pay me a visit?" "Not to-day, I'm afraid, Mr. Remsen. I'm just going to the post office for some paper, and--" "Well, come and see me some time. I'm pretty nearly always at home in the evenings and will be very glad to see you. And bring your friend West with you. That's my headquarters down there, the yellow house; Mrs. Hutchins's. If you cut across the field here it will save you quite a distance. Good-by; and get to bed early to-night, March, if you can. There's nothing like a good sleep before a game." "Good-by," answered Joel. Then, "Mr. Remsen, one minute, please, sir," he called. "Are you any relation to the Remsens that live near Clairmont, in Maine, sir?" "Why, I shouldn't wonder," answered Remsen, with a smile. "I think I've heard my father speak of relatives in Maine, but I don't recollect where. Why do you ask?" "My mother wrote me to find out. She's very much interested in people's relatives, Mr. Remsen, and so I thought I'd ask and let her know. You didn't mind my asking you, did you?" "Certainly not. Tell your mother, March, that I hope those Remsens are some of my folks, because I should like to be related to her friends. And say, March, when you're writing to your mother about me you needn't say anything about those explosions, need you?" "I don't think it will be necessary, sir," laughed Joel. "Very well; then just mention me as a dignified and reverend attorney-at-law, and we'll keep the rest a secret between us." CHAPTER VIII. THE GOLF TOURNAMENT. It was Saturday afternoon. The day was bright and sunny, and in the shelter of the grand stand on the campus, where the little east wind could not rustle, it was comfortably warm. The grass still held much of its summer verdancy, and the sky overhead was as deeply blue as on the mildest spring day. After a week of dull or stormy weather yesterday and to-day, with their fair skies, were as welcome as flowers in May, and gladness and light-heartedness were in the very air. On the gridiron Westvale Grammar School and Hillton Academy were trying conclusions. On the grand stand all Hillton, academy and village, was assembled, and here and there a bright dress or wrap indicated the presence of a mother or sister in the throng. The Westvale team had arrived, accompanied by a coterie of enthusiastic supporters, armed with tin horns, maroon-colored banners, and mighty voices, which, with small hopes of winning on the field, were resolved to accomplish a notable victory of sound. On the side-line, with a dozen other substitutes whose greatest desire was to be taken on the first eleven, sat Joel. Outfield West was sprawled beside him with his caddie bag clutched to his breast, and the two boys were discussing the game. West had arrived upon the scene but a moment before. "We'll beat them by about a dozen points, I guess," Joel was prophesying. "They say the score was twenty to nothing last year, but Remsen declares the first isn't nearly as far advanced as it was this time last season. Just hear the racket those fellows are making! You ought to have seen Blair kick down the field a while ago. I thought the ball never would come down, and I guess Westvale thought so too. Their full-back nearly killed himself running backward, and finally caught it on their five-yard line, and had it down there. Then Greer walked through, lugging Andrews for a touch-down, after Westvale had tried three times to move the ball. There's the whistle; half's up. How is the golf getting along?" "Somers and Whipple were at Look Off when I came away. I asked Billy Jones to come over and call me when they got to The Hill. I think Whipple will win by a couple of strokes. Somers is too nervous. I wish they'd hurry up. We'll not get through the last round before dark if they don't finish soon. You'll go round with me, won't you?" "If the game's over. They're playing twenty-minute halves, you know; so I guess it will be. I hope Blair will let me on this half. Have you seen Cloud?" "Yes; he's over on the seats. Who has his place?" "Ned Post; and Clausen's playing at right. I'm glad that Blair is doing such good work to-day. I think he was rather cut up about getting beaten this morning." "Yes; wasn't that hard luck? To think of his being downed by a cub of a junior! Though that same junior is going to be a fine player some day. He drives just grand. He had too much handicap, he did. Remsen didn't know anything about him, and allowed him ten. Here they come again." The two elevens were trotting out on the field once more, and Joel stood up in the hope that Blair might see him and decide to take him on. But Joel was doomed to disappointment, for the second half of the game began with practically the same line-up. The score stood six to nothing in favor of Hillton. The playing had been decidedly ragged on both sides; and Remsen, as he left the team after administering a severe lecture, walked past with a slight frown on his face. "Well, I guess I'll go over and see if I can hurry those chumps up some." West swung his bag over his shoulder and turned away. "When the game's done, hurry over, March. You'll find us somewhere on the course." Joel nodded, and West sauntered away toward the links. The second half of the game was similar to the first, save in that Remsen's scolding had accomplished an awakening, and the first put more snap into its playing. Six more points were scored from a touch-down by the Hillton right end, after a thirty-yard run, followed by a difficult goal by Blair. But the Westvale rooters kept up their cheering bravely to the end, and took defeat with smiling faces and upraised voices; and long after the coach containing them had passed from sight their cheers could still be heard in the distance toward the station. The bulk of the spectators turned at the conclusion of the match toward the links, and Joel followed in his football togs. At Home Hole he found Whipple and West preparing for the deciding round of the tournament, and the latter greeted him with a shout, and put his clubs into his keeping. Then Whipple went to the tee and led off with a long drive for the first hole, and the round began. West followed with a shorter shot and the march was taken up. The links at Hilton consists of nine holes, five out and four in. The entire length of the course is a trifle over one and a half mile, and although the land is upland meadow and given to growing long grass, yet the course is generally conceded to be excellent. The holes are short, allowing the round to be accomplished by a capable player in thirty-two strokes. The course has thirteen bunkers of varying sizes, besides two water hazards at the inlet and outlet of the lake. The lake itself is spoiled as a hazard by the thick grove of trees on the side nearest the Academy. Sometimes a poor drive lands a ball in that same grove, and there is much trial and tribulation ere the player has succeeded in dislodging it from the underbrush. While generally level, the course is diversified by slight elevations, upon which are the putting greens, their red and white flags visible from all parts of the links. As has been said, the holes are short, the longest, Lake Hole, being four hundred and ninety-six yards, and the shortest, the first, but one hundred and thirty-three. Outfield West once spent the better part of two weeks, at great cost to his class standing, in making a plan of the links, and, while it is not warranted accurate as to distances, it is reproduced here with his permission as giving a clearer idea of the ground than any verbal description. Play had begun this morning at nine o'clock, and by noon only Somers, Whipple, and West had been left in the match. Blair had encountered defeat most unexpectedly at the hands of Greene, a junior, of whose prowess but little had been known by the handicapper; for, although Blair had done the round in three strokes less than his adversary's gross score, the latter's allowance of six strokes had placed him an easy winner. But Blair had been avenged later by West, who had defeated the youngster by three strokes in the net. In the afternoon Somers and Whipple had met, and, as West had predicted, the latter won by two strokes. And now West and Whipple, both excellent players, and sworn enemies of the links, were fighting it out, and on this round depended the possession of the title of champion and the ownership for one year of the handicap cup, a modest but highly prized pewter tankard. Medal Play rules governed to-day, and the scoring was by strokes. [Illustration: Plan of Hilton Academy Golf Links] Whipple reached the first green in one stroke, but used two more to hole-out. West took two short drives to reach a lie, from which he dropped his ball into the hole in one try. And the honors were even. The next hole was forty yards longer, and was played either in two short drives or one long drive and an approach shot. It contained two hazards, Track Bunker and High Bunker, the latter alone being formidable. Whipple led off with a long shot that went soaring up against the blue and then settled down as gently as a bird just a few yards in front of High Bunker. He had reversed his play of the last hole, and was now relying on his approach shot for position. West played a rather short drive off an iron which left his ball midway between the two bunkers. Whipple's next stroke took him neatly out of danger and on to the putting green, but West had fared not so well. There was a great deal of noise from the younger boys who were looking on, much discussion of the methods of play, and much loud boasting of what some one else would have done under existing circumstances. West glanced up once and glared at one offending junior, and an admonitory "_Hush!_" was heard. But he was plainly disturbed, and when the little white sphere made its flight it went sadly aglee and dropped to earth far to the right of the green, and where rough and cuppy ground made exact putting well-nigh impossible. Professor Beck promptly laid down a command of absolute silence during shots, and some of the smaller youths left the course in favor of another portion of the campus, where a boy's right to make all the noise he likes could not be disputed. But the harm was done, and when play for the third hole began the score was: Whipple 7, West 8. Even to one of such intense ignorance of the science of golf as Joel March, there was a perceptible difference in the style of the two competitors. Outfield West was a great stickler for form, and imitated the full St. Andrews swing to the best of his ability. In addressing the ball he stood as squarely to it as was possible, without the use of a measuring tape, and drove off the right leg, as the expression is. Despite an almost exaggerated adherence to nicety of style, West's play had an ease and grace much envied by other golf disciples in the school, and his shots were nearly always successful. Whipple's manner of driving was very different from his opponent's. His swing was short and often stopped too soon. His stance was rather awkward, after West's, and even his hold on the club was not according to established precedent. Yet, notwithstanding all this, it must be acknowledged that Whipple's drives had a way of carrying straight and far and landing well. Joel followed the play with much interest if small appreciation of its intricacies, and carried West's bag, and hoped all the time that that youth would win, knowing how greatly he had set his heart upon so doing. There is no bunker between second and third holes, but the brook which supplies the lake runs across the course and is about six yards wide from bank to bank. But it has no terrors for a long drive, and both the players went safely over and won Academy Hole in three strokes. West still held the odd. Two long strokes carried Whipple a scant distance from Railroad Bunker, which fronts Ditch Hole, a dangerous lie, since Railroad Bunker is high and the putting green is on an elevation, almost meriting the title of hill, directly back of it. But if Whipple erred in judgment or skill, West found himself in even a sorrier plight when two more strokes had been laid to his score. His first drive with a brassie had fallen rather short, and for the second he had chosen an iron. The ball sailed off on a long flight that brought words of delight from the spectators, but which caused Joel to look glum and West to grind the turf under his heel in anger. For, like a thing possessed, that ball fell straight into the very middle of the bunker, and when it was found lay up to its middle in gravel. West groaned as he lifted the ball, replaced it loosely in its cup, and carefully selected a club. Whipple meanwhile cleared the bunker in the best of style, and landed on the green in a good position to hole out in two shots. "Great Gobble!" muttered West as he swung his club, and fixed his eye on a point an inch and a half back of the imbedded ball, "if I don't get this out of here on this shot, I'm a gone goose!" March grinned sympathetically but anxiously, and the onlookers held their breath. Then back went the club--there was a scattering of sand and gravel, and the ball dropped dead on the green, four yards from the hole. "Excellent!" shouted Professor Beck, and Joel jumped in the air from sheer delight. "Good for you, Out!" yelled Dave Somers; and the rest of the watchers echoed the sentiment in various ways, even those who desired to see Whipple triumphant yielding their meed of praise for the performance. And, "I guess, Out," said Whipple ruefully, "you might as well take the cup." But Outfield West only smiled silently in response, and followed his ball with businesslike attention to the game. Whipple was weak on putting, and his first stroke with an iron failed to carry his ball to the hole. West, on the contrary, was a sure player on the green, and now with his ball but four yards from the hole he had just the opportunity he desired to better his score. The green was level and clean, and West selected a small iron putter, and addressed the ball with all the attention to form that the oldest St. Andrews veteran might desire. Playing on the principle that it is better to go too far than not far enough, since the hole is larger than the ball, West gave a long stroke, and the gutta-percha disappeared from view. Whipple holed out on his next try, adopting a wooden putter this time, and the score stood fifteen strokes each. The honor was West's, and he led off for End Hole with a beautiful brassie drive that cleared the first two bunkers with room to spare. Whipple, for the first time in the round, drove poorly, toeing his ball badly, and dropping it almost off of the course and just short of the second bunker. West's second drive was a loft over Halfway Bunker that fell fairly on the green and rolled within ten feet of the hole. From there, on the next shot, he holed out very neatly in eighteen. Whipple meanwhile had redeemed himself with a high lofting stroke that carried past the threatening dangers of Masters Bunker and back on to the course within a few yards of West's lie. But again skill on the putting green was wanting, and he required two strokes to make the hole. Once more the honor was West's, and that youth turned toward home with a short and high stroke. The subsequent hole left the score "the like" at 22, and the seventh gave Whipple, 25, West 26. "But here's where Mr. West takes the lead," confided that young gentleman to Joel as they walked to the teeing ground. "From here to Lake Hole is four hundred and ninety-six yards, and I'm going to do it in three shots on to the green. You watch!" Four hundred and ninety-odd yards is nothing out of the ordinary for an older player, but to a lad of seventeen it is a creditable distance to do in three drives. Yet that is what West did it in; and strange to relate, and greatly to that young gentleman's surprise, Whipple duplicated the performance, and amid the excited whispers of the onlookers the two youths holed out on their next strokes; and the score still gave the odd to West--29 to 30. "I didn't think he could do it," whispered West to Joel, "and that makes it look bad for your uncle Out. But never mind, my lad, there's still Rocky Bunker ahead of us, and--" West did not complete his remark, but his face took on a very determined look as he teed his ball. The last hole was in sight, and victory hovered overhead. Now, the distance from Lake Hole to the Home Hole is but a few yards over three hundred, and it can be accomplished comfortably in two long brassie drives. Midway lies The Hill, a small elevation rising from about the middle of the course to the river bluff, and there falling off sheer to the beach below. It is perhaps thirty yards across, and if the ball reaches it safely it forms an excellent place from which to make the second drive. So both boys tried for The Hill. Whipple landed at the foot of it, while West came plump upon the side some five yards from the summit, and his next drive took him cleanly over Rocky Bunker and to the right of the Home Green. But Whipple summoned discretion to his aid, and instead of trying to make the green on the next drive, played short, and landed far to the right of the Bunker. This necessitated a short approach, and by the time he had gained the green and was "made" within holing distance of the flag, the score was once more even, and the end was in sight. And now the watchers moved about restlessly, and Joel found his heart in his throat. But West gripped his wooden putter firmly and studied the situation. It was quite possible for a skillful player to hole out on the next stroke from Whipple's lie. West, on the contrary, was too far distant to possess more than one chance in ten of winning the hole in one play. Whether to take that one chance or to use his next play in bettering his lie was the question. Whipple, West knew, was weak on putting, but it is ever risky to rely on your opponent's weakness. While West pondered, Whipple studied the lay of the green with eyes that strove to show no triumph, and the little throng kept silence save for an occasional nervous whisper. Then West leaned down and cleared a pebble from before his ball. It was the veriest atom of a pebble that ever showed on a putting green, but West was willing to take no chances beyond those that already confronted him. His mind was made up. Gripping his iron putter firmly rather low on the shaft and bending far over, West slowly, cautiously swung the club above the gutty, glancing once and only once as he did so at the distant goal. Then there was a pause. Whipple no longer studied his own play; his eyes were on that other sphere that nestled there so innocently against the grass. Joel leaned breathlessly forward. Professor Beck muttered under his breath, and then cried "S--sh!" to himself in an angry whisper. And then West's club swung back gently, easily, paused an instant--and-- Forward sped the ball--on and on--slower--slower--but straight as an arrow--and then--Presto! it was gone from sight! A moment of silence followed ere the applause broke out, and in that moment Professor Beck announced: "The odd to Whipple. Thirty-two to thirty-three." Then the group became silent again. Whipple addressed his ball. It was yet possible to tie the score. His face was pale, and for the first time during the tournament he felt nervous. A better player could scarce have missed the hole from Whipple's lie, but for once that youth's nerve forsook him and he hit too short; the ball stopped a foot from the hole. The game was decided. Professor Beck again announced the score: "The two more to Whipple. Thirty-two to thirty-four." Again Whipple addressed his ball, and this time, but too late to win the victory, the tiny sphere dropped neatly into the hole, and the throng broke silence. And as West and Whipple, victor and vanquished, shook hands over the Home Hole, Professor Beck announced: "Thirty-two to thirty-five. West wins the Cup!" CHAPTER IX. AN EVENING CALL. The last week of October brought chilling winds and flying clouds. Life at Hillton Academy had gone on serenely since West's victory on the links. The little pewter tankard reposed proudly upon his mantel beside a bottle of chow-chow, and bore his name as the third winner of the trophy. But West had laid aside his clubs, save for an occasional hour at noon, and, abiding by his promise to Joel, he had taken up his books again with much resolution, if little ardor. Hillton had met and defeated two more football teams, and the first eleven was growing gradually stronger. Remsen was seen to smile now quite frequently during practice, and there was a general air of prosperity about the gridiron. The first had gone to its training table at "Mother" Burke's, in the village, and the second ate its meals in the center of the school dining hall with an illy concealed sense of self-importance. And the grinds sneered at its appetites, and the obscure juniors admired reverently from afar. Joel had attended both recitations and practice with exemplary and impartial regularity, and as a result his class standing was growing better and better on one hand, and on the other his muscles were becoming stronger, his flesh firmer, and his brain clearer. The friendship between him and Outfield West had ripened steadily, until now they were scarcely separable. And that they might be more together West had lately made a proposition. "That fellow Sproule is a regular cad, Joel, and I tell you what we'll do. After Christmas you move over to Hampton and room with me. You have to make an application before recess, you know. What do you say?" "I should like to first rate, but I can't pay the rent there," Joel had objected. "Then pay the same as you're paying for your den in Masters," replied West. "You see, Joel, I have to pay the rent for Number 2 Hampton anyhow, and it won't make any difference whether I have another fellow in with me or not. Only, if you pay as much of my rent as you're paying now, why, that will make it so much cheaper for me. Don't you see?" "Yes, but if I use half the room I ought to pay half, the rent." And to this Joel stood firm until West's constant entreaties led to a compromise. West was to put the matter before his father, and Joel before his. If their parents sanctioned it, Joel was to apply for the change of abode. As yet the matter was still in abeyance. Richard Sproule, as West had suggested rather more forcibly than politely, was becoming more and more objectionable, and Joel was not a bit grieved at the prospect of leaving him. Of late, intercourse between the roommates had become reduced to rare monosyllables. This was the outcome of a refusal on Joel's part to give a portion of his precious study time to helping Sproule with his lessons. Once or twice Joel had consented to assist his roommate, and had done so to the detriment of his own affairs; but the result to both had proved so unsatisfactory that Joel had stoutly refused the next request. Thereupon Sproule had considered himself deeply aggrieved, and usually spent the time when Joel was present in sulking. Bartlett Cloud, since his encounter with Joel on the field the afternoon that he was put off the team, had had nothing to say to him, though his looks when they met were always dark and threatening. But in a school as large as Hillton there is plenty of room to avoid an objectionable acquaintance, so long as you are not under the same roof with him, and consequently Cloud and Joel seldom met. The latter constantly regretted having made an enemy of the other, but beyond this regret his consideration of Cloud seldom went. So far Joel had not found an opportunity to accept the invitation that Remsen had extended to him, though that invitation had since been once or twice repeated. But to-night West and he had made arrangement to visit Remsen at his room, and had obtained permission from Professor Wheeler to do so. The two boys met at the gymnasium after supper was over and took their way toward the village. West had armed himself with a formidable stick, in the hope, loudly expressed at intervals, that they would be set upon by tramps. But Remsen's lodgings were reached without adventure, and the lads were straightway admitted to a cosey study, wherein, before an open fire, sat Remsen and a guest. After a cordial welcome from Remsen the guest was introduced as Albert Digbee. "Yes, we know each other," said West, as he shook hands. "We both room in Hampton, but Digbee's a grind, you know, and doesn't care to waste his time on us idlers." Digbee smiled. "It isn't inclination, West; I don't have the time, and so don't attempt to keep up with you fellows." He shook Joel's hand. "I'm glad to meet you. I've heard of you before." Then the quartet drew chairs up to the blaze, and, as Remsen talked, Joel examined his new acquaintance. Digbee was a year older than West and Joel. He was in the senior class, and was spoken of as one of the smartest boys in the school. Although a Hampton House resident, he seldom was seen with the others save at the table, and was usually referred to among themselves as "Dig," both because that suggested his Christian name and because, as they said, he was forever digging at his books. In appearance Albert Digbee was a tall, slender, but scarcely frail youth, with a cleanly cut face that looked, in the firelight, far too pale. His eyes were strikingly bright, and though his smiles were infrequent, his habitual expression was one of eager and kindly interest. Joel had often come across him in class, and had long wanted to know him. "You see, boys," Remsen was saying, "Digbee here is of the opinion that athletics in general and football in particular are harmful to schools and colleges as tending to draw the attention of pupils from their studies, and I maintain the opposite. Now, what's your opinion, West? Digbee and I have gone over it so often that we would like to hear some one else on the subject." "Oh, I don't know," replied West. "If fellows would give up football and go in for golf, there wouldn't be any talk about athletics being hurtful. Golf's a game that a chap can play and get through with and have some time for study. You don't have to train a month to play for an hour; it's a sport that hasn't become a business." "I can testify," said Joel gravely, "that Out is a case in point. He plays golf, and has time left to study--how to play more golf." "Well, anyhow, you know I _do_ study some lately, Joel," laughed West. Joel nodded with serious mien. "I think you've made a very excellent point in favor of golf, West," said Digbee. "It hasn't been made a business, at least in this school. But won't it eventually become quite as much of a pursuit as football now is?" "Oh, it may become as popular, but, don't you see, it will never become as--er--exacting on the fellows that play it. You can play golf without having to go into training for it." "Nevertheless, West," replied the head coach, "if a fellow can play golf without being in training, doesn't it stand to reason that the same fellow can play a better game if he is in training? That is, won't he play a better game if he is in better trim?" "Yes, I guess so, but he will play a first-class game if he doesn't train." "But not as good a game as he will if he does train?" "I suppose not," admitted West. "Well, now, a fellow can play a very good game of football if he isn't in training," continued Remsen, "but that same fellow, if he goes to bed and gets up at regular hours, and eats decent food at decent times, and takes care of himself in such a way as to improve his mental, moral, and physical person, will play a still better game and derive more benefit from it. When golf gets a firmer hold on this side of the Atlantic, schools and colleges will have their golf teams of, say, from two to a dozen players. Of course, the team will not play as a team, but the members of it will play singly or in couples against representatives of other schools. And when that happens it is sure to follow that the players will go into almost as strict training as the football men do now." "Well, that sounds funny," exclaimed West. "Digbee thinks one of the most objectionable features of football is the fact that the players go into it so thoroughly--that they train for it, and study it, and spend a good deal of valuable time thinking about it. But to me that is one of its most admirable features. When a boy or a man goes in for athletics, whether football or rowing or hockey, he desires, if he is a real flesh-and-blood being, to excel in it. To do that it is necessary that he put himself in the condition that will allow of his doing his very best. And to that end he trains. He gives up pastry, and takes to cereals; he abandons his cigarettes and takes to fresh air; he gives up late hours at night, and substitutes early hours in the morning. And he is better for doing so. He feels better, looks better, works better, plays better." "But," responded Digbee, "can a boy who has come to school to study, and who has to study to make his schooling pay for itself, can such a boy afford the time that all that training and practicing requires?" "Usually, yes," answered Remsen. "Of course, there are boys, and men too, for that matter, who are incapable of occupying their minds with two distinct interests. That kind should leave athletics alone. And there are others who are naturally--I guess I mean-unnaturally--stupid, and who, should they attempt to sandwich football or baseball into their school life, would simply make a mess of both study and recreation. But they need not enter into the question of the harm or benefit of athletics, since at every well-conducted school or college those boys are not allowed to take up with athletics. Yes, generally speaking, the boy who comes to school to study can afford to play football, train for football, and think football, because instead of interfering with his studies it really helps him with them. It makes him healthy, strong, wide-awake, self-reliant, and clearheaded. Some time I shall be glad to show you a whole stack of careful statistics which prove that football men, at least, rather than being backward with studies, are nearly always above the average in class standing. March, you're a hard-worked football enthusiast, and I understand that you're keeping well up with your lessons. Do you have trouble to attend to both? Do you have to skimp your studies? I know you give full attention to the pigskin." "I'm hard put some days to find time for everything," answered Joel, "but I always manage to make it somehow, and I have all the sleep I want or need. Perhaps if I gave up football I might get higher marks in recitations, but I'd not feel so well, and it's possible that I'd only get lower marks. I agree with you, Mr. Remsen, that athletics, or at least football, is far more likely to benefit a chap than to hurt him, because a fellow can't study well unless he is in good health and spirits." "Are you convinced, Digbee?" asked Remsen. Digbee shook his head smilingly. "I don't believe I am, quite. But you know more about such things than I do. In fact, it's cheeky for me to argue about them. Why, I've never played anything but tennis, and never did even that well." "You know the ground you argue from, and because I have overwhelmed you with talk it does not necessarily follow that I am right," responded his host courteously. "But enough of such dull themes. There's West most asleep.--March, have you heard from your mother lately?" "Yes, I received a letter from her yesterday morning. She writes that she's glad the relationship is settled finally; says she's certain that any kin of the Maine Remsens is a person of good, strong moral character." When the laugh had subsided, Remsen turned to West. "Have you ever heard of Tommy Collingwood?" "Wasn't he baseball captain a good many years ago?" "Yes, and used to row in the boat. Well, Tommy was a good deal better at spinning top on Academy steps than doing lessons, and a deal fonder of playing shinney than writing letters. But Tommy's mother always insisted that Tommy should write home once a week, and Tommy's father wrote and explained what would happen to Tommy if he didn't obey his mother; and as Tommy's folks lived just over in Albany it was a small thing for Tommy's father to run over some day with a strap; so Tommy obeyed his parents and every week wrote home. His letters weren't long, nor were they filled with a wealth of detail, but they answered the purpose in lieu of better. Each one ran: 'Hillton Academy, Hillton, N.Y.,' with the date. 'Dear Father and Mother, I am well and studying hard. Your loving son, Thomas Collingwood.' "Well, when Christmas recess came, Tommy went home. And one day his mother complimented Tommy on the regularity of his correspondence. Tommy looked sheepish. 'To tell the truth, mother, I didn't write one of those letters each week,' explained Tommy. 'But just after school opened I was sick for a week, and didn't have anything to do; so I wrote 'I am well' twelve times, and dated each ahead.'" Digbee accompanied the other two lads back to the yard, and he and March discussed studies, while West mooned along, whistling half aloud and thrashing the weeds and rocks with his cudgel, for the tramps refused to appear on the scene. He and Digbee went out of their way to see Joel safely to his dormitory, and then Joel accompanied them on their homeward way as far as Academy Building. There good-nights were said, and Joel, feeling but little inclined for sleep, drew his collar up and strolled to the front of the building, where, from the high steps, the river was visible for several miles in either direction. The moon was struggling out from a mass of somber clouds overhead, and the sound of the waters as they swirled around the rocky point was plainly heard. Joel sat there on the steps, under the shadow of the dark building, thinking of many things, and feeling very happy and peaceful, until a long, shrill sound from the north told of the coming of the 9.48 train; then he made his way back to Masters, up the dim stairs, and into his room, where Dickey Sproule lay huddled in bed reading The Three Guardsmen by the screened light of a guttering candle. CHAPTER X. THE BROKEN BELL ROPE. Joel arrived at chapel the following morning just as the doors were being closed. Duffy, the wooden-legged doorkeeper, was not on duty, and the youth upon whom his duties had devolved allowed Joel to pass without giving his name for report as tardy. During prayers there was an evident atmosphere of suppressed excitement among the pupils, but not until chapel was over did Joel discover the cause. "Were you here when it happened?" asked West. "When what happened?" responded Joel. "Haven't you heard? Why, some one cut the bell rope, and when 'Peg-leg' went to ring chapel bell the rope broke up in the tower and came down on his head and laid him out there on the floor, and some of the fellows found him knocked senseless. And they've taken him to the infirmary. You know the rope's as big as your wrist, and it hit him on top of the head. I guess he isn't much hurt, but 'Wheels' is as mad as never was, and whoever did it will have a hard time, I'll bet!" "Poor old Duffy!" said Joel. "Let's go over and find out if he's much hurt. It was a dirty sort of a joke to play, though I suppose whoever did it didn't think it would hurt any one." At the infirmary they found Professor Gibbs in the office. "No, boys, he isn't damaged much. He'll be all right in a few hours. I hope that the ones who did it will be severely punished. It was a most contemptible trick to put up on Duffy." "I hope so too," answered West indignantly. "You may depend that no upper middle boy did it, sir." The professor smiled. "I hope you are right, West." At noon hour Joel was summoned to the principal's office. Professor Wheeler, the secretary, and Professor Durkee were present, and as Joel entered he scented an air of hostility. The secretary closed the door behind him. "March, I have sent for you to ask whether you can give us any information which will lead to the apprehension of the perpetrators of the trick which has resulted in injury to Mr. Duffy. Can you?" "No, sir," responded Joel. "You know absolutely nothing about it?" "Nothing, sir, except what I have been told." "By whom?" "Outfield West, sir, after chapel. We went to the infirmary to inquire about 'Peg'--about Mr. Duffy, sir." The secretary repressed a smile. The principal was observing Joel very closely, and Professor Durkee moved impatiently in his seat. "I can not suppose," continued the principal, "that the thing was done simply as a school joke. The boy who cut the rope must have known when he did so that the result would be harmful to whoever rang the chapel bell this morning. I wish it understood that I have no intention of dealing leniently with the culprit, but, at the same time, a confession, if made now, will have the effect of mitigating his punishment." He paused. Joel turned an astonished look from him to Professor Durkee, who, meeting it, frowned and turned impatiently away. "You have nothing more to tell me, March?" "Why, no, sir," answered Joel in a troubled voice. "I don't understand. Am I suspected--of--of this--thing, sir?" "Dear me, sir," exclaimed Professor Durkee, explosively, turning to the principal, "it's quite evident that--" "One moment, please," answered the latter firmly. The other subsided.--"You had town leave last night, March?" "Yes, sir." "You went with Outfield West?" "Yes, sir." "What time did you return to your room?" "At about a quarter to ten, sir." "You are certain as to the time?" "I only know that I heard the down train whistle as I left Academy Building. I went right to my room, sir." "Was the door of Academy Building unlocked last night?" "I don't know. I didn't try it, sir." "What time did you leave Mr. Remsen's house?" "A few minutes after nine." "You came right back here?" "Yes, sir. We came as far as Academy Building, and West and Digbee went home. I sat on the front steps here until I heard the whistle blow. Then I went to my room." "Why did you sit on the steps, March?" "I wasn't sleepy; and the moon was coming out--and--I wanted to think." "Do you hear from home very often?" "Once or twice a week, sir." "When did you get a letter last, and from whom was it?" "From my mother, about three days ago." "Have you that letter?" "Yes, sir. It is in my room." "You sometimes carry your letters in your pocket?" "Why, yes, but not often. If I receive them on the way out of the building I put them in my pocket, and then put them away when I get back." "Where do you keep them?" "In my bureau drawer." "It is kept locked?" "No, sir. I never lock it." "Do you remember what was in that last letter?" "Yes, sir." "Was any one mentioned in it?" "Yes, sir. Mr. Remsen was mentioned. And Outfield West, and my brother, and father." "Is this your letter?" Professor Wheeler extended it across the desk, and Joel took it wonderingly. "Why, yes, sir. But where--I don't understand--!" Again he looked toward Professor Durkee in bewilderment. "Nor do I," answered that gentleman dryly. "March," continued the principal, as he took the letter again, "this was found this morning, after the accident, on the floor of the bell tower. Do you know how it came there?" Joel's cheeks reddened and then grew white as the full meaning of the words reached him. His voice suddenly grew husky. "No, sir, I do not." The words were spoken very stoutly and rang with sincerity. A silence fell on the room. Professor Wheeler glanced inquiringly at Professor Durkee, and the latter made a grimace of impatience that snarled his homely face into a mass of wrinkles. "Look here, boy," he snapped, "who do you think dropped that letter there?" "I can't think, sir. I can't understand it at all. I've never been in the tower since I've been in school." "Do you know of any one who might like to get you into trouble in such a way as this?" "No, sir," answered Joel promptly. Then a sudden recollection of Bartlett Cloud came to him, and he hesitated. Professor Durkee observed it. "Well?" he said sharply. "I know of no one, sir." "Humph!" grunted the professor, "you do, but you won't say." "If you suspect any one it will be best to tell us, March," said Professor Wheeler, more kindly. "You must see that the evidence is much against you, and, while I myself can not believe that you are guilty, I shall be obliged to consider you so until proof of your innocence is forthcoming. Have you any enemy in school?" "I think not, sir." The door opened and Remsen appeared. "Good-morning," he said. "You wished to see me, professor?" "Yes, in a moment. Sit down, please, Remsen." Remsen nodded to Joel and the secretary, shook hands with Professor Durkee, and took a chair. The principal turned again to Joel. "You wish me to understand, then, that you have no explanation to offer as to how the letter came to be in the bell tower? Recollect that shielding a friend or any other pupil will do neither you nor him any service." Joel was hesitating. Was it right to throw suspicion on Bartlett Cloud by mentioning the small occurrence on the football field so long before? It was inconceivable that Cloud would go to such a length in mere spite. And yet--Remsen interrupted his thoughts. "Professor, if you will dismiss March for a while, perhaps I can throw some light on the matter. Let him return in half an hour or so." Professor Wheeler nodded. "Come back at one o'clock, March," he said. Outside Joel hesitated where to go. He must tell some one his trouble, and there was only one who would really care. He turned toward Hampton House, then remembered that it was dinner hour and that Outfield would be at table. He had forgotten his own dinner until that moment. In the dining hall West was still lingering over his dessert. Joel took his seat at the training table, explaining his absence by saying that he had been called to the office, and hurried through a dinner of beef and rice and milk. When West arose Joel overtook him at the door. And as the friends took their way toward Joel's room, he told everything to West in words that tumbled over each other. Outfield West heard him in silence after one exclamation of surprise, and when Joel had finished, cried: "Why didn't you tell about Cloud? Don't you see that this is his doing? That he is getting even with you for his losing the football team?" "I thought of that, Out, but it seemed too silly to suppose that he would do such a thing just for--for that, you know." "Well, you may be certain that he did do it; or, at least, if he didn't cut the rope himself, found some one to do it for him. It's just the kind of a revenge that a fellow of his meanness would think of. He won't stand up and fight like a man. Here, let's go and find him!" "No, wait. I'll tell Professor Wheeler about him when I go back; then if he thinks--If he did do it, Out, I'll lick him good for it!" "Hooray! And when you get through I'll take a hand, too. But what do you suppose Remsen was going to tell?" Joel shook his head. They found Sproule in the room, and to him West spoke as follows: "Hello, Dickey! You're not studying? It's not good for you; these sudden changes should be avoided." Sproule laughed, but looked annoyed at the banter. "Joel and I have come up for a chat, Dickey," continued West. "Now, you take your Robinson Crusoe and read somewhere else for a while, like a nice boy." Sproule grew red-faced, and turned to West angrily. "Don't you see I'm studying? If you and March want to talk, why, either go somewhere else, or talk here." "But our talk is private, Dickey, and not intended for little boys' ears. You know the saying about little pitchers, Dickey?" "Well, I'm not going out, so you can talk or not as you like." "Oh, yes, you are going out, Dickey. Politeness requires it, and I shall see that you maintain that delightful courteousness for which you are noted. Now, Dickey!" West indicated the door with a nod and a smile. Sproule bent his head over his book and growled a response that sounded anything but polite. Then West, still smiling, seized the unobliging youth by the shoulders, pinioning his arms to his sides, and pushed him away from the table and toward the door. Joel rescued the lamp at a critical moment, the chairs went over on to the floor, and a minute later Sproule was on the farther side of the bolted door, and West was adjusting his rumpled attire. "I'll report you for this, Outfield West!" howled Sproule through the door, in a passion of resentment. "Report away," answered West mockingly. "And if I miss my Latin I'll tell why, too!" "Well, you'll miss it all right enough, unless you've changed mightily. But, here, I'll shy your book through the transom." This was done, and the sound of ascending feet on the stairway reaching Sproule's ears at that moment, he grabbed his book and took himself off, muttering vengeance. "Have you looked?" asked West. "Yes; it's not there. But there are no others missing. Who could have taken it?" "Any one, my boy; Bartlett Cloud, for preference. Your door is unlocked, he comes in when he knows you are out, looks on the table, sees nothing there that will serve, goes to the bureau, opens the top drawer, and finds a pile of letters. He takes the first one, which is, of course, the last received, and sneaks out. Then he climbs into the bell tower at night, cuts the rope through all but one small strand, and puts your letter on the floor where it will be found in the morning. Isn't that plain enough?" Joel nodded forlornly. "But cheer up, Joel. Your Uncle Out will see your innocence established, firmly and beyond all question. And now come on. It's one o'clock, and you've got to go back to the office, while I've got a class. Come over to my room at four, Joel, and tell me what happens." Remsen and the secretary were no longer in the office when Joel returned. Professor Durkee was standing with his hat in his hand, apparently about to leave. "March," began the principal, "Mr. Remsen tells us that you were struck at by Bartlett Cloud on the football field one day at practice. Is that so?" Joel replied affirmatively. "Does he speak to you, or you to him?" "No, sir; but then I've never been acquainted with him." "Do you believe that he could have stolen that letter from your room?" "I know that he could have done so, sir, but I don't like to think--" "That he did? Well, possibly he did and possibly he didn't. I shall endeavor to find out. Meanwhile I must ask you to let this go no further. You will go on as though this conversation had never occurred. If I find that you are unjustly suspected I will summon you and ask your pardon, and the guilty one will be punished. Professor Durkee here has pointed out to me that such conduct is totally foreign to his conception of your character, and has reminded me that your standing in class has been of the best since the beginning of the term. I agree with him in all this, but duty in the affair is very plain and I have been performing it, unpleasant as it is. You may go now, March; and kindly remember that this affair must be kept quiet," Joel turned with a surprised but grateful look toward Professor Durkee, but was met with a wrathful scowl. Joel hurried to his recitation, and later, before West's fireplace, the friends discussed the unfortunate affair in all its phases, and resolved, with vehemence, to know the truth sooner or later. But Joel's cup was not yet filled. When he returned to the dormitory after supper, he found two missives awaiting him. The first was from Wesley Blair: "DEAR MARCH" (it read): "Please show up in the morning at Burke's for breakfast with the first eleven. You are to take the place of Post at L.H.B. It will be necessary for you to report at the gym at eleven each day for noon signals; please arrange your recitations to this end. I am writing this because I couldn't see you this afternoon; hope you are all right. Yours, "WESLEY BLAIR." Joel read this with a loudly beating heart and flushing cheeks. It was as unexpected as it was welcome, that news; he _had_ hoped for an occasional chance to substitute Post or Blair or Clausen on the first team in some minor game, but to be taken on as a member was more than he had even thought of since he had found how very far from perfect was his playing. He seized his cap with the intention of racing across to Hampton and informing West of his luck; then he remembered the other note. It was from the office, and it was with a sinking heart that he tore it open and read: "You are placed upon probation until further notice from the Faculty. The rules and regulations require that pupils on probation abstain from all sports and keep their rooms in the evenings except upon permission from the Principal. Respectfully, "CURTIS GORDON, Secretary." CHAPTER XI. TWO HEROES. One afternoon a week later Outfield West and Joel March were seated on the ledge where, nearly two months before, they had begun their friendship. The sun beat warmly down and the hill at their backs kept off the east wind. Below them the river was brightly blue, and a skiff dipping its way up stream caught the sunlight on sail and hull until, as it danced from sight around the headland, it looked like a white gull hovering over the water. Above, on the campus, the football field was noisy with voices and the pipe of the referee's whistle; and farther up the river at the boathouse moving figures showed that some of the boys were about to take advantage of the pleasant afternoon. "Some one's going rowing," observed Outfield. "Can you row, Joel?" "I guess so; I never tried." West laughed. "Then I guess you can't. I've tried. It's like trying to write with both hands. While you're looking after one the other has fits and runs all over the paper. If you pull with the left oar the right oar goes up in the air or tries to throw you out of the boat by getting caught in the water. Paddling suits me better. Say, you'll see a bully race next spring when we meet Eustace. Last spring they walked away from us. But the crew is to have a new boat next year. Look! those two fellows row well, don't they? Remsen says a chap can never learn to row unless he has been born near the water. That lets me out. In Iowa we haven't any water nearer than the Mississippi--except the Red Cedar, and that doesn't count. By the way, Joel, what did Remsen say to you last night about playing again?" "He said to keep in condition, so that in case I got off probation I could go right back to work. He says he'll do all he can to help me, and I know he will. But it won't do any good. 'Wheels' won't let me play until he's found out who did that trick. It's bad enough, Out, to be blamed for the thing when I didn't do it, but to lose the football team like this is a hundred times worse. I almost wish I _had_ cut that old rope!" continued Joel savagely; "then I'd at least have the satisfaction of knowing that I was only getting what I deserved." West looked properly sympathetic. "It's a beastly shame, that's what I think. What's the good of 'believing you innocent,' as 'Wheels' says, if he goes ahead and punishes you for the affair? What? Why, there isn't any, of course! If it was me I'd cut the pesky rope every chance I got until they let up on me!" Joel smiled despite his ill humor. "And I've lost half my interest in lessons, Out. I try not to, but I can't help it. I guess my chance at the scholarship is gone higher than a kite." "Oh, hang the scholarship!" exclaimed West. "But there's the St. Eustace game in three weeks. If you don't play in that, Joel, I'll go to 'Wheels' and tell him what I think about it!" "It's awfully rough on a fellow, Out, but Professor Wheeler is only doing what is right, I suppose. He can't let the thing go unnoticed, you see, and as long as I can't prove my innocence I guess he's right to hold me to blame for it." "Tommyrot!" answered West explosively. "The faculty's just trying to have us beaten! Why--Say, don't tell a soul, Joel, but Blair's worried half crazy. They had him up yesterday, and 'Wheels' told him that if he didn't get better marks from now on he couldn't play. What do you think of that? They're not _decent_ about it. They're trying to put us _all_ on probation. Why, how do I know but what they'll put _me_ on?" Outfield hit his shoe violently with the driver he held until it hurt him. For although Joel was debarred from playing golf there was nothing to keep him from watching West play, and this afternoon the two had been half over the course together, West explaining the game, and Joel listening intently, and all the while longing to take a club in hand and have a whack at the ball himself. "That's bad," answered Joel thoughtfully. "It would be all up with us if Blair shouldn't play." "And that's just what's going to happen if 'Wheels' keeps up his present game," responded Outfield. "Who are those chaps in that shell, Joel? One looks like Cloud, the fellow in front." Joel watched the approaching craft for a moment. "It is Cloud," he answered. "And that looks like Clausen with him. Why isn't he practicing, I wonder?" "Haven't you heard? He was dropped from the team yesterday. Wills has his place. Post says, by the way, that he's sorry you're in such a fix, but he's mighty glad to get back on the first. He's an awfully decent chap, is Post. Did you see that thing he has in this month's Hilltonian about Cooke? Says the Fac's going to establish a class in bakery and put Cooke in as teacher because he's such a fine _loafer_! Say, what's the matter down there?" The shell containing Cloud and Clausen had reached a point almost opposite to where West and Joel were perched, and as the latter looked toward it at West's exclamation he saw Cloud throw aside his oars and stand upright in the boat. Clausen had turned and was looking at his friend, but still held his oars. "By Jove, Joel, she's sinking!" cried Outfield. "Look! Why doesn't Clausen get out? There goes Cloud over. I wonder if Clausen can swim? swim? Come on!" And half tumbling, half climbing, West sped down the bank on to the tiny strip of rocks and gravel that lay along the water. Joel followed. Cloud now was in the water at a little distance from the shell, which had settled to the gunwales. Clausen, plainly in a state of terror, was kneeling in the sinking boat and crying to the other lad for help. The next moment he was in the water, and his shouts reached the two lads on the beach. Cloud swam toward him, but before he could reach him Clausen had gone from sight. "What shall we do?" cried West. "He's drowning! Can you swim?" For Joel had already divested himself of his coat and vest, and was cutting the lacings of his shoes. West hesitated an instant only, then followed suit. "Yes." Off went the last shoe, and Joel ran into the water. West, pale of face, but with a determined look in his blue eyes, followed a moment later, a yard or two behind, and the two set out with desperate strokes to reach the scene of the disaster. As he had taken the water Joel had cast a hurried glance toward the spot where Clausen had sunk, and had seen nothing of that youth; only Cloud was in sight, and he seemed to be swimming hurriedly toward shore. Joel went at the task hand over hand and heard behind him West, laboring greatly at his swimming. Presently Joel heard his name cried in an exhausted voice. "I--can't make--it--Joel!" shouted West. "I'll--have to--turn--back." "All right," Joel called. "Go up to the field and send some one for help." Then he turned his attention again to his strokes, and raising his head once, saw an open river before him with nothing in sight between him and the opposite bank save, farther down stream, a floating oar. He had made some allowance for the current, and when in another moment he had reached what seemed to him to be near the scene of the catastrophe, yet a little farther down stream, he trod water and looked about. Under the bluff to the right Cloud was crawling from the river. West was gone from sight. About him ran the stream, and save for its noise no sound came to him, and nothing rewarded his eager, searching gaze save a branch that floated slowly by. With despair at his heart, he threw up his arms and sank with wide-open eyes, peering about him in the hazy depths. Above him the surface water bubbled and eddied; below him was darkness; around him was only green twilight. For a moment he tarried there, and then arose to the surface and dashed the water from his eyes and face. And suddenly, some thirty feet away, an arm clad in a white sweater sleeve came slowly into sight. With a frantic leap through the water Joel sped toward it. A bare head followed the upstretched arm; two wild, terror-stricken eyes opened and looked despairingly at the peaceful blue heavens; the white lips moved, but no sound came from them. And then, just as the eyes closed and just as the body began to sink, as slowly as it had arisen, and for the last time, Joel reached it. There was no time left in which to pause and select a hold of the drowning boy, and Joel caught savagely at his arm and struck toward the bank, and the inert body came to the surface like a water-logged plank. "Clausen!" shouted Joel. "Clausen! Can you hear? Brace up! Strike out with your right hand, and don't grab me! Do you hear?" But there was no answer. Clausen was like stone in the water. Joel cast a despairing glance toward the bluff. Then his eyes brightened, for there sliding down the bank he saw a crowd of boys, and as he looked another on the bluff threw down a coil of new rope that shone in the afternoon sunlight as it fell and was seized by some one in the throng below. Nerved afresh, Joel took a firm grasp on Clausen's elbow and struck out manfully for shore. It was hard going, and when a bare dozen long strokes had been made his burden so dragged him down that he was obliged to stop, and, floundering desperately to keep the white face above water, take a fresh store of breath into his aching lungs. Then drawing the other boy to him so that his weight fell on his back, he brought one limp arm about his shoulder, and holding it there with his left hand started swimming once more. A dozen more strokes were accomplished slowly, painfully, and then, as encouraging shouts came from shore, he felt the body above him stir into life, heard a low cry of terror in his ear, and then--they were sinking together, Clausen and he, struggling there beneath the surface! Clausen had his arm about Joel's neck and was pulling him down--down! And just as his lungs seemed upon the point of bursting the grasp relaxed around his neck, the body began to sink and Joel to rise! With a deafening noise as of rushing water in his ears, Joel reached, caught a handful of cloth, and struggled, half drowned himself, to the surface. And then some one caught him by the chin--and he knew no more until he awoke as from a bad dream to find himself lying in the sun on the narrow beach, while several faces looked down into his. "Did you get him?" he asked weakly. "Yep," answered Outfield West, with something that sounded like a sob in his voice. "He's over there. He's all right. Don't get up," he continued, as Joel tried to move. "Stay where you are. The fellows are bringing a boat, and we'll take you both back in it." "All right," answered Joel. "But I guess I'll just look around a bit." And he sat up. At a little distance a group among which Joel recognized the broad back of Professor Gibbs were still working over Clausen. But even as he looked Joel was delighted to see Clausen's legs move and hear his weak voice speaking to the professor. Then the boat was rowed in, the occupants panting with their hurried pull from the boathouse, and Joel clambered aboard, disdaining the proffered help of West and others, and Clausen was lifted to a seat in the bow. On the way up river Joel told how it happened, West throwing in an eager word here and there, and Clausen in a low whisper explaining that the shell had struck on a sunken rock or snag when passing the island, and had begun to sink almost immediately. "And Cloud?" asked Professor Gibbs. There was no reply from either Joel or Clausen or-West. Only one of the rowers answered coldly: "He's safe. I saw him on the path near the Society Building. He was running toward Warren." A silence followed. Then-- "You've never learned to swim, Clausen?" "No, sir." "But it is the rule that no boy is allowed on the river who can not swim. How is that?" "I--I said I could, sir." "Humph! Your lie came near to costing you dear, Clausen." Then no more was said in the boat until the float was reached, although each occupant was busy with his thoughts. Clausen was helped, pale and shaking, to his room, and West and Joel, accompanied by several of their schoolmates, trotted away to the gymnasium, where Joel was put through an invigorating bath and a subsequent rubbing that left him none the worse for his adventure. The story had to be told over and over to each new group that came in after practice, and finally the two friends escaped to West's room, where they discussed the affair from the view-point of participants. "When I got back to the bluff with the other fellows you weren't to be seen, Joel," West was saying, "and I thought it was all up with poor old Joel March." "That's just what I thought a bit later," responded Joel, "when that fellow had me round the neck and was trying to show me the bottom of the river." "And then, when they brought you in, Whipple and Christie, and you were all white and--and ghastly like, you know"--Outfield West whistled long and expressively--"then I thought you _were_ a goner." Joel nodded. "And Cloud?" he asked presently. "Cloud has settled himself," responded West. "When he thought Clausen was drowning he just cut and ran--I mean swam--to shore. The fellows are madder than hornets. As Whipple said, you can't insist on a fellow saving another fellow from drowning, but you can insist on his not running away. They're planning to show Cloud what they think of him, somehow. They wouldn't talk about it while I was around. I wonder why?" Outfield stopped suddenly and frowned perplexedly. "Why, a month or six weeks ago I would have been one of the first they would have asked to help! I'm afraid it's associating with you, Joel. You're corrupting me! Say, didn't I make a mess of it this afternoon? I got about ten yards off the beach and just had to give up and pull back--and pull hard. Blessed if I didn't begin to wonder once if I'd make it! The fact is, Joel, I'm an awful dab at swimming. And I ought to be punched for letting you go out there all alone." "Nonsense, Out! You couldn't help getting tired, especially if you aren't much of a swimmer. And now you speak of it I remember you saying once that you couldn't--" Joel stopped short and looked at West in wondering amazement. And West grew red and his eyes sought the floor, and for almost a minute there was silence in the room. Then Joel arose and stood over the other lad with shining eyes. "Out," he muttered huskily, "you're a brick!" West made no reply, but his feet shuffled nervously on the hearth. "To think of you starting out there after me! Why, you're the--the hero, Out; not me at all!" "Oh, shut up!" muttered West. "I'll not! I'll tell every one in school!" cried Joel. "I'll--" "If you do, Joel March, I'll thrash you!" cried West. "You can't!--you can't, Out!" Then he paused and laid a hand affectionately on the other's shoulder as he asked softly: "And it's really so, Out? You can't--" West shook his head. "I'm afraid it's so, Joel," he answered apologetically. "You see out in Iowa there isn't much chance for a chap to learn, and--and so before this afternoon, Joel, I never swam a stroke in my life." CHAPTER XII. THE PROBATION OF BLAIR. Wallace Clausen's narrow escape from death and Joel's heroic rescue were nine-day wonders in the little world of the academy and village. In every room that night the incident was discussed from A to Z: Clausen's foolhardiness, March's grit and courage, West's coolness, Cloud's cowardice. And next morning at chapel when Joel, fearing to be late, hurried in and down the side aisle to his seat, his appearance was the signal for such an enthusiastic outburst of cheers and acclamations that he stopped, looked about in bewilderment, and then slipped with crimson cheeks into his seat, the very uncomfortable cynosure of all eyes. Older boys, who were supposed to know, stoutly averred that such a desecration of the sacred solitude of chapel had never before been heard of, and "Peg-Leg," long since recovered from his contact with the bell rope, shook his gray head doubtfully, and joined his feeble tones with the cheers of the others. And then Professor Wheeler made his voice heard, and commanded silence very sternly, yet with a lurking smile, and silence was almost secured when, just as the door was being closed, Outfield West slipped through, smiling, his handsome face flushed from his tear across the yard. And again the applause burst forth, scarcely less great in volume or enthusiasm, and West literally bolted back to the door, found it closed, was met with a grinning shake of the head from Duffy, looked wildly about for an avenue of escape, and finding none, slunk to his seat at Joel's side, while the boys joined laughter at his plight to their cheers for his courage. "You promised not to tell!" hissed West with blazing cheek. "I didn't, Out; not a word," whispered Joel. Many eyes were still turned toward the door, but their owners were doomed to disappointment, for Bartlett Cloud failed to appear at chapel that morning, preferring to accept the penalty of absence rather than face his fellow-pupils assembled there in a body. But he did not escape public degradation; for, although he waited until the last moment to go to breakfast, he found the hall filled, and so passed to his seat amid a storm of hisses that plainly told the contempt in which his schoolmates held him. And then, as though scorning to remain in his presence, the place emptied as though by magic, and he was left with burning cheeks to eat his breakfast in solitude. Joel and Outfield were publicly thanked and commended by the principal, and every master had a handshake and a kind and earnest word for them. The boys learned that Clausen had taken a severe cold from his immersion in the icy water, and had gone to the infirmary. Thither they went and made inquiry. He would be up in a day or two, said Mrs. Creelman; but they could not see him, since Professor Gibbs had charged that the patient was not to be disturbed. And so, leaving word for him when he should awake, Joel and West took themselves away, relieved at not having to receive any more thanks just then. But three days later Clausen left the infirmary fully recovered, and Joel came face to face with him on the steps of Academy Building. A number of fellows on their way to recitations stopped and watched the meeting. Clausen colored painfully, appeared to hesitate for a moment, and then went to Joel and held out his hand, which was taken and gripped warmly. "March, it's hard work thanking a fellow for saving your life, and--I don't know how to do it very well. But I guess you'll understand that--that--Oh, hang it, March! you know what I'd like to say. I'm more grateful than I could tell you--ever. We haven't been friends, but it was my fault, I know, and if you'll let me, I'd like to be--to know you better." "You're more than welcome, Clausen, for what I did. I'm awfully glad West and I happened to be on hand. But there wasn't anything that you or any fellow couldn't have done just as well, or better, because I came plaguey near making a mess of it. Anyhow, it's well through with. As for being friends, I'll be very glad to be, Clausen. And if you don't mind climbing stairs, and have a chance, come up and see me this evening. Will you?" "Yes, thanks. Er--well, to-night, then." And Clausen strode off. After supper West and Clausen came up to Joel's room, and the four boys sat and discussed all the topics known to school. Richard Sproule was at his best, and strove to do his share of the entertaining, succeeding quite beyond Joel's expectations. When the conversation drew around to the subject of the upsetting on the river, Clausen seemed willing enough to tell his own experiences, but became silent when Cloud's name was mentioned. "I've changed my room, and haven't seen Cloud since to speak to," he said. And so Cloud's name was omitted from discussion. "I'm sorry," said Clausen, "that I made such a dunce of myself when you were trying to get me out. I don't believe I knew what I was doing. I don't remember it at all." "I'm sure you didn't," answered Joel. "I guess a fellow just naturally wouldn't, you know. But I was glad when you let go!" "Yes, you must have been. The fellows all say you were terribly plucky to keep at it the way you did. When they got you it was all they could do to make you let go of me, they say." "The queerest thing," said West, with a laugh, "was to see Post standing on shore and trying to throw a line to you all. It never came within twenty yards of you, but he kept on shouting: 'Catch hold--catch hold, can't you? Why don't you catch hold, you stupid apes?'" "And some one told me," said Sproule, "that Whipple took his shoes, sweater, and breeches off, and swam out there with his nose-guard on." "Used it for a life-preserver," suggested West.--"Did you get lectured, Clausen?" "Yes, he gave it to me hard; but he's a nice old duffer, after all. Said I had had pretty near punishment enough. But I've got to keep in bounds all term, and can't go on the river again until I learn how to swim." "Shouldn't think you'd want to," answered Sproule. "Are you still on probation, March?" asked Clausen. "Yes, and it doesn't look as though I'd ever get off. If I could find out who cut that rope I'd--I'd--" "Well, I must be going back," exclaimed Clausen hurriedly. "I wish, March, you'd come and see me some time. My room's 16 Warren. I'm in with a junior by the name of Bowler. Know him?" Joel didn't know the junior, but promised to call, and West and Clausen said good-night and stumbled down the stairway together. The next morning Joel dashed out from his history recitation plump into Stephen Remsen, who was on his way to the office. "Well, March, congratulations! I'm just back from a trip home and was going to look you up this afternoon and shake hands with you. I'll do it now. You're a modest-enough-looking hero, March." "I don't feel like a hero, either," laughed Joel in an endeavor to change the subject. "I'm just out from Greek history, and if I could tell Mr. Oman what I think--" "Yes? But tell me, how did you manage--But we'll talk about that some other time. You're feeling all right after the wetting, are you?" And as Joel answered yes, he continued: "Do you think you could go to work again on the team if I could manage to get you off probation?" "Try me!" cried Joel. "Do you think they'll let up on me?" "I'm almost certain of it. I'm on my way now to see Professor Wheeler, and I'll ask him about you. I have scarcely any doubt but that, after your conduct the other day, he will consent to reinstate you, March, if I ask him. And I shall be mighty glad to do so. To tell the truth, I'm worried pretty badly about--well, never mind. Never cross a river until you come to it." "But, Mr. Remsen, sir," said Joel, "do you mean that he will let me play just because--just on account of what happened the other day?" "On account of that and because your general conduct has been of the best; and also, because they have all along believed you innocent of the charge, March. You know I told you that when Cloud and Clausen were examined each swore that the other had not left the room that evening, and accounted for each other's every moment all that day. But, nevertheless, I am positive that Professor Wheeler took little stock in their testimony. And as for Professor Durkee, why, he pooh-pooed the whole thing. You seem to have made a conquest of Professor Durkee, March." "He was very kind," answered Joel thoughtfully. "I don't believe, Mr. Remsen, that I want to be let off that way," he went on. "I'm no less guilty of cutting the bell rope than I was before the accident on the river. And until I can prove that I am not guilty, or until they let me off of their own free wills, I'd rather stay on probation. But I'm very much obliged to you, Mr. Remsen." And to this resolve Joel adhered, despite all Remsen's powers of persuasion. And finally that gentleman continued on his way to the office, looking very worried. The cause of his worry was known to the whole school two days later when the news was circulated that Wesley Blair was on probation. And great was the consternation. The football game with St. Eustace Academy was fast approaching, and there was no time to train a satisfactory substitute for Blair's position at full-back, even had one been in reach. And Whipple as temporary captain was well enough, but Whipple as captain during the big game was not to be thought of with equanimity. The backs had already been weakened by the loss of Cloud, who, despite his poor showing the first of the season, had it in him to put up a rattling game. And now to lose Blair! What did the faculty mean? Did it want Hillton to lose? But presently hope took the place of despair among the pupils. He was going to coach up and pass a special exam the day before the game. Professor Ludlow was to help him with his modern languages and Remsen with his mathematics, while Digbee, that confirmed old grind, had offered to coach him on Greek. And so it would be all right, said the school; you couldn't down Blair; he'd pass when the time came! But Remsen--and Blair himself, had the truth been known--were not so hopeful. And Remsen went to West and besought him to induce Joel to allow him (Remsen) to ask for his reinstatement. And this West very readily did, bringing to bear a whole host of arguments which slid off from Joel like water from a duck's back. And Remsen groaned and shook his head, but always presented a smiling, cheerful countenance in public. Those were hard days for the first eleven. Despair and discouragement threatened on all sides, and, as every thoughtful one expected, there was such a slump in the practice as kept Remsen and Whipple and poor Blair awake o' nights during the next week. But Whipple toiled like a Trojan, and Remsen beamed contentment and scattered tongue-lashings alternately; and Blair, ever armed with a text-book, watched from the side-line whenever the chance offered. Joel seldom went to the field those days. The sight of a canvas-clad player made him ready to weep, and a soaring pigskin sent him wandering away by himself along the river bluff in no enviable state of mind. But one day he did find his way to the gridiron during practice, and he and Blair sat side by side, or raced down the field, even with a runner, and received much consolation in the sort of company that misery loves, and, deep in discussion of the faults and virtues of the players, forgot their troubles. "Why, it wouldn't have mattered if you were playing, March," said Blair. "For there's no harm in telling you now that we were depending on you for half the punting. Remsen thinks you are fine and so do I. 'With March to take half the punting off your hands,' said he one day, 'you'll have plenty of time to run the team to the Queen's taste.' Why, we had you running on the track there, so you would get your lungs filled out and be able to run with the ball as well as kick it. If you were playing we'd be all right. But as it is, there isn't a player there that can be depended on to punt twenty yards if pushed. Some of 'em can't even catch the ball if they happen to see the line breaking! St. Eustace is eight pounds heavier in the line than we are, and three or four pounds heavier back of it. So what will happen? Why, they'll get the ball and push us right down the field with a lot of measly mass plays, and we won't be able to kick and we won't be able to go through their line. And it's dollars to doughnuts that we won't often get round their ends. It's a hard outlook! Of course, if I can pass--" But there Blair stopped and sighed dolefully. And Joel echoed the sigh. The last few days before the event of the term came, and found the first eleven in something approaching their old form. Blair continued to burn the midnight oil and consume page after page of Greek and mathematics and German, which, as he confided despondently to Digbee, he promptly forgot the next moment. Remsen made up a certain amount of lost sleep, and Whipple gained the confidence of the team. Joel studied hard, and refound his old interest in lessons, and dreamed nightly of the Goodwin scholarship. West, too, "put in some hard licks," as he phrased it, and found himself climbing slowly up in the class scale. And so the day of the game came round. The night preceding it two things of interest happened: the eleven and substitutes assembled in the gymnasium and listened to a talk by Remsen, which was designed less for instruction than to take the boys' mind off the morrow's game; and Wesley Blair took his examination in the four neglected studies, and made very hard work of it, and finally crawled off to a sleepless night, leaving the professors to make their decision alone. And as the chapel bell began to ring on Thanksgiving Day morning, Digbee entered Blair's room, and finding that youth in a deep slumber, sighed, wrote a few words on a sheet of paper, placed this in plain sight upon the table, and tiptoed noiselessly out. And the message read: "We failed on the Greek. I'm sorrier than I can tell you.--Digbee." CHAPTER XIII THE GAME WITH ST. EUSTACE. There is a tradition at Hillton, almost as firmly inwrought as that which credits Professor Durkee with wearing a wig, to the effect that Thanksgiving Day is always rainy. To-day proved an exception to the rule. The sun shone quite warmly and scarce a cloud was to be seen. At two o'clock the grand stand was filled, and late arrivals had perforce to find accommodations on the grass along the side-lines. Some fifty lads had accompanied their team from St. Eustace, and the portion of the stand where they sat was blue from top to bottom. But the crimson of Hillton fluttered and waved on either side and dotted the field with little spots of vivid color wherever a Hilltonian youth or ally sat, strolled, or lay. Yard and village were alike well-nigh deserted; here was the staid professor, the corpulent grocer, the irrepressible small boy, the important-looking senior, the shouting, careless junior, the giggling sister, the smiling mother, the patronizing papa, the crimson-bedecked waitress from the boarding house, the--the--band! Yes, by all means, the band! There was no chance of overlooking the band. It stood at the upper end of the field and played and played and played. The band never did things by halves. When it played it played; and, as Outfield West affirmed, "it played till the cows came home!" There were plenty of familiar faces here to-day; Professor Gibbs's, old "Peg-Leg" Duffy's, Professor Durkee's, the village postmaster's, "Old Joe" Pike's, and many, many others. On the ground just outside the rope sat West and a throng of boys from Hampton House. There were Cooke and Cartwright and Somers and Digbee--and yes, Wesley Blair, looking very glum and unhappy. He had donned his football clothes, perhaps from force of habit, and sat there taking little part in the conversation, but studying attentively the blue-clad youths who were warming-up on the gridiron. A very stalwart lot of youngsters, those same youths looked to be, and handled the ball as though to the manner born, and passed and fell and kicked short high punts with discouraging ease and vim. But one acquaintance at least was missing. Not Bartlett Cloud, for he sat with his sister and mother on the seats; not Clausen, for he sat among the substitutes; not Sproule, since he was present but a moment since. But Joel March was missing. In his room at Masters Hall Joel sat by the table with a Greek history open before him. I fear he was doing but little studying, for now and then he arose from his chair, walked impatiently to the window, from which he could see in the distance the thronged field, bright with life and color, turned impatiently away, sighed, and so returned again to his book. But surely we can not tarry there with Joel when Hillton and St. Eustace are about to meet in gallant if bloodless combat on the campus. Let us leave him to sigh and sulk, and return to the gridiron. A murmur that rapidly grows to a shout arises from the grand stand, and suddenly every eye is turned up the river path toward the school. They are coming! A little band of canvas-armored knights are trotting toward the campus. The shouting grows in volume, and the band changes its tune to "Hilltonians." Nearer and nearer they come, and then are swinging on to the field, leaping the rope, and throwing aside sweaters and coats. Big Greer is in the lead, good-natured and smiling. Then comes Whipple, then Warren, and the others are in a bunch--Post, Christie, Fenton, Littlefield, Barnard, Turner, Cote, Wills. The St. Eustace contingent gives them a royal welcome, and West and Cooke and Somers and others take their places in front of the seats and lead the cheering. "Rah-rah-rah, rah-rah-rah, rah-rah-rah, Hillton!" The mighty chorus sweeps across the campus and causes more than one player's heart to swell within him. "S-E-A, S-E-A, S-E-A, Saint Eustace!" What the cheer lacks in volume is atoned for by good will, and a clapping of hands from the hostile seats attests admiration. Hillton is warming for the fray. Greer and Whipple are practicing snapping-back, the latter passing the ball to Warren, who seizes it and runs a few steps to a new position, where the play is repeated. The guards and tackles are throwing themselves on to the ground and clutching rolling footballs in a way that draws a shudder of alarm from the feminine observer. Stephen Remsen is talking with the ends very earnestly under the goal posts, and Post and Wills are aiming balls at the goal with, it must be acknowledged, small success. Then a whistle blows, the two teams congregate in the center of the field, the opposing captains flip a coin, the referee, a Yates College man, utters a few words of warning, and the teams separate, St. Eustace taking the ball and the home team choosing the northern goal. Then the cheering lessens. St. Eustace spreads out; Cantrell, their center, places the ball; the referee's whistle sounds, the pigskin soars aloft, and the game is on. In charity toward Hillton let us pass over the first half as soon as may be. Suffice to tell that the wearers of the crimson fought their best; that Whipple ran the team as well as even Remsen could desire; that Post made a startling run of forty yards, had only the St. Eustace full-back between him and the goal--and then ran plump into that full-back's arms; that Greer and Barnard and Littlefield stood like a stone wall--and went down like one; that Wills kicked, and Post kicked, and Warren kicked, and none of them accomplished aught save to wring groans from the souls of all who looked on. In short, it was St. Eustace's half from kick-off to call of time, and all because Hillton had never a youth behind the line to kick out of danger or gain them a yard. For St. Eustace was heavier in the line than Hillton and heavier back of it, and with the ball once in her possession St. Eustace had only to hammer away at center, guard, or tackle with "guards back" or "tandem," to score eventually. And that is what she did. And yet four times did Hillton hold St. Eustace literally on her goal-line and take the ball. And each time by hook or crook, by a short, weak punt or a clever, dashing run around end, did Hillton win back a portion of her lost territory, only to lose it again at the second or third attempt to advance the ball. The halves were twenty-five minutes long, and in that first twenty-five minutes St. Eustace scored but once, though near it thrice that many times. Allen, St. Eustace's right half-back, had plunged over the line for a touch-down at the end of fifteen minutes of play and Terrill had missed an easy goal. Then the grand stand was silent save for one small patch, whereon blue flags went crazy and swirled and leaped and danced up and down as though possessed of life. And over the field sped, sharp and triumphant, the St. Eustace cheer. And the score stood: St. Eustace 5, Hillton O. The first half ended with the leather but ten yards from the north goal, and a great murmuring sigh of relief went up from the seats and from along the side-lines when the whistle sounded. Then the Hillton players, pale, dirty, half defeated, trotted lamely off the field and around the corner of the stand to the little weather-beaten shed which served for dressing room. And the blue-clad team trotted joyfully down to their stage, and there, behind the canvas protections were rubbed down and plastered up, and slapped on the back by their delighted coach and trainer. In the Hillton quarters life was less cheerful during the ten minutes of intermission. After the fellows had rubbed and redressed, Remsen talked for a minute or two. There was no scolding, and no signs of either disappointment or discouragement. But he cautioned the team against carelessness, predicted a tied score at the end of fifteen minutes, and called for three-times-three for Hillton, which was given with reviving enthusiasm. A moment later the team trotted back to the field. "Touch her down, Touch her down, Touch her down again! H-I-double-L-T-O-N!" chanted the wearers of the crimson; and--"St. Eustace! St. Eustace! St. Eustace!" shouted the visitors as they waved their bright blue banners in air. The whistle piped merrily, the ball took its flight, and it was now or never for old Hillton! Stephen Remsen joined the string of substitutes and found a seat on the big gray blanket which held Browne and Clausen. From there he followed the progress of the game. Outwardly he was as happy and contented, as cool and disinterested, as one of the goal posts. Inwardly he was railing against the fate that had deprived Hillton of both the players who, had they been in the team, could have saved the crimson from defeat. Wesley Blair joined him, and with scarce a word they watched St. Eustace revert to her previous tactics, and tear great gaping holes in the Hillton line, holes often large enough to admit of a coach and four, and more than large enough to allow Allen or Jansen to go tearing, galloping through, with the ball safe clutched, for three, five? or even a dozen yards! No line can long stand such treatment, and, while the one-hundred-and-fifty-pound Greer still held out, Barnard, the big right-guard, was already showing signs of distress. St. Eustace's next play was a small wedge on tackle, and although Barnard threw himself with all his remaining strength into the breach he was tossed aside like a bag of feathers and through went the right and left half-backs, followed by full with the ball, and pushed onward by left-end and quarter. When down was called the ball was eight yards nearer Hillton's goal, and Barnard lay still on the ground. Whipple held up his hand. Thistelweight--a youth of some one hundred and forty pounds--struggled agitatedly with his sweater and bounded into the field, and Barnard, white and weak, was helped limping off. For awhile St. Eustace fought shy of right-guard, and then again the weight of all the backs was suddenly massed at that point, and, though a yard resulted, the crimson wearers found cause for joy, and a ringing cheer swept over the field. But Littlefield at left-guard was also weakening, and the tackle beside him was in scarce better plight. And so, with tandem on tackle, wedge, or guard back, St. Eustace plowed along toward the Hillton goal, and a deep silence held the field save for the squad of blue-decked cheerers on the seats. Remsen looked at his watch. "Eighteen minutes to play," he announced quietly. Blair nodded. He made no attempt to disguise his dejection. Clausen heard, and suddenly turned toward the coach. He was pale, and Remsen wondered at his excitement. "Can't we tie them, sir?" he asked breathlessly. "I'm afraid not. And even if we could they'd break loose." Clausen paid no heed to the sorry joke. "But they'll win, sir! Isn't there anything to do?" Remsen stared. Then he smiled. "Failing an extraordinary piece of luck, my lad, we're already beaten. Our line can't hold them; we have no one to kick, even should we get a chance, and--" "But if Blair was there, sir, or March?" "It might make a difference. Hello! there they go through tackle-guard hole again. Lord, six yards if an inch!" Blair groaned and rolled over in despair. The whistle sounded, and as the pile of writhing youths dissolved it was seen that Tom Warren was hurt. Out trotted the rubber. The players sank exhausted to the ground and lay stretched upon the sward, puffing and panting. Two minutes went by. Then Whipple called for Clausen. "Clausen," cried Remsen turning, "go in and--" But Clausen was not to be seen. "Clausen!" cried a dozen voices. There was no response, and Browne was taken on instead, and Warren, with an ankle that failed him at every step, struggled off the field. "What's become of Clausen?" asked Remsen. But no one could answer. The play went on. With the ball on Hillton's twenty-yard line a fumble gave it to the home team, and on the first down Browne gathered it in his arms and tried to skirt St. Eustace's left end, but was thrown with a loss of a yard. A similar play with Wills as the runner was tried around the other end and netted a yard and a half. It was the third down and four and a half yards to gain. Back went the ball to Post and he kicked. But it was a poor performance, that kick, and only drove the pigskin down the side-line to the forty-yard line, where it bounded in touch. But it delayed the evil moment of another score for St. Eustace, and the seats cheered. "Twelve minutes left," announced Remsen. Relentless as fate the St. Eustace forwards surged on toward the opposing goal. Two yards, three yards, one yard, five yards, half a yard, always a gain, never a check, until once more the leather reposed just in front of the Hillton goal and midway between the ten and fifteen-yard line. Then a plunge through the tackle-guard hole, followed by a tandem on guard, and another five yards was passed. The cheering from the wearers of the blue was now frantic and continuous. There was two years of defeat to make up for, and victory was hovering over the azure banner! "Eight minutes to play," said Remsen. "If we can only keep them from scoring again!" Suddenly there was a murmur from the seats, then a cry of surprise from Remsen's side, then a shout of exultation that gathered and grew as it traveled along the line. And around the corner of the stand came a youth who strove to lace his torn and tattered canvas jacket as he ran. Remsen leaped to his feet, dropping his pipe unnoticed, and hastened toward him. They met and for a moment conversed in whispers. "It's Joel March!" cried Blair. "He's going to play!" exclaimed a dozen voices. "But he can't," cried a dozen others. "He's on probation." "He is! He is! He's going on! He's going to play!" And so he was. Whipple had already seen him, and had sunk to the ground nursing an ankle which had suddenly gone lame. "Time!" he cried, and obedient to his demand the referee's whistle piped. "Give your place to Post, Wills!" he commanded, and then, limping to Joel, he led that youth apart. "Can you play?" he asked hoarsely. "Yes." "Then get in there at full-back, and, O March, kick us out of this bloody place! I'll give you the ball on the next down. Kick it for all you're worth." He gave Joel a shove. "All right, Mr. Referee!" The whistle sounded. Forward charged St. Eustace. But, gathering encouragement from the knowledge that back of them stood a full who would put them out of danger if the opportunity were given him, Hillton stood fast. "Second down, five yards to gain!" cried the umpire. Again the wearers of bedraggled blue stockings surged and broke against the line. And again there was no gain. Back of Hillton, less than eight yards away, lay the goal-line. Desperation lends strength. Huddled together, shoulder to shoulder, the backs bracing from behind, the crimson-clad youths awaited the next charge. It was "the thin red line" again. Then back went the ball, there was a moment of grinding canvas, of muttered words and smothered gasps, of swaying, clutching, falling, and "Down!" was heard. "Hillton's ball; first down," announced the umpire. What a cheer went up from the grand stand! What joy was in Remsen's heart as the St. Eustace full-back went trotting up the field and Greer stooped over the ball! Then came a pause, a silence. Every one knew what to look for. Squarely between the posts and directly under the cross-bar stood Joel March, his left foot on the goal-line. Back came the ball, straight and low into Joel's outstretched hands. The line blocked long and hard. One step forward, an easy, long swing of his right leg, and Joel sent the ball sailing a yard over the upstretched hands of the opposing line and far and high down the field. There it was gathered into the arms of the St. Eustace full-back, but ere that player had put his foot twice to ground he was thrown, and the teams lined up on St. Eustace's forty-five-yard line. Then it was that the god of battle befriended Hillton; for on the next play St. Eustace made her first disastrous fumble, and Christie, Hillton's right end, darted through, seized the rolling spheroid, and started down the field. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty yards he sped, the St. Eustace backs trailing after him. "A touch-down!" cried Remsen. "No, the half's gaining! He's got him! No, missed him, by Jove! A-ah!" The run was over, and Christie lay panting on the ground, with the triumphant St. Eustace half-back sitting serenely on his head; for, although the latter had missed his tackle, Christie had slipped in avoiding him. But cheers for Christie and Hillton filled the afternoon air, and the two elevens lined up near St. Eustace's twenty-five-yard line, yet well over toward the side of the field. "If it was only in the middle of the field," groaned Blair, "a place-kick would tie the score. How much time is there, Mr. Remsen?" "About two and a half minutes," answered Remsen. "But I've an idea that, middle or no middle, Whipple's going to signal a kick." "It can't be done," answered Blair with conviction, "drop or placement! March is only fair at goals, and at that angle--" "What's the matter with the man?" cried Remsen; "what's he up to?" For the Hillton backs were clustered well up behind the line as though for a wedge attack. And as Remsen wondered, the ball was put in play, the line blocked sharply, and Christie left his place at right end, and skirting behind the backs received the ball by a double pass _via_ right half-back and ran for the middle of the field, the backs helping the end and tackle to hold the St. Eustace right line. Christie gained the center of the gridiron and advanced a yard toward the opponent's goal ere the St. Eustace right half-back reached him. Then there was a quick line-up, and Joel took up his position for a kick. "Well done, Whipple!" cried Remsen and Blair in a breath. "But the time!" muttered Remsen, "does he know--" "One minute to play!" came the ominous announcement. Then, while a snap of the fingers could have been heard the length of the field, Whipple glanced deliberately around at the backs, slapped the broad back of the center sharply, seized the snapped ball, and made a swift, straight pass to Joel. Then through the Hillton line went the St. Eustace players, breaking down with vigor born of desperation the blocking of their opponents. With a leap into the air the St. Eustace left-guard bore down straight upon Joel; there was a concussion, and the latter went violently to earth, but not before his toe had met the rebounding ball; and the latter, describing a high arc, sailed safely, cleanly over the bar and between the posts! And then, almost before the ball had touched the ground, the whistle blew shrilly, and apparent defeat had been turned into what was as good as victory to the triumphant wearers of the Hillton crimson! Hillton and St. Eustace had played a tie. And over the ropes, rushing, leaping, shouting, broke the tide of humanity, crimson flags swirled over a sea of heads, and pandemonium ruled the campus! And on the ground where he had fallen lay Joel March. CHAPTER XIV. THE GOODWIN SCHOLARSHIP. "But how did it all happen?" asked Outfield West breathlessly. He had just entered and was seated on the edge of the bed whereon Joel lay propped up eating his Thanksgiving dinner from a tray. It was seven o'clock in the evening, and Dickey Sproule was not yet back. The yard was noisy with the shouts of lads returning from the dining hall, and an occasional cheer floated up, an echo of the afternoon's event. Joel moved a dish of pudding away from Outfield's elbow as he answered between mouthfuls of turkey: "I was up here studying at the table there when I heard some one coming up stairs two steps at a time. It was Clausen. He threw open the door and cried: 'They're winning, March, they're winning! Come quick! Remsen says we can tie them if you play. It's all right, March. We'll go to the office and I'll tell everything. Only come, hurry!' Well, of course I thought first he was crazy. Then I guessed what was up, because I knew that Eustace had scored--" "You couldn't have known; you were studying." "Well, I--I wasn't studying all the time, Out. So up I jumped, and we raced over to the office and found Professor Wheeler there asleep on the leather couch under the window. 'It was Cloud and I, sir, that cut the rope!' said Clausen. 'I'm very sorry, sir, and I'll take the punishment and glad to. But March hadn't anything to do with it, sir; he didn't even know anything about it, sir!' Professor Wheeler was about half awake, and he thought something terrible was the matter, and it took the longest time to explain what Clausen was talking about. Then he said he was glad to learn that I was innocent, and I thanked him, and he started to ask Clausen a lot of questions. 'But St. Eustace is winning, sir!' I cried. He looked at me in astonishment. 'Indeed, I'm very sorry to hear it,' he said. 'But it isn't too late now, sir,' said Clausen. 'For what?' asked 'Wheels.' 'For me to go on the team,' said I. 'You know, sir, you put me on probation and I can't play.' 'Oh,' said he, 'but you were put on probation by the faculty, and the faculty must take you off.' 'But meanwhile Hillton will be beaten!' said Clausen. 'Can't he play, sir? He can save the day!' Wheels thought a bit. 'What's the score?' he asked. Clausen told him. 'Yes,' he said at last, 'run and get to work. I'll explain to the faculty. And by the way, March, remember that a kick into touch is always the safest.'" "Isn't he a rummy old guy?" exclaimed West. "And then?" "Then I struck out for the gym, got into my canvas togs somehow or other, and reached the field just about in time. Luckily I knew the signals. And then after I'd kicked that goal that big Eustace chap struck me like a locomotive, and I went down on the back of my head; and that's all except that they brought me up here and Professor Gibbs plastered me up and gave me a lot of nasty sweet water to take." "And Clausen?" "From the little I heard I think Cloud cut the rope and made Clausen promise not to tell. And he kept his promise until he saw Hillton getting beaten yesterday, and then he couldn't stand it, and just up and told everything, and saved us a licking." "Didn't I tell you Cloud did it? Didn't I--" There came a knock on the door and in response to Joel's invitation Professor Wheeler and Stephen Remsen entered. West leaped off the bed--there is a rule at Hillton forbidding occupying beds save for sleep--and upset Joel's tea. Professor Wheeler smiled as he said: "West, you're rather an uneasy fellow to have in a sick-room. Get something and dry that off the floor there, please.--Well, March, I understand you got there in the nick of time to-day. Mr. Remsen says you saved us from defeat." "Indeed he did, professor; no one else save Blair could have done it to-day. That goal from the twenty-five-yard line was as pretty a performance as I've ever seen.--How are you feeling, lad?" "All right," answered Joel. "I've got a bit of a headache, but I'll be better in the morning." "Your appetite doesn't seem to have failed you," said the principal. "No, sir, I was terribly hungry." "That's a good sign, they say.--West, you may take your seat again." The professor and Stephen Remsen occupied the two chairs, and West without hesitation sat down again on the bed. "March, I have learned the truth of that affair. Bartlett Cloud, it appears, cut the bell rope simply in order to throw suspicion on you. He managed to secure a letter of yours through--hem!--through your roommate, who, it seems, also bears you a grudge for some real or fancied slight. Clausen, while a party to the affair, appears to have taken no active part in it, and only remained silent because threatened with bodily punishment by Cloud. These boys will be dealt with as they deserve. "But I wish to say to you that all along it has been the belief of the faculty, the entire faculty, that you had no hand in the matter, and we are all glad to have our judgments vindicated. An announcement will be made to-morrow which will set you right again before the school. And now, in regard to Richard Sproule; do you know of any reason why he should wish you harm?" "No, sir. We don't get along very well, but--" "I see. Now, it will be best for you to change either your room or your roommate. Have you any preference which you do?" "I should like to change my room, sir. I should like to go in with West. He has a room to himself in Hampton, and wants to have me join him." "But do you realize that the rent will be very much greater, March?" "Yes, sir, but West wants me to pay only what I have paid for this room, sir. He says he'd have to pay for the whole room if I didn't go in with him, and so it's fair that way. Do you think it is, sir?" "What would your father say, West?" "I've asked him, sir. He says to go ahead and do as I please." The principal smiled as he replied: "Well, March, then move over to West's room to-morrow. It will be all fair enough. And I shall be rather glad to have you in Hampton House. Digbee is an example of splendid isolation there; it will be well to have some one help him maintain the dignity of study amid such a number of--er--well, say lilies of the field, West; they toil not, if you remember, and neither do they spin. Don't get up in the morning if your head still hurts, March; we don't want you to get sick.--Keep a watch on him, West; and, by the way, if he wants more tea, run over to the dining hall and tell the steward I said he was to have it. Good-night, boys." "Good-night, sir." Remsen shook hands with Joel. "March, I hope I shall be able to repay you some day for what you did this afternoon. It meant more to me, I believe, than it did to even you fellows. I'm going Thursday next. Come and see me before then if you can. Good-night." When the door had closed Outfield shouted, "Hurrah!" in three different keys and pirouetted about the room. "It's all fixed, Joel. Welcome to Hampton, my lad! Welcome to the classic shades of Donothing Hall! We will live on pickles and comb-honey, and feast like the Romans of old! We--" He paused. "Say, Joel, I guess Cloud will be expelled, eh?" Joel considered thoughtfully with a spoonful of rice pudding midway between saucer and mouth. Then he swallowed the delicacy. "Yes," he replied, "and I'm awful glad of it." But Joel was mistaken; for Cloud was not to be found the next morning, and the condition of his room pointed to hasty flight. He had taken alarm and saved himself from the degradation of public dismissal. And so he passed from Hillton life and was known there no more. Clausen escaped with a light punishment, for which both Joel and West were heartily glad. "Because when you get him away from Cloud," said West, "Clausen's not a bad sort, you know." Richard Sproule was suspended for the balance of the fall term, and was no longer monitor of his floor. Perhaps the heaviest punishment was the amount of study he was required to do in order to return after Christmas recess, entailing as it did a total relinquishment of Mayne Reid, Scott, and Cooper. And when he did return his ways led far from Joel's. Very naturally that youth had now risen to the position of popular hero, and unapproachable seniors slapped him warmly on the shoulder--a bit of familiarity Joel was too good-natured to resent--and wide-eyed little juniors admired him open-mouthed as he passed them. But Joel bore himself modestly withal, and was in no danger of being spoiled by a state of things that might well have turned the head of a more experienced lad than he. It is a question if Outfield did not derive more real pleasure and pride out of Joel's popularity than did Joel himself. Every new evidence of the liking and admiration in which the latter was held filled Outfield's heart with joy. At last Joel found time to begin his course in golf, and almost any day the two lads might have been seen on the links, formidably armed with a confusing assortment of clubs, Outfield quite happy to be exhibiting the science of his favorite sport, and Joel plowing up the sod in a way to cause a green-tender, had there been such a person on hand, the most excruciating pain. But Joel went at golf as he went at everything else, bending all his energies thereto, and driving thought of all else from his mind, and so soon became, if not an expert, at least a very acceptable player who won commendation from even West--and where golf was concerned Outfield was a most unbiased and unsympathetic judge. One afternoon Whipple and Blair, the latter once more free from probation, played a match with Joel and West, and were fairly beaten by three holes--a fact due less, it is true, to Joel's execution with the driver than West's all-around playing. But Joel, nevertheless, derived not a little encouragement from that result, and bade fair to become almost if not quite as enthusiastic a golfer as West. At first, in the earlier stages of his initiation, Joel was often discouraged, whereupon West was wont to repeat the famous reply of the old St. Andrews player to the college professor, who did not understand why, when he could teach Latin and Greek, he failed so dismally at golf. "Ay, I ken well ye can teach the Latin and Greek," said the veteran, "but it takes _brains_, mon, to play the gowf!" And Joel more than half agreed with him. Remsen departed a week after Thanksgiving, being accompanied to the train by almost as enthusiastic a throng as had welcomed him upon his arrival. He had consented to return to Hillton the following year and coach the eleven once more. "I had expected to make this the last year," he said, "but now I shall coach, if you will have me, until we win a decisive victory from St. Eustace. I can't break off my coaching career with a tie game, you see." And Christie occasioned laughter and applause by replying, "I'm afraid you're putting a premium on defeat, sir, because if we win next year's game you won't come back." He shook hands cordially with Joel, and said: "When the election of next year's captain comes off, my boy, it's a pretty sure thing that you'll have a chance at it. But if you'll take my advice you'll let it alone. I tell you this because I'm your friend all through. Next fall will be time enough for the honors; this year should go to hard work without any of the trouble that falls to the lot of captain." "Thank you, Mr. Remsen," Joel answered. "I hadn't thought of their doing such a thing. I don't see why they should want me. But if it's offered you may be sure I'll decline. I'd be totally unfitted for it; and, besides, I haven't got the time!" And so, when two weeks later the election was held in the gymnasium one evening, Joel did decline, to the evident regret of all the team, and the honor went to Christie, since both Blair and Whipple were seniors and would not be in school the next autumn. And Christie made a very manly, earnest speech, and subsequently called for three times three for Blair, and three times three for Remsen, and nine times three for Hillton, all of which were given with a will. As the Christmas recess approached, Joel spent a great deal of valuable time in unnecessary conjecture as to his chance of winning the Goodwin scholarship, and undoubtedly lessened his chance of success by worrying. The winners were each year announced in school hall on the last day of the term. The morning of that day found Outfield West very busy packing a heap of unnecessary golf clubs and wearing apparel into his trunk and bags, and found Joel seated rather despondently on the lounge looking on. For West was to spend his vacation with an uncle in Boston, and Joel, although Outfield had begged him to go along, asserting positively that his uncle would be proud and happy to see him (Joel), was to spend the recess at school, since he felt he could not afford the expense of the trip home. West hesitated long over a blue-checked waistcoat and at length sighed and left it out. "Isn't it most time to go over?" asked Joel. "No; don't you be in a hurry. There's a half hour yet. And if you're going to get the Goodwin you'll get it, and there isn't any use stewing over it," replied West severely. "As for me, I'm glad I'm not a grind and don't have to bother my head about such tommyrot. Just sit on the lid of this pesky thing, Joel, will you? I'm afraid that last coat was almost too much for it." But even suspense comes to an end, and presently Joel found himself seated by West in the crowded hall, and felt his face going red and pale by turns, and knew that his heart was beating with unaccustomed violence beneath his shabby vest. Professor Wheeler made his speech--and what a long one it seemed to many a lad!--and then the fateful list was lifted from the table. "Senior class scholarships have been awarded as follows," announced the principal. "The Calvin scholarship to Albert Park Digbee, Waltham, Massachusetts." Joel forgot his unpleasant emotions while he clapped and applauded. But they soon returned as the list went on. Every announcement met with uproarous commendation, and boy after boy arose from his seat and more or less awkwardly bowed his recognition. The principal had almost completed the senior list. "Ripley scholarships to George Simms Lennox, New York city; John Fiske, Brookville, Mississippi; Carleton Sharp Eaton, Milton, Massachusetts; William George Woodruff, Portland, Maine. Masters scholarships to Howard McDonnell, Indianapolis, Indiana; Thomas Grey, Yonkers, New York; Stephen Lutger Williams, Connellsville, Rhode Island; Barton Hobbs, Farmington, Maine; Walter Haskens Browne, Denver, Colorado; and Justin Thorp Smith, Chicago, Illinois." Joel's hands were cold and his feet just wouldn't keep still. The principal leaned down and took up the upper middle class list. West nudged Joel smartly in the ribs, and whispered excitedly: "Now! Keep cool, my boy, keep cool!" Then Joel heard Professor Wheeler's voice reading from the list, and for a moment it seemed to come from a great distance. "Upper middle class scholarships have been awarded as follows:" There was a pause while he found his place. "Goodwin scholarship to Harold Burke Reeves, Saginaw, Michigan." West subsided in his seat with a dismal groan. Joel did not hear it. It is doubtful if he heard anything until several minutes later, when the pronouncement of his name awoke him from the lethargy into which he had fallen. "Masters scholarships to Joel March, Marchdale, Maine--" "It's better than nothing, Joel," whispered Outfield. "It's fifty dollars, you know." But Joel made no reply. What was a Masters to him who had set his heart on the first prize of all? Presently, when the lists were over, he stole quietly out unnoticed by his chum, and when West returned to the room he found Joel at the table, head in hands, an open book before him. West closed the door and walked noiselessly forward in the manner of one in a sick-room, At length he asked in a voice which strove to be natural and unconcerned: "What are you doing, Joel?" The head over the book only bent closer as its owner answered doggedly: "Studying Greek!" CHAPTER XV. THE BOAT RACE. The balance of that school year was a season of hard study for Joel. It was not in his nature to remain long despondent over the loss of the Goodwin scholarship, and a week after the winter term commenced he was as cheerful and light-hearted as ever. But his failure served to spur him on to renewed endeavors, and as a result he soon found himself at the head of the upper middle. Rightly or wrongly--and there is much to be said on both sides--he gave up sports almost entirely. Now and then West persuaded him to an afternoon on the links, but this was infrequent. The hockey season opened with the first hard ice on the river, and West joined the team that met and defeated St. Eustace in January. There was one result of his application to study that Joel had not looked for. Outfield West, perhaps from a mere desire to be companionable, took to lessons, and, much to his own pretended dismay, began to earn the reputation of a diligent student. "You won't talk," growled West, "you won't play chess, you won't eat things. You just drive a chap to study!" As spring came in the school talk turned to baseball and rowing. For the former Joel had little desire, but rowing attracted him, and he began to allow himself the unusual pleasure of an hour away from lessons in the afternoon that he might go down to the boathouse with West, and there, in a sunny angle of the building, watch the crews at work upon the stream. Hillton was trying very hard to turn out a winning crew, and Whipple, who was captain of the first eight, toiled as no captain had toiled before in the history of Hillton aquatics. The baseball season ended disastrously with a severe drubbing for the Hillton nine at the hands of St. Eustace on the latter's home ground. The fellows said little, but promised to atone for it when the boat race came off. This occurred two days before class day, which this year came on June 22d, and very nearly every pupil traveled down the river to Marshall to witness it. The day away from school came as a welcome relief after the worry and brain-aching of the spring examination, and Joel, although he knew for a certainty that he had passed with the highest marks, was glad to obey Outfield's stern decree and accompany that youth to the scene of the race. They went by train and arrived at the little town at noon. After a regal repast of soup and sandwiches, ice cream and chocolate éclairs, the two set out for the river side. The Hillton crew had come down the day before with their new shell, and had spent the night at the only hotel in the village. The race was to be started at three, and West and Joel spent the intervening time in exploring the river banks for a mile in each direction from the bridge, and in getting their feet wet and their trousers muddy. By the hour set for the start the river sides were thronged with spectators, and rival cheers floated across the sparkling stream from bank to bank. That side of the river whereon St. Eustace Academy lies hidden behind a hill held the St. Eustace supporters, while upon the other bank the Hillton lads and their friends congregated. But the long bridge, something more than a mile below, was common ground, and here the foes mingled and strove to outshout each other. The river is broad here below Marshall, and forms what is almost a basin, hemmed in on either side by low wooded bluffs. From where Joel and West, with a crowd of Hillton fellows, stood midway upon the bridge, the starting point, nearly a mile and a half up stream was plainly visible, and the finish line was a few rods above them. West was acquainted with several of the St. Eustace boys, and to these Joel was introduced and was welcomed by them with much cordiality and examined with some curiosity. He had accomplished the defeat of their Eleven, and they would know what sort of youth he was. While they were talking, leaning against the railing of the bridge, Joel suddenly caught West's arm and drew his attention to a boy some distance away who was looking toward the starting point through a pair of field glasses. West indulged in a long whistle, plainly indicative of amazement. "Who's that fellow over there?" he asked. One of the St. Eustace boys followed the direction of his gaze. "Well, you ought to know him. He knows you. That's Bartlett Cloud. He was at Hillton last term, and left because he was put off the Eleven; or so he says." "Humph!" ejaculated Outfield West. "He left to keep from being expelled, he did. He left because he was mixed up in some mighty dirty work, and knew that, even if they let him stay in school, no decent fellow would associate with him. And you can tell him from me that if he says I know him he's a liar. I don't know him from--from mud! I should think you'd be proud of him at Eustace." "We didn't know that," answered the St. Eustace boy in perplexity. "We thought--" "What?" demanded West as the other paused. "Well, he said that the coach was down on him, and gave his place to your friend here, and--" "No," answered Joel quietly. "I didn't take his place. He tried to strike me one day at practice, and Remsen, our coach, put him off. That was all. Afterward he--he--But it isn't worth talking about." "But I didn't know that St. Eustace made a practice of taking in cast-off scamps from other schools," said West. The other lad flushed as he answered apologetically: "We didn't know, West. He said he was a friend of yours and so--But the other fellows shall know about him." Then there was a stir on the bridge and a voice cried, "There they go to the float!" Up the stream at the starting point two shells were seen leisurely paddling toward a float anchored a few yards off the right bank. The colors were easily distinguishable, and especially did the crimson of Hillton show up to the eager watchers on the bridge. Every eye was turned toward the two boats, and a silence held the throng, a silence which lasted until sixteen oar-blades caught the water almost together, and the two boats began to leave the float behind. Then cries of "They're off!" were raised, and there was a general shoving and pushing for places of observation on the up-stream side of the structure, while along the banks the crowds began to move about again. It was Joel's first sight of a boat race, and he found himself becoming very excited, while West, veteran though he was, breathed a deal faster, and talked in disjointed monosyllables. "Side by side!... No, Hillton's ahead!... Isn't she?... Eh ... You can't... see from here ... which is ... leading.... Get another hold on my ... arm, ... Joel; that one's black ... and blue! ... Hillton's ahead! Hillton's ahead by a half length!" But she wasn't. Side by side the two shells swept on toward the first half-mile mark. They were both rowing steadily, with no endeavor to draw away, Hillton at thirty strokes, St. Eustace at thirty-two. The course was two miles, almost straight away down the river. The half-mile buoy was not distinguishable from where Joel stood, but the mile was plainly in sight. Some one who held a stop-watch behind Joel uttered an impatient growl at the slow time the crews were making. "There'll be no record broken to-day," he said. "They're eight seconds behind already for the first quarter." But Joel didn't care about that. If only those eight swaying forms might pass first beyond the finish line he cared but little what the time might be. The cheering, which had ceased as the boats left the start, now began again as they approached the finish of the first quarter of the course. "Rah-rah-rah; rah-rah-rah; rah-rah-rah, Hillton!" rang out from the right bank. "S, E, A; S, E, A; S, E, A; Saint Eustace!" replied the left bank with a defiant roar of sound that was caught by the hills and flung back in echoes across the water. "Saint Eustace! Saint Eustace! Saint Eustace!" "Hillton! Hillton! Hillton!" Then the cheering grew louder and more frenzied as, boat to boat, the rival eights passed the half-mile buoy, swinging along with no perceptible effort over the blue, dancing water. "Anybody's race," said Outfield West, as he lowered his glasses. "But Hillton's got the outside course on the turn." The turn was no more than a slight divergence from the straight line at the one-mile mark, but it might mean from a half to three quarters of a length to the outside boat should they maintain their present relative positions. For the next half mile the same moderate strokes were used until the half-course buoy was almost reached, when Hillton struck up to thirty-two and then to thirty-four, and St. Eustace increased her stroke to the latter number. It was a race for the position nearest the buoy, and St. Eustace won it, Hillton falling back a half length as the course was changed. Then the strokes in both boats went back to thirty-two, Hillton seemingly willing to keep in the rear. On and on they came, the oars taking the water in unison, and shining like silver when the sun caught the wet blades. And back, the wakes seemed like two ruled marks, so straight they were. There was no let up of the cheering now. Back and forth went challenge and reply across the stream, while the watchers on the bridge fairly shook that iron-trussed structure with the fury of their slogans. As the boats neared the three-quarter buoy it was plain to all who looked that the real race was yet to come. Hillton suddenly hit up her stroke to thirty-four, to thirty-six, to thirty-eight, and, a bit ragged perhaps, but nevertheless at a beautiful speed, drew up to St. Eustace, shoved her nose a quarter length past, and hung there, despite St. Eustace's best efforts to shake her off. Both boats were now straining their uttermost, and from now on to the finish it was to be the stiffest rowing of which each was capable. Hillton _was_ ragged on the port side, and bow was plainly tuckered. But St. Eustace also showed signs of wear, and there was an evident disposition the length of the boat to hurry through the stroke. Joel was straining his eyes on the crimson backs, and West was vainly and unconsciously endeavoring to see through the glasses from the wrong end. The three-quarter mark swept past the boats, and Hillton still maintained her lead. The judges' boat, a tiny, saucy naphtha launch, had steamed down to the finish, and now quivered there as though from impatience and excitement, and awaited the victor. Suddenly there was a groan of dismay from the St. Eustace supporters. And no wonder. Their boat had suddenly dropped behind until its nose was barely lapping the rival shell. Number Four was rowing "out of time and tune," as Joel shouted triumphantly, and although he soon steadied down, the damage was hard to repair, for Hillton, encouraged by the added lead, was rowing magnificently. But with strokes that brought cries of admiration even from her foes St. Eustace struggled gloriously to recover her lost water. Little by little the nose of her boat crept up and up, until it was almost abreast with Number Three's oar, while cries of encouragement from bridge and shore urged her on. But now Green, the Hillton coxswain, turned his head slightly, studied the position of the rival eight, glanced ahead at the judges' boat, and spoke a short, sharp command. And instantly, ragged port oars notwithstanding, the crimson crew seemed to lift their boat from the water at every stroke, and St. Eustace, struggling gamely, heroically, to the last moment, fell farther and farther behind. A half length of clear water showed between them, then a length, then--and now the line was but a stone-throw away--two fair lengths separated the contestants. And amid the deafening, frenzied shrieks of their schoolmates, their crimson-clad backs rising and falling like clock-work, all signs of raggedness gone, the eight heroes swept over the line winners by two and a half lengths from the St. Eustace crew, and disappeared under the bridge to emerge on the other side with trailing oars and wearied limbs. And as they went from sight, Joel, stooping, yelling, over the railing, saw, with the piercing shriek of the launch's whistle in his ears, the upraised face of Green, the coxswain, smiling placidly up at him. CHAPTER XVI. GOOD-BY TO HILLTON. Joel took the preliminary examination for Harwell University in June, and left class day morning for home. He had the satisfaction of seeing his name in the list of honor men for the year, having attained A or B in all studies for the three terms. The parting with Outfield West was shorn of much of its melancholy by reason of the latter's promise to visit Joel in August. The suggestion had been made by Outfield, and Joel had at once warmly pressed him to come. "Only, you know, Out," Joel had said, "we don't live in much style. And I have to work a good deal, so there won't be much time for fun." "What do you have to do?" asked West. "Well, milk, and go to mill, and perhaps there will be threshing to do before I leave. And then there's lots of other little things around the farm that I generally do when I'm home." "That's all right," answered West cheerfully. "I'll help. I milked a cow once. Only--Say, what do you hit a cow with when you milk her?" "I don't hit her at all," laughed Joel. "Do you?" "I _did_. I hit her with a plank and she up and kicked me eight times before I could move off. Perhaps I riled her. I thought you should always hit them before you begin." Joel had not seen his parents since he had left home in the preceding fall, and naturally a warm welcome awaited him. Mr. March, to Joel's relief, did not appear to regret the loss of the Goodwin scholarship nearly as much as Joel himself had done, and seemed rather proud than otherwise of the lad's first year at the Academy. In August Outfield West descended at the little station accompanied by two trunks, a golf-bag, a photograph camera, and a dress-suit case; and Farmer March regarded the pile of luggage apprehensively, and undoubtedly thought many unflattering thoughts of West. But as no one could withstand that youth for long, at the end of three days both Joel's father and mother had accepted him unreservedly into their hearts. As for Joel's brother Ezra, and his twelve-year-old sister, they had never hesitated for a single instant. Mr. March absolutely forbade Joel from doing any of the chores after West arrived at the farm, and sent the boys off on a week's hunting and fishing excursion with Black Betty and the democrat wagon. West took his camera along, but was prevailed on to leave his golf clubs at the farm; and the two had eight days of ideal fun in the Maine woods, and returned home with marvelous stories of adventure and a goodly store of game and fish. West was somewhat disappointed in the golfing facilities afforded by the country about Marchdale, but politely refrained from allowing the fact to be known by Joel. Outside of the "pasture" and the "hill-field" the ground was too rocky and broken to make driving a pleasure, and after losing half a dozen balls Outfield restricted himself to the pasture, where he created intense interest on the part of the cows. He found that he got along much more peaceably with them when he appeared without his red coat. In September, happy, healthy, and well browned, the two boys returned to Hillton with all the dignity becoming the reverend Senior. West had abandoned his original intention of entering Yates College, and had taken with Joel the preliminary examination for Harwell; and they were full of great plans for the future, and spent whole hours telling each other what marvelous things awaited them at the university. Joel's Senior year at Hillton was crowded with hard work and filled with incident. But, as it was more or less a repetition of the preceding year, it must needs be told of briefly. If space permitted I should like to tell of Joel's first debate in the Senior Debating Society, in which he proved conclusively and to the satisfaction of all present that the Political Privileges of a Citizen of Athens under the Constitution of Cleisthenes were far superior to those of a Citizen of Rome at the Time of the Second Punic War. And I should like to tell of the arduous training on the football field and in the gymnasium, by means of which Joel increased his sphere of usefulness on the Eleven, and learned to run with the ball as well as kick it, so proving the truth of an assertion made by Stephen Remsen, who had said, "With such long legs as those, March, you should be as fine a runner as you are a kicker." And I should like to go into tiresome detail over the game with St. Eustace, in which Joel made no star plays, but worked well and steadily at the position of left half-back, and thereby aided in the decisive victory for Hillton that Remsen had spoken of; for the score at the end of the first half was, Hillton 5, St. Eustace 0; and at the end of the game, Hillton 11, St. Eustace 0. Joel and Remsen became fast and familiar friends during that term, and when, a few days after the St. Eustace game, Remsen took his departure from the Academy, no more to coach the teams to glorious victory or honorable defeat, Joel of all the school was perhaps the sorriest to have him go. But Remsen spoke hopefully of future meetings at Harwell, and Joel and West waved him farewell from the station platform and walked back to the yard in the manner of chief mourners at a funeral. Outfield West again emerged triumphant from the golf tournament, and the little pewter mug remained securely upon his mantel, a receptacle for damaged balls. For some time the two missed the familiar faces of Digbee and Blair and Whipple and some few others. Somers and Cooke still remained, the latter with radiant hopes of graduation the coming June, the former to take advanced courses in several studies. Clausen was a frequent visitor to Number Four Hampton, and both West and Joel had conceived a liking for him which, as the year went by, grew into sincere friendship. Those who had been intimate with Wallace Clausen when he was under the influence of Bartlett Cloud saw a great difference in the lad at this period. He had grown manlier, more earnest in tone and attainments, and had apparently shaken off his old habit of weak carelessness as some insects shed their skins. He, too, was to enter Harwell the coming fall, a fact which strengthened the bond between the three youths. One resolve was uppermost in Joel's heart when he began his last year at Hillton, and that was to gain the Goodwin scholarship. His failure the year before had only strengthened his determination to win this time; and win he did, and was a very proud and happy lad when the lists were read and the name of "Joel March, Marchdale, Maine," led all the rest. And it is to be supposed that there was much happiness in the great rambling snow-covered farmhouse up north when Joel's telegram was received; for Joel could not wait for the mail to carry the good news, but must needs run at once to the village and spend a bit of his prospective fortune on a "night message." Despite this fortune of two hundred and forty dollars, Joel elected to spend his Christmas holidays again at Hillton, and Outfield, when he learned of the intention, declined his uncle's invitation and remained also. The days passed quickly and merrily. There was excellent skating on the river, and Joel showed West the methods of ice-fishing, though with but small results of a finny nature. Cicero's Orations gave place to De Senectute, the Greek Testament to Herodotus, and Plane Geometry to Solid; and spring found Joel with two honor terms behind him, and as sure as might be of passing his final examination for college. Again in June St. Eustace and Hillton met on the river, and, as though to atone for her defeat on the gridiron, Fate gave the victory to St. Eustace, the wearers of the blue crossing the finish a full length ahead of the Hillton eight. The baseball team journeyed down to Marshall and won by an overwhelming majority of runs, and journeyed home again in the still of a June evening, bringing another soiled and battered ball to place in the trophy case of the gymnasium. And finally, one bright day in early summer, Joel put on his best clothes and, accompanied by West and Clausen, took his way to the chapel, where, amid an eloquent silence, Professor Wheeler made his farewell address, and old, gray-haired Dr. Temple preached the Valedictory Sermon. Then the diplomas were presented, and, save for the senior class exercises in the school hall in the afternoon, Class Day was over, and Joel March's school days were past. Joel was graduated at the head of the class, an honor man once more; and Outfield West, greatly to every one's amazement, not excepting his own, was also on the honor list. Cooke passed at last, and later confided to West that he didn't know what he'd do now that they wouldn't let him stay longer at Hillton; he was certain he would feel terribly homesick at Harwell. West playfully suggested that he stay at Hillton and take an advanced course, and Cooke seemed quite in the notion until he found that he would be obliged to make the acquaintance of both Livy and Horace. A lad can not stay two years at a school without becoming deeply attached to it, and both Joel and West took their departures from Hillton feeling very melancholy as the wooded hill, crowned by the sun-lit tower, faded from sight. West went directly to his home, although Joel had tried to persuade him to visit at Marchdale for a few weeks. In July Joel received a letter from Outfield asking him to visit him in Iowa, and, at the solicitation of his parents, he decided to accept the invitation. The West was terra incognita to Joel, and he found much to interest and puzzle him. The methods of farming were so different from those to which he had been accustomed that he spent the first week of his stay in trying to revolutionize them, much to the amusement of both Outfield and his father. He at length learned that Eastern ways are not Western ways, and so became content to see wheat harvested by machinery and corn cultivated with strange, new implements. He received one day a letter forwarded from Marchdale which bore the signature of the captain of the Harwell Varsity Football Eleven. It asked him to keep in practice during the summer, and, if convenient, to report on the field two days before the commencement of the term. Remsen's name was mentioned and Joel knew that he had him to thank for the letter. The friends had decided to take a room together, and had applied for one in the spring. Much to their gratification they were given a third floor room in Mayer, one of the best of the older college dormitories. When the time came for going East both West and Joel were impatient to be on the way. Mrs. West accompanied the boys, and the little party reached the old, elm-embowered college town four days before the opening of the term. Agreeably to the request of the football captain, Joel reported on the field in football togs the day after reaching town, and was given a cordial welcome. Captain Button was not there, but returned with the Varsity squad from a week's practice at a neighboring village two days later. Mrs. West meanwhile toiled ceaselessly at furnishing the boys' room, and the result was a revelation to Joel, to whom luxurious lounges and chairs, and attractive engravings, were things hitherto admired and longed for from a distance. And then, bidding a farewell to the lads, Outfield's mother took her departure for home, and they were left practically rulers of all they surveyed, and, if the truth were told, a trifle sobered by the suddenness of their plunge into independence. And one warm September day the college bell rang for chapel and the two lads had begun a new, important, and to them exciting chapter of their lives. CHAPTER XVII. THE SACRED ORDER OF HULLABALOOLOO. Picture a mild, golden afternoon in early October, the yellowing green of Sailors' Field mellow and warm in the sunlight, the river winding its sluggish way through the broad level marshes like a ribbon of molten gold, and the few great fleecy bundles of white clouds sailing across the deep blue of the sky like froth upon some placid stream. Imagine a sound of fresh voices, mellowed by a little distance, from where, to and fro, walking, trotting, darting, but ever moving like the particles in a kaleidoscope, many squads of players were practicing on the football field. Such, then, is the picture that would have rewarded your gaze had you passed through the gate and stood near the simple granite shaft which rises under the shade of the trees to commemorate the little handful of names it bears. Had you gone on across the intervening turf until the lengthened shadow of the nearest goal post was reached you would have seen first a squad--a veritable awkward squad--arranged in a ragged circle and passing a football with much mishandling and many fumbles. Further along you would have seen a long line of youths standing. Their general expression was one of alertness bordering on alarm. The casual observer would have thought each and every one insane, as, suddenly darting from the line, one after another, they flung themselves upon the ground, rolled frantically about as though in spasms, and then arose and went back into the rank. But had you observed carefully you would have noticed that each spasm was caused by a rolling ball, wobbling its erratic way across the turf before them. Around about, in and out, forms darted after descending spheroids, or seized a ball from outstretched hands, started desperately into motion, charged a few yards, and then, as though reconsidering, turned and trotted back, only to repeat the performance the next moment. And footballs banged against broad backs with hollow sounds, or rolled about between stoutly clad feet, or ascended into the air in great arching flights. And a babel of voices was on all sides, cries of warning, sharp commands, scathing denouncements. "Straighten your arm, man; that's not a baseball!" "Faster, faster! Put some ginger into it!" "Get on your toes, Smith. Start when you see the ball coming. This isn't a funeral!" "Don't stoop for the ball; fall on it! The ground will catch you!" "Jones, what _are_ you doing? Wake up." "No, _no_, NO! Great Scott, the ball won't _bite_ you!" The period was that exasperating one known as "the first two weeks," when coaches are continually upon the border of insanity and players wonder dumbly if the game is worth the candle. To-day Joel, one of a squad of unfortunates, was relearning the art of tackling. It was Joel's first experience with that marvelous contrivance, "the dummy." One after another the squad was sent at a sharp spurt to grapple the inanimate canvas-covered bag hanging inoffensively there, like a body from a gallows, between the uprights. There are supposed to be two ways to tackle, but the coach who was conducting the operations to-day undoubtedly believed in the existence of at least thrice that number; for each candidate for Varsity honors tackled the dummy in a totally different style. The lift tackle is performed by seizing the opponent around the legs below the hips, bringing his knees together so that further locomotion is an impossibility to him, and lifting him upward off the ground and depositing him as far backward toward his own goal as circumstances and ability will permit. The lift tackle is the easiest to make. The dive tackle pertains to swimming and suicide. Running toward the opponent, the tackler leaves the ground when at a distance of a length and a half and dives at the runner, aiming to tackle a few inches below the hips. A dive tackle well done always accomplishes a well-defined pause in the runner's progress. Joel was having hard work of it. Time and again he launched himself at the swaying legs, bringing the canvas man to earth, but always picking himself up to find the coach observing him very, very coldly, and to hear that exasperating gentleman ask sarcastically if he (Joel) thinks he is playing "squat tag." And then the dummy would swing back into place, harboring no malice or resentment for the rough handling, and Joel would take his place once more and watch the next man's attempt, finding, I fear, some consolation in the "roast" accorded to the latter. It was toward the latter part of the second week of college. Joel had practiced every day except Sundays, and had just arrived at the conclusion that football as played at Harwell was no relation, not even a distant cousin to the game of a similar name played at Hillton. Of course he was wrong, since intercollegiate football, whether played by schoolboys or college students, is still intercollegiate football. The difference lies only in the state of development. At Hillton the game, very properly, was restricted to its more primary methods; at Harwell it is developed to its uttermost limits. It is the difference between whist over the library table and whist at the whist club. But all things come to an end, and at length the coach rather ungraciously declared he could stand no more and bade them join the rest of the candidates for the run. That run was two miles, and Joel finally stumbled into the gymnasium tuckered out and in no very good temper just as the five o'clock whistle on the great printing house sounded. After dinner in the dining hall that evening Joel confided his doubts and vexations to Outfield as they walked back to their room. "I wouldn't care if I thought I was making any progress," he wailed, "but each day it gets worse. To-day I couldn't seem to do a start right, and as for tackling that old dummy, why--" "Well, you did as well as the other chaps, didn't you?" asked Outfield. "I suppose so. He gave it to us all impartially." "Well, there you are. He can't tell you you're the finest young tacklers that ever happened, because you'd all get swelled craniums and not do another lick of work. I know the sort of fellow he is. He'll never tell you that you are doing well; only when he's satisfied with you he'll pass you on. You see. And don't you care what he says. Just go on and do the best you know how. Blair told me to-day that if you tried you could make the Varsity before the season is over. What do you think of that? He says the coaches are puzzling their brains to find a man that's fit to take the place of Dangfield, who was left-half last year." "I dare say," answered Joel despondently, "but Durston will never let me stop tackling that dummy arrangement. I'll be taking falls out of it all by myself when the Yates game is going on. Who invented that thing, anyhow?" But, nevertheless, Joel's spirits were very much better when the two lads reached the room and West had turned on the soft light of the argand. And taking their books in hand, and settling comfortably back in the two great cozy armchairs, they were soon busily reading. Hazing has "gone out" at Harwell, and so, when at about nine the two boys beard many footfalls outside their door, and when in response to West's loud "Come" five mysterious and muffled figures in black masks entered they were somewhat puzzled what to think. "March?" asked a deep voice. "Yes," answered Joel with a wondering frown. "West?" "Yep. What in thunder do you want? And who in thunder are you?" "Freshies, aren't you?" continued the inexorable voice. The maskers had closed and locked the door behind them, and now stood in rigid inquisitorial postures between it and the table. "None of your business," answered West crossly. "Get out, will you?" "Not until our duties are done," answered the mask. "You are freshies, nice, new, tender little freshies. We are here to initiate you into the mysteries of the Sacred Order of Hullabalooloo. Stand up!" Neither moved; they were already standing, West puzzled and angry, Joel wondering and amused. "Well, sit down, then," commanded the voice. Joel looked meaningly at Outfield, and as the latter nodded the two rushed at the members of the Sacred Order of Hullabalooloo. But the latter were prepared. Over went the nearest armchair, down from the wall with a clatter came a rack of books, and this way and that swayed the forms of the maskers and the two roommates. The battle was short but decisive, and when it was done, Joel lay gasping on the floor and Outfield sprawled breathless on the couch. "Will you give up?" asked the first mask. "Yes," growled West, and Joel echoed him. "Then you may get up," responded the mask. "But, mind you, no tricks!" Joel thought he heard the sound of muffled laughter from one of the masks as he arose and arranged his damaged attire. "Freshman March will favor us with a song," announced the mask. "I can't sing a word," answered Joel. "You must. Hullabalooloo decrees it." "Then Hullabalooloo can come and make me," retorted Joel stubbornly. "What," asked the mask in a deep, grewsome voice, "what is the penalty for disobedience?" "Tossed in the blanket," answered the other four in unison. "You hear, Freshman March?" asked the mask. "Choose." "I'll sing, I guess," answered Joel, with a grin. But West jumped up. "Don't you do it, Joel! They can't make you sing! And they can't make me sing; and the first one that comes in reach will get knocked down!" "Oh, well, I don't mind singing," answered Joel. "That is, I don't mind trying. If they can stand it, I can. What shall I sing?" "What do you know?" "I only know one song. I'll sing that, but on one condition." "Name it?" answered the mask. "That you'll join in and sing the chorus." There was a moment of hesitation; then the masks nodded, and Joel mounted to a chair and with a comical grimace of despair at West, who sat scowling on the couch, he began: "There is a flag of crimson hue, The fairest flag that flieth, Whose folds wave over hearts full true, As nobody denieth. Here's to the School, the School so dear; Here's to the soil it's built on! Here's to the heart, or far or near, That loves the Flag of Hillton.'" Joel was not much of a singer, but his voice was good and he sang as though he meant it. Outfield sat unresponsive until the verse was nearly done; then he moved restlessly and waited for the chorus, and when it came joined in with the rest; and the strains of Hilltonians rang triumphantly through the building. "Hilltonians, Hilltonians, your crimson banner fling Unto the breeze, and 'neath its folds your anthem loudly sing! Hilltonians, Hilltonians, our loyalty we'll prove Beneath the flag, the crimson flag, the bonny flag we love!" The Knights of the Sacred Order of Hullabalooloo signified their approval and demanded the next verse. And Joel sang it. And when the chorus came the maskers lost much of their dignity and waved their arms about and shouted the refrain so loud that doors up and down the hall opened and wondering voices shouted "Shut up!" or "More! M-o-r-e!" for two minutes after. As the last word was reached Joel leaned quickly forward toward an unsuspicious singer, and, snatching the mask from his face, revealed the countenance of Louis Whipple. And then, amid much laughter, the other masks were slipped off, and the remaining members of the Sacred Order of Hullabalooloo stood revealed as Blair, Cartwright, Somers, and Cooke. And Outfield, joining in the laugh at his own expense, was seized by Cooke and waltzed madly around the table, while the rest once more raised the strains of Hilltonians: "Hilltonians, Hilltonians, your crimson banner fling Unto the breeze, and 'neath its folds your anthem loudly sing! Hilltonians, Hilltonians, we stand to do or die, Beneath the flag, the crimson flag, that waves for victory!" CHAPTER XVIII. VISITORS FROM MARCHDALE. Despite Joel's dark forebodings, he was at last released from tackling practice. And with that moment he began to take hope for better things. Under the charge of Kent, one of the coaches and an old Harwell half, Joel was instructed in catching punts till his arms ached and his eyes watered, and in kicking until he seemed to be one-sided. Starting with the ball he no longer dreaded, since he had mastered that science and could now delight the coach by leaping from a stand as though shot from the mouth of a cannon. Signals he had no trouble with. His memory was excellent, and he possessed the faculty of rapid computation; though as yet his brain had been but little taxed, since the practice code was still in use. At the end of the third week both Varsity and scrub teams were at length selected, and Joel, to his delight, found himself playing left-half on the latter. Two match games a week was now the rule for the Varsity, and Joel each Wednesday and Saturday might have been found seated under the fence dividing the gridiron from the grand stand wrapped nearly from sight, if the afternoon was chilly, in a great gray blanket, and watching the play with all the excited ardor of the veriest schoolboy on the stand behind. One Saturday Prince, the Varsity left-half, twisted his ankle, and Joel was taken on in his place. They were playing Amherst, and Joel has ever since held that college in high esteem, for that it was against its Eleven he made his _début_ into Harwell football life. And how he played! The captain smiled as he watched him prance down the field after a punt, never content to be there in time, but always striving to get there first, and not seldom succeeding. Once he succeeded too well. It was in the second half. Blair--it was his first year on the team--was playing full-back. On a first down he punted the ball a long and rather low kick into Amherst's territory. Joel bowled over an Amherst end who was foolish enough to get in the way and started down the field like an Indian warrior on the war path. The Harwell ends were a little in advance but off to the sides, and Joel sprinted hard and easily passed them both. Kingdon, the right half, gave him a good run, but he too was passed, and Joel reached the Amherst full-back just as that gentleman turned for the ball, which had passed unexpectedly over his head. The goal line was but thirty yards distant. Joel saw only the full-back, the ball, and the goal line. He forgot everything else. A small cyclone struck the full, and when he picked himself up it was to see a crimson-legged player depositing the pigskin back of goal and to hear a roar of laughter from the seats! Then he yelled "Off side!" at the top of his lungs and tore down on Joel, and, much to that young gentleman's surprise, strove to wrest the ball from him. It was quite uncalled for, and Joel naturally resented it to the extent of pushing violently, palms open, against the Amherst man's jacket, with the result that the Amherst gentleman sat down backward forcibly upon the turf at some distance. And again the stands laughed. But Joel gravely lifted the ball and walked back to the thirty-yard line with it. The center took it with a grin, and, as the five yards of penalty for off side was paced, Joel was rewarded for his play with the muttered query from the captain: "What were you doing, you idiot?" But too great zeal is far more excusable than too small, and Joel was quickly forgiven, and all the more readily, perhaps, since Amherst was held for downs, and the ball went over on the second next play. But Joel called himself a great many unpleasant names during the rest of the game, and for a long while after could not think of his first touch-down without feeling his cheeks redden. Nevertheless, his manner of getting down the field under kicks undoubtedly impressed the coaches favorably, for when the scrub was further pruned to allow it to go to training table Joel was retained. One bright October day Joel and Outfield went into town to meet the former's parents at the station; for Mr. and Mrs. March had long before made up their minds to the visit, and the two boys had been looking forward to it for some time. It was worth going a long way to see the pleasure with which the old farmer and his wife greeted the great long-legged youth who towered so far above them there on the station platform. Joel kissed his mother fondly, patted his father patronizingly but affectionately on the back, and asked fifty questions in as many minutes. And all his mother could do was to gaze at him in reverent admiration and sigh, over and over: "Land sakes, Joel March, how you do grow!" It must not be thought that West was neglected. Farmer March, in especial, showed the greatest pleasure at meeting him again, and shook hands with him four times before the street was reached and the car that was to carry them to the college town gained. The boys conducted the visitors to their room, and made lunch for them on a gas stove, Outfield drawing generously on his private larder, situated under the foot of his bed. Then the four hunted up a pleasant room in one of the student boarding houses, and afterward showed the old people through the college. There was a good deal to see and many questions to answer, since Joel's father was not a man to leave an object of interest until he had learned all there was to be told about it. The elms in the yard were fast losing their yellow leaves, but the grass yet retained much of its verdancy, and as for the sky, it was as sweetly blue as on the fairest day in spring. Up one side of the yard and down the other went the sightseers, poking into dark hallways, reading tablets and inscriptions, the latter translated by West into the most startling English, pausing before the bulletins to have the numerous announcements of society and club meetings explained, drinking from the old pump in the corner, and so completing the circuit and storming the gymnasium, where at last Joel's powers of reply were exhausted and Outfield promptly sprang into the breech, explaining gravely that the mattresses on the floor were used by Doctor Major, the director of the gymnasium, who invariably took a cat-nap during the afternoon, that the suspended rings were used to elevate sophomores while corporeal punishment was administered by freshmen, and that the queer little weights in the boxes around the walls were reserve paper weights. Then the line of march was taken up toward Sailors' Field, where they arrived just in time to see the beginning of the practice game between the Varsity and the scrub. Joel had been excused from attendance that day, and so he took his seat beside the others on the grand stand and strove to elucidate the philosophy of football. "You see the scrubs have the ball. They must get it past the Varsity down to the end of the field, where they can either put it down over the line or kick it over that cross-piece there. That's center, that fellow that's arranging the ball. He kicks off. There it goes, and a good kick, too. Sometimes the center-rush isn't a good kicker; then some one else kicks off. Blair has the ball. Look, see him dodge with it. He gained ten yards that time." "Oh!" It was Joel's mother who exclaimed. "Why, Joel, that other man threw him down." "That's part of the game, mother. He did that to keep Blair from getting the ball any nearer the scrub's goal. He isn't hurt, you see." "And do you mean that they do that all the time?" "Pretty often." "And do _you_ get thrown around that way, Joel?" "Sometimes, mother; when I'm lucky enough to get the ball." "Well, I never." "Football's not a bad game, Mr. March," West was saying. "But it doesn't come up to golf, you know. It's too rough." "It does look a little rough," answered Mr. March. "Do they often get hurt? Seems as though when a boy had another fellow on his head, and another on his stomach, and another on his feet, and the whole lot of them banging away at once, seems like that boy would be a little uncomfortable." West laughed. "Sometimes a fellow has his ankle sprained or a knee twisted, or a shoulder-bone bust, or something like that. But it isn't often anything worse occurs." "Well, I suppose it's all right then. Only when I was a boy we never went round trying to get our ankles sprained or our collar-bones broke; you young fellows are tougher than we were, I guess." "I shouldn't wonder, sir. I believe Joel has been feeling pretty bad for a long time because he's got nothing worse than a broken finger." "What? Broke his finger, did he? Eh? He didn't write anything about it; what's he mean, getting broken to pieces and not telling his parents about it?" West glanced apprehensively at Joel, but the latter had missed the conversation, being busy following the progress of Barton, of the scrub, who was doing a long run along the side line. "Well, it wasn't much of a break, sir. It's all right now, and I think he thought you'd be worried, you know. I'm sure if it had been anything important he would have written at once." "Humph," grunted Joel's father. "If he's going to break himself in pieces he'd better stop football. I won't have him taking risks. I'll tell him so!" The fifteen-minute half had come to an end, and the players were either resting on the ground or going through some pass or start under the tuition of a coach. Suddenly Joel looked down to see Briscom, the scrub captain, climbing the seats. He ducked his bare head to the others and sank into the seat at Joel's side. "Look here, March, can you help us out the next half? They've taken Webster on the Varsity, and"--he lowered his voice to a confidential roar--"we want to make a good showing to-day." "Of course," answered Joel, "I'll come at once. Can I get some togs from some fellow?" "Yes. I'll ask Whitman to find some. I'm sorry to take you away from your folks, but it's only fifteen minutes, you know." So when the whistle blew Joel was at left half-back on the scrub, attired in borrowed plumage that came far from fitting him. And Mrs. March was in a tremor of dismay lest some one should throw Joel down as she had seen Blair thrown. Mr. March had not quite recovered from his resentment over his son's failure to apprise him of the broken finger, which, after all, was only broken in West's imagination, and viewed his advent on the field with disfavor. Outfield began to wonder if his pleasant fiction regarding Joel's finger was to lead to unpleasant results, when Mr. March relieved his mind somewhat by suddenly taking interest in the career of his son, who was trying to make an end run inside Dutton with half the scrub hauling, pushing, pulling, shoving him along. "Er--isn't that likely to be bad for that finger of his?" "Oh, no, sir," answered West. "He looks out for his finger all right enough. There, he made the distance. Bully work. Good old Joel." "Did he do well then, Mr. West?" asked Joel's mother. "Of course he did, mother," answered Mr. March disdainfully. "Didn't you see him lugging all those fellows along with him? How much does that count, West?" "Well, that doesn't score anything, but it helps. The scrub has to pass that line down there before it can score. What they're trying to do now is to get down there, and Joel's helping. You watch him now. I think they're going to give him the ball again for another try around end." West was right in his surmise. Kicks were barred to-day save as a last resort, and the game was favoring the scrub as a consequence. The ball was passed to the right half-back; Joel darted forward like an arrow, took the ball from right, made a quick swerve as he neared the end of the line, and ran outside of the Varsity right end, Captain Dutton, who had been playing pretty well in, in the expectation of another try through tackle-end hole. As Joel got safely by it is more than likely that he found added satisfaction in the feat as he recalled that remark of Dutton's the week before: "What were you doing, you idiot?" Joel got safely by Dutton, and fooled the sprightly Prince, but very nearly ran into the arms of Kingdon, who missed his tackle by a bare six inches. Then the race began. Joel's path lay straight down by the side line. The field followed him at a distance, and the most he could hope for was a touch-down near the corner of the field, which would require a punt-out. "Ain't that Joel?" cried Mr. March, forgetting his grammar and his dignity at one and the same moment, and jumping excitedly to his feet. "Ain't that Joel there running? Hey? They can't catch him. I'll lay Joel to outrun the whole blame pack of 'em. Every day, sir. Hey? What?" "I think he's all right, sir, for a touch-down," answered West gayly. "Hello, there's Blair leaving the bunch. Tally-Ho!" "I don't care if it's a steam-engine," shouted Mr. March, "he can't--I don't know but as he's gaining a little, that fellow. Eh?" "Looks like it," answered West, while Mrs. March, with her hand on her husband's arm, begged him to sit down and "stop acting so silly." "Geewhillikins!" cried Mr. March, "Joel's caught! No, he's not--yet--Eh?--Too bad, too bad. Run, Joel, he's got ye!" Suddenly Mr. March, who had almost subsided on his seat, jumped again to his feet. "Here! Stop that, you fellow! Hi!" He turned angrily to Outfield, his eyes blazing. "What'd he knock him down for? Eh? What's he sitting on my boy for? Is that fair? Eh?" West and Mrs. March calmed him down and explained that tackling was quite within the law, and that he only sat on him to prevent him from going on again; for Blair had cut short Joel's triumph fifteen yards from the goal line, and the spectators of the soul-stirring dash down the field were slowly settling again in their seats. Mr. March was presently relieved to see Joel arise, shake himself like a dog coming out of water, and trot back to his position. Another five minutes, during which the scrub tried desperately to force the ball over the Varsity's goal line, but without success, and the match was over, and Briscom was happy; for the Varsity had scored but once, and that on a fumble by the scrub quarter-back. Joel trotted off with the teams for a shower and a rub-down, and West conducted his parents back to the gate, where they awaited him. On the way Mr. March confided to West that "football wasn't what he'd call a parlor game, but on the whole it appeared to be rather interesting." In the evening the quartet went into town to the theater and Joel's mother cried happily over the homely pathos of The Old Homestead, and Outfield laughed uproariously upon the slightest provocation, and every one was extremely happy. And afterward they "electriced" back to college, as West put it, and the two boys stayed awake very, very late, laughing and giggling over the humors of the play and Joel's broken finger. Mr. and Mrs. March left the next day at noon, and Joel accompanied them to the depot, West having a golf engagement which he could not break. And when good-by had been said, and the long train had disappeared from sight, Joel returned to college on foot, over the long bridge spanning the river, busy with craft, past the factories noisy with the buzz of wheels and the clang of iron, and on along the far-stretching avenue until the tower of the dining hall loomed above the tops of the autumn branches, entering the yard just as the two o'clock bell was ringing. CHAPTER XIX. A VARSITY SUB. Give a boy the name of being a hero and it will stick. Joel was still pointed out by admiring Hillton graduates to their friends at Harwell as "March, the fellow who kicked the winning goal-from-field in the St. Eustace game two years ago." And while Joel had performed of late no doughty deed to sustain his reputation for valor, the freshman class accepted him in all faith as a sort of class hero, off duty for the moment, perchance, but ever ready to shed glory upon the class by some soul-stirring act. Consequently when it was told through college that Joel March had been taken on to the Varsity Eleven as substitute left half-back no one was surprised, unless it was Joel himself. The freshman class wagged its head knowingly and said: "I told you they couldn't get on without March," and held its head higher for that one of its members was a Varsity player. It is not a frequent thing to find a freshman on the Varsity team, even as substitute, and Joel's fame grew apace and many congratulations were extended to him, in classroom and out. Blair was one of the first to climb the stairs of Mayer and express pleasure at the event. He found Joel seated in the window, propped up with half a dozen crimson pillows, attempting to sketch the view across the yard to send home to his sister. West was splicing a golf shaft and whistling blithely over the task. "Hello, Sophy," cried that youth, "have you come to initiate us into the Sacred Order of Hullabalooloo? Dump those books off the chair and be seated. March is such a beastly untidy chap," he sighed; "he _will_ leave his books around that way despite all I can say!" "These books, Out," replied Blair, "bear the name of one West on their title pages, and, in fact, on a good many other pages, too. What say you?" A look of intense surprise overspread the face of Outfield. "How passing strange," he muttered. "And is there a chemistry note-book among them?" "I think so. Here is one that contains mention of C2H6O, H2SO4, and other mystic emblems which appear very tiresome; it also contains several pages filled with diagrams of the yard and plans of Pompeii before the devastation." "Yes," answered West, "that's my chem. note-book. It's been missing ever since Tuesday. But those are not diagrams of the yard, my sophomoric friend; they're plans of the golf course." "Well, just as you say. Catch! Say, March, I've just heard that you've made the Varsity. I'm most splendidly glad, my young friend. You make three Hillton fellows on the team. There's Selkirk, and you, and yours tenderly; and we'll show them what's what when Yates faces us. And I'll tell you a little fact that may interest you. Prince won't last until the Yates game, my lad. He's going silly in his ankle. But don't say I told you, for of course it's a dead secret. And if he gives out you'll get the posish. And then if you can make another one of those touch-downs in the Yates game--" "Shut up, please, Blair!" groaned Joel. "Nonsense, you're all right. I heard Button saying last week that nothing short of a ten-story house could have stopped you that day." "He must think me an awful fool," responded Joel. "The idea of not remembering that I was off-side!" "Pshaw; why, the first time I played against Eustace at Hillton I tackled the referee in mistake for the man with the ball! And threw him, too! And sat on his head!" West grinned. "And they _did_ say, Blair, that you were feeling aggrieved against that referee because he had called you down for holding. And I _have_ heard that you weren't such a fool as you looked." "Nothing in it, my boy," answered Wesley Blair airily. "Mere calumny. Am I one to entertain feelings of anger and resentment against my fellow men? Verily, very much not. But he put me off, did that referee chap. He was incapable of accepting the joke. What is more depressing than a fellow who can't see a joke, March?" "Two fellows who can't see--et cetera," answered Joel promptly. "Wrong, very wrong. I don't know what the answer is, but I'm quite certain it isn't that. Well, I must be going. _I_ have studies. _I_ don't waste the golden moments in idleness. I grind, my young and thoughtless friends, I grind. Well, I only came up to congratulate you, Mr. March, of Maine. I have done so. I now depart. Farewell! Never allow the mere fact of being off-side interfere with--" Blair slammed the door just in front of a whizzing golf ball and clattered downstairs. Presently he appeared on the walk beneath the window and wiggled his fingers derisively with the thumb against a prominent feature of his face. But at the first squeak of the window being pushed up he disappeared around the corner. Joel's days were now become very busy ones. Every morning he was awakened at seven, and at eight was required to be on hand at the training table for breakfast. The quarters were at Old's, a boarding house opposite the college yard, and here in a big, sunny front room the two long tables were laid with numerous great dishes of oatmeal or hominy, platters of smoking steak, chops or crisp bacon, plates of toast, while potatoes, usually baked, flanked the meat. The beverage was always milk, and tall pitchers of it were constantly filled and emptied during this as well as the other meals. And then there were eggs--eggs hard boiled, eggs soft boiled, eggs medium, eggs poached--until, at the end of the season, the mere mention of eggs caused Joel's stomach to writhe in disgust. During breakfast disabilities were inquired after, men who were known to have nerves were questioned as to their night's rest, and orders for the day were given out. This man was instructed to see the doctor, another to interview the trainer, a third to report to the head coach. The meal over, save for a half hour of practice for the backs behind the gymnasium the men were free to give all their energies to lessons, and so hurried away to recitation hall or room. At one o'clock the team assembled again for lunch, with books in hand, and at break-neck speed devoured the somewhat elaborate repast, each man rushing in, eating, and rushing out, with no attempt at sociability or heed to the laws of digestion. Afternoon practice was at four o'clock. Individual practice was followed by team practice against an imaginary foe, and this in turn gave place to a line-up against the second eleven. Two stiff twenty-minute halves were played. Then again individuals were seized on by captain and coaches and put through paces to remedy some fault or other. And then the last player trots off the field, and the coaches, conversing earnestly among themselves, follow, and the day's work is done. There are still the bath and the rub-down and the weighing; but these are gone through with leisurely while the day's work is discussed and the coaches, circulating among the fellows, inflict an epilogue of criticism and instruction. There remained usually the better part of an hour before dinner, and this period Joel spent in his room, where with the lamp throwing its glow over his shoulder, he strove to take his mind from the subject of tackling and starting, of punting and passing, and fix it upon his studies for the morrow. For life was far from being all play that fall--if hard practice and strict training can be called play!--and Joel found it necessary to occupy every moment not taken up by eating, sleeping, and practicing on the gridiron with hard study. It can scarcely be truthfully asserted that Joel's lessons suffered by reason of his adherence to athletics, though a lecture now and then was slighted that he might use the time in pursuing some study that lack of leisure had necessitated his neglecting. But a clear head, a good digestion, and racing blood render studying a pleasure rather than a task, and Joel found that, while giving less time than before to lessons, he learned them fully as well. One thing is certain: his standing in class did not suffer, even when the coaches were more than usually severe. Joel's experience that fall, and many a time later, led him to conclude that the amount of outdoor athletics indulged in and the capability for study are in direct ratio. West, too, was a most studious young gentleman that term, and began to pride himself on his recently discovered ability to learn. To be sure, golf was a hard taskmaster, but with commendable self-denial he did not allow it to interfere with his progress in class. Both he and Joel had earned the name of being studious ere the end of the fall term, and neither of them resented it. Unlike the preceding meal, dinner at the training table was a sociable and cheerful affair, when every man at the board tried his best to be entertaining, and when "shop," either study or football, was usually tabooed. The menu was elaborate. There were soup, two or three kinds of meat, a half dozen vegetables, sauces, the ever-present toast, pudding or cream, and plenty of fruit; and for drinkables, why, there was the milk, and sometimes light ale in lesser quantities. At one end of the table--whether head or foot is yet undecided--sat the captain, at the other end the head coach. Other coaches were present as well, and the trainer sat at the captain's left. There was always lots of noise, for weighty things were seldom touched upon in the conversation, and jokes were given and taken in good part. When all other means of amusement failed there were still the potatoes to throw; and a butter chip, well laden, can be tossed upward in such a manner that it will remain stuck more or less securely to the ceiling. This is a trick that comes only with long practice, but any one may try it; and the ceiling above the training table that year was always well studded with suspended disks of crockery. Bread fights--so named because the ammunition is more likely to be potatoes--were extremely popular, and the dinner often came to an end with a pitched battle, in which coats were decorated from collar to hem with particles of that clinging vegetable. His evenings usually belonged to Joel to spend as he wished, though not unfrequently a blackboard talk by the head coach or a lecture by some visiting authority curtailed them considerably. He had always to be in bed by ten o'clock. But sleep sometimes, especially after a day of hard practice, did not readily come, and he often laid awake until midnight had sounded out on the deep-toned bell in the old church tower thinking over the events of the day, and wondering what fate, in the person of the head coach, held in view for him. And one night he awoke to find Outfield shaking him violently by the shoulder. "Wh-what's the row?" he asked sleepily. "You," answered Outfield. "You've been yelling '4, 9; 5, 7; 8, 6' for half an hour. What's the matter with you, anyhow?" "The signals," muttered Joel, turning sleepily over, "that's a run around left end by left half-back. And don't forget to start when the ball's snapped. And jump high if you're blocked. And--don't--forget--to--" Snore--snore! "Well," muttered West as he stumbled against an armchair and climbed into bed, "of all crazy games--" But West was not in training and so possessed the faculty of going to sleep when his head struck the pillow. As a consequence the rest of his remark was never heard. CHAPTER XX. AN OLD FRIEND. "MARCH! Joel March!" Joel was striding along under the shadow of the chapel on his way from a recitation to Mayer and his room. The familiar tones came from the direction of the library, and turning he saw Stephen Remsen trotting toward him with no regard for the grass. Joel hurdled the knee-high wire barrier and strode to meet him. The two shook hands warmly, almost affectionately, in the manner of those who are glad to meet. "March, I'm delighted to see you again! I was just going to look you up. Which way were you going?" "Up to the room. Can't you come up for a while? When'd you arrive? Are you going to stay now?" "Third down!" laughed Remsen. "No gain! What a fellow you are for questions, March! I got in this morning, and I'm going to stay until after the Yates game. They telegraphed me to come and coach the tackles. Instead of going to your room let's go to mine. I've taken a suite of one room and a closet at Dixon's on the avenue. I haven't unpacked my toothbrush yet. Come over with me and take lunch, and we'll talk it all over." So Joel stuck his books under his arm and the two crossed the yard, traversing the quadrangle in front of University and debouching on to the avenue near where the tall shaft of the Soldiers' Monument gleams in the sunlight. But they did not wait until Remsen's room was gained to "talk it all over." Joel had lots to tell about the Hillton fellows whom he had not lost sight of: of how Clausen was captain of the freshman Eleven and was displaying a wonderful faculty for generalship; how West was still golfing and had at last met foemen worthy of his steel; how Dicky Sproule was in college taking a special course, and struggling along under popular dislike; how Whipple and Cooke were rooming together in Peck, the former playing on the sophomore class team and going in for rowing, and the latter still the same idle, good-natured ignoramus, and liked by every fellow who knew him; how Digbee was grinding in Lanter with Somers; how Cartwright had joined the Glee Club; and how Christie had left college and gone into business with his father. "And Cloud?" asked Remsen. "Have you seen him?" "Yes, once or twice. I've heard that he was very well liked when he left St. Eustace last year. I dare say he has turned over a new leaf since his father died." "Indeed? I hadn't heard of that." "West heard it. He died last spring, and left Cloud pretty near penniless, they say. I have an idea that he has taken a brace and is studying more than he used to." "The chap has plenty of good qualities, I suppose. We all have our bad ones, you know. Perhaps it only needed some misfortune to wake up the lad's better nature. They say virtue thrives best on homely fare, and, like lots of other proverbs, I guess it's sometimes true." Then Remsen told of his visit to Hillton a few weeks previous. The Eleven this year was in pretty good shape, he thought; Greene, an upper middle man, was captain; they expected to have an easy time with St. Eustace, who was popularly supposed to be in a bad way for veteran players. That same Greene was winning the golf tournament when he was there, Remsen continued, and the golf club was in better shape than ever before, thanks to the hard work of West, Whipple, Blair, and a few others in building it up. The two friends reached the house, and Remsen led the way into his room, and set about unpacking his things. Joel took up a position on the bed and gave excellent advice as to the disposal of everything from a pair of stockings to a typewriter. "It's a strange fact," said Remsen as he thrust a suit of pajamas under the pillow, "that Outfield West is missed at Hillton more than any fellow who has graduated from there for several years past. Perhaps I don't mean exactly strange, either, for of course he's a fellow that every one naturally likes. What I do mean is that one would naturally suppose fellows like Blair or Whipple would leave the most regrets behind them, for Blair was generally conceded to be the most popular fellow in school the last two years of his stay, and Whipple was surely running him a close second. And certainly their memories are still green. But everywhere I went it was: 'Have you heard from Outfield West?' 'How's West getting on at college?' And strange to say, such inquiries were not confined to the fellows alone. Professor Wheeler asked after West particularly, and so did Briggs, and several others of the faculty; and Mrs. Cowles as well. "But you are still the hero there, March. The classic history of Hillton still recounts the prowess of one Joel the First, who kicked a goal from field and defeated thereby the hosts of St. Eustace. And Professor Durkee shakes his head and says he will never have another so attentive and appreciative member of his class. And now tell me, how are you getting on with Dutton?" So Joel recited his football adventures in full, not omitting the ludicrous touch-down, which received laughing applause from his listener, and recounting his promotion to the position of Varsity substitute. "Yes, I saw in the paper last week that you had been placed on the sub list of the Varsity. I hope you'll have a chance to play against Yates, although I don't wish Prince any harm. He's a good fellow and a hard worker. Hello, it's one-fifteen. Let's get some lunch." A half hour later they parted, Joel hurrying off to recitation and Remsen remaining behind to keep an appointment with a friend. After this they met almost every day, and Remsen was a frequent caller at Joel's room, where he with Joel and Outfield held long, cosy chats about every subject from enameling golf balls to the Philosophy of Kant and the Original Protoplasm. Meanwhile the season hurried along. Harwell met and defeated the usual string of minor opponents by varying scores, and ran up against the red and blue of Keystone College with disastrous results. But one important contest intervened between the present time and the game with Yates, and the hardest sort of hard work went on daily inside the inclosed field. A small army of graduates had returned to coach the different players, and the daily papers were filled, according to their wont, with columns of sensational speculation and misinformation regarding the merits of the team and the work they were performing. Out of the mass of clashing "facts" contained in the daily journals but one thing was absolutely apparent: to wit, the work of the Harwell Eleven was known only to the men and the coaches, and neither would tell about it. At last, when chill November had been for a few days in the land, the game with the red and white clad warriors from Ithaca took place on a wet and muddy field, and Joel played the game through from start to finish, Prince being engaged in nursing his treacherous ankle, which had developed alarming symptoms with the advent of wet weather. The game resulted in a score of twenty-four to five, the Ithacans scoring a neat, but inexcusable, goal from field in the first half. Joel played like a Trojan, and went around the left end of the opposing line time and again for good gains, until the mere placing of the ball in his hands was accepted by the spectators as equal to an accomplished gain. Wesley Blair made a dashing charge through a crowded field for twelve yards and scored a touch-down that brought the onlookers to their feet cheering. Dutton, the captain, played a steady brilliant interfering game, and Kingdon, at right half-back, plunged through the guard-tackle holes time and again with the ball hugged to his stomach, and kept his feet in a manner truly marvelous until the last inch had been gained. But critics nevertheless said unkind things of the team work as they wended their way back over the sodden turf, and shook their heads dubiously over the field-goal scored by the opponents. There would be a general shaking up on the morrow, they predicted, and we should see what we should see. And the coaches, too, although they dissembled their feelings under cheerful countenances, found much to condemn, and the operations of bathing, dressing, and weighing that afternoon were less enjoyable to the breathless, tattered men. The next day the team "went into executive session," as Joel called it, and the predicted shake-up took place. Murdoch, the left guard, was deemed too slight for the place, and was sent to the side line, from where he presently crawled to a seat on the great empty stand, and hiding his blanketed head wept like a child. And there were other changes made. Joel kept his place at left half, pending the bettering of Prince's ankle, and Blair was secure at full. But when the practice game began, many of the old forms were either missing or to be seen in the second Eleven's line, and the coaches hovered over the field of battle with dark, forbidding looks, and said mean things whenever the opportunity presented itself, and were icily polite to each other, as men will be when they know themselves to be in the right and every one else in the wrong. And so practice that Thursday was an unpleasant affair, and had the desired effect; for the men played the game for all that was in them and attended strictly to the matter in hand, forgetting for the time the intricacies of Latin compositions and the terrors of coming examinations. When it was over Joel crawled off of the scale with the emotions of a weary draught horse and took his way slowly toward home. In the square he ran against Outfield, who, armed with a monstrous bag of golf requisites, had just leaped off a car. "Hello, Joel," he cried. "What's happened? Another off-sider? Have you broken that finger again? Honest Injun, what's up?" "Nothing, Out; I'm just kind of half dead. We had two thirty-minute halves, with forty-'leven coaches yelling at us every second, and a field like a turnip patch just before seeding. Oh, no, there's nothing the matter; only if you know of any quiet corner where I can die in peace, lead me there, Out. I won't keep you long; it will soon be over." "No, I don't, my flippant young friend, but I know something a heap better." "Nothing can be better any more, Out. Still--well, what is it?" "A couple of hot lemonades and a pair of fat sandwiches at Noster's. Come along." "You're not so bad, Out," said Joel as they hurried up the street. "You have _moments_ of almost human intelligence!" CHAPTER XXI. THE DEPARTURE. The backs and substitute backs, together with Story, the quarter, Captain Dutton, and one or two assistant coaches, including Stephen Remsen, were assembled in Bancroft 6. The head coach was also present, and with a long pointer in one hand and a piece of chalk in the other was going through a sequence for the benefit of the backs, who had been called a half hour ahead of the rest of the Eleven. The time was a half hour after dinner. On the blackboard strange squares and lines and circles confronted the men in the seats. The head coach placed the tip of the pointer on a diagram marked "No. 2. Criss-Cross." "This is the second of the sequence, and is an ordinary criss-cross from left half-back to right half-back. If you don't understand it readily, say so. I want you to ask all the questions you can think of. The halves take positions, as in the preceding play, back of the line behind the tackle-guard holes. The ball goes to left half, who runs just back of quarter. Right half starts a moment after the ball is put in play, also going back of quarter and outside of left half and receiving the ball at a hand pass from the latter, and continuing on through the hole between left end and tackle. Right end starts simultaneously with left half, taking the course indicated, in front of quarter and close to the line, and interfering through the line for the runner." [Illustration: 2nd PLAY] "Left end blocks opposing end outward. Quarter clears the hole out for the runner. Full-back does not start until the pass from quarter to left half is made. He must then time himself so as to protect the second pass. In case of a fumble the ball is his to do the best he can with through the end-tackle hole. If the pass is safe he follows left half through, blocking opposing left end long enough to keep him out of the play. "You will go through this play to-morrow and you will get your slips to-morrow evening here. Now is there anything not clear to you?" Apparently there was a great deal, for the questions came fast and furious, the coaches all taking a hand in the discussion, and the diagram being explained all over again very patiently by the head. Then another diagram was tackled. [Illustration: 3rd PLAY] "The third of this sequence is from an ordinary formation," began the head coach. "It is intended to give the idea of a kick, or, failing that, of a run around left end. It will very probably be used as a separate play in the last few minutes of a half, especially where the line-up is near the side line, right being the short side of the field. You will be given the signal calling this as a separate play to-morrow evening. "Full-back stands as for a kick, and when the signal is given moves in a step or two toward quarter as unnoticeably as possible; position 2 in the diagram. He must be careful to come to a full stop before the ball is snapped back, and should time himself so that he will not have to stay there more than a second. The instant the ball is snapped full-back runs forward to the position indicated here by 3, and receives the ball on a short pass from quarter. Left half starts at the same instant, and receives the ball from full as he passes just behind him, continuing on and around the line outside of right end. It is right half's play to make the diversion by starting with the ball and going through the line between left tackle and guard; he is expected to get through and into the play on the other side. Left end starts when the ball is snapped, and passing across back of the forwards clears out the hole for the runner. Quarter interferes, assisted by full-back, and should at all costs down opposing half. Right end helps right tackle throw in opposing end. Much of the success of this play depends on the second pass, from full-back to left half, and it must be practiced until there is no possibility of failure. Questions, fellows." After the discussion of the last play a half hour's talk on interference was given to the rest of the Eleven and substitutes, who had arrived meanwhile. Remsen and Joel left Bancroft together and crossed the yard toward the latter's room. The sky was bright with myriads of stars and the buildings seemed magnified by the wan radiance to giant castles. Under the shadow of University Remsen paused to light his pipe, and, without considering, the two found themselves a moment later seated on the steps. From the avenue the clang-clang of car gongs sounded sharp and clear, and red and white and purple lights flitted like strange will-o'-wisps through the half light, and disappeared into the darkness beyond the common. The lights in the stores beamed dimly. A green shade in Pray's threw a sickly shaft athwart the pavement. But even as they looked a tall figure, weariness emanating from every movement, stepped between window and light, book in hand, and drew close the blinds. "Poor devil!" sighed Remsen. "Three hours more of work, I dare say, before he stumbles, half blind, into bed. And all for what, Joel? That or--that?" He pointed with his pipe-stem to where Jupiter shone with steady radiance high in the blue-black depths; then indicated a faint yellow glow that flared for an instant in the darkness across the yard where a passer had paused to light his pipe. "We can't all be Jupiters, Remsen," answered Joel calmly. "Some of us have to be little sticks of wood with brimstone tips. But they're very useful little things, matches. And, after all, does it matter as long as we do what we have to do as well as we can? Old Jupiter up there is a very fine chap undoubtedly, and if he shirked a minute or two something unpleasant would probably occur; but he isn't performing his task any better than the little match performed his. 'Scratch--pouf' and the match's work's done. But it has lighted a fire. Can you do better, Mr. Jupiter?" Remsen made no reply for a moment, but Joel knew that he was smiling there beside him. A little throng of students passed by, humming softly a song in time with their echoing footsteps, and glanced curiously at the forms on the steps. Then Remsen struck a match on the stone. "'Scratch--pouf!'" he said musingly, relighting his pipe. In the act of tossing the charred splinter away he stopped; then he laid it beside him on the step. "Good little match," he muttered. Joel laughed softly. "March," asked Remsen presently, "have you changed your mind yet about studying law?" "No; but sometimes I get discouraged when I think of what a time it will take to arrive anywhere. And sometimes, too, I begin to think that a fellow who can't talk more readily than I ought to go into the hardware business or raise chickens for a living instead of trying to make a lawyer out of himself." "It isn't altogether talk, March," answered Remsen, "that makes a good lawyer. Brains count some. If you get where you can conduct a case to a successful result you will never miss the 'gift o' the gab.' Talking's the little end of the horn in my profession, despite tradition. "I asked for a reason, March," he went on. "What do you say to our forming a partnership? When you get through the Law School you come to me, if you wish, and tell me that you are ready to enter my office, and I'll answer 'I'm very glad to have you, Mr. March.' Of course we could arrange for a regular partnership a year or so later. Meanwhile the usual arrangement would be made. It may be that you know of some very much better office which you would prefer to go to. If you do, all right. If you don't, come to me. What do you say?" "But--but what good would I do you?" Joel asked, puzzled at the offer. "I'd like it very much, of course, but I can't see--" "I'll tell you, March. I have a good deal of faith in your future, my boy. You have a great deal of a most valuable thing called application, which I have not, worse luck. You are also sharp-witted and level-headed to a remarkable degree. And some day, twenty or thirty years from now, you'll likely be _hard_-headed, but I'll risk that. By the time you're out of college I shall be wanting a younger man to take hold with me. There will be plenty of them, but I shall want a good one. And that is why I make this offer. It is entirely selfish, and you need not go searching for any philanthropy in it. I'm only looking a bit ahead and buttering my toast while it's hot, March. What do you say? Or, no, you needn't say anything to-night. Think it over for a while, and let me know later." "But I don't want to think it over," answered Joel eagerly. "I'm ready to sign such a partnership agreement now. If you really believe that I would--could be of use to you, I'd like it mightily. And I know all about your 'selfishness,' and I'm very grateful to you for--for buttering your toast." Later, when they arose and went on, Remsen consented to accompany Joel to his room, bribed thereto with a promise of hot chocolate. They found Outfield diligently poring over a Greek history. But he immediately discarded it in favor of a new book on the Royal Game which lay in his lap hidden under a note book. "You see," he explained, "old Pratt has taken a shine to me, and I expected him to call this evening. And I thought at first that you were he--or him--which is it? And of course I didn't want to disappoint the old gentleman; he has such a fine opinion of me, you know." While Outfield boiled the water and laid bare the contents of the larder, Joel told him of Remsen's offer. A box of biscuits went down with a crash, and Outfield turned indignantly. "That's all very fine," he exclaimed. "But where do I come in? How about Mr. West? Where does he get his show in this arrangement? You promised that if I studied law, too, Joel, you'd go into partnership with _me_. Now, didn't you?" "But it was all in fun," protested Joel, distressedly. "I didn't suppose you meant it, you know." "Meant it!" answered Outfield indignantly. "Of course I meant it. Don't you expect I appreciate level-headedness and sharp-wittedness and applicationousness just as much as Remsen? Why, I had it all fixed. We were to have an office fitted with cherry railings and revolving bookcases near--near--" "A good links?" suggested Remsen smilingly. "Well, yes," admitted Outfield, "that wouldn't be a half bad idea. But now you two have gone and spoiled it all." "Well, I tell you, West," suggested Remsen, "you come in with us and supply the picturesque element of the business. You might look after the golf cases, you know; injuries to bald-headed gentlemen by gutties; trespassing by players; forfeiting of leases, and so forth. What do you say?" "All right," answered Outfield cheerfully. "But it must be understood that the afternoons belong to the links and not to the law." So Stephen Remsen and Joel March sealed their agreement by shaking hands, and Outfield grinned approval. One afternoon a few days later Outfield pranced into the room just as dusk was falling brandishing aloft a silver-plated mug, and uttering a series of loud cheers for "Me." Joel, who had returned but a moment before from a hard afternoon's practice, and was now studying in the window seat by the waning light, looked languidly curious. "A trophy, Joel, a trophy from the links!" cried West. "Won by the great Me by two holes from Jenkins, Jenkins the Previously Great, Jenkins the Defeated and Devastated!" He tossed the mug into Joel's lap. "I'm very glad, Out," said the latter. "Won't it help you with the team?" "It will, my discerning friend. It will send me to New York next month to represent Harwell. And Lapham says I must go to Lakewood for the open tournament. Oh, little Outie is some pumpkins, my lad! It was quite the most wonderful young match to-day. Jenkins led all the way to the fifteenth hole. Then he foozled like a schoolboy, and I holed out in one and went on to the Cheese Box in two." "I'm awfully glad," repeated Joel, smiling up into the flushed and triumphant face of his chum. "If you go to New York it will be after the big game, and, if you like, I'll go with you and shout." Outfield West executed a war-dance and whooped ecstatically. "Will you, Joel? Honest Injun? Cross your heart and hope to die? Then shake hands, my lad; it's a bargain! Now, where's my chemistry?" The days flew by and the date of the Yates game rapidly approached. The practice was secret every afternoon, and the coaches lost weight eluding the newspaper reporters. Prince disappointed Joel by returning to the Varsity with his ankle apparently as well as ever, although he was generally "played easy," and Joel often took his place in the second half of the practice games. And at last the Thursday preceding the big game arrived, and the team and substitutes, together with the trainer and the manager and the head coach and two canine mascots, assembled in the early morning in the square and were hustled into coaches and driven into town to their train. And half the college heroically arose phenomenally early and stood in the first snow storm of the year and cheered and cheered for the team individually and collectively, for the head coach and the trainer, for the rubbers and the mascots, and, between times, for the college. The players went to a little country town a few miles distant from the seat of Yates University, and spent the afternoon in practicing signals on the hotel grounds. The next day, Friday, was a day of rest, save for running through a few formations and trick plays after lunch and taking a long walk at dusk. The Yates Glee Club journeyed over in the evening and gave an impromptu entertainment in the parlor, a courtesy well appreciated by the Harwell team, whose nerves were now beginning to make themselves felt. And the next morning the journey was continued and the college town was reached at half past eleven. The men were welcomed at the station by a crowd of Harwell fellows who had already arrived, and the Harwell band did its best until the team was driven off to the hotel. There for the first time the men were allowed to see the line-up for the game. It was a long list, containing the names, ages, heights, and weights of thirty-six players and substitutes, and was immediately the center of interest to all. "Thunder!" growled Joel ruefully, as he finished reading the list over Blair's shoulder, "it's a thumpin' long ways down to _me!_" CHAPTER XXII. BEFORE THE BATTLE. "Harwell, Harwell, Harwell! Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Harwell!" The lobby grew empty on the instant, and outside on the steps and on the sidewalk the crowd spread itself. The procession had just turned the corner, the college band leading. "The freshmen won!" cried a voice on the edge of the throng, and the news was passed along from man to man until it swept up the steps, through the lobby and to the dining room upstairs where the football men of the Varsity team were impatiently awaiting lunch. "A good omen," said the head coach. Below in the street admonitory thumps upon the great drum, with its college coat-of-arms on the head, were heard, and a moment later the shouts of the exuberant freshmen and their allies were drowned in the first strains of the college song. Off came the silk hats of the frock-coated graduates and the plaided golf caps of the students, and side by side there in the sun-swept street they lifted their voices in the sweet, measured strains of the dear familiar hymn. And stout, placid-faced men of fifty, with comfortable bank accounts and incipient twinges of gout, felt the unaccustomed dimming of the sight that presages tears, and boyish, carefree students, to whom the song was as much an everyday affair as D marks and unpaid bills, felt strange stirrings in their breasts, and with voices that stumbled strangely over the top notes sang louder and louder. And upstairs in the dining room many a throat grew hard and "lumpy" as the refrain came in at the open windows. But, as the trainer muttered presently, it was only the freshmen who had won, and the real battle of the day was yet to come. And soon the band and the shouting parade wheeled away from beneath the windows and swung off up the street to make known far and wide the greatness of Harwell, her freshmen, and the grandeur of their victory over the youngsters of Yates. And, as the last cheer floated up from the procession as it disappeared around a far corner, lunch was served, and player and coach, trainer and rubber, substitute and mascot, drew up to the last meal before--what? Victory or defeat? It was not a merry repast, that lunch before the fray. Some men could not bring themselves to eat at all until the coaches commanded with dire threats. Others, as though nothing out of the ordinary was about to take place, ate heartily, hungrily, of everything set before them. At the far end of the room Joel March played with his steak and tried to delude himself into thinking he was eating. He felt rather upset, and weak in the joints, and as for the lad's stomach it had revolted at sight of the very first egg. But luckily the last meal before a game has little effect one way or the other upon the partaker, since he is already keyed up, mentally and physically, to a certain pitch, and nothing short of cold poison can alter it. In the streets below, for blocks in all directions, the crowds surged up and down, and shouts for Harwell and yells for Yates arose like challenges in the afternoon air. Friends met who had not done so for years, enemies accorded enemies bows of recognition ere they remembered their enmity. The deep blue and the deeper crimson passed and counterpassed, brushed and fluttered side by side, and lighted up the little college city till it looked like a garden of roses and violets. And everywhere, over all, was the tensity that ever reigns before a battle. The voices of the ticket speculator and of the merchant of "Offish'l Score Cards" were heard upon every side. The street cars poked their blunt noses through the crowd which closed in again behind them like water about the stern of a ship. Violets blossomed or crimson chrysanthemums bloomed upon every coat and wrap, or hung pendant from the handle of cane and umbrella. The flags of Harwell and Yates, the white H and white Y, were everywhere. Shop windows were partisan to the blue, but held dashes of crimson as a sop to the demands of hospitality and welcome. At one o'clock the exodus from town began. Along the road that leads to the football field hurried the sellers of rush cushions and badges, of score cards and pencils, of blue and crimson flags and cheap canes, of peanuts and sandwiches, of soda water and sarsaparilla, bent upon securing advantageous stands about the entrance. A quarter of an hour later the spectators were on the way. The cars, filled in and out with shouting humanity, crept slowly along, a bare half block separating them. Roystering students swung arm in arm in eccentric dance from side to side across the street. Ladies with their escorts hurried along the sidewalks. Carriages, bright with fluttering flags, rolled by. Bicycles darted in and out, their riders throwing words of salutation over their shoulders to friends by the way. In the windows along the route was displayed the bravery of blue banners. A window in a college hall was piled high with great comfortable-looking pillows, each bearing a great challenging Y in white ribbon or embroidery. And overhead the sky arched a broad blue expanse from horizon to horizon. In this manner on some fair morning, centuries ago, did all Greece wend its way to the Stadium and the Games of Olympia. In the hotel the lunch was over and that terrible age between it and the arrival of the coaches was dragging its weary length along. Joel and Blair were standing by the window talking in voices that tried to be calm, cool and indifferent, but which were neither. "They're offering bets of ten to nine downstairs that Yates wins," remarked Blair with elaborate composure. "Are they?" responded Joel absent-mindedly, thinking the while of the signal for the second sequence. "I thought the odds were even." "They were until the news about Chesney's shoulder got about." "But there isn't really anything the matter with his shoulder, is there?" "No. No one knows how the story got out. Whipple was taking all he could get a while ago." "Some one wants to see you at the door, March," called the trainer, and Joel found Outfield West, smiling and happy, waiting there. "How are you?" he whispered. "All right? How are the rest? Great Gobble, Joel, but these Yates Johnnies are so sure of winning that they can't keep still! There's a rumor here in the lobby that Yates's center is sick. Know anything about it?" Joel shook his head. "Well, I'll see you out at the field. We're going out now; Cooke, and Caldwell, and some of the others. So long, my valiant lad. Keep a stiff upper lip and never say die, and all that, you know. Adios!" There was a cheer below, and Blair, at the window, announced the arrival of the conveyances. Instantly the lethargy of a minute before was turned to excited bustle and confusion. Pads and nose-guards, jerseys and coats, balls and satchels were seized and laid aside and grabbed up again. Cries for missing apparel and paraphernalia were heard on every side, and only a loud, peremptory command to "Shut up!" from the head coach restored order and quietude. Then the door was thrown open and down the narrow stairs they trooped, through the crowded lobby where friends hemmed them about, patting the broad backs, shouting words of cheer into their ears, and delaying them in their passage. Into the coaches they hurried, and as the crowd about the hotel burst into loud, ringing cheers, the whips were cracked and the journey to the field began. The route lay along quiet, unfrequented streets where only an occasional cheer from a college window met their advent. Restraint had worn off now, and the fellows were chatting fast and furiously. Joel looked out at the handsome homes and sunny street, and was aware only of a longing to be in the fray, an impatient desire to be doing. Briscom, the substitute centre, a youth of twenty-one summers and one hundred and ninety-eight pounds, sat beside him. "I was here two years ago with the freshman team," he was saying. "We didn't do a thing to them, we youngsters, although the Varsity was licked badly. And all during the afternoon game we sat together and cheered, until at five o'clock I couldn't speak above a whisper. That was a great game, that freshman contest! It took three hours and a half to settle it. At the beginning of the second half there were only three men on our team who had played in the first. I was one of them. I was playing left guard. Story there was another. He gave up before the game was through, though. I held out and when the whistle sounded, down I went on the grass and didn't stir for ten minutes. We had two referees that day. The first chap got hurt in a rush, and it took us half an hour to find a fellow brave enough to take his place. That _was_ a game. Football's tame nowadays." Across the coach Rutland, the right guard, a big bronze-haired chap of one hundred and ninety-six, was deep in a discussion with "Judge" Chase, right end, on an obscure point of ruling. "If you're making a fair catch and a player on the other side runs against you intentionally or otherwise, you're interfered with, and the rules give your side fifteen yards," declared Rutland. "Not if the interference is accidental and doesn't hurt your catch," replied Chase. "If the other fellow is running and can't stop in time--" "Shut up, you fellows," growled Captain Button. "You play the game, and the referee will look after the rules for you." "If you go on," said Briscom, "you must be careful about holding. De Farge (the referee) is awfully down on holding and off-side plays. Last year he penalized us eight times during the game. But he's all right, just the same. He's the finest little ref that ever tossed a coin." "I fear I won't get a show," mourned Joel. "You can't tell," answered Briscom knowingly. "Last year there were two fellows ahead of me and I got on for twenty minutes of the last half. Trueland bent his ankle, Chesney hurt his knee, and Condon got whacked on the head. Watch the game every minute of the time, March, and learn how the Yates halves play the game. Then if you do go on you won't be in the dark." The coaches rolled up to the players' entrance to the field, and the fellows hopped out and disappeared into the quarters. The time was two o'clock. The gates were still thronged, although to the people already on the stands it was a puzzle where the newcomers were going to find seats. On the east side of the field Yates held open house. From end to end, and overflowing half way around both north and south stands, the blue of Yates fluttered in the little afternoon breeze till that portion of the field looked like a bank of violets. On the west stand tier after tier of crimson arose until it waved against the limitless blue of the sky. Countless flags dipped and circled, crimson bonnets gleamed everywhere, and great bunches of swaying chrysanthemums nodded and becked to each other. All collegedom with its friends and relations was here; all collegedom, that is, within traveling distance; beyond that, eager eyes were watching the bulletin boards from Maine to Mojave. The cheering had begun. Starting at one end of the west stand the slogan sped, section by section, growing in volume as it went, and causing the crimson flags and banners to dance and leap in the sunlight. Across the field answering cheers thundered out and the bank of violets trembled as though a wind ruffled it. In front of the north stand the Yates college band added the martial strains of The Stars and Stripes Forever to the general pandemonium of enthusiasm. Then along the west stand a ripple of laughter which grew into a loud cheer traveled, as a bent and decrepit figure attired in a long black frock coat and high silk hat, the latter banded with crimson ribbon, came into sight down the field. It was the old fruit seller of Harwell, whose years are beyond reckoning, and who is remembered by the oldest graduates. On he came, his old, wrinkled face grimacing in toothless smiles, his ribboned cane waving in his trembling hand, and his well-nigh bald head bowing a welcome to the watchers. For it was not he who was the guest, for from time almost immemorial the old fruit seller has presided at the contests of Harwell, rejoicing in her victories, lamenting over her defeats. Down the line he limped, while gray-haired graduates and downy-lipped undergrads cheered him loyally, calling his name over and over, and so back to a seat in the middle of the stand, from where all through the battle his crimson-bedecked cane waved unceasingly. He was not the only one welcomed by the throng. A great jurist, chrysanthemumed from collar to waist, bowed jovial acknowledgment of the applause his appearance summoned. The governor of a State came too to see once more the crimson of his alma mater clashing with the blue of her old enemy. Professors, who had put aside their books, beamed benevolently through their glasses as they walked somewhat embarrassedly past the grinning faces of their pupils. Old football players, former captains, bygone masters of rowing, commanders of olden baseball teams, all these and many more were there and were welcomed heartily, tumultuously, by the wearers of the red. And through it all the cheers went on, the college songs were sung, and the hearts of youth and age were happy and glad together. Then the cry of "Here they come!" traveled along the field, and the blue-clad warriors leaped into the arena at the far end, and the east stand went delirious, and flags waved, and a tempest shook the bank of violets. "Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Yates!" And almost simultaneously the west stand arose and its voice arose to the sky in wild, frenzied shouts of: "Har-well, Har-well, Har-well, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Har-well! Har-well! Har-well!" For over the fence came the head coach, and big Chesney, and Captain Dutton, Story, the little quarter-back, and all the others, a long line of crimson-stockinged warriors, with Joel March, Briscom, Bedford, and the other substitutes flocking along in the tag end of the procession. Over the field the two Elevens spread, while cheer after cheer met in mid-field, clashed, and rolled upward to the blue. Then came a bare five minutes of punting, dropping, passing, snapping, ere the officials appeared from somewhere and gathered the opposing captains to them. A coin flashed in the sunlight, spun aloft, descended, and was caught in the referee's palm. "Heads!" cried Ferguson, the Yates captain. "Heads it is!" announced the referee. The substitutes retreated unwillingly to the side lines, the Harwell men spread themselves over the north end of the gridiron, Elton, the Yates full-back, ground his heel into the turf and pointed the ball, the cheering ceased, the whistle piped merrily, the bright new ball soared aloft on its arching flight, and the game of the year was on. CHAPTER XXIII. HARWELL _VS_. YATES--THE FIRST HALF. That game will live in history. It was a battle royal between giant foes. On one hand was the confidence begat of fifteen years of almost continuous victory over the crimson; on the other the desperation that such defeat brings. Yates had a proud record to sustain, Harwell a decade of worsting to atone for. And twenty-five thousand persons watched and hoped and feared as the battle raged. Down settled the soaring ball into the arms of Kingdon, who tucked it under his arm and started with it toward the distant goal. But eight yards was all he found ere a Yates forward crashed down upon him. Then came a quick line-up on Harwell's forty yards, and first Prince, then Kingdon, then Blair was put through the line, each for a small gain, and the Harwell benches shouted their triumph. Again the pigskin was given to Prince for a try through the hole between tackle and guard, but this time he was hurled back for a loss. The next try was Kingdon's, and he made a yard around the Yates left end. It was the third down and five yards were lacking. Back went the ball for a kick, and a moment later it was Yates's on her thirty-five yards, and again the teams were lining up. It was now the turn of the east stand to cheer, and mightily the shout rolled across the field. Through came the Yates full, the ball safely stowed in the crook of his elbow, the whole force of the backs shoving him on. Three yards was his. Another line-up. Again the Yates full-back was given the ball, and again he gained. And it was the first down on Yates's forty-five-yard line. Then began a rout in which Harwell retreated and Yates pursued until the leather had crossed the middle of the field. The gains were made anywhere, everywhere, it seemed. Allardyce yielded time and again, and Selkirk beside him, lacking the other's support, was thrust aside almost at will. The Yates shouters were wild with joy, and the cheers of Harwell were drowned beneath the greater outbursts from the supporters of the blue. Harwell appeared to be outclassed, so far as her rush line was concerned. Past the fifty-yard line went the ball, and between it and the next white streak, Harwell at last made a desperate stand, and secured the ball. At the first play it was sent speeding away from Blair's toe to the Yates mid-field, a long, clean, high kick, that led the forwards down under it in time to throw the waiting back ere he had taken a step, and that brought shouts of almost tearful delight from the Harwell sympathizers. Back to her line-bucking returned Yates, and slowly, but very surely, the contest moved over the lost ground, back toward the Harwell goal. The fifty-five-yard line was passed again, the fifty, the forty-five, and here or there holes were being torn in the Harwell line, and the crimson was going down before the blue. At her forty-yard line Harwell stayed again for a while the onslaught of the enemy, and tried thrice to make ground through the Yates line. Then back to the hands of Wilkes went the oval and again the heart-breaking rout began. YATES. Full-back ELTON, 184 Right Left Half-Back Half-Back THOMPSON, 153 CUSHING, 157 BIRCH, 140 Quarter-back Right Right Right Left Left Left End Tackle Guard Center Guard Tackle End O'CALLAGHAN, FERGUSON, MORRIS, WILKES, ALLISON, GALT, FRASER, 163 203 197 204 194 189 150 Left Left Left Center Right Right Right End Tackle Guard Guard Tackle End DUTTON, SELKIRK, ALLARDYCE, CHESNEY, RUTLAND, BURBRIDGE, CHASE, 150 186 189 229 196 179 156 Quarter-back STORY, 144 PRINCE, 157 KINGDON, 182 Left Right Half-Back Half-Back BLAIR, 179 Full-Back HARWELL. Harwell made her last desperate rally on her twenty-five yards. The ball was thrown to Blair, who kicked, but not soon enough to get it out of the way of the opposing forwards, who broke through as the ball rose. It struck against the upstretched hand of the Yates right guard and bounded toward the crimson's goal. The Yates left half fell upon it. From there, without forfeiting the ball, Yates crashed down to the goal line, and hurled Elton, her crack full-back, through at last for a touch-down. For five minutes chaos reigned upon the east stand. All previous efforts paled into nothingness beside the outbursts of cheers that followed each other like claps of thunder up and down the long bank of fluttering color. Upon the other side of the field no rival shouts were heard. It was useless to try and drown that Niagara of sound. But here and there crimson flags waved defiantly at the triumphant blue. The goal was an easy one, though it is probable that it would have been made had it been five times more difficult; for Elton was the acknowledged goal kicker par excellence of the year. Then back trotted the teams, and as the Harwell Eleven lined up for the kick-off Allardyce at left guard gave place to Murdoch. The big fellow had given out and had limped white-faced and choking from the field. The whistle sounded and the ball rose into air, corkscrewing toward the Yates goal. Down the field under it went the Harwell runners like bolts from a bow, and the Yates half who secured the pigskin was downed where he caught. The two teams lined up quickly. Then back, foot by foot, yard by yard, went the struggling Harwell men. Yet the retreat was less like a rout than before, and Yates was having harder work. Her players were twice piled up against the Harwell center, and she was at last forced to send a blue-clad youth around the left end, an experiment which netted her twelve yards and which brought the east stand to its feet, yelling like mad. But here the crimson line at length braced and the ball went to its center on three downs, and the tide turned for a while. The backs and the right end were hurled, one after another, at the opposing line, and shouts of joy arose from the crimson seats as gain after gain resulted. Thrice in quick succession Captain Dutton shot through the left end of the blue's line, the second time for a gain of five yards. The cheering along the west side of the great field was now continuous, and the leaders, their crimson badges fluttering agitatedly, were waving their arms like tireless semaphores and exciting the supporters of Harwell to greater and greater efforts. Nearer and nearer to the coveted touch-down crept the crimson line. With clock-work precision the ball was snapped, the quarter passed, the half leaped forward, the rush line plunged and strove, and then from somewhere a faint "Down!" was cried; and the panting players staggered to their feet, leaving the ball yet nearer to the threatened goal line. On the blue's twenty-three yards the whistle shrilled, and a murmur of dismay crept over the Yates seats as it was seen that Captain Ferguson lay motionless on the ground. But a moment's rubbing brought him to his feet again. "He's not much hurt," explained the knowing ones. "He wants to rest a bit." A minute later, while the ball still hovered about the twenty-yard line, Yates secured it on a fumbled pass, and the tide ebbed away from the beleagured posts. Back as before were borne the crimson warriors, while the Yates forwards opened holes in the opposing line and the Yates halves dashed and wormed through for small gains. Then Fate again aided the crimson, and on the blue's forty-seven-yard line a fake kick went sadly aglee and the runner was borne struggling back toward his own goal before he could cry "Down!" And big Chesney grinned gleefully as he received the leather and bent his broad back above it. Canes, crysanthemums, umbrellas, flags, carnations, hats, all these and many other things waved frantically above the great bank of crimson as the little knot of gallant knights in moleskin crept back over their recent path of retreat and took the war again into the enemy's country. Every inch of the way was stubbornly contested by the defenders, but slowly they were pushed back, staggering under the shocks of the crimson's attack. Chesney, Rutland, and Murdoch worked together, side by side, like one man--or forty!--and when time was called for an instant on the Yates twenty-five yards it was to bring Galt, the blue's left tackle, back to consciousness and send him limping off the gridiron. His place in the line was taken by an old Hilltonian, one Dunsmore, and the game went on. And now it was the blue that was in full retreat and the crimson that pursued. Nearer and nearer to the Yates goal line went the resisting besieged and the conquering besiegers, and the great black score-board announced but eight more minutes of the first half remaining. But even eight were three more than were needed. For Harwell crossed the twenty yards by tandem on tackle, gained the fifteen in two downs by wedges between tackle and guard, and from there on until the much-desired goal line was reached never paused in her breathless, resistless onslaught. It was Wesley Blair who at last put the ball over for a touch-down, going through between center and left guard with all the weight of the Harwell Eleven behind him. His smothered "Down!" was never heard, for the west stand was a swaying, tumultuous unit of thunderous acclaim. Up went the flags and banners of crimson hues, loud sounded the paean of praise and thanksgiving from thousands of straining throats, while below on the side lines the coaches leaped for joy and strained each other to their breasts in unspeakable delight. And while the shouting went on as though never would the frenzied shouters cease, the grim, panting Yates players lined up back of their goal line, on tiptoe, ready at the first touch of the ball to the earth to spring forward and, leaping upward, strive to arrest the speeding oval. Prone upon the ground, the ball in his hands, lay Story. A yard or two distant Blair directed the pointing of it. The goal was a most difficult one, from an angle, and long the full-back studied and directed, until faint groans of derision arose from the impatient east stand and the men behind the goal line moved restively. "Lacing to you," said Blair quietly. Story shifted the ball imperceptibly. "More." The quarter-back obeyed. "Cock it." Higher went the end toward the goal. "Not so much." It was lowered carefully, slowly. "Steady." Blair stepped back, glanced once swiftly at the cross-bar, and stepped forward again. "Down!" Story's left hand touched the grass, the Yates men surged forward, there was a thud, and-- Upward sped the ball, rising, rising, until it topped the bar, then slowly turning over, over in its quickening descent. But the nearly silent west stand had broke again into loud cries of triumph, and upon the face of the Scoreboard appeared the momentous word, "GOAL!" Again the ball was put in play, but the half was soon over and the players, snatching their blankets, trotted to the dressing rooms. And the score-board announced: "Opponents, 6. Yates, 6." As the little swinging door closed behind him Joel found himself in a seething mass of players, rubbers, and coaches, while a babel of voices, greetings, commands, laughter, and lament, confused him. It was a busy scene. The trainer and his assistants were working like mad. The doctor and the head coach were talking twenty to the second. Everybody was explaining everything, and the indefatigable coaches were hurrying from man to man, instructing, reminding, and scolding. Joel had only to look on, save when he lent a hand at removing some torn and stubborn jersey, or at finding lost shin-guards and nose masks, and so he found a seat out of the way, and, searching the room with his gaze, at length found Prince. That gentleman was having a nice, new pink elastic bandage put about his ankle. He was grinning sturdily, but at every clutch of the web his lips twitched and his brow puckered. Joel watching him wondered how much more he would stand, and whether his (Joel's) chance would come ere the fatal whistle piped the end of the match. "Time's up!" cried the head coach suddenly, and the confusion redoubled until he mounted to a bench and clapped his hands loudly above the din. Comparative silence ensued. "Fellows," he began, "here's the list for the next half. Answer to your names, please. And go over to the door. Fellows, you'll have to make less noise. Dutton, Selkirk, Murdoch--Murdoch?" "Right!" The voice emerged from the folds of a woolen sweater which had stubbornly refused to go on or off. With a smile the head coach continued the list, each man responding as his name was announced and crowding to the doorway. "Chesney, Rutland, Burbridge, Barton--" A murmur arose from the listening throng, and Chase, a tall, pale-faced youth, his cheek exhibiting the marks of a contact with some one's shoe cleats, groaned loudly and flung himself on to a bench, where he sat looking blindly before him until the list was finished. "Story, Prince--" "Here!" called the latter, jumping from his seat. Then a sharp, agonized cry followed, and Prince toppled over, clutching vainly at the air. The head coach paused. The doctor and the trainer pushed toward the fallen man, and a moment later the former announced quietly: "He's fainted, sir." "Can he go on?" asked the head coach. "He is out of the question. Ankle's too painful. I couldn't allow it." "Very well," answered the other as he amended the list. "Kingdon, Blair, March." Joel's heart leaped as he heard his name pronounced, and he tried to answer. "March?" demanded the head coach impatiently; and "Here, sir!" gulped Joel, rushing to the door. "All right," continued the head coach. "There isn't time for any fine phrases, fellows, and if there was I couldn't say them so that they'd do any good. You know what you've got to do. Go ahead and do it. You have the chance of wiping out a good many defeats, more than it's pleasant to think about. The college expects a great deal from you. Don't disappoint it. Play hard and play together. Don't give an inch; die first. Tackle low, run high, _and keep your eyes on the ball!_ And now, fellows, _three times three for Harwell!_" And what a cheer that was! The little building shook, the men stood on their toes; the head coach cheered himself off the bench; and Joel yelled so desperately that his breath gave out at the last "Rah!" and didn't come back until the little door was burst open and he found himself leaping the fence into the gridiron. And what a burst of sound greeted their reappearance! The west stand shook from end to end. Crimson banners broke out on the breeze, every one was on his feet, hats waved, umbrellas clashed, canes swirled. A youth in a plaid ulster went purple in the face at the small end of a five-foot horn; and for all the sound it seemed to make it might as well have been a penny whistle. The ushers waved their arms, but to no purpose, since the seats heeded them not at all, but shouted as their hearts dictated and as their throats and lungs allowed. Joel, gazing about him from the field, felt a shiver of emotion pass through him. They were cheering _him_! He was one of the little band in honor of which the flags waved, the voices shouted, and the songs were sung! He felt a lump growing in his throat, and to keep down the tears that for some reason were creeping into his eyes, he let drive at a ball that came bumping toward him and kicked it so hard that Selkirk had to chase it half down the field. "Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Harwell! Harwell! Harwell! Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Harwell!" The leaders of the cheering had again gotten control of their sections, and the long, deliberate cheer, majestic in its intensity of sound, crashed across the space, rebounded from the opposite stand, and went echoing upward into the clear afternoon air. "Harwell!" muttered Joel. "_You Bet_!" Then he gathered with the others about Dutton to listen to that leader's last instructions. And at the same moment the east stand broke into cheers as the gallant sons of Yates bounded on to the grass. Back and forth rolled the mighty torrents of sound, meeting in midair, breaking and crashing back in fainter reverberations. They were singing the college songs now, and the merits and virtues of both colleges were being chanted defiantly to the tunes of popular airs. Thousands of feet "tramp-tramped," keeping time against the stands. The Yates band and the Harwell band were striving, from opposite ends of the field, to drown each other's strains. And the blue and crimson fluttered and waved, the sun sank lower toward the western horizon, and the shadows crept along the ground. "There will be just one more score," predicted the knowing ones as they buttoned their ulsters and overcoats up at the throat and crouched along the side lines, like so many toads. "But who will make it I'm blessed if I know!" Then Harwell lined up along the fifty-five-yard line, with the ball in their possession, and the south goal behind them. And Yates scattered down the field in front. And the linesmen placed their canes in the turf, the referee and the umpire walked into the field, and the stands grew silent save for the shrill voice of a little freshman on the west stand who had fallen two bars behind in "This is Harwell's Day," and needs must finish out while his breath lasted. "Are you all ready?" asked the referee. There was no reply. Only here and there a foot moved uneasily as weights were thrown forward, and there was a general, almost imperceptible, tightening of nerves and muscles. And then the whistle blew. CHAPTER XXIV. HARWELL _VS_. YATES--A FAULT AND A REQUITAL. The kick-off came into Blair's ready arms, the interference formed quickly, and the full-back sped down the field. One white line passed under foot--another; Joel felt Blair's hand laid lightly upon his shoulder, and ran as though life itself depended upon getting that precious ball past the third mark. But the Yates ends were upon them. Joel gave the shoulder to one, but the second dived through Kingdon, and the runner came to earth on the twenty-three-yard line, with Joel tugging at him in the hope of advancing the pigskin another foot. "Line up quickly, fellows!" called Story. The players jumped to their places. "_1--9--9!_" Joel crept back a bare yard. "_1--9--9!_" Kingdon leaped forward, snugged the ball under his arm, and followed by Joel tried to find a hole inside left end. But the hole was not there, and the ball was instantly in the center of a pushing, grinding mass. "Down!" No gain. Story, worming his way through the jumble, clapped his hands. Chesney was already stooping over the ball. Joel ran to his position, and the quarter threw a rapid glance behind him. "_2--8--9_!" He placed his hand on the center's broad back. "_2--8_--!" The ball was snapped. Joel darted toward the center, took the leather at a hand pass, crushed it against the pit of his stomach, and followed the left end through a breach in the living wall. Strong hands pushed him on. Then he came bang! against a huge shoulder, was seized by the Yates right half, and thrown. He hugged the ball as the players crashed down upon him. "Third down," called the referee. "Three yards to gain." "Line up, fellows, line up!" called the impatient Story, and Joel jumped to his feet, upsetting the last man in the pile-up, and scurried back. "_2--9--9_!" "_2--9_--!" Back sped Blair. Up ran Joel and Kingdon. The line blocked desperately. A streak of brown flew by, and a moment later Joel heard the thud as the full-back's shoe struck the ball. Then down the field he sped, through the great gap made by the Yates forwards. The Harwell ends were well under the kick and stood waiting grimly beside the Yates full-back as the ball settled to earth. As it thudded against his canvas jacket and as he started to run three pairs of arms closed about him, and he went down in his tracks. The ball lay on Yates's fifty-three-yard line. The field streamed up. The big Yates center took the ball. Joel crept up behind the line, his hands on the broad canvas-covered forms in front, dodging back and forth behind Murdoch and Selkirk. "_26--57--38--19--_!" The, opposing left half started across, took the ball, and then--why, then Joel was at the very bottom of some seven hundred pounds of writhing humanity, trying his best to get his breath, and wondering where the ball was! "Second down. Three and a half yards to gain." Again the lines faced. Joel was crouched close to quarter, obeying that player's gesture. They were going to try Murdoch again. Joel heard the breathless tones of the Yates quarter as he stooped behind the opposing line. "A tandem on guard," whispered Joel to himself. The next moment there was a crash, the man in front of him gave; then Joel and Story, gripping the turf with their toes, braced hard; there was a moment of heaving, panting suspense; then a smothered voice cried "Down!" "Third down," cried the referee. "Three and a half yards to gain." "Look out for a fake kick," muttered Story, as Joel fell back. The opposing line was quickly formed, and again the signal was given. The rush line heaved, Joel sprang into the air, settling with a crash against the shoulders of Chesney and Murdoch, who went forward, carrying the defense before them. But the ball was passed, and even as the Yates line broke the thud of leather against leather was heard. Joel scrambled to his feet, assisted by Chesney, and streaked up the field. The ball was overhead, describing a high, short arch. Blair was awaiting it, and Kingdon was behind and to the right of him. Down it came, out shot Blair's hands, and catching it like a baseball he was off at a jump, Kingdon beside him. Joel swung about, gave a shoulder to an oncoming blue-clad rusher, ran slowly until the two backs were hard behind him, and then dashed on. Surely there was no way through that crowded field. Yet even as he studied his path a pair of blue stockings went into the air, and a threatening obstacle was out of the way, bowled over by a Harwell forward. The ends were now scouting ahead of the runners, engaging the enemy. The fifty-five-yard line was traversed at an angle near the east side of the field, and Joel saw the touch line growing instantly more imminent. But a waiting Yates man, crouchingly running up the line, was successfully passed, and the trio bore farther infield, putting ten more precious yards behind them. The west stand was wild with exultant excitement, and Joel found himself speeding onward in time with the rhythmic sway of the deep "Rah-rah-rah!" that boomed across from the farther side. But the enemy was fast closing in about them. The Yates right half was plunging down from the long side, a pertinacious forward was almost at their heels. And now the Yates full was charging obliquely at them with his eyes staring, his jaw set, and determination in every feature and line. The hand on Joel's shoulder dropped, Blair eased his pace by ever so little, and Joel shot forward in the track of the full, his head down, and the next moment was sprawling on the turf with the enemy above him. But he saw and heard Blair and Kingdon hurdling over, felt a sharp pain that was instantly forgotten, and knew that the ball was safely by. But the run was over at the next line. Kingdon made a heroic effort to down the half, and would have succeeded had it not been for the persevering forward, who reached him with his long arms and pulled him to earth. And Blair, the ball safe beneath him, lay at the Yates thirty-five yards, the half-back holding his head to earth. Joel arose, and as he trotted to his position he looked curiously at the first finger of his left hand. It bore the imprint of a shoe-cleat, and pained dully. He tried to stretch it, but could not. Then he shook his hand. The finger wobbled crazily. Joel grinned. "Bust!" he whispered laconically. His first impulse was to ask for time to have it bound. Then he recollected that some one had said the doctor was very strict about injuries. Perhaps the latter would consider the break sufficient cause for Joel's leaving the field. That wouldn't do; better to play with a broken arm than not to play at all. So he tried to stick the offending hand in his pocket, found there was no pocket there, and put the finger in his mouth instead. Then he forgot all about it, for Harwell was hammering the blue's line desperately and Joel had all he could do to remember the signals and play his position. For the next quarter of an hour the ball hovered about Yates's danger territory. Twice, by the hardest kind of line bucking, it was placed within the ten-yard line, and twice, by the grimmest, most desperate resistance, it was lost on downs and sent hurtling back to near mid-field. But Yates was on the defensive, even when the oval was in her possession, and Harwell experienced the pleasurable--and, in truth, unaccustomed--exultation that comes with the assurance of superiority. Harwell's greatest ground-gaining plays now were the two sequences from ordinary formation and full-back forward. These were used over and over, ever securing territory, and ever puzzling the opponents. Joel was hard worked. He was used not only to wriggle around the line inside of ends and to squirm through difficult outlets, but to charge the line as well, a feat of which his height and strong legs rendered him well capable. He proved a consistant ground-gainer, and with Blair, who worked like a hero, and Kingdon, who won laurels for himself that remained fresh many years, gained the distance time and again. But although the spectacular performances belonged here to the backs, the line it was that made such work possible. Chesney, with his six feet four and a half inches of muscle, and his two hundred and twenty-nine pounds of weight, stood like a veritable Gibraltar of strength. Beside him Rutland was scarcely less invulnerable, and Murdoch, on the other side, played like a veteran, which he was not, being only a nineteen-year-old sophomore, with but one hundred and sixty-seven pounds to keep him from blowing away. Selkirk gave way to Lee when the half was two thirds over, but Burbridge played it out, and then owned up to a broken shoulder bone, and was severely lectured by the trainer, the head coach, and the doctor in turn; and worshiped by the whole college. Captain Dutton played a dashing, brilliant game at left end, and secured for himself a re-election that held no dissenting vote. And Barton, at the other end of the red line, tried his best to fill the place of the deposed Chase, and if he did not fully succeed, at least failed not from want of trying. But it was little Story, the quarter-back, who won unfading glory. A mass of nerves, from his head down, his brain was as clear and cool as the farthest goal post, and he ran the team in a manner that made the coaches, hopping and scrambling along on the side lines, hug themselves and each other in glee. So much for the Harwell men. As for Yates, what words are eloquent enough to do justice to the heroic, determined defense she made there under the shadow of her own goal, when defeat seemed every moment waiting to overwhelm her? Every man in that blue-clad line and back of it was a hero, the kind that history loves to tell of. The right guard, Morris, was a pitiable sight as, with white, drawn face, he stood up under the terrific assault, staggering, with half-closed eyes, to hold the line. Joel was heartily glad when, presently, he fell up against the big Yates center after a fierce attack at his position, and was supported, half fainting, from the field. The substitute was a lighter man, as the next try at his position showed, and the gains through the guard-tackle hole still went on. Yates's team now held four substitutes, although with the exception of Douglas, the substitute right-guard, none of them was perceptibly inferior to the men whose places they took. The cheering from the Harwell seats was now continuous, and the refrain of "Glory, glory for the Crimson!" was repeated over and over. On the east stand the Yates supporters were neither hopeless nor silent. Their cheers were given with a will and encouraged their gallant warriors to renewed and ever more desperate defense. The score-board proclaimed the game almost done. With six minutes left it only remained, as it seemed, for Yates to hold the plunging crimson once more at the last ditch to keep the game a tie, and so win what would, under the circumstances, have been as good as a victory. Down came the Harwell line once more to the twenty yards, but here they stopped. For on a pass from quarter to left half, the latter, one Joel March of our acquaintance, fumbled the ball, dived quickly after it, and landed on the Yates left guard, who had plunged through and now lay with the pigskin safe beneath him! It is difficult to either describe or appreciate the full depth of Joel's agony as he picked himself up and limped back to his place. It was a heart-tearing, blinding sensation that left him weak and limp. But there was nothing for it save to go on and try to retrieve his fatal error. The white face of Story turned toward him, and Joel read in the brief glance no anger, only an almost tearful grief. He swung upon his heel with a muttered word that sounded ill from his lips. But he was only a boy and the provocation was great; let us not remember it against him. The Yates center threw back the ball for a kick, and Joel went down the field after it. As he ran he wondered if Story would try him again. It seemed doubtful, but if he did--Joel ground his teeth--he would take it through the line! They would see! Just give him one chance to retrieve that fumble! A year later and he had learned that a misplay, even though it lose the game for your side, may in time be lived down. But now that knowledge was not his, and a heart-rending picture of disgrace before the whole college presented itself to him. Then Blair had the ball, was off, was tackled near the side line under the Yates stand, and the two teams were quickly lined up again. The cheers from the friends of the blue were so loud that the quarter's voice giving the signal was scarcely to be heard. Joel crept nearer. Then his heart leaped up into his throat and stood still. "_7--1--2!_" There was no mistake! It was left half's ball on a double pass for a run around right end! The line-up was within eight yards of the east side line. The play was the third of the second sequence, in which Joel with the other backs had been well instructed, and its chance of success lay in the fact that it had the appearance of a full-back punt or a run around the long side of the field. Joel leaned forward, facing the left end. Blair crept a few feet in. "_7--1--!_" began the quarter. The ball was snapped, Blair ran three strides nearer, the quarter turned, and the pigskin flew back. Joel started like a shot, seized the ball from the full-back's outstretched hands, and sped toward the right end of the line. The right half crossed in front of him, the right end and tackle thrust back their opponents, the left tackle and guard blocked hard and long. Blair helped the right half in his diversion at the left end, and Joel, with Dutton interfering and Blair a stride behind, swept around the end. The only danger was in being forced over the touch line, but the play worked well, and the opposing tackle seemed anchored. The Yates end, from his place back of the line, leaped at them, but was upset by Dutton, and the two went down together. The opposing left half bore down upon Joel and Blair, the latter speeding along at the runner's side, and came at them with outstretched arms. Another moment and Joel was alone. Story and the half were just a mass of waving legs and arms many yards behind. Joy was the supreme sensation in Joel's breast. Only the Yates full-back threatened, the ball was safely clutched in his right arm, his breath came easily, his legs were strong, and the goal-posts loomed far down the field and beckoned him on. This, he thought exultingly, was the best moment that life could give him. Behind, although he could not hear it for the din of shouting from the Harwell stand, he knew the pursuit to be in full cry. He edged farther out from the dangerous touch line and sped on. The Yates full-back had been deceived by the play and had gone far up the field for a kick, and now down he came, and Joel found a chill creeping over him as he remembered the player's wide reputation. He was the finest full-back, so report had it, of the year. And of a sudden Joel found his breath growing labored, and his long legs began to ache and seemed stiffening at the thighs and knees. But he only ran the faster and prepared for the threatened tackle. Harwell hearts sank, for the crimson-clad runner appeared to waver, to be slowing down. Suddenly, when only his own length separated him from his prey, the Yates full-back left the ground and, like a swimmer diving into the sea, dove for the hesitating runner. There was but one thing that day more beautiful to see than that fearless attempt to tackle; and that one thing was the leap high into the air that the Harwell left half made just in the nick of time, clearing the tackler, barely avoiding a fall, and again running free with the ball still safe! The Yates player quickly recovered and took up the chase, and the momentary pause had served to bring the foremost of the other pursuers almost to Joel's heels. And now began a contest that will ever live in the memories of those who witnessed it. Panting, weary, his legs aching at every bound, his throat parching with the hot breath, Joel struggled on. Joy had given place to fear and desperation. Time and again he choked down the over-ready sobs. Behind him sounded the thud of relentless feet. He dared not look back lest he stumble. Every second he expected to feel the clutch of the enemy. Every second he thought that _now_ he must give up. But recollection of that fumble crushed down each time the inclination to yield, and one after another the nearly obliterated lines passed under foot. He gave up trying to breathe; it was too hard. His head was swimming and his lungs seemed bursting. Then his wandering faculties rushed back at a bound as he felt a touch, just the lightest fingering, on his shoulder, and gathering all his remaining strength he increased his pace for a few steps, and the hand was gone. And the ten-yard line passed, slowly, reluctantly. "One more," he thought, "one more!" The great stands were hoarse with shouting; for here ended the game. The figures on the score-board had changed since the last play, and now relentlessly proclaimed one minute left! Nearer and nearer crept the five-yard line, nearer and nearer crept the pursuing full-back. Then, and at the same instant, the scattered breadth of lime was gone, and a hand clutched at the canvas jacket of the Harwell runner. Once more Joel called upon his strength and tried to draw away, but it was no use. And with the goal line but four yards distant, stout arms were clasped tightly about his waist. One--two--three strides he made. The goal line writhed before his dizzy sight. Relentlessly the clutching grasp fastened tighter and tighter about him like steel bands, and settled lower and lower until his legs were clasped and he could move no farther! Despairingly he thrust the ball out at arms' length and tried to throw himself forward; the trampled turf rose to meet him.... * * * * * "The ball is over!" pronounced the referee. It was a nice decision, for an inch would have made a world of difference; but it has never been disputed. Then Dutton leaped into the air, waving his arms, Rutland turned a somersault, and the west stand arose as one man and went mad with delight. Hats and cushions soared into air, the great structure shook and trembled from end to end, and the last few golden rays of the setting sun glorified the waving, fluttering bank of triumphant crimson! CHAPTER XXV. THE RETURN. "Boom! Boom!" thundered the big drum. "Tootle-toot!" shrilled the fife. "Tarum! Taroom!" growled the horns. The Harwell band marched through the archway and defiled on to the platform. The college marched after. Well, perhaps not all the college; I have heard that a senior living in Lanter was too ill to be present. But the incoming platform was thronged from wall to track, so it was perhaps as well that he didn't come, because there positively wasn't room for him. "What is it?" asked a citizen in a silk hat of a gayly decorated youth on the outskirts of the crowd. The latter stared for full a minute ere the words came. Then he cried: "Here's a fellow who wants to know what we're here for!" And a great groan of derision went up to the arching roof, and the ignorant person slunk away, yet not before his silk hat had been pushed gently but firmly far down over his eyes. Punishment ever awaits the ignorant who will not learn. "Glory, glory for the Crimson, Glory, glory for the Crimson, Glory, glory for the Crimson, For this is Harwell's day," sang the throng. "Boom! Boom! Boom!" thundered the big drum. "Tootle-toot!" shrilled the fife. "Now, fellows, three times three, three long Harwells, and three times three!" shouted the master of ceremonies hoarsely. "Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Harwell! Harwell! Harwell! Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Harwell!" shrieked the crowd. "Louder! Louder!" commanded the remorseless youth on the baggage truck. "Nine long Harwells! One, two, three!" "Har-well! Har-well! Har-well! Har-well! Har-well! Har-well! Har-well! Har-well! Har-well!" The sound crashed up against the vaulted station roof and thundered back. And none heard the shriek of the incoming train as it clattered over the switches at the entrance of the shed, and none saw it until it was creeping in, the engineer leaning far out of the cab window and waving a red bandanna handkerchief, a courtesy that won him a cheer all to himself. Then out tumbled the returning heroes, bags in hands, followed by the head coach and all the rest of the attendant train. And then what a pushing and shouting and struggling there was! There were forty men to every player, and the result was that some of the latter were nearly torn limb from limb ere they were safe out of reach on the shoulders of lucky contestants for the honor of carrying them the first stage of the journey to college. There were some who tried to hide, some who tried to run, others who enjoyed the whole thing hugely and thumped the heads of their bearers heartily just to show good feeling. Joel was one of the last to leave the car, and as he set foot on the platform a hundred voices went up in cheers, and a hundred students struggled for possession of him. But one there was who from his place of vantage halfway up the steps repelled all oncomers, and assisted by a second youth of large proportions seized upon Joel and setting him upon their shoulders bore him off in triumph. "Boom! Boom!" said the big drum. And the procession started. Down the long platform it went, past the waiting room doors where a crowd of onlookers waved hats and handkerchiefs, and so out into the city street. Joel turned his head away from the observers, ashamed and happy. There was no let-up to the cheering. One after another the names of the players and substitutes, coaches and trainer, were cheered and cheered again. "Out of the way there!" cried Joel's bearers, and the marching throng looked about, moved apart, and as Joel was borne through, cheered him to the echo, reaching eager hands toward him, crying words of commendation and praise into his buzzing ears. "Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, March!" "One!" shrieked a youth near where Joel soon found himself at the head of the procession, and the slogan was taken up: "Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten! E-lev-en!" "Now give me your hand, Joel!" cried the youth upon whose left shoulder he was swaying. Joel obeyed, smiling affectionately down into the upraised face. Then he uttered a cry of pain. One of the fingers of his left hand was bandaged, and Outfield West dropped it gingerly. "Not--not _broke_?" he asked wonderingly. Joel nodded. "Aren't you _proud_ of it?" whispered his chum. "Yes," answered Joel simply and earnestly. "May I take it, too?" asked the other youth. Joel started and looked down into the anxious and entreating face of Bartlett Cloud. He grasped the hesitating hand that was held up. "Yes," he answered smilingly. And the big drum boomed, and the shrill fifes tootled, and the crimson banners waved upon the breeze, and every one cheered himself hoarse, and thus the conquering heroes came back to the college that loved them. And Joel, a little tearful when no one was looking, and very happy always, was borne on the shoulders of West and Cloud, friend and enemy, at the very head of the procession, honored above all! 
37394	----	FIFTY YEARS OF GOLF [Illustration] _First Published in 1919_ [Illustration: The writer, the first English Captain of the Royal and Ancient, buying back, according to custom, the ball struck off to win the Captaincy.] FIFTY YEARS OF GOLF By HORACE G. HUTCHINSON LONDON: PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICES OF COUNTRY LIFE, 20 TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.2 AND BY GEORGE NEWNES, LTD., 8-11 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND W.C.2. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS PREFACE (_Written in 1914_) I agreed to the suggestion that I should write these reminiscences, mainly because it seems to me that circumstances have thrown my life along such lines that I really have been more than any other man at the centre of the growth of golf--a growth out of nothingness in England, and of relative littleness in Scotland, fifty years ago, to its present condition of a fact of real national importance. I saw all the beginnings, at Westward Ho! of the new life of English golf. I followed its movement at Hoylake and later at Sandwich. I was on the Committee initiating the Amateur Championship, the International Match, the Rules of Golf Committee and so on. I have been Captain in succession of the Royal North Devon, Royal Liverpool, Royal St. George's and Royal and Ancient Clubs, as well as many others, and in these offices have been not only able but even obliged to follow closely every step in the popular advancement of the game. I do not mention these honours vaingloriously, but only by way of showing that no one else perhaps has had quite the same opportunities. Possibly I should explain, too, the apparent magniloquence of the phrase describing golf as a "fact of real national importance." I do not think it is an over-statement. I use it irrespective of the intrinsic merits of the game, as such. When we consider the amount of healthy exercise that it gives to all ages and sexes, the amount of money annually expended on it, the area of land (in many places otherwise valueless) that is devoted to it, the accession in house and land values for which it is responsible, the miles of railway and motor travel of which it is the reason, the extent of house building of which it has been the cause, and the amount of employment which it affords--when these and other incidental features are totalled up, it will be found, I think, that there is no extravagance at all in speaking of the golf of the present day as an item of national importance. At least, if golf be not so, it is difficult to know what is. It is because I have in my head the material for the telling of the history of this rise of golf to its present status that I have ventured to write these personal reminiscences, and underlying them all has been the sense that I was telling the story of the coming of golf, as well as narrating tales of the great matches and the humorous incidents that I have seen and taken part in by the way. POSTSCRIPT TO PREFACE (_Written in 1919_) Reading the above "foreword," and also the pages which follow it, after the immense chasm cleft in our lives and habits by the War, I find little to modify as a result of the delay in publication. What does strike me with something very like a thrill of terror is the appalling egotism of the whole. I can truly say that I feel guiltily aware and ashamed of it. I cannot, however, say that I see my way clear to amend it. If one is rash enough to engage in the gentle pastime of personal reminiscence at all, it is difficult to play it without using the capital "I" for almost every tee shot. I will ask pardon for my presumption in plucking a passage from one of the world's great classics, to adorn so slight a theme as this, and will conclude in the words of Michael, Lord of Montaigne:--"Thus, gentle Reader, myselfe am the groundworke of my booke: it is then no reason thou shouldst employe thy time about so frivolous and vaine a subject."[1] CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I THE BEGINNING OF ALL THINGS 11 II HOW GOLF IN ENGLAND GREW 17 III OF YOUNG TOMMY MORRIS AND OTHER GREAT MEN 23 IV THE SPREAD OF GOLFING IN ENGLAND 29 V THE WEAPONS OF GOLF IN THE SEVENTIES 35 VI HOW MEN OF WESTWARD HO! WENT ADVENTURING IN THE NORTH 41 VII GOLF AT OXFORD 47 VIII THE START OF THE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE GOLF MATCHES 53 IX GOLFING PILGRIMAGES 59 X WESTWARD HO! HOYLAKE AND ST. ANDREWS IN THE EARLY EIGHTIES 65 XI FIRST DAYS AT ST. ANDREWS 71 XII THE BEGINNINGS OF THE AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP 77 XIII ON GOLF BOOKS AND GOLF BALLS 84 XIV THE FIRST AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP 90 XV MR. ARTHUR BALFOUR AND HIS INFLUENCE IN GOLF 96 XVI THE SECOND AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP 102 XVII THE FIRST GOLF IN AMERICA 108 XVIII HOW I LOST THE CHAMPIONSHIP AND PLAYED THE MOST WONDERFUL SHOT IN THE WORLD 114 XIX JOHNNY BALL AND JOHNNY LAIDLAY 120 XX A CHAPTER OF ODDS AND ENDS 126 XXI A MORE LIBERAL POLICY AT ST. ANDREWS 132 XXII THE FIRST AMATEUR WIN OF THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP 138 XXIII GOLF ON THE CONTINENT AND IN THE CHANNEL ISLANDS 144 XXIV ABOUT HAROLD HILTON, FREDDY TAIT AND OTHERS 150 XXV THE COMING OF THE THREE GREAT MEN 156 XXVI THE REVOLT OF THE AMAZONS 162 XXVII THE MAKING OF INLAND COURSES 168 XXVIII VARIOUS CHAMPIONSHIPS AND THE WANDERING SOCIETIES 174 XXIX THE COMIC COMING OF THE HASKELL BALL 180 XXX AN HISTORIC MATCH AND AN HISTORIC TYPE 186 XXXI THE INTERNATIONAL MATCH 192 XXXII HOW MR. JUSTICE BUCKLEY KEPT HIS EYE ON THE HASKELL BALL 198 XXXIII THE AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP OF 1903 204 XXXIV TRAVIS'S YEAR 210 XXXV HOW GOLF HAS GRIPPED AMERICA 216 XXXVI THE END OF THE ROUND 223 FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: _Montaigne's Essays_, Florio's translation.] ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE The writer, the first English Captain of the Royal and Ancient, buying back, according to custom, the ball struck off to win the Captaincy _Frontispiece_ Borough House, Northam 12 Mr. Peter Steel driving the gravel pit at Blackheath 13 At Pau: the oldest of non-Scottish Golf Clubs 16 Captain's Medal of the Royal North Devon Golf Club 17 The Ladies' Course at Pau, in the Days of the Crinoline 20 Miss Cecil Leitch 21 Westward Ho! 26 An Old Hoylake Group 27 An Old Westward Ho! Group 32 Thomas Owen Potter 33 "Old Tom" 70 Douglas Rolland and Archie Simpson 71 John Ball 80 A.F. Macfie 81 A.J. Balfour 100 Crawford 101 John Ball, as a Yeoman 120 J.E. Laidlay 121 The Chasm on the Old Biarritz Course 144 Arnaud Massy 145 J.E. Laidlay, John Ball, junr., Horace G. Hutchinson, and P.C. Anderson 150 H.H. Hilton 151 Freddy Tait 154 J.H. Taylor 156 Harry Vardon 157 James Braid 160 Horace Hutchinson and Leslie Balfour Melville 161 Amateur Championship, St. Andrews, 1901 174 Amateur Championship, St. Andrews, 1895 175 Old Leather Ball, etc. 180 Gutty _v._ Rubber Core 181 The Amateur and Professional Sides at Sandwich in 1894 186 "Fiery" 187 Walter Travis 210 Charles B. Macdonald 211 FIFTY YEARS OF GOLF CHAPTER I THE BEGINNING OF ALL THINGS I believe it is a little more than fifty years really. I do not mean to imply that I have been for that length of time actively engaged in the serious pursuit of the golf ball, but I expect that I began to take interest in what I understood as golf about the age of four. At that time my father was at Government House in Devonport, as General in Command of the Western District, and my Uncle Fred, Colonel Hutchinson, used to come there and tell us of some game, the most wonderful in the world, that he had lately learned to play when he was in Scotland, as Adjutant of the Fife Militia. He lived at Wemyss Hall, in Fife, and used to ride over to St. Andrews, breakfasting _en route_ with Mr. Bethune of Blebo, and taking him on along with him, for a round or two rounds. I used to hear a great deal of talk about this wonderful game, between my father and my uncle, the former having scarcely a more clear-cut idea of what it was like than I myself; but I can well remember his attempting to give some description of it, in my uncle's absence, to a friend, and hearing this remark: "A man knows his own weapon, that he uses in the game, and it is as important to him to have the weapon that he knows as it is to a billiard player to have his own cue. And they use several different kinds of weapon at the game, for strokes of different strength." All that seems quite credible now; but it hardly seemed possible of belief in the South of England in the early sixties. I even knew what the weapon was called--"a club"--for I often asked my uncle about it, and he tried, with poor success, to make me understand its character; for I tried, in turn, to describe it to one of the orderlies, who was a particular friend of myself (or of my nurse), and he made me what he thought fitted the description. It fitted the name of "club"--for it was much like what the cannibals, in our boys' books, were depicted as using on the heads of their victims; but when I showed it to my uncle he shook his head sadly. It did not appeal to him as having any likeness to the delicate works of Hugh Philp, that master club-maker, with which he was familiar. Still, I did beat a ball about with it, and thus began golf. When I arrived at the age of five, we went to live at a house called Wellesbourne, in North Devon, about halfway between Bideford and Northam. Westward Ho! in those days did not exist. There was one farmhouse where all the houses of the watering-place now are. The very name belonged only to Charles Kingsley's fine book, and was only taken for the name of the place a year or so later than this. Captain Molesworth, to whom English golf was to owe a big debt, lived at a house called North Down, just at the entry into Bideford, and it was in this house that Charles Kingsley was living while writing _Westward Ho!_ That is the story of how the name came to be given to the place, and Borough House, by Northam, was about half a mile from our Wellesbourne. This Borough House, since restored, is where Mrs. Leigh, with her sons Frank and Amyas, were placed by the novelist. [Illustration: Borough House, Northam, in 1855, where Mrs. Leigh and her sons Frank and Amyas, the heroes of Kingsley's _Westward Ho!_ lived. (It has since been entirely reconstructed.)] [Illustration: Mr. Peter Steel driving the Gravel Pit at Blackheath, with forecaddie in distance.] The Reverend I.H. Gossett was Vicar of Northam, and related to the large family of Moncrieffes, of whom there were several resident then at St. Andrews. About that time one of its members, General Moncrieffe, came on a visit to his relative, the vicar of Northam, and from that chance visit great events grew. For Mr. Gossett, as it was likely he should, led out General Moncrieffe for a walk across that stretch of low-lying common ground known as the Northam, or Appledore, Burrows, to the famous Pebble Ridge and the shores of Bideford Bay; and as they went along and reached the vicinity of those noble sandhills later to be known to golfing fame and to be execrated by golfing tongues as "the Alps," the General observed: "Providence obviously designed this for a golf links." To a man coming from St. Andrews it was a fact that jumped to the eyes. It was not for a clergyman to stand in the way of a design so providential. Mr. Gossett was a very capable, effective man: he had a family including some athletic sons for whom a game such as described by General Moncrieffe seemed likely to provide just the outlet which their holiday energies would need. He threw himself heartily into the work of getting a few to join together to make the nucleus of a club; but that first of English Golf Clubs, next after--very long after--the fearful antiquity of Blackheath, and absolutely first to play on a seaside links, did not involve all the outlay on green and club-house without which no golf club can respect itself to-day. Clubs and balls--"gutty" balls, for the feather-cored leather-cased ones had already been superseded--would be sent, as needed, on General Moncrieffe's order, from Tom Morris' shop at St. Andrews, and when that was done all was done that was needed for these little beginnings of the seaside golf of England. The turf grew naturally short, and the commoners' sheep helped to check any exuberance. The course, as designed by those primitive constructors, acting under the advice of General Moncrieffe, started out near the Pebble Ridge, by what is now the tee to the third hole. Those pioneers of the game did not even go to the expense, in the first instance, of a hole cutter. They excised the holes with pocket knives. The putting greens were entirely _au naturel_, as Nature and the sheep made them. Assuredly there was no need for the making of artificial bunkers. Nature had provided them, and of the best. Besides, were there not always the great sea rushes? It may be remembered that the old golf rules have the significant regulation that the ball shall not be teed "nearer than four club-lengths" to the hole. That indicates both a less sanctity ascribed to putting greens of old and also a less degree of care lavished on teeing grounds. There were no flags, to mark the holes; but the mode was for the first party that went out on any day to indicate, if they could discover it, the position of the hole, for those coming after them, by sticking in a feather of gull or rook picked up by the way. If, as might happen, the hole was not to be discovered, being stamped out or damaged by sheep beyond all recognition as a respectable golf hole, this first party would dig another hole with a knife, and set up the signal feather beside that. In this period of the simple golfing life it goes without the saying that no apology, or substitute even, for a club-house gave shelter to these hardy primitive golfers. The way was to throw down coat, umbrella, or other superfluity beside the last hole. They were safe, for two good reasons--that they were not worth stealing and that there was no one to steal them. And it is to be supposed that in those good old days there was none of the modern "congestion," of which we hear so much. Golfers and their needs, in England at all events, were alike few and simple. The Club was instituted in 1864; therefore it has now passed its jubilee; but I, unhappily, have to look back upon many of those early years as so many periods of wasted opportunity. That same Uncle Fred who had condemned the club of the cannibal, gave me my first true golf club. Years afterwards an anxious mother asked him, "At what age do you think my little boy should begin golf: I want him to be a very good player?" "How old is the boy now?" my uncle asked. "Seven," the mother replied. "Seven!" he repeated sadly. "Oh, then he has lost three years already!" I was given a club long before I was seven, but our house was two long miles from the course, and miles are very long for the short legs of seven. There were the fields, but though it is reported of Queen Mary Stuart that she found agreeable solace in playing at golf in "the fields around Seaton house," I did not find golf exhilarating in the fields around Wellesbourne House. But the atmosphere of golf was about the house. The Golf Club prospered, as golfing prosperity was rated in that day of small things. The extraordinary news went abroad that it was now possible to play the game of Scotland on real links turf in this corner of Devon. Men of renown, such as Mr. George Glennie, Mr. Buskin, and many besides came from the ancient club at Blackheath, and stayed for golf at the hotel recently built at that place which had now received its name from Kingsley's book. Sir Robert Hay and Sir Hope Grant, the former one of the finest amateurs of a past day and the latter more distinguished as a soldier than a golfer, came as guests, for golfing purposes, to my father's house. My two brothers, both in the Army and from twelve to nineteen years older than myself, played a few games when home on leave. I was too young to take any part in a match, but not too young to listen to much talk about the game and to look with profound veneration on its great players. [Illustration: At Pau: the oldest of non-Scottish Golf Clubs. Sir Victor Brooke (driving). Colonel Hegan Kennard.] [Illustration: Captain's Medal of the Royal North Devon Golf Club, showing the old approved way of driving with the right elbow up.] CHAPTER II HOW GOLF IN ENGLAND GREW There are two outstanding events in golfing history--the bringing of golf to Westward Ho! by General Moncrieffe in 1863, and the bringing of golf to Blackheath by James VI. of Scotland and I. of England some three centuries earlier. When golf was started at Westward Ho! it was the worthies of the Blackheath Club that gave it a reputation which went growing like a snowball. The North Devon Club began to wax fat and so exceeding proud that at meeting times--for challenge medals were presented and meetings in spring and autumn were held to compete for them, after the model of St. Andrews--a bathing machine was dragged out by coastguards to the tee to the first hole, and therein sandwiches and liquid refreshment were kept during the morning round and actually consumed if the weather were wet. In fine weather the entertainment was _al fresco_. Then the Club acquired a tent; and an ancient mariner, Brian Andrews, of Northam village, father of the Philip Andrews who is now steward of the Golf Club, used to hoist this and care for it, and at length, as of natural process of evolution, came the crowning glory of a permanent structure of corrugated iron, built beside and even among the grey boulders of the Pebble Ridge. This permanent object of care entailed the permanency of Brian Andrews as caretaker. Enormous was the career of extravagance on which the Club now embarked, engaging a resident professional all the way from St. Andrews--John Allan. He was the first Scot ever to come to England as a resident golf professional, and there never came a kinder-hearted or better fellow. He established himself in a lodging, with his shop and bench on the ground floor, in Northam village, which stands high on a hill above the level of the links, and was best part of a mile and a half from the present third, and then first, tee. A few years before, in the earliest days of the Club's history, old Tom Morris had been down to advise about the green, and when I came to my teens and therewith to some interest in golf, and to a friendship, very quickly formed, with poor Johnnie Allan, he told me that when he had asked old Tom for information about this new course in the new country that he was going to, he found that the old man (though he was not of any great age then) could tell him little enough about the course, but that all he seemed to remember was that there was a terrible steep hill to climb, after the day's work was done, on the way home. So there is--Bone Hill, on which the village stands, so called from the bones of Danes killed in a great battle there, and of which bones, as we piously believed, the hill, save for a thin coat of soil over their graves, was wholly made--but it is quaint and characteristic of the old man that this steep place should have stuck in his mind and that all the salient features of the new course should have slipped out. It seems as if not even any of the points of the big rushes could have stuck and gone back to Scotland with him. Soon after there came South from Scotland to the Wimbledon Club another most perfect of Nature's gentlemen, in Tom Dunn, of a great golfing family and father of several fine professional players. And now, with a club-house, though it was but an iron hut, a resident professional and appointed times of meeting, the Club was a live thing, and the complete and final act of its lavish expenditure was to engage a permanent green man--only one, but he had what seemed the essential qualification of an education as a miner in the Western States of America--an excellent and entertaining fellow, Sowden by name, a North Devonian by birth, with a considerable gift of narrative and just about as much inclination to work on the course and knowledge of his duties as these antecedents would be likely to inspire in him. While the Club was thus growing, my small body was growing too; but the way of my growth, all through life, has been rather that of an erratic powerful player, falling continually into very bad bunkers of ill-health, but making brilliant recoveries in the interims. My father tried two schools for me, but I was invalided home from both, and I expect it would have ended in my escape from all education whatever if it had not been that the United Services College was started at Westward Ho! only two miles from our house. But that was not till I reached the august age of fifteen or thereabouts, by which time English golf had developed largely. The first really fine English golfer that we produced in the West of England was George Gossett, son of the vicar of Northam. When the big men came down from Scotland and from Blackheath, to the meetings, they found a local golfer able to make a match with the best of them. And hard after him came Arthur Molesworth, a very fine player even as a boy. I remember that while he was still a Radley schoolboy, his father, the Captain, begged a holiday for him to enable him to come and play for the medal--I think he would have been about sixteen at the time--and he came and won it, in a field which included Sir Robert Hay and other well-known players. There were three brothers of the Molesworths, good golfers all, but Arthur, the youngest, the best of the three. The two elder have been dead for many years, but the father[2] and the youngest son still live at Westward Ho! At this time I had an elder brother at home, invalided from his regiment in India. I was also assigned an almost more valuable possession, in the shape of an Exmoor pony which could jump like a grasshopper and climb like a cat any of the big Devonshire banks that it was unable to jump. So, in company with this big brother and this small pony, I used to follow the hounds over a country that seems specially designed for the riding of a small boy on a pony; and in company with the brother, the pony being left behind, I used to go badger digging--my brother had a kennel of terriers for the purpose--all over the countryside. Of course it was a misspent youth. Of course I was neglecting great opportunities, for to tell the truth I greatly preferred the chase of the fox and the badger at that period of life to the chase of the golf ball. This sad fact should have been brought home to me by a severe comment of my Uncle Fred on the occasion of our playing for some prizes kindly given for the juveniles by some of the elder golfers. As I hit off from the first tee--all along the ground, if I remember right--he observed sadly, "There's too much fox and badger about his golf." [Illustration: The Ladies' Course at Pau, in the Days of the Crinoline.] [Illustration: Miss Cecil Leitch.] And so there was, but, for all that, I won a prize in that competition. I think it was in the under twelve class, for which I was just eligible by age, whereas my only rival in the same class was a child of nine. Therefore I returned in triumph with a brand-new driver as a reward of merit--my first prize--and I think it made me regard golf as a better game than I had supposed it to be, for, after all, a driver is of more practical use than a fox's brush, and this was the highest award that the most daring riding could gain for you. A boy's property is usually so limited that any addition to it is of very large importance. About a year later I began to take my golf with gravity. The ball began to consent to allow itself to be hit cleanly. A very great day came for me when I beat my big brother on level terms. You see, he had only played occasionally, at intervals in soldiering, nor had he begun as a boy, whereas I had played, even then, more than he, and had begun, in spite of the wasted years, fairly early. I know I felt I had done rather an appalling thing when I beat him; I could not feel that it was right. But doubtless it increased my self-respect as a golfer and my interest in the game. The Blackheath visitors were very kind to me, and used to take me into their games. Of course I could not expect to be in such high company as that of the George Glennies and the Buskins, but Mr. Frank Gilbert, brother of Sir Frederick, the artist, Mr. Peter Steel and many others invited me now and then to play with them. I began to think myself something of a player. The most dreadful event, most evil, no doubt, in its effect on my self-conceit, happened when Mr. Dingwall Fordyce, who was a player of the class that we might to-day describe as "an indifferent scratch," asked me to play with him. He offered--I had made no demand for odds--to give me four strokes, and asked at what holes I would have them. At that date, be it remembered, there were no handicaps fixed by the card, nor were the holes determined at which strokes were to be taken. It was always at the option of the receiver of strokes to name, before starting, the holes at which he would take his strokes. I told Mr. Fordyce I would take the four he offered at the four last holes. He said nothing, though likely enough he thought a good deal. What he ought to have done was to thrash me, for an impertinent puppy, with his niblick; but what he did, far too good-naturedly, was to come out and play me at those strange terms, with the result that I beat him by five up and four to play without using any of the strokes at all! It was precisely what had been in my mind to do when I took the strokes at those last four holes, but I expect the reason I won was that he was a little thrown off his balance by my cheek. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 2: While writing the later pages of these reminiscences I heard, to my great sorrow, that Captain Molesworth had died, at Westward Ho! of pneumonia, at nearly ninety years of age.--H.G.H.] CHAPTER III OF YOUNG TOMMY MORRIS AND OTHER GREAT MEN My way down to the links, from our house, led right through the village of Northam, wherein Johnnie Allan, the professional, had set up his shop. Now if there is anyone who, being a golfer, has not appreciated the delight of the compound smell of the club-maker's shop--the pitch, the shavings, the glue, the leather and all the rest of the ingredients--if anywhere there lives a golfer with nose so dead, then I am very far indeed from thinking that words of mine can excite him to a right appreciation of this savour. But if not, if the reader has the truly appreciative nose, then he will realize what a delight it was to me to look in each morning on the way down to golf to enjoy this, to exchange a word with Johnnie Allan, to get something quite superfluous done to a club, and if possible get my friend to come down to the links with me. Often I would find him sitting on his bench with a golf ball moulded, but not yet nicked, turning it about with his fingers in the cup designed for its holding, and hammering it with the broad chisel end of his hammer made for the purpose. This was in the days of hand-hammered balls, before the mode had been invented of having the marking engraved on the mould so as to turn them out what we then called "machine hammered." In course of the walk down to the links, if I could persuade him to be my companion, he used to tell me tales of the great men in the North, of Old Tom and Young Tommy, of Davie Strath and the rest of them. He was a Prestwick man, and had come from there to work in Old Tom's shop at St. Andrews before he journeyed South. He had never done as well as he would have liked in the championship, but had twice won the first prize given by way of consolation for those to play for who had not gained a place in the prize-list in the championship proper. That will indicate his class as a golfer as more than respectably high. It was about this time that arrangements were made for bringing down Young Tommy and Bob Kirk to Westward Ho! (the place was now thoroughly baptised with its new name), and they played, with Johnnie Allan, a kind of triangular duel. I well remember the immense excitement with which I followed those matches. They did not play a three ball match for the prizes offered, but a species of American tournament in singles, and my delight was huge when our local friend defeated the renowned Tommy Morris. Then Tommy defeated Bob Kirk. Now if our Johnnie could only beat Bob Kirk (as he certainly would, we said, seeing that he had beaten Morris who had beaten Kirk), why then he would prove himself beyond denial best man of the three. Unhappily the propositions of golf do not work themselves out as logically as those of Euclid, though often arriving at his conclusion "which is absurd," and Bob Kirk had the better of our local hero most of the way round. He was dormy one. Then, at the last hole, came a great incident of golf which made on me so deep an impression that in my mind's eye I can see the whole scene even now. Coming to that last hole--mark this, that our favourite hero was one down, so that feeling ran high--Bob Kirk got his ball on one of the high plateaux, with steep sand cliffs, which at that date jutted out into the big bunker. His ball lay just at the edge of the plateau, and on its left verge, as we looked towards the hole, so that to play it in the direction that he wanted to go it seemed that he would have to stand eight feet below it, in the bunker. And, he being a little round man, we chuckled in glee and said to one another, "He's done now." But what do you suppose that pernicious little Scot did then? He went to his bag and selected a club--a left-handed spoon! He had a couple of practice swings with it. Then he, a right-handed man, addressed himself to that ball left-handedly, and drove it, if not any immense distance, at all events as far as he needed in order to make morally sure of his half of the hole, which was all that he, being dormy, required. It was a great _tour de force_. It exacted our grudging applause. We admired, but at the same time we admired with suspicion. It was scarcely, as we thought in the circumstances, a fair golf stroke. It savoured of the conjuring trick if not of sheer black magic. Really, considered after this lapse of years which allows cool reflection, it was a good piece of golf. There are not many right-handed men who trouble themselves to carry a left-handed club, even if they have the ambidexterity to use it. In fact it is the only stroke of its kind, played with a full swing in the crisis of a match, that I have ever seen. Young Tommy paid us another visit in the West not long after, and this time in company with his own dearest foe at St. Andrews, Davie Strath. So, even in the far West we were not without our great examples, and Johnnie Allan himself was a golfer well worth following. As the course then started, out by the Pebble Ridge and at the present third tee, we, coming from Northam, had to walk out over the flatter part of the Burrows which the first and second, and, again, the seventeenth and eighteenth holes occupy now. That meant, of course, that we would take a club with us and practise shots as we went along; and since I so often had Johnnie Allan as my companion on those walks, it would be very hard for me to say how much of golfing skill and wisdom I did not unconsciously pick up as we went along and he watched me play the shots and criticised them. I have never in my life been through the solemn process of a set lesson with a professional, but have no doubt that I assimilated wisdom in the best, because the unconscious and the imitative, way, in those walks and talks, varied by occasional precept and example, with Johnnie Allan. And by the same route came Captain Molesworth and his three sons, but they, having further to go, used to drive, the Captain generally manipulating the reins in strictly professional style--as a sailor clutches the rudder lines--and their carriage, going at full speed of the horse, making very heavy weather of it over the ruts and bumps, and only the sailor's special providence ever bringing them safe to port before the Iron Hut. There the Captain would tie his horse, by a halter, to the wheel of the cart and leave all to get itself into a tangle that only a nautical hand could unravel, while all the world played golf. Sometimes we too would ride or drive, and I have in mind a great occasion on which my brother, home from India, and I were driving down in my sister's donkey-cart. The cart broke down in Northam village, so we left it there, in charge of the blacksmith, to repair, while we proceeded on, both mounted on the donkey. Now my brother was very much of what at that time was called a "dandy"--since "masher," and at the present moment "nut." He was arrayed in Solomon-like glory of white flannel trousers and red coat--for men did play golf in red coats in those days. Now the donkey was a good donkey and strong, but he knew how to kick, and he thought no occasion could be better than when he had two on his back and the central and fashionable high street of Northam village for the arena. Therefore he set to and quickly kicked us both off, I being involved in my brother's débacle, and he, though a very good man on a horse, not being accustomed to a saddleless donkey. The glory of Solomon disposed on the village streets was a splendid spectacle. But we rose, nothing daunted, though with the glory a little sullied, and, my brother then excogitating the great thought that if we put his, the greater, weight behind, with mine in front--it had been the other way at our first essay--the donkey would then find it the harder to lift its hindquarters for the act of kicking, we disposed ourselves in that manner, and the donkey, whether for mechanical reasons or because he perceived that we were not going to let him off the double burden, proceeded with the proverbial patience of his kind and we reached the links without further accident. [Illustration: Westward Ho! The Molesworths, father and three sons, returning from the Iron Hut, with Major Hopkins, the golfing artist, in the forefront.] [Illustration: An Old Hoylake Group. The names, reading from left to right are: Milligan (Captain, 1875), Alex. Brown (Captain, 1880), Major Hopkins, James Rodger, James Tweedle (Secretary, 1873-81), F.P. Crowther, Jack Morris, ---- , Robert Wilson (the "Chieftain"), Rev. T.P. Williamson, Dr. Argyll Robertson, Colonel E.H. Kennard (Captain, 1871-73), John Ball, sen., ---- , J.F. Raimes, H. Grierson (Captain, 1876), John Dunn (Captain, 1873-75), J.B. Amey, Theophilus Turpin, ---- , T.O. Potter (Secretary, 1882-94), A. Sinclair (Captain, 1887), Mat Langlands, Robert ("Pendulum") Brown, A.F. Macfie. The Royal Hotel at that time had the Club rooms adjoining it.] Mr. Gossett and his sons would be coming from the other direction, from Westward Ho! for he gave up the cure of Northam about this time and went to live at Westward Ho! and with others coming on the same line there would be a great re-union at the Iron Hut before starting out on matches--a great match-making too, for in those days we did not make our matches very long beforehand, and such things as handicap competitions were not known among us. They were soon evolved, but the idea of any fixed handicap, by which each man should know his value, was not so much as thought of. Matches were made by a process of stiff bargaining between the parties concerned. "How much will you give me?" "A third." "Oh, my dear fellow, I couldn't possibly play you at less than a half!" The humility that was displayed was most edifying. We had twice the fun over our matches then, just because of this bargaining and all the talents of Uriah Heap that it brought into sharp prominence. One of the best of the match makers, and one of the bravest, though very far from the best of the golfers, was Captain Molesworth, familiarly known to all and sundry as "the old Mole." CHAPTER IV THE SPREAD OF GOLFING IN ENGLAND It seems to me that the establishment of the Club at Westward Ho! and the discovery that it was possible to play golf, and the very best of golf, in England, even as in Scotland, sent a new thrill of life into all the dormant golfing energies of the country. It stirred up the Blackheathens; then it led to the institution of the Golf Club associated with the London Scottish Volunteers, which was later to develop a schism, of which one division became the Royal Wimbledon Golf Club. The great man of the volunteers was the still present Lord Wemyss,[3] then Lord Elcho, and he was as keen a golfer as rifle shot. To us at Westward Ho! the Wimbledon Club sent down Henry Lamb, Dr. Purves and many more; but these two were perhaps their strongest. Of the Blackheathens I have spoken, but I want to give a special word to Mr. Frank Gilbert, both because he was especially kind, of all the others, to me as a boy and also because his gift of nomenclature survives in the popular name still often ascribed to one of the Westward Ho! holes. At times of excitement his aspirates used to fly. He was perfectly aware of it and did not in the least mind gentle chaff on the subject. I even think he often sent them flying purposely, for sake of effect. After all, he used just as many aspirates as anyone else, only that he used them in rather different places: that was all. The hole that his genius named was that which is now the ninth, and its naming was on this wise: after hacking his ball out of first one bunker, thence into another, and from that into a third, he exclaimed in accents of inspiration and despair, "I call this 'ole the halligator 'ole, because it's full of gaping jaws waiting to devour you." Therefore the "halligator 'ole" it remained for many a year afterwards and is so known to some even to this day. I remember another exclamation of his that gave us purest joy at the time, when, having made what he believed to be a lovely shot over a brow to a "blind" hole in a hollow he ran up to the top of the brae in exultation, only to turn back with tragic dismay on his face and on his lips the eloquent expostulation, "Oh, 'ell, they've haltered the 'ole." I used to play him for a ball--a shilling gutta-percha ball--on the match, and for a long while, when I was a boy, we were fairly equal, and how often, towards the end of the match, he would miss a short putt in order that he might pay me the shilling, and not I him, I should be sorry to say. I know it was pretty frequently. And then this thrill of new golfing life started at Westward Ho! communicated itself to the many Scots established in Liverpool, so that in 1869 they so far organised themselves as to institute that which is now the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, playing at Hoylake. What that meant for us at Westward Ho! was that men of Hoylake came down to play matches with our local heroes and to take part in our medal competitions. There were Mr. John Dunn and Mr. John Ball, the father of our many times champion. Colonel Hegan Kennard was another who was associated with the Hoylake club, though his association with Blackheath was closer--of that venerable Club he was Field Marshal for very many years. But some of the first of the big matches, matches with sums of money depending on their result which seemed to me fabulous in days when a sixpence in the pocket was a rare coin, were those which were planned by the enterprise of Captain Molesworth--himself and Johnnie Allan in partnership against Mr. John Dunn and Jack Morris, who had come as professional to Hoylake. Now John Dunn made very much more show as a player than the old Mole. "The mole--an animal that keeps to the ground" was a definition which we used to be fond of quoting as we grew out of the years of veneration to those of impertinence. He had an absolute inability to drive the ball any height in the air. No other man ever played golf so cheaply as the old Mole: he had but three clubs, sometimes profanely stigmatized as Faith, Hope and Charity, a driving weapon of sorts, an iron and a putter, which he carried himself, never taking a caddie, and his ball was generally of the colour of a coal from long and ill usage. But he would bet you £50 on a match if you cared about it, and would play you with fine pluck to the very finish. He was in fact a miserable driver; nor was there any "class" or science at all about his iron play. But he would shovel the ball along, and up to the green somehow or other with his iron: he had a knack of getting there; and when once on the green there was not nor ever has been a better putter. Now the man who has his wits about him, to perceive what this description implies, will see that it is the description of an uncommon good partner in a foursome. And he was all the better partner on account of the way in which the chances of any match in prospect were likely to be reckoned; for John Dunn might argue it out, "I can give Molesworth a third," which he probably could, "and John Allan cannot give Jack Morris a third," which he surely could not, "therefore we have the best of it." That looks logical, but it leaves out the important fact that the Molesworth qualities were just those of most value to a strong driver like Johnnie Allan, while his short game and his pluck were clear assets to the good. In fact he and Johnnie Allan used to get round the course in scores that Allan himself would not think amiss, and they had all the better of these matches against the men of Hoylake. The Hoylake men came to Westward Ho! and Captain Molesworth took himself and his sons to Hoylake. Arthur Molesworth won the medal there when he was only a boy at school, and I remember with awe and admiration hearing his father describe how the boy had to sit beside the Mayor of Liverpool at the Club dinner and of all the mighty honour done him. And the present-day golfer should make no mistake about it nor doubt that this Arthur Molesworth was a very fine golfer. George Gossett beat him, in a set match that they played, but I think that Molesworth, who was several years younger, was really the finer golfer. Certainly he had greater power. He played in an ugly style, with a short swing, but his driving was long and he could play all his clubs. There were several years during which he was certainly the best amateur golfer that England had then produced, and I think he was better than any in Scotland. A few years later he went far towards proving it; but I will come to that story in its place. [Illustration: An Old Westward Ho! Group. From left to right: Mr. P. Wilmot, Mr. T. Oliphant (of Rossie), Major Hopkins, Hon C. Carnegie, J. Allan, Admiral Thrupp, General Maclean, Sir R. Hay, General Sir Hope Grant, Mr. T. MacCandlish (putting), Rev. T. Gosset, Colonel Hutchinson, Mr. J. Brand, Mr. Peter Steel, Mr. R. Molesworth, Mr. Lindsay Bennett, General Wilson, Mr. Eaton Young. Sitting: Mr. Baldwin, Colonel Hegan Kennard, Mr. George Gosset. Mr. John Dunn (driving), Captain Molesworth, R.N.] [Illustration: Thomas Owen Potter (Hon. Sec. from 1882 to 1894 Royal Liverpool Golf Club).] What I am trying to show for the moment is not only a gallery of great players in the past, but also the way in which the game was brought home to us at Westward Ho! how golf gradually spread in England and gathered in players, more Clubs being started, and for how much the influence of Westward Ho! and its golfers--of that most enterprising of all of them, in particular, the old Mole--counted in the diffusion of knowledge of the game. We were still, of course, far from the era when a man could go about travelling in England without causing quite a sensation among those who saw his clubs. The Englishman, as a rule, believed golf, if he had heard of it at all, to be a game that was played on horseback. And about that time, I being then sixteen years of age, so that the year would be 1875, there happened what made a bigger impression upon me than any event that has ever occurred since--I won the bronze scratch medal annually given by the club for competition by boys under eighteen years of age. Having a year to spare, of the age limit, I possibly might have won it again the next year also, but by that time I had done even greater things. I thought comparatively little of that second medal; but, as for that first, I gazed at it as if it were the Koh-i-noor, and certainly should not have valued it as highly if it had been. I can get some of that glamour back by gazing at it now, but it is only a rather faint reflection. Still, it gives far more comfort than the view of any other trophy that I ever won in later years, and I am grateful to the burglar who took all my gold medals some years back that he regarded this thing of bronze as beneath his notice. Arthur Molesworth must just have crossed the age limit which put him out of the play for this boys' medal; but there were a number of boys there at that date, in the holidays--Brownes, Burns, Roddy and Hugh Owen--there was quite a big competition. It is very sad to think how many of them are dead--Herbert Burn, the best player of the lot, among them. But Charlie (now Colonel and M.P.--he went into the Royals) was quite of the scratch class at his best. But still the leaders of the golf were older men: Henry Lamb, Dr. Purves, George Glennie, Mr. Buskin, Mr. Adamson, Colonel Kennard, Sir Robert Hay, Tom Oliphant. And I am sure there are a great number of good men whom I have forgotten. My Uncle Fred was only a little behind the best of them, but he had by this time given up his house at Westward Ho! and was living abroad, so he only came down occasionally. There was a small local contingent of very zealous golfers, men who never missed their two rounds every week-day--we had no Sunday golf. Thus we bring down the story to a point at which golf is really launched in England with a full sail, and myself having a taste of just so much success as to make me firmly believe henceforth, for some years, that success in golf was the one thing worth living and working for. I might still have a hankering after the occasional fox and badger, to say nothing of the rabbits, partridges and wild fowl; but these began to seem only the relaxations, and golf the true business of a well-spent life. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 3: He died during the War.] CHAPTER V THE WEAPONS OF GOLF IN THE SEVENTIES You could not travel about with golf clubs in the seventies without exciting the wonder and almost the suspicions of all who saw such strange things. I am not quite sure that you would not excite almost equal wonder if you were to travel now with a set of clubs such as we used then. In the seventies, and in my own teens, I was laboriously, and with rigid economy, working my way to the possession of a variety of wooden clubs such as it would puzzle the modern golfer even to name. There was the driver or play-club--that is understood. Then there were the long spoon, the mid-spoon and the short spoon: they may be understood also. But then, besides, between the driver and the long spoon, making such a nice gradation that it was really hardly to be distinguished, came what was called the "grass" or "grassed" club. I hardly know which was the right name. The idea, I think, was that, being almost of the driver's length and suppleness, but with the face not quite so vertical, it could be better used when the ball was lying on the grass--not teed. At the same time we used to talk of a club being "grassed" with the technical meaning of having its face set back a little. So I hardly know what the right nomenclature was, nor does it matter. This "grassed" or "grass" club was rather a refinement: it was only the golfer who was very determined to have no gap in his armour that would carry it; but the three spoons were almost _de rigueur_. No self-respecting golfer could well be without them. It may surprise the student of history not to find the "baffy" put down in the list; but as a matter of fact the baffy had passed out of common use by this date. A few men of the old school, as Sir Robert Hay, continued to play it to admiration, but the genius of young Tommy Morris had already initiated a whole school of disciples into the mode of approaching with iron clubs, so that the baffy was out of vogue. The professionals that came from the north to visit us at Westward Ho! as well as our resident Johnnie Allan himself, were all followers and exponents of the relatively new mode of jabbing the ball up to the hole with the iron clubs and with a great divot of turf sent hurtling into the air after the ball. Thus the green was approached; and up to just about the date of which I am writing the subsequent operations of holing out were always performed with a wooden putter. There was also a weapon known as the driving putter, which was just like the ordinary putter save that its shaft was longer and more supple. It became, in fact, very nearly a short shafted driver, and its special purpose was to drive a low ball against the wind when there was no bunker to carry. Of iron clubs there were the cleek, the iron and the niblick. It was even then possible to go into the niceties of driving-iron and lofting-iron, but many a golfer thought his set perfect and complete with a single iron, for all purposes. Now you will see, from this list, both what superfluities of wooden clubs it held, according to modern notions, and also what essential instruments, to our present thinking, were lacking. There was no such club as a mashie. Young Tommy, ever an innovating genius, is credited with being the first to use the niblick for lofting approaches, but the niblick of those days was peculiarly ill adapted to such delicate uses. It was very small and very cup-shaped in its head. The head was only a very little larger in diameter than the ball. Therefore it required extreme accuracy to hit the ball rightly with it and avoid that disastrous error of "piping"--hitting the ball with the hose--of which many of us have been many a time guilty with clubs whose relative breadth and length of blade make such error far less pardonable. The recognized club for the approach stroke was the iron, the ordinary "maid-of-all-work" iron, unless you were one of those extra particular people who had two grades of the iron. And another conspicuous absentee from the list is the brassey. Such a club was not known, but I can remember that about this day I became the proud owner of a club just then coming into vogue under the name of the wooden niblick. Its head, made of wood, was very short, like that of the iron niblick, for the purpose of fitting into ruts. It was the original of the "brassey," for the idea of a rut suggested the idea of a road. There were more roads then than now, in proportion to the rest of the golfing hazards in the world--as at Blackheath, Wimbledon, and Musselburgh. And the purpose of the brass on the club's sole was to protect it from the stones, etc., of the road when used for play off such unfriendly surface. The brassey was just the wooden niblick with a sole of brass, and as all wooden niblicks began to be brazen upon the sole their very name passed into oblivion and that of brassey superseded it. I have written here of all putters being of wood; and so they were. But somewhere, at some time, some inspired craftsman of the mystery of Tubal Cain must have bethought him, even before this, of making a putter of iron, for the following reason. In the old Iron Hut at Westward Ho! on days when the rain kept us in and the time hung heavy, we used to solace its tedium by bringing out our clubs from their lockers and trying to do a deal with each other, whether by exchange or by sale and purchase, and during one of these barterings an utterly unknown weapon was brought out with the rest of his bundle, by a young Scot of the name of Lamont, brother of that Major Lamont as he now is, who until quite lately lived at Westward Ho! and to whom I owe a great deal of the golf that I picked up as a boy. He was the Lamont of Ardlamont, the estate in the Mull of Cantyre, which came into fame in consequence of a certain notorious criminal prosecution in the Scottish courts. The strange weapon which this younger brother of his unearthed, on that day of rain, was, though we hardly knew then how to name it, an iron putter. It was inches deep in rust. Nevertheless, as I handled it, I liked the feel of it. I gave for it, in exchange, an old and much mended spoon, and it was that iron putter which I have used for forty years since, which has been copied countless times, of which the replicas are in many hands and many lands, and one copy of which, adorned and glorified, used to lie, and may so lie still, for all I know, on the table on the occasion of the dinners of the Match Dining Club. At that first date of its resurrection (Mr. Lamont could give no account of how it came to his possession) it was greeted with unhallowed laughter, and so too whenever I brought it out to putt with it. But I used to be rather a good putter as a boy, and that club is still the best balanced (though its old shaft has been broken and the new one is less good) that ever came out of a club-maker's shop, and I soon changed those sounds of derision at its appearance into a more respectful form of greeting. That was the first iron putter ever seen in the West, and I believe it to have been the virtual parent of every iron putter that ever has been seen since. It was the wooden age of golf clubs, as of battleships, and I hope the wood of our ships was better seasoned than that of our clubs. Shafts, as a rule, were of hickory then, as now, though we made strange experiments of ash, of lance-wood, of green-heart and divers species. For the hard balls of those days you had to have a certain softness in the heads of the wooden clubs which is not wanted with the resilient rubber-cored balls. Beech was the wood for the heads, though apple and other kinds were tried; but beech, and of a soft quality at that, drove the most kindly. And if a man were at all a hard hitter, and had a fit of heeling or toeing, the head of the club was sure very soon to show a crack across it, which would spread wider at each successive mishit. And even if you kept hitting the ball "dead centre" every time, a hole in the club-face would gradually be worn out by that repeated hitting, especially if the ground were wet and the grass long. Then we used to go to Johnnie Allan to have him put in a leather face, that is to say a patch of leather where the face was worn; and this would drive just as well, except it got sodden with wet, as the original wood. So, with so many of the clubs made of wood, and not always like the butter used by the Mad Hatter for watch greasing, the best wood, and the balls so hard and stony of impact, it is no wonder that golf was rather an expensive game for a boy whose shillings were not many. Though the ball only cost a shilling, while the modern ball costs half a crown, the club-smashing abilities of the shilling's worth made it a much dearer ball, to say nothing of the longer life of the half-crowner. And just about this date they introduced a novelty in the balls also--the "hammering," as we used to call it, that is to say the nicking or marking of the ball's surface, being done by indentations engraved in the metal moulds in which the balls were cast. This obviated all that labour of "hammering" the nicks in by hand, which was the ancient fashion. Yet it was some while before these "machine-hammered" balls, as we called them, found general favour with the golfing public, certain Conservatives asserting that the "hammering" was essential to the right tempering of the stuff of the ball, while others, like that great little man Jamie Anderson, then at the top of his game and fame, confessed, with a perfect knowledge that the reason was only subjective, that "he could na' strike" a machine-hammered ball. He soon learned to strike it, however, as the further course of golfing story sufficiently testified. CHAPTER VI HOW MEN OF WESTWARD HO! WENT ADVENTURING IN THE NORTH In the year 1875, I having then arrived at the advanced age of sixteen, and being admitted as a member of the Royal North Devon Golf Club, in the autumn committed the blazing indiscretion of winning the scratch medal which carried with it the Captaincy of the club. How glaring the indiscretion was may be gathered from the fact that this Captaincy, thus conferred, entailed the obligation of taking the chair at the general meetings. I do not know that I made a much bigger hash of it than any other boy forced into the same unnatural position would have done. It had not been contemplated, apparently, that a schoolboy was likely to beat all the reverend seniors, and one good effect was that the regulation was altered, and winning this medal did not much longer confer on a person who might be the least fitted for it the function of presiding at the meetings. But it had given to me a dignity which could not be changed by legislation. At the spring meeting of that very same year I had received no less a handicap than twelve strokes, so I must have been very much of that nuisance to the handicapper, the "improving player." I became a "scratch player," however, from the autumn of that year. In those days, before handicaps were fixed, golfing society was divided into two classes--those who were scratch, and those who were not--and there was no idea of such a thing as a penalty or _plus_ handicap. Some of the so-called "scratch" players of the day were exceedingly scratchy ones, and only supported their dignity at a considerable expense: there was one in particular of whom it was said that it cost him three hundred a year to be a scratch player or, that is to say, to play all and sundry amateurs on level terms. Beside this event of my winning this medal, which was no doubt an affair of more importance in my eyes than in those of anyone else, the autumn of 1875 was big with great issues, under the management of the enterprising "old Mole," who went up to Scotland with his three sons in search of adventure and with a great programme before them. Captain Molesworth had been playing a good deal with Mr. (later Sir) W.H. Houldsworth, and gave the challenge that he would bring up his three sons and play Mr. Houldsworth and any three Scots amateurs that Mr. Houldsworth should choose in single matches, the side that won the largest aggregate of holes to be the winner of the stakes. Now the Mole had the better of Mr. Houldsworth: that was really, though no doubt tacitly, acknowledged on both sides. Arthur Molesworth was likely to win his matches, no matter who was brought against him. But George, the second brother, though a brilliant player at times, was very uncertain, and Reggie, the eldest, and slightly lame, was the weakest vessel of the three. Say that the Captain and Arthur should gain some holes, it was the hope of Scotland that an equivalent number, at least, might be hammered out of the other two brothers. Unfortunately for Scotland it was the former part of the calculation which was realized more fully than the latter. The matches were played at St. Andrews and Prestwick. I think there is little doubt that at that time, as indeed for many years, Leslie Balfour (later Balfour-Melville) was the strongest amateur player in Scotland; and at St. Andrews Mr. Houldsworth's team was himself, Leslie Balfour, Dr. Argyll Robertson and J. Ogilvie Fairlie. Arthur Molesworth won two holes only (they were thirty-six hole matches) off Leslie Balfour, and Argyll Robertson took seven holes from George. But then Reggie rather upset calculations by beating Ogilvie Fairlie by two holes. Lastly came in the father of the flock with nine holes to the good, and that settled it. At Prestwick, Mr. Syme, a minister of the Kirk, and Andy Stuart took the places of Dr. Robertson and Leslie Balfour, and here Ogilvie Fairlie got back his own with interest from Reggie Molesworth, winning by seven holes, and Mr. Syme beat George by two, but Arthur knocked six holes to the family credit out of Andy Stuart and the Captain came in again with his big balance--ten up on Mr. Houldsworth. So they carried through that adventure with credit and renown, and, I suppose, some profit, and then later in the same year, Arthur Molesworth, with his father as backer and henchman, went up to St. Andrews again to do battle on his own account. This adventure came about owing to an idea very prevalent, though I hardly know whether it had existence in fact, that Young Tommy had a standing challenge open to back himself at odds of a third against any amateur. Captain Molesworth took it up on behalf of Arthur, and to St. Andrews they went again, in the dreary month of November, to bring the matter to an issue. Altogether they played for six whole days, two rounds a day, and all through the piece Young Tommy had the better of it. I cannot believe that in this match Arthur Molesworth did himself full justice. It is true that during the latter days snow lay on the ground, so that the greens had to be swept and the game really was not golf at all, but then it is no less true that Tommy held the advantage just as consistently in the days when real golf was to be played as on those when the snow spoilt it. An onlooker did indeed tell me that Young Tommy showed his skill wonderfully in lofting off the snowy ground to the small circles that had been swept round the holes. "Molesworth could loft there just as well," he said, "but Tommy, using his niblick, made the ball stay there as if it had a string tied to it, whereas Molesworth's ball was always running off on to the snow on the other side." But, be that how it may, and crediting Young Tommy Morris with a full measure of that genius for the game which all who have seen him reported, I am not going to believe that the golfer ever was born, be his name Morris or that of any Triumvir, who could give a third and a sound beating (for it was no less than this that Young Tommy accomplished) to Arthur Molesworth when he was playing his true game--and this, with all due allowance made for Tommy's knowledge of his home green. There was a peculiar pathos attaching to that match and Young Tommy's triumph, for it was his last. His wife had lately died, and interest in life, even in golf, had gone out for him. It was in November that he was thus beating Arthur Molesworth, and on Christmas Day of the same year he followed his young and loved wife. His memorial, recording a few of his greater victories--he was four times in succession open champion--is in the St. Andrews' graveyard. Indisputable was his genius for the game; impossible to calculate is the comparison between his skill and power and that of Harry Vardon, let us say, to-day. Doubtless he was a far better putter, for while he was so good at all points of the game he was at his strongest of all on the green. I do not think we shall get a better account than that which Leslie Balfour gave when an Englishman asked him how he thought Young Tommy would compare with the heroes of to-day. Leslie thought a moment, and then he said, "Well, I can't imagine anyone playing better than Tommy"--and at that I think we had best leave it. After that year Arthur Molesworth was not so much at Westward Ho! He went to London, to an architect's office, and at once begun to win medals at Wimbledon, where Henry Lamb and Dr. Purves were perhaps the best of the older men. The next year some of them made a match for me to play him at Westward Ho! and this was a great affair for me, being the first "big match," as we called these set encounters, for a money stake, that I ever had a hand in. We started in a bad fright of each other, if I remember right, and neither played his game, but I had the fortune to get really going first and won rather easily. About the same time Johnny Allan, finding his work growing, had down his two young brothers, Jamie and Mat, to join him in the club-making and the playing. They brought in a new element of interest, for even as a mere lad Jamie Allan, in particular, was a wonderful golfer. He had been there but a short while when Captain Molesworth, always the enterprising spirit, issued a challenge on his behalf to play any man in the world on four greens, two rounds on each. Poor Young Tommy being no more, Bob Kirk was the great man, for the time being, at St. Andrews, and he was chosen as the Scottish champion. The first part of the match was played at Westward Ho! We hardly knew how young Jamie Allan would carry himself, in this his first match of importance, but he delighted us by showing that faculty of rising to a great occasion without which no golfer, however fine a player, can win fame. That first round of his remains in my mind still as an exhibition of just the most faultless golf I ever saw. They said hard things about poor Bob Kirk afterwards when he came up to Scotland, and especially to the last stage, at St. Andrews, a beaten man. I believe that in that last phase his play was contemptible. But the Scottish critics, who were not there to see, made a vast mistake when they said that he did not play anything like his game all through the match. What he did at Hoylake and at Prestwick, whither, necessarily, they journeyed and golfed, I do not know, but I do know that at Westward Ho! he played quite a sound game. But a sound game was not enough to give him a chance of standing up to the sample of golf that Jamie Allan produced against him. Hole after hole slipped away from him, just by a stroke each, as they will when the one man is playing with more than human accuracy. That was the story of that match--it was won by Jamie's extraordinary golf at the first encounter. But that is not the way in which the Scotsmen have heard the story told. CHAPTER VII GOLF AT OXFORD When I went up to Oxford in the Christmas term of 1878 I found that Royal and ancient city sunk in an ignorance that is scarcely credible in regard to all connected with the royal and ancient game. I do not mean to say that golf was altogether unknown. There was already a University Golf Club in being, which I quickly joined, and we used to play on the cricket fields in Cowley Marsh. That, of course, implied that there was no golf in the summer term when the marsh was occupied by the cricket. But the golfers were very few. Mr. "Pat" Henderson (now Wright-Henderson) the Wadham don, was one of the most moving spirits. Then there was the Principal of Hertford, there was Jim Lockhart, a fellow of Hertford and a lecturer at my own college of Corpus, and Lodge, then history lecturer at Brasenose. These and a very few others of the dons used to play, and of undergraduates the ones I best remember were Cathcart of Christ Church, son of old Mr. "Bob" Cathcart the Fifeshire laird and for very many a year Convener of the Green Committee of the Royal and Ancient Club, Baynes of Oriel, now a bishop, Pearson of Balliol and several more. But their doings were a black mystery to most of the undergraduates, and either the game was not heard of by them or it was believed that the golfers practised some unholy rite in the not very cheerful surroundings of Cowley Marsh. I had known Jim Lockhart before I went up, for he was one of the Westward Ho! lot and a cousin besides of Jack Lamont, to whom I owed very much of my golfing education; so he saw to my election to the Club as soon as I came to Oxford. Considering the nature of the ground on Cowley Marsh, how singularly well it was suited by its dreary name, and that the only hazards were the cricket pavilions and the occasional hedges, it is wonderful how much real interest might be got out of the golf there. Whatever else a cricket pavilion may be as a golfing hazard, it is an uncompromising one. You have to be beyond or to the side of it. If hard up against it, even the strongest driver cannot send the ball through it; and it gives occasion for pulling and slicing round it which are good fun and good practice. Jim Lockhart was a friend of my tutor at Corpus whom we irreverently called "Billy Little," and it was on the occasion of his taking his fellow don up to Cowley to be introduced to golf that Little delivered himself of the immortal definition of the game as "putting little balls into little holes with instruments very ill-adapted to the purpose." In later years I have heard this brilliant definition attributed to Jowett. It is thus that sayers of good things attract to themselves, magnet-like, and increase their credit, with many good things said by others. At that time of day all who were golfers reared on the seaside links had a very high and mighty contempt for all in the shape of inland golf. In spite of the antiquity of Blackheath, the art and labour by which an inland course can be brought up, when the weather is favourable, to a condition almost rivalling that of the seaside links were quite unknown. One of the earliest founded of the inland type--of course long ages after such an ancient institution as Blackheath--was the course at Crookham, near Newbury; and thereby hangs a tale of tragedy and comedy commingled, associated with my golfing days at Oxford. There was a certain trophy, open to all amateur golfers, given by the Club, and called the Crookham Cup. The conditions were that it was to remain as a challenge prize to be played for annually unless and until any man should win it thrice: in which case it should become his property. Poor Herbert Burn, who met his death not so very long after in a steeplechase, had won this cup twice, and I was invited to go to Crookham to see if I could put a check on his victory and keep the cup for the Club. We were hospitably put up for the meeting by Mr. Stephens, the banker, at his place near Reading. I had the luck to win the cup, and again, going down the next year, won it again. If I should win it a third time it became my very own, and, strong in the zeal of pot-hunting, I went down the third year too. I remember that on this occasion, for some reason, Mr. Stephens did not act host for the meeting, but Captain Ashton and I stayed with Major Charley Welman at a little house he had near the course; and what fixed the visit very firmly in my mind is that Ashton and I returned to the house, after a round on the first day of our arrival, with "dubbed," not blacked, golfing boots. It appeared that there was no "dubbing" in the house, for the next morning our boots were sent up to us black-leaded--with the stuff that grates, I think, are done with. The effect was splendid. We went forth quite argentine as to our understandings, like knights in armour clad, and, thus glistening, I contrived to win that cup for the third and final time, which made it my own. Now we come to the tragi-comedy of the story. On the way back to Oxford there was the inevitable change and wait at Didcot Junction, and there whom should I see, with golf clubs under arm, but George Gossett? He was then living at Abingdon. I greeted him and asked with interest where he was going. "Well," said he, "there's a cup to be played for at Crookham, near Newbury, to-morrow. I've won it twice and I'm going down to see if I can win it again, because if I do I keep it." "Oh dear," I had to reply, "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you must have made a mistake in the day. It's to-day it was played for, and what's more I'd won it twice before, too, and I won it again to-day, so that it's mine now, I'm afraid," and I opened its case, which I had in my hand, and showed it to him. I was obliged to tell him; for it would have been worse still if he'd gone on all the way to Crookham to find he was a day behind the fair. As it was, it was comedy for me, but rather cruel tragedy for him. No man ever took a knock more pleasantly: he was the first to start a laugh against himself and to give me congratulations, and express gratitude for being saved the journey to Crookham. So he took train to Abingdon and I to Oxford, and shortly after, whether as the effect or no of this blow, he went out to New Zealand, where he won the championship of that country more than once. What used to astonish all my friends in College almost more than anything else, when I used vainly to try to describe to them what manner of game golf is, was the fact that I did not "dress" for it. "Undress" is rather what they meant. You see, they were accustomed to cricket, where you flannelled yourself, and to football, rowing and athletic sports wherein the mode of dress was to have as little of it as might decently be, and that one should go forth in the very clothes in which you might attend a lecture and play a game in them seemed hardly thinkable. They used to take up the clubs and regard them curiously. They began to think there must be something more than they had supposed in the game when I showed them the Crookham Cup. They wanted to see how it was done. The quad of a small College like Corpus makes rather a small golf course. The only way was to tee the ball well up and flog it out over the College buildings into Christchurch Meadows, or wherever else it might choose to fall. Occasionally we used to try to astonish Merton by a bombardment. But it meant a lavish expenditure of golf balls, for there was no prospect of getting any of them back again. The best possible tee to use, if you are driving, or ironing, off a hard surface like a quad, is a clothes brush. It hoists the ball well off the ground, so that you can do anything you like with it--that is, always supposing you have had the blessing of a sound golfing education. But there was not one of my friends of Corpus who had enjoyed this blessing. On the other hand, it appeared to them a very simple matter to hit a ball thus standing still: some of them were quite skilful at the job of hitting balls in quick movement at various games. So of course I must give them the club and they must have a hit at the ball too. They were humiliated to find how possible it was to miss it altogether, but infinitely terrified at the result when they did happen to hit. The quadrangle was inadequate as a golf links. Nevertheless it was of more than ample size as a racquet court. Yet that golf ball, stoutly, if unscientifically, propelled, would fly round those old grey walls, rebounding from one to other with a terrific force and pace. Finally its career would generally terminate by a crash through somebody's window or a resounding knock on the President's door, after which the golf meeting broke up, like a dispersing covey, and disappeared till any suspicions aroused by the outrage were calmed down. About the middle of my time at Oxford we had a mighty accession to our golfing strength in "Andy" Stuart. He came up to Christ Church, and took part with me, not very gloriously as I am able to remember, in the first Inter-University match against Cambridge. CHAPTER VIII THE START OF THE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE GOLF MATCHES The institution of the Inter-University Golf Match was due to the genius (which we will define in this instance as the zeal and enterprise) of one of the very finest putters that ever put a ball into a hole, Mr. W.T. Linskill. Linskill was the inspiration of the golf at Cambridge, and he did a great deal more than any of us at Oxford to get the Oxford and Cambridge Golf Match going. We only followed. And it "went," in a very small fashion at first. I remember it all now--the start in an early dawn from Oxford, a long journey to London, then a long drive from Paddington to Waterloo, then train to Putney, then drive up to the London Scottish Iron Hut--some luncheon there, and then a round of golf. In that single round the golfing fortunes of Oxford v. Cambridge for the year were decided. It was not altogether satisfactory; especially as we had to do the journey all over again, the reverse way, and had to get back to Oxford the same night. It may well seem a question to-day whether it was worth going through so much for the sake of so little--as Mr. Weller said in respect of marrying a widow--but still it was, at all events, a start. It cannot be said that so far as some of us of Oxford were concerned it was a very good start. I think that "on paper," as is said, we had by far the better of it. I forget all the team, but I know we started with Andy Stuart and myself and I also think I know that neither of us had any idea we were going to be beaten by anything that Cambridge would bring against us. The others were all good fighting men, and should at least hold their own. In the event, as for myself, I was not only beaten--by Mr. Paterson, whom I regret that I have never met since--but beaten rather disgracefully, for I was several holes up--I think three--with only five to play and lost every one of the remaining five. Then as to Andy Stuart: he had to play Linskill, and I suppose that at St. Andrews, where both were practically at home, Andy would have given him a half--certainly a third would not have brought them together--for though Linskill was just about the best putter I ever saw, the rest of his game was not very formidable. They arrived at the last hole just before the Iron Hut--I can see the scene now in my mind--all even, and Linskill had the better of the hole. He was dead and Andy had quite a doubtful putt to halve the match, and I can remember a doubt arising in my own mind as to whether I wished him to hole it or not. Of course I did not want to see another match lost to Oxford, as well as my own; but still, if the news should have to go to St. Andrews that Andy had been beaten by Linskill, level, it would be such a fine joke that it was almost worth the lost match. However he holed that putt with the courage of a lion--he was always a good putter at the last putt of a match--and so the match was halved. The fortunes of the rest of the team were vastly better. On the whole, as I see by the record, Oxford won by twenty-four holes on balance, on that first encounter, so our evil deeds did no great harm. This was in the autumn of 1878. Next year the match was played again at Wimbledon. Indeed, it is not very evident where else it should have been played, unless perhaps at Blackheath. There was in existence that course at Crookham, near Newbury, which would have been convenient to us, from Oxford; but it would not at all so well have suited the Cambridge men. Besides there was little play on it except at the meeting times, and the course was not permanently kept in any order. It is worth mentioning that for one of the holes, a short hole, the play was over an avenue of tall trees. In the years since, while inland courses have been multiplying, so too have the tree hazards; but they are generally brought in as flanking hazards, at the sides. Here we had them in a line right across the course, and you had to be over. It was not a "blind" hole, for you could just get a glimpse of the flag between the stems. Some of our course constructors might make a note of this hole; and might do worse than copy it. At the same time, I should say that one of its kind, in a round, would be enough. I see that this Crookham is given rank in Nisbet's _Golf Year Book_ as the "third oldest course" in England, but I do not know whether we can allow it such a venerable claim as that, remembering Blackheath, Westward Ho! Wimbledon and Hoylake, to say nothing of the old Manchester Golf Club which carries its history back to 1818. But I am not sure but what the history of this last has its breaks in continuity, its silent places. The Oxford and Cambridge match continued to be played at Wimbledon right up to 1896. I have some recollection of the second match of the series, in 1879. We started it, I think, from the Wimbledon end, not the Putney end of the common. For my own part I did better than in the first year, beating Mr. Welch, who afterwards was a mathematical don at Cambridge and used to keep the record and the medals at Macrihanish in his pocket for many years. I much regret that I never encountered him again, any more than my opponent of the first year of the match. On the whole transaction in 1879, Cambridge beat us by ten holes, and yet we had some good men. There was Archie Paterson, who was President of the Boat Club afterwards, A.O. Mackenzie, who was also in the 'Varsity boat, and, I think, Sir Ludovic Grant, now a professor at Edinburgh University and Captain in 1912 of the Royal and Ancient Club. Ernest Lehmann, who writes so well and pleasantly about the game, was a member of the Cambridge team that year. I have no recollection whatever of the 1880 match, nor even whether I took part. I may have been ill or in the Schools or doing something equally foolish, but I see that Oxford won that year by eight holes. In 1881, for no reason that I can remember, no match was played--and that was the end of me as an Oxford undergraduate golfer. I had passed the last bunker and taken my degree before the next year's match. All this while the only golfing playground at Oxford was still the cricket grounds on Cowley Marsh, and still there was no play at all in the summer term, when the cricketers occupied the ground. But a few years later some of us were asked to go up and take part in an informal kind of Past _v._ Present match, more or less to celebrate the fact of the Club taking occupation of new ground in Mr. Murrell's park, on Headington Hill. Andy Stuart and I went up, among others. We found the course rather pleasant, in its inland way, with hedges for the chief hazards and undulating gradients that formed rather a blessed change from the sheer flatness of Cowley Marsh. And what the match was that we played, or its result, I do not in the least remember, but one remark of a distinguished lady in the gallery I very well recollect--for it was retailed with great joy to Andy and me by one who overheard it--"Those men," she said, indicating him and me, "are very nicely dressed--for professionals." That is the kind of compliment one really does appreciate, because it is of the sort that is so rarely paid. I speak for myself, only, in this: Andy Stuart was always most careful in his attire, so as to merit such appreciation frequently, and doubtless may have received it often. Of course it would be impossible even for a lady of the kindest heart and most flattering tongue to pay such an encomium now. The professionals are by far the most smartly clad of all golfers. It was not so much so then. I do not know whether I have given the impression that the golf was very good at Oxford. It is rather a mistaken impression, if I have conveyed it. On the other hand, Oxford University was not a bad place for the golfer. It had the large merit that its vacations were long. Then I would go home to Wellesbourne and play golf from there, at Westward Ho! all day and every day, and it was during my time at Oxford that there came to Wellesbourne as "odd boy"--that is to say, to do certain odd jobs in the morning--a little, singularly white-flaxen-haired boy from Northam village. It may seem surprising that the coming of such a little boy to Wellesbourne should be worthy of a place in this grave page of golfing history, and I do not know exactly what the duties of an "odd boy" are, but you may be very certain that he performed them very efficiently when I tell you that his name was John Henry Taylor. He used to do these odd jobs, whatever they were, like a champion, I am very sure, and then he used to go down to the links and carry my clubs for me whenever I was at home. The pay of a caddie at Westward Ho! in those days was not exorbitant--sixpence a round, and a hard walking and sandy round too, of eighteen holes; and they had to walk down a mile and a half from Northam village to begin to earn it. But all wages were low and all living was cheap in North Devon at that date and the boys were glad to earn it, particularly with a bottle of ginger beer generally thrown in of the royal bounty of the employer. On occasions, and for valid consideration, they would develop a spirit of independence which made money seem no object, as in the instance, which has become historic, of the small boy throwing down, in the middle of the round, the clubs of his master, a gallant general officer, and making his way without a word across the Burrows. "Where are you going, boy?" the irate man of war shouted after him. "I be goin' 'ome," came the firm reply. "There be goose for dinner." CHAPTER IX GOLFING PILGRIMAGES It is a singular thing that not a seaside course was designed, or opened for play, in the decade from 1870 to 1880. I, at least, cannot remember nor can find record of any such institution. In 1880 the Felixstowe Club was started. I have a vivid recollection of my first visit to it, for I tried the wrong line of approach, going to Harwich, which left the whole of the river estuary to be crossed before Felixstowe could be reached. It was late in the evening, the ferry had stopped running, but I got myself and portmanteau and clubs put across in a row-boat. The mariner landed me on the far side in the gathering dusk, got into his boat and commenced to row away home again. "But," I said, as he moved off, "how far is it to the hotel?" "About two miles," he answered, resting on his oars. "But how am I to get there?" I asked. "I don't know," he said; and then rowed away. I sat in the fast increasing gloom on my portmanteau, and wondered. Then I saw the light of a providentially sent farm cart in the distance. I hailed it. The carter was a kindly man, and in due time I arrived at the Bath Hotel. Felixstowe course was of nine holes only, if memory is a true servant, at that date, and the club-house was that Martello tower which even now comes in as something of a hazard. So this was the third of the English seaside courses. In 1882 four more were added, Minehead, Hayling Island, Bembridge and Great Yarmouth. Therefore, by the time I left Oxford there was already that beginning of the chain of links around the island which has now been riveted so close. Coming South, down the West coast of England, there was Hoylake, a far cry from there brought you to Minehead, then Westward Ho! thence round the Land's End and the South Coast till you came to Hayling Island and Bembridge, then Felixstowe and up the East Coast to Great Yarmouth. The golfing plot is thickening. Bembridge had always a charming little course, though crossing like a cat's cradle in places and more dangerous than most battles when there were many players. I gave dire offence there by writing that after my first tee shot, which was heavily pulled on to the seashore, the ball was at length found inside a dead and derelict dog--emphatically a bad lie! But there was not more than the licence almost permissible taken in this account: the ball actually was very near a dead dog; and why should there be offence in the suggestion? It was not implied that it was part of the duty of the Bembridge green committee to scavenge the seashore. However, the dog has been washed away now, and, I hope, the offence also. But the chain of links did not stop, northward, at Great Yarmouth. As long ago as 1869 a nine-hole course had been made and a Club started at Alnmouth, only a little South of the Border. I believe it will surprise most people to know that there was this girdle of links thus early--in 1882--although the gaps were long and many. An Oxford education is all very well, but it does considerably interfere with the whole-souled attention that a man ought to apply to golf. Nevertheless it has the aforesaid merit that the vacations give leisure for many a golfing pilgrimage, and it was in course of these pilgrimages that I made acquaintance with most of the English sea-links, as they came into being. It was in 1879 that I paid my first visit to Hoylake. Several of us went there from Westward Ho! to the autumn meeting. There was much going to and fro between golfers of Westward Ho! and Hoylake, and indeed of Scotland too, at this time. So much was this the case that in arranging the dates of the spring and autumn meetings we used always to have a care that they did not clash, and it was usually contrived that the Hoylake meetings should fall sandwich-wise between those of St. Andrews and of Westward Ho! so that Scottish golfers might work South and take Hoylake on their way to Westward Ho! The golfing population of the day was not a very large one, but it was very friendly. All, with few exceptions, knew each other. Moreover, partly because they were a small brotherhood, there was more _camaraderie_ amongst them than there is now, and a term in common use then "the Freemasonry among golfers" had its meaning. At that time if you met a man in the train or waiting at a station with golf clubs, you would be sure to say to him, "I see you are a golfer," and he would respond with a glad pleasure, saying, "Yes--are you?" and you would begin comparing notes. To meet a fellow golfer was something analogous to the meeting between Stanley and Doctor Livingstone in the heart of Africa. It was a date at which such white men as golfers were rare. Going to Hoylake, therefore, we were sure of finding ourselves among friends. I think there were at that time, at Hoylake, in pilgrimage from Westward Ho! besides myself, Captain Ashton, a sound golfer of the second class, Major Hopkins, the golfing artist, Captain Logan White, most amusing and caustic-tongued of companions. The native people showed us no little kindness. Only a short while before I had taken part in a match at Westward Ho! got up by the never-failing keenness of Captain Molesworth--he and I against John Dunn, a famous man at Hoylake (there is a hole named after him there to-day) and Jack Morris. We had won that match handsomely, but there was no scrap of ill-feeling. Then there was Kennard there--Colonel Hegan Kennard--ever most courteous, and arrayed with beautiful neatness; a player of great neatness besides, and winner of many scratch medals. There were also three generations of John Ball at the Royal Hotel, and already the youngest of the team was of great local repute and of such skill that his father would often issue the proud challenge to the company assembled in the bar-parlour of the hotel: "I and my son'll play any two." But those two were not very eager in coming forward. The rooms of the Royal Liverpool Club were in those days under the same roof as the Royal Hotel itself and the course started with what is now the eighteenth hole. Argyll Robertson was there, from Scotland, a first-class golfer, and surely the finest advertisement of his own profession, which was that of oculist, that ever was seen, for he was a singularly handsome man altogether, but the most striking feature of his fine looks was an eye more eagle-like than I ever saw in any other human face. There was also another little Scot of very different aspect, short, rather round-about with sloping shoulders like a champagne bottle, yet a terrible golfer and a thrice-champion--Jamie Anderson. Him I knew, he had been down to Westward Ho! taking part against Jamie Allan in a campaign of revenge for that defeat which the latter had put upon Scotland (for we looked on Jamie Allan's golf as wholly English) and on the man whom Scotland had previously pitted against him, Bob Kirk. Jamie Anderson, playing him on the same four greens of St. Andrews, Prestwick, Hoylake and Westward Ho! had defeated him--not heavily, but sufficiently. But Jamie Allan at that time was not playing as he had played against Bob Kirk. It was a fine game enough, but it had not the same force and sting. I had even enjoyed the honour of playing a foursome at Westward Ho! with Jamie Anderson, and had wrung from him a compliment which pleased me more than a little, for at one hole I had pitched up a long iron shot with some cut on it, and a happy chance decreed that the ball should stop about six inches from the hole. All Jamie said to me at the moment was "Ah--that's the sort that saves a lot of trouble;" but afterwards he had counselled me, "You should come up to St. Andrews: they shots of yours that pitch sae deid are just what's wanted there." I quote that saying principally for the sake of my own greater glory, but secondarily because it is noteworthy as a comment on the St. Andrews of that day, for if there is a quality of St. Andrews now which is eminent above others it is that which puts value not on the pitched, but on the running up approach. It may be noted that this was all before the introduction of the mashie and while the use of the niblick for the approach was still looked on as a _tour de force_. We did all that work with a broad bladed iron. Jamie Anderson walked round with Ashton and myself when we played for the Kennard medal at Hoylake on that occasion. I played fairly well and won it with a score which was then good--I am not sure it did not make a competition record--of 83. Jamie was very friendly, though he did not say much all the way round, but I was told that afterwards he had remarked to somebody about my play that "It's a fine game, but it's no gowf." I think I know what he meant by the dubious compliment. In those youthful days my great idea was to hit as hard as ever I was able: the result was numerous mistakes which were sometimes sufficiently redeemed, when fortune favoured, by recoveries. Jamie Anderson's theory of the game was very different. He never put anything like his full power into the shot, but he was so desperately accurate that Mr. Everard has it on the record that the little man (and he was anything rather than a boaster) once told him that he had played ninety holes successively without a shot that was not played as he intended it to be played. Quite certainly, if that and that only was golf, it was not golf that I played. CHAPTER X WESTWARD HO! HOYLAKE AND ST. ANDREWS IN THE EARLY EIGHTIES In 1882 I left Oxford, with the intention of reading for the Bar, and actually did go so far as to eat a number of Inner Temple dinners at the extraordinary hour of six o'clock. I do not think they are quite digested yet. I had been suffering from a series of severe headaches all through my last year at Oxford and perhaps the dinners put a finishing touch on them. At all events the doctors advised me to give up all reading for a time--an instruction which I have observed rather faithfully up to the present. Their very wise counsel gave me all the more time for golf--the rules were not quite so many and headachy then and a man could play golf, or so it seems to me, with a lighter heart. Perhaps it is only because the heart had less weight of years to carry on it then, but it strikes me that the game and its players had more humour. I do not mean that they were more witty; but greatly because they were so immensely serious and solemn and earnest they were more amusing. Their tempers were more tempestuous, their language was infinitely more picturesque. At Westward Ho! I am inclined to think that there were some with special gifts of the kind. We had many old Indian officers, with livers a little touched, and manners acquired in a course of years of dealing with the mild Hindoo, and because the golf ball would not obey their wishes with the same docility as the obedient Oriental, they addressed it with many strange British words which I delighted to hear and yet stranger words in Hindustani, which I much regretted not to understand. But a sight that has been seen at Westward Ho! is that of a gallant Colonel stripping himself to the state in which Nature gave him to an admiring world, picking his way daintily with unshod feet over the great boulders of the Pebble Ridge, and when he came to the sea, wading out as far as possible, and hurling forth, one after the other, beyond the line of the furthest breakers the whole set of his offending golf clubs. That the waves and the tide were sure to bring them in again, to the delight of the salvaging caddies, made no matter to him. From him they were gone for ever and his soul was at rest. Of course he bought a new set on the morrow, so it was all good for trade and Johnny Allan. It also afforded a splendid spectacle to an admiring gallery. Really we have lost much at Westward Ho! even if we have gained much, by the bringing of the Clubhouse across the common. It was delightful, after golf or between the rounds, to bathe off that Ridge, or sit on it and watch the sea tumbling. There were more "characters" in the golfing world in those days. Who is there now like the Chieftain at Hoylake or like Mr. Wolfe-Murray and many more at St. Andrews? But Hoylake, more than the others, had its humorists not so strictly of the unconscious type. There was great fun in the musical evenings in the Bar Parlour of the Royal Hotel--bar parlour sounds a little ominous, but I never remember seeing a man in it who could not talk straight nor walk straight out of it--and some of the golfers had great voices. Tom Potter, well-known with the Free Foresters' Cricket Club, was honorary-secretary of the Club, then and for many a year, and he was a fine singer. There was "Pendulum" Brown, singing about "The Farmer's Boy," and ever so many more; and these evenings were the occasions for great match-making. Mr. Brown, nicknamed Pendulum, by reason of something clocklike about his swing, on one night, unlighted, so far as I remember, by a moon, but with some stars in the sky, backed himself to play the five holes round the field, then and there, in an average, I believe it was, of fives. Whatever the bet was, I know he won it easily, and also that he did those five holes in several strokes less than he took for them in the competition, played in broad daylight, the next day. The only stipulation he made with the gallery that turned out to see this nocturnal performance was that they should be silent for a moment after he drove off, so that he might hear the ball pitch. The night was very still and he seemed to get the place of the ball with wonderful precision by the sound of its fall. I know that his putting was extraordinarily good--far better than an averagely good putter's daylight putting. There were many mirth-makers at Hoylake, besides the song-makers. Of this number were Alec Sinclair, with a fund of anecdote that never failed and was very seldom guilty of vain repetition; George Dunlop, bubbling over with wit and always ready to make a good after-dinner speech, and a crowd more. At St. Andrews the fun of the fair was less hilarious; there was less noise about it; but there were some witty and many amusing people. My first host there, Logan White, was the very best of company in himself; there were George Young and Mr. Hodges of a most sardonic humour, and very many with that sly and dry sense of fun which the Scot calls specifically "pawky." Also, there was Old Tom Morris--"born in the purple of equable temper and courtesy," as Lord Moncrieffe, I think it is, well describes him. It would be a mistake to picture Old Tom as a witty man, or even as a clever man, unless a tact and temper that never fail be the very best kind of cleverness. But we do not find any very witty or pungent sayings attributed to Old Tom. It was his rich nature, with its perfect kindliness and charity, that made him so lovable, and such a valuable possession to St. Andrews in reconciling the golfing interests, which ran with counter currents, of the Town and of the Club. As a peacemaker he had no equal. I, deeming myself wronged by some infringement of golfing rule or etiquette on part of another, might go to Tom--would go to him as a matter of natural course--and pour out my woes. He would listen with a charming smile in his old eyes under their bushily arching grey eye-brows, and when I had done he would take his pipe out of his mouth and say, "Ou aye." That was all, but it was enough to convince of his perfect sympathy. Then, from the big window of the club, or from Logan White's house on the links, I would see that wicked man, my late opponent, go up to the old man--for the scene was always that eighteenth green, just before Tom's house, where he would usually stand and smoke his old clay pipe after his two daily rounds were played--and there I would see exactly the same smile of sympathy for my opponent's recounting of his woes likewise, and at the end the pipe being withdrawn from the mouth; and I might know, though I might not hear, that precisely the same two words were being given for his sufficient consolation likewise--"Ou aye." So we both went away from him greatly comforted and in a disposition to make it all up again before the sun should go down on our wrath. Old Tom was good enough to give me his friendship from the very first moment I came to St. Andrews, prompted thereto, as I think, largely by a comment that one or two of the old stagers made to him that my style was not unlike young Tommy's. I am sure that even at that time this must have been a comparison not quite just to that great young player of old, for although it is more than likely that I have cherished very many illusions in regard to my golf, I am quite sure that I have never been so deluded as to deem my style either good or graceful. But the criticism was endorsed by Tom and gave me a place in his heart. There was another point in which he gave me praise (he could give no higher) for a likeness to his talented lost son:--"Ye're like Tammie--ye'll tak' a' as much pains over a short putt as a long yin." Anything that had to do with a short putt touched the dear old man in a very sensitive place, for he was the worst short putter, for a great golfer, that ever was. It is known that Mr. Wolfe-Murray once addressed a letter to him, when on a visit to Prestwick, "The Misser of Short Putts, Prestwick," and the postman carried it straight to Tom. His own way was, in his sheer terror of missing the putt, to get done with it as quickly as possible, and often he would just go up to the ball and hit it in a nervous hurry, without looking at the line at all, so that he hardly gave himself a ghost of a chance of holing. He had a way, too, of dragging back the ball, with a quick movement of his putter, the moment it had missed the hole, to try the putt over again, and this habit had such possession of him, that I am quite certain I have often seen him snatch the ball back long before it came to the hole at all, and even, sometimes, when it would have gone in had he not done so. Once, but once only, I saw him beat his putter on the ground so hard after a missed putt that the shaft broke. I think it must have been sprung before, for he did not really give it such a very severe strain, but of course that was quite overlooked, and the joke served for many a day to tease the old man with--as "Tom, what is this I hear? Getting in such a rage that you're breaking all your clubs! Awful!" The poor old man would smile despairingly and generally solace himself with some quotation from his dearly loved poet Burns. "Scotland wi' a' thy faults I lo'e thee still" was his most favourite text for consolation. [Illustration: "Old Tom."] [Illustration: Douglas Rolland and Archie Simpson (driving.) (Archie was younger brother of the Jack Simpson mentioned in this chapter.)] CHAPTER XI FIRST DAYS AT ST. ANDREWS I have always had, and always shall retain, a very lively and grateful recollection of the kindness with which all the local members of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club and others at St. Andrews received me when I first went up there, a Sassenach among the Scots. I was very fortunate in my host, Logan White, and found there also others that I had known in the South, Harry Everard, most keen of golfers and best of all judges of the game, Victor Brooke, most eager, most charming and most Irish of Irishmen, and many others who had been old friends of my boyhood at Westward Ho! Besides, there were many who retained a memory and an affection for my Uncle Fred, whose locker, with his name upon it, was still in the big room. I took possession of it as a heritage, though he still had many good years of life left in him at that date. I well remember, too, that at one of the first dinner parties I went to at St. Andrews, at the most hospitable house of Captain "Dan" Stewart, Mr. Wolfe-Murray greeted me warmly, saying that he had known my grandfather who, as he affirmed, was in the habit of declaring that he had "the best left leg in Bond Street, and," added Mr. Wolfe-Murray, "I think my left leg is better than my right." He was gloriously arrayed in the dining dress of the Queen's Archers, which permitted a display of legs; but this story of a day when legs were so draped as to be critically admired in Bond Street took the mind's eye back a long way. The point of my grandfather's claim, however, as to the beauty of his left leg, was that the symmetry of the right had been somewhat spoilt by a French musket ball. And the kindliness that I met with, from many who had not any of these special links, was not to be forgotten--Mr. Gilbert Mitchell Innes, Mr. Balfour, the father of Leslie--now Balfour-Melville--Mr. Whyte-Melville, to whose surname the former succeeded, and very many more. Gilbert Innes was still, I think, the best golfer of all those named, and David Lamb and Jim Blackwell were about the best of the actual residents. Leslie Balfour came over from Edinburgh and I had many good matches with him. But on my first arrival there I found that a match had already been made for me by Victor Brooke, that I should play Tom Kidd, at that moment thought to be playing the best game of all the professionals at St. Andrews, receiving the odds of a third from him. Tom Kidd had been champion some ten years before, but, champion or no, I had no idea at that time of day of being beaten by anybody, professional or otherwise, at odds of a third. Besides, I had come rather fresh from a small triumph at Westward Ho! Somebody had made up a little purse for the three Allan brothers to play for, and in order to make an even number I had been asked to play with one of them. The prize was for the lowest score, and I was a proud man when I came in with the best score of the four. We had no formal definition of an amateur in those days, but in any case I should not have wished to take the prize, which, indeed, I do not suppose would have been given me. But this small victory put me into fairly good conceit with myself in respect of this match against poor Tom Kidd, who was certainly not as good a golfer as Jamie Allan; but the truth is that the Scots were rather sceptical in those days about the golfing ability of any Southerner. It was not very long before that young Tommy had given Arthur Molesworth a third and a beating, as recorded in a previous chapter. How that could have come about I could not, nor can now, conceive; but at any rate Tom Kidd was not Tommy Morris. I remember that I went out the first nine holes in 42. It does not sound very grand nowadays, but it was respectable then, and sufficiently good to work up Tom Kidd into elaborate explanations as to how impossible it was to give a third to a score of that kind. When a man gets into that explanatory mood it is generally all over with him; and of course it was not to be thought, if I could play anything of a game at all, that he could give such odds. I won an easy and inglorious victory, which would not be worth mentioning except to show the estimate likely to be made at St. Andrews at that time of the probable form of an English amateur in comparison with that of one of the native professionals. Just about that time, that is to say 1883, Old Tom, who had been playing for him very poorly, began to enjoy a delightful Indian summer of his golf, which gave the old man and all the many who were fond of him immense delight. I do not mean to say that I suppose him to have played anything like the game of his best days. I could generally beat him, but he would always play me level and liked to gamble heavily. Generally there was a dozen of balls on the match, and a dozen on the score, for we used to keep the scores too, and often a dozen that I didn't, and another dozen that he didn't, go round in some set figure--say 87. A dozen balls meant only a dozen shillings, in those days, but the number he was owing me soon arrived at huge figures. However, I used to knock the debt off his playing fee, and he was perfectly happy, and so was I, in the arrangement. He was very methodical, invariably half-filling the bowl of a short-stemmed and ancient clay pipe as he hit off to the Short Hole Going Out, and knocking out its ashes as we came to the Short Hole Coming In: and that was all the smoke he ever took till the match was over. On the occasion of this, my first visit to St. Andrews, I was not a member of the Club, but they did me the honour to elect me by next spring, and three of us tied for the first medal at the not very clever score of 91. Mr. Willie Wilson was one, I forget the other; and Wilson won on the play off. I remember that all went well with me till the sixth hole in the tie, where I got into a small bunker from the tee, took two to get out and left some of my temper behind in it. I had to take second honour then, but I won the first medal in the autumn, though I think it was rather that the rest played worse than that I played very well. And then, immediately after the medal, came a message from Elie and Earlsferry--"Would any pair at St. Andrews give a match in a foursome to a couple of stonemasons from Elie?" Leslie Balfour asked me if I would play with him against them. I knew I was not in good form, and I do not think that he was, either, but still we said we would play them. They came over and seemed very nice young fellows indeed. The name of one was Douglas Rolland, and that of the other Jack Simpson. We had never heard of them before. We continued to think them very nice young fellows until the ninth hole, at which point we were two up. The truth is the masons had not got their hammers going at all. But we did not know that. On the way home we began to doubt whether they were as nice as we had thought. Rolland began hitting the ball to places where we had never seen it hit before, and Simpson so followed up that they were reaching with a drive and an iron holes that it was at that date scarcely decent to approach in this metallic way. They were "gutty" balls, mind, which did not fly away off the irons like the rubber-cores. They finished that round to the good of us, and in the afternoon made us look very foolish indeed. I do not think that Leslie or I ever got over that match till we read the result of the open championship, played very shortly afterwards at Prestwick. It went "Jack Simpson first, Douglas Rolland second." After that we could make a better reply when we had to listen to the very kind and pointed enquiries of friends as to "What sort of golfers are the stonemasons of Elie? Are they any good?" I think, but am not sure, that it must have been in the interim between that match of ours and the championship, that there was a great home and home match, with something of a Scotch and English flavour about it, got up between Douglas Rolland and Johnny Ball. Captain Willy Burn wrote me an account of the first part of the match at Elie, which he went over from St. Andrews to see, and one of the phrases in it I remember now: "Both men drove like clockwork." It seems that Rolland, for all his great hitting, had nothing the better of Johnny--who was a very fine driver in his youth--in that respect, but hole after hole went from Johnny on the putting green. He came to Hoylake, for the second half of the match, no less than nine holes to the bad. The local people said that he would pick it all up on his own green. But he did not: on the contrary he lost more holes. Then, on the following day a second match was arranged--of thirty-six holes, all to be played on his own Hoylake. Of course he must have started with the moral effect of his previous hammering still deeply impressed upon him, but his friends still had all confidence in him. And he seemed to justify it grandly, playing such a fine game that he was five up and six to play and the match was virtually, as probably Rolland himself deemed, over, when suddenly he struck a very bad streak, lost hole after hole until all the lead was gone, and Rolland, winning the last hole too, actually won this extraordinary match. It was a very sad day for Hoylake, and that is the aspect of the match which seems to have impressed everybody. But, after all, there is another aspect--perhaps well realized at Elie--what a first-class fighting man that Rolland was! Johnny Ball had in fact to go through a very long baptism of fire before he was able to bring his wonderful powers and skill to their full use at the moment they were most needed. CHAPTER XII THE BEGINNINGS OF THE AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP Golf had jogged along very comfortably up to this time with its one championship, open to amateurs as to professionals, but never as yet won by an amateur. Then, in the winter of 1884-5 it occurred to some original genius of the Club at Hoylake--"why not a championship to be restricted to the amateurs?" I do not know whose great brain first flashed out the idea, but they wrote and explained it to me, asked me to serve on a Committee for the purpose, and gradually the scheme was licked into something more or less like shape. It was decided to hold, under the auspices of the Royal Liverpool Club, a tournament, under match play rules, open to all amateurs. The Club gave a handsome prize, or, rather, two prizes. I went up to Hoylake a little while before the affair came off, and there found the Committee in charge in something of a difficulty. Douglas Rolland had sent in his entry and they did not know how to deal with it. You see, at that date we had no definition of a professional, nor of an amateur, and had to decide on the analogy of other sports. I was all for accepting Rolland's entry then, and I am of the same opinion now--that it ought to have been received. His offence was that, having come in second to Jack Simpson in the previous year for the open championship, he had accepted the second prize money, thereby violating the law common to several sports and pastimes forbidding an amateur to receive a money prize when in competition with professionals. That would have been all plain sailing but for the unfortunate fact that it was discovered that Johnny Ball, some years before, and while still quite a boy, had played himself into the prize list at an open championship and had been offered, and without a thought about the matter had accepted, a sum that I think amounted to no less than ten shillings. It was, of course, unthinkable that Johnny should be deprived of his birthright as an amateur for such a boyish error as this. There never was the faintest suspicion of professionalism about any act of Johnny Ball's extraordinary golfing life, but technically, at that date, his case and Rolland's were very much on all fours. I saw that the Committee, or a majority of them, were resolved to reject Rolland's entry. I did not care to be a member of a Committee which rejected, for a cause I could not quite approve, the entry of one who would certainly be a very formidable competitor for a tournament which I had a distant hope that I might possibly win. I therefore asked leave to resign from the Committee, before the vote was taken on the point, and did so, with perfectly amiable sentiments all round. I have been rather long-winded perhaps in this explanation, but I wanted to make clear to those who are not informed about it the reason why the present amateur definition is drafted just as it is, with a time limit beyond which--that is to say before sixteen years of age--a man shall be held guiltless of having done any action to spoil his amateur status in playing for a money prize in competition with professionals. So that was settled, and Rolland's entry disallowed. It passed off with less trouble than I had expected, perhaps just because Rolland was such a thoroughly good fellow, whether he were professional or amateur, and not at all of that small spirit which is apt to take offence where none is meant. We set to work to play our tournament. It was considered best not to entitle it a championship, seeing that it was the installation of a single club only, and had no official recognition. Funny things began to happen from the start. It gave much delight to the men of Hoylake that I should have drawn, as my first foe, my old enemy at Westward Ho! Arthur Molesworth. Him I managed to beat with tolerable ease. I think he had even then begun to lose the sting of his game. After that I rather forget my fortunes until the semi-final heat, when I came up against Johnny Ball. In a previous heat, by the way, he had committed the crime of parricide, knocking out his own father, who put up a stout fight against him, nevertheless. Johnny and I had a great contest, and I thought he was going to beat me, for he was two up at the turn; but I began to play rather well from there onwards and beat him by two upon the last green. In that tournament we had not the arrangement which was made as soon as the amateur championship was put on an official footing--that is to say, in the very next year--of all byes being played off in the first round. The effect of that was that Alan Macfie, the other semi-finalist, had a bye in the morning. The final was decided in a single round to be played in the afternoon. I had been wound up to high concert pitch by that morning round with Johnny and could not play a bit in the afternoon. Macfie, on the other hand, putted like a demon and never made a mistake, so very likely the result would have been just the same if I too had been idle all the morning. He beat me, I think, by eight holes. So that was the conclusion of it, and really it was most unfortunate for Macfie that he had not official right to place his name at the head of the list of amateur champions, for this was in all respects, except the title, equivalent to a championship. Leslie Balfour was not there, but Johnny Laidlay was. It was the first time that I made his acquaintance, though I did not have to play him. He was knocked out at an early period of the campaign. In fact I am pretty sure that he was not playing as fine a game then as he developed later. His putting, in particular, improved greatly, and so did the direction of his driving. His iron play was always, from the first, unsurpassed. I think that according to the arrangements of that tournament all ties must have gone on into the next round, for I well remember that Walter de Zoete tied twice with Macfie and was beaten by him on their third time of meeting, when Macfie, amongst other atrocities, did the short hole (the Rush Hole) in one. De Zoete went very strongly in the tournament. One of his victims was Mure Ferguson, whom he beat by eight and seven. There must, of course, have been something wrong here: I am not sure that gout would not come into the diagnosis. And somewhere or other, among the crowd of lookers on at that tournament, with a heart very black with rage against me at my presumption in daring to beat the local hero, Johnny Ball, would have been a little boy of the name of Harold Hilton: a name to be heard of in later years. [Illustration: John Ball. (From a water-colour drawing by the late T. Hodge.)] [Illustration: A.F. Macfie. (From a water colour drawing by the late T. Hodge.)] That was the beginning, the preface, the preliminary canter, of the amateur championship, and it is to the initiative and enterprise of the men of Hoylake in getting up that tournament and conducting it to success, that we owe all the fun and all the tears we have had out of that championship since. No doubt it, or something like it, would have come sooner or later, whether or no, but it was due to the Hoylake Club that it came just as soon as it did. In the later course of that year it was taken properly in hand: the chief Clubs in the Kingdom gave it their sanction and subscribed to buy a challenge cup for it; rules were drawn up; the definition of an amateur was framed, and the first amateur championship meeting on these lines was put on the programme to be held at St. Andrews the following year. Now, seeing that this veracious and highly egotistic record aims at being a serious contribution to the golfing history of modern times, as well as a sketch of my little personal share in it, it might be worth while just to note the names of the Clubs which subscribed for that amateur championship cup. For the subscribers were all the principal Clubs of Great Britain at that time, and anyone who has not looked over the list lately may very well feel something of the same surprise that the little boy experienced when he found himself in Heaven--surprise both at some of those who were there and also at some of those who were not there. All the more notable of the great inland golf Clubs, for instance, are conspicuous by their absence; and for the perfectly sound reason that they had not yet come into being, nor indeed had inland golf yet begun to be deemed at all worthy of consideration. There are, to be sure, the Royal Blackheath and the Royal Wimbledon. These are great in respect and veneration, but they no longer lead. St. George's at Sandwich was admitted to the sacred number of contributing Clubs many years later, when it came into existence and when its merits were proved well to warrant the inclusion of its course among the championship greens. And during all the first years of the amateur championship's existence it was my duty, acting on instructions from the Royal North Devon Club, to point out how very worthy was Westward Ho! to be the scene for that encounter, and also (but this was ever received with a bland smile in which, after a course of years, I began to join) how very central was its situation and how easy of approach from all directions. It has taken a lapse of many years and a more moving eloquence than mine to convince the management of the championship on these so obvious points; but now that they are convinced they accord the links of the West all their due recognition. The original subscribing Clubs then, who gave the weight of their authority to the new championship, were the following:--Royal and Ancient; Royal Liverpool; Royal Albert, Montrose; Royal North Devon; Royal Aberdeen; Royal Blackheath; Royal Wimbledon; Alnmouth; North Berwick, New Club; Panmure, Dundee; Prestwick Club; Bruntsfield Links, Edinburgh; Dalhousie Club; Edinburgh Burghers; Formby; Gullane; Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers; Innerleven; King James VIth, Perth; Kilspindie; Tantallon; Troon; West Lancashire. Is it not the case, that there are surprises in this list, both in the form of those who are in it and those who are not? CHAPTER XIII ON GOLF BOOKS AND GOLF BALLS In the year 1886 I perpetrated a book on golf. The only excuse to be made for it is that which was offered in another famous instance, that "it was a very little one." It was a much more notorious thing in those days to write a book about golf than it is now, for who is there now who has not done so? But in that golden age the whole bibliography of the game was comprised, I think, in four volumes--_Golf, a Royal and Ancient Game_, by that gallant old warrior at the game, Mr. Robert Clark; Stewart's _Golfiana Miscellanea_; and two small didactic treatises, the one by Chambers and the other by Forgan. I had a great many compliments paid me on my little book, _Hints on Golf_, when it first came out. I sent the manuscript to Mr. "Bill" Blackwood, and he eagerly consented to publish it, "for," he wrote, "I am sure there must be something in that book. Ever since I read it I have been trying to play according to its advice, and the result is that I've entirely lost any little idea of the game I ever had." That was gratifying praise, and an edition or two was soon sold out. Then it occurred to me to illustrate its wisdom with figures in single lines. A little later I was dancing with a young lady I had just been introduced to in London and asked her whether she played golf and she replied, "Oh, yes, we all play, and we learn out of a most idiotic little book we've got." "Ah, yes," I said, "is it a little book with single line figures illustrating it?" "Yes, yes," she said eagerly. "That's it. Do you know it?" "A little," I replied. One remark in the book took the popular fancy--that "Golf is not agriculture." It was made to point the moral that the golfer should replace his divots. But the only passage that seems to me at all worth quoting at length, although I did write the whole book myself, is one which illustrates the temporary and historical importance of a controversy which is entirely forgotten now. The passage is Number I. of "The Miseries of Golf," and runs thus:-- "Discovering, as you walk down to the tee, to start a foursome, that your partner has never in his life played a round with a 'putty' (eclipse) ball, while you yourself know that you cannot play within one half of your game with a 'gutty' (gutta-percha) ball." All through the early eighties a good deal of experimenting had been going on with the view of discovering a substitute for gutta-percha for the golf ball. When I first went to St. Andrews, Commander Stewart was there, having just produced his "Stewart Patent" balls. They were of some composition, and were filled with steel filings. They had some merits, but were very heavy. All golf balls used to be numbered then: 27 and 28 were the usual sizes, supposed to signify the weight in drachms, and I remember Logan White telling Commander Stewart, "We tried weighing your balls yesterday. We put a 27 of yours in one side of the balance and we had to put a 28 gutty and the coal-scuttle in the other, to make it level." Slight exaggeration, but pointing towards a truth! It was the fault of these balls that they were too heavy. Then some firm in Edinburgh produced a ball called the Eclipse, and after several modifications they put out a ball that had distinct qualities of its own, in some points superior to gutta-percha balls. They would not carry so well--they were dead, and with wonderfully little resilience when dropped on a stone--soft, so that a finger and thumb squeeze could compress them sensibly, but the compression came out again. That was one of the merits of this ball, which inevitably--its qualities being such as they were--received the nickname of "putty," to rhyme pleasantly with "gutty": it would come out again, resuming its spherical shape without any disturbance of contour, even after the most desperate hammering on the head with an iron. It was indestructible. Then it was a wonderful ball for keeping its line on the putting green--far the best putting ball that ever has come into being during the half-century or so of golf that I have known. But the quality, which perhaps was its highest virtue, was that it did not go off the line nearly as much as the gutty when pulled or sliced. I used to play with a "putty," as a rule, when I played against Old Tom. The old man hated the ball, as indeed did most of the professionals. Trade reasons weighed heavily with many of them, but I do not think that the old man was commercial-minded enough for these to have the slightest effect with him. He might have made a large fortune had he possessed but a little more of this spirit, but it was in his utter freedom from it that much of his charm consisted. Still he cordially hated "the potty," as he called it. Of course it was possible to pull or slice the putty, if you played badly enough, though it did not take the cut nearly as freely as the gutty, and whenever I pulled or sliced one of them to perdition the old man's delight knew no bounds. The fun would come twinkling out of his eyes under their shaggy brows and he would say, "Eh, they potties--I thocht they potties never gaed aff the line." Willie Fernie was the only one of the professionals who ever condescended much to them, and I have been playing with him when he used a putty going out at St. Andrews, in the teeth of the wind, and then took a gutty coming home down wind. But he did not make much of it. The two balls required such a very different touch for the short game that it was very difficult to go from one to the other--it is in that that the point lies of the above quotation from my "idiotic little book." But Willie Fernie was a man of infinite ingenuity. The ball, evidently from what I have said of it, was a fine ball against the wind--it kept so low and so straight. On hard ground it would make up in its run for its loss in carry, and therefore it was a better ball on the flatter than on the more mountainous links. But in this account of its qualities, I have also indicated its defects. Running as it did when it pitched, it was an impossible ball to stop on the green off a lofted shot; and just as it would not take much cut, so as to go far to right or left when heeled or toed, so it would not take a cut when one purposely tried to put a cut on to stop it. On the whole I liked the ball. It was very economical, because it would last for ever and because its soft substance did not inflict such damage on the clubs as the hard "gutty." I won both the first two amateur championships with a putty ball. I do not mean that I used the same ball in each. But Andy Stuart had a putty ball with which--the same identical ball--he won three St. Andrews' medals. The great argument against them was the difficulty aforesaid of stopping them off the pitch. That, and their lack of carry, were their weak points: their straight travel, especially off the putter, was their strong point. And then, all at once, the manufacturers began to make them less good. Just what happened I never knew. I think that they changed the mixture in order to get them harder, and, so, more like the "gutties"; but whatever the reason, the effect was that they lost much of their merits and never overcame their defects. Result--exit the putty ball towards the end of the eighties, and the gutty holding the market until the Americans sent us what at first were called Haskells; which is another and more modern story. I had written, at the commencement of my little book, that I had seen a recent advertisement of an outfitting firm, "The Game of Golf Complete, in a Box." It suggested a _multum in parvo_. I went on to say, "if anyone would only write us 'The Art of Golf, complete, in a Book'--why, what more could be left to wish for?" But I added, "I am afraid no one will ever be quite bold enough to attempt that." And hardly were those words published before out came Sir Walter Simpson, greatly daring, with a book actually called _The Art of Golf_. He did not add "complete, in a Book"; but no doubt that is how he meant it. And an admirably witty and humorous book it was, and is. Its wit and humour abide with us. Just what value it ever had as an education in the art I hardly know. Walter Simpson, poor fellow (he died while comparatively a young man), never was a first-class golfer, though he was a first-class companion for a round. We who were pleased to rate ourselves the best of the amateurs could give him about a third, and there were many strokes in the game of which he had no idea, but his book, like himself, is excellent company. Quite a modern book, having the same title (which is rather a pity), has come out lately, by Joshua Taylor, the champion's brother. I will refrain from comparisons. But I suppose that at the date I am writing of, the world, for the time being, had enough of golf literature, for I cannot think of any work in book form on the great subject until the Badminton Golf Volume, in 1890; and I remember an article of Professor Tait's written in the late eighties in which he speaks of "the magnificent Clark, the voluminous Simpson and the sardonic Hutchinson," with the suggestion that these three virtually comprised the whole of the bibliography of golf as generally known to the public. How far pens have travelled over how many of the reams of the paper so appropriately termed foolscap in the quarter of a century or so since, we may consider with much amazement--and here am I still piling up the leagues! CHAPTER XIV THE FIRST AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP The first amateur championship, as by law established, was played at St. Andrews, and started for me, as I suppose did most things at that time of life, on the note of comedy. It must be understood that this institution meant a great gathering of clans and of clansmen not very well known to each other. I dare say some of us had our own ideas that no one was likely to be unearthed from the dark places able to upset reputations more or less established; but everything was possible. I had, carrying for me, one of the numerous family of Greig at St. Andrews; I presume some connection of the fine golfer of that name and of his brother, the lion-voiced starter. Of course, the prospects of the championship were the great subject of discussion, and during my first match of the tournament--I think things must have been going fairly easily, and that I had my opponent pretty well in hand--he said to me, "There's a mon Fogie, frae Earlsferry, and they say he's gaein' tae win the chompionship. He's a terrible fine player an' he daes na' mind the gallery a dom." This was terrific news to me. By "the mon Fogie" I understood him to mean a Mr. Foggo of Earlsferry, whose name I had noticed on the list of the draw, and had noticed further that this Mr. Foggo would be my own fate in the second round of the tournament. That is, of course, always on the assumption that he and I both survived; and of his survival, after Greig's remarks, I had no doubt. When I came in I heard to my surprise, as well, I may say, as to my relief, that this terror of Earlsferry had actually been defeated and knocked out on the last green by Dr. McCuaig. Of Dr. McCuaig I did not know very much; and then, on the evening of that day, it was reported to me that he had said, "I shall beat Horace Hutchinson to-morrow. I believe he is a good player, but he is a young player. You'll see; I shall beat him." This was retailed to me, and whether it were a true saying of the doctor's or whether the retailer had merely invented it to see how I should take it, and to raise my ire, I do not know to this day; but I do know that it did raise my ire, and that I went out in the morning with a very grim determination to play my hardest. I had no idea of any amateur starting out with the expectation that he was going to beat me, unless, indeed, it were Johnny Ball. I played steadily; the doctor was not at all at his best, and I won--I think it was the first seven holes. At all events, it was such a number as made the match a very comfortable one. The doctor took his beating in the best of spirits, and bore no ill-feeling whatever. Altogether that was a comfortable championship. After the first thrill of the terror inspired by the reputation of "the mon Fogie," it went on oiled wheels. Mure Ferguson, I remember, whom I met in a later heat, was a hole up going to the eleventh, and I was a little anxious, but he let me win in the end, though only by a hole, and then it looked very much as if I should have to play Johnny Ball in the final--which was never to be regarded as a holiday. But the unexpected happened. In the semi-final he had to meet Henry Lamb. Henry Lamb was a beautiful golfer. It was he who invented the "bulger," that club with its convex face, off which the ball flew with a straightness that was a revelation. You see, before the bulger was invented, the faces of our wooden clubs, by the perpetual contact and hammering of the hard "gutty" balls, always got worn away, so that instead of being flat, they were very decidedly concave. And you may understand what the effect of that gradient of face would be--to emphasize and aggravate every sin of heeling or toeing to which golfing flesh is heir. Therefore, the good influence of the bulger was not really so much in introducing the first convexity, though that in itself helped the ball to go straight off it, but it also corrected that fatal concavity which all clubs soon assumed of which the faces were flat to start with. Instead of being concave, after much battering, the face of the bulger became merely flat. So it was a blessed invention; and as to its inventor, he was not only a player of a very fine and graceful game of golf, but he was also the most delightful fellow to play with that could be imagined. He had a temper which in its perfect serenity was a most valuable golfing asset to himself, and also most valuable in the charm of the companionship which it brought into a round of golf with him. His mode of addressing the ball was remarkable, for he stood as if he were going to drive at an angle of at least forty-five degrees to the right of the hole. I remember, at some inland course in the South, where his strange method was not known, a caddie calling out to him as he was on the point of driving from the first tee: "Stop, stop, you're playing to the wrong hole." Henry Lamb gave the boy one of his sweetest and most lamb-like smiles, and proceeded to drive the ball two hundred yards straight down the middle of the course--to square leg. He used to swing round so far as he came down that really it was to the cricketer's square leg that he drove; and yet his style was a singularly graceful one, which seems as if it could not be. It was a singularly effective one no less, and he was a medallist on most of the courses then known to the golfer. Still, he was not a Johnny Ball. On that day, however, he proved himself a greater than Johnny Ball, who was far from being at his best, and when I came in from my own semi-final effort I learned, with a breath of even deeper relief than I had given to the shade of the defunct "mon Fogie," that Henry Lamb and not Johnny was my man for the final. Neither of us started well in that final round--it was only of eighteen holes in those days; but I began to get going after the fourth hole, and Henry Lamb was, I think, a little done after his match with Johnny. At all events, he let the holes slip away very quickly, and I had an easy win, on which he was the first to offer his congratulations--a very courteous gentleman! The intelligent student of golfing history up to this period might very well note, and with some surprise, that whenever reference is made to Johnny Ball it always seems to be as of one disappointing expectation. And that, in truth, was very much the case. Men of Hoylake used to come to me almost with tears in their eyes, because they knew that they had my full sympathy and understanding. They knew that I knew what a terror Johnny Ball really was on his own course and when playing his right game. But what afflicted them almost to hysterics was that he never seemed able to produce this wonderful best of his when he went away to play anywhere else than at home; and the consequence of that was that the other folk, the Scotsmen, laughed at them, saying: "This local idol of yours has feet of very poor clay"--or gibes to that effect. They took it very badly. It is hardly to be believed now, when we know what a brilliant lot of victories in all fields Johnny has to his credit, that he had to wait a very weary while, and to suffer a number of disappointments, before he began to come to his due. When he did come, he was not to hold nor to bind. Johnny Laidlay did nothing effective in this first championship. He, too, had to "bide a wee" before he did all that was expected of him; but I made his much better acquaintance about this time and acquired the greatest respect for his game, especially for the accuracy and delicacy of his approaches with the mashie. It was a new club to me, and something of a revelation in its possibilities. For it would, of itself and without any special effort of the player, do all to the ball that might be done with our old irons only after a deal of cut had been carefully put on. I do not at all regret that labour; it was an excellent education; but there is no doubt that the mashie simplified the approaching problems. It made an easier game of it. I have been looking up the details of this championship, and find one of its "points" to have been the meeting of Johnny Ball and Johnny Laidlay, the first of very many encounters of its kind, resulting in the English Johnny's win by three and two. So that was the fate of the Scot; he fell by no unworthy hand. There is always consolation in this reflection. Henry Lamb, as I read on the same record, had fought his way to the final over the corpses of some stout foes. The first round gave him a bye; but then he had to meet Mr. Charles Anderson, forgotten by golfers of to-day, but a stalwart in his time. Next, Harry Everard fell to him; and then he had a bigger man than either, especially at St. Andrews, in Leslie Balfour. He beat Leslie at the last hole. Then, in the semi-final, he beat Johnny Ball by no less than seven and six to play, and it was by the same sufficient margin that I defeated him. What Johnny can have been doing I hardly know. That he must have been playing some game widely different from his real one is very certain. CHAPTER XV MR. ARTHUR BALFOUR AND HIS INFLUENCE IN GOLF It is not on first sight very obvious how the appointment of a statesman to the Chief Secretaryship for Ireland can have an intimate bearing on the history of the game of golf. Nevertheless that appointment, in the year 1886, of Mr. Arthur Balfour had, in my humble judgment, an important influence and bearing on the game. It so happened that about this time an eminent weekly journal had propounded the statement that none but stupid people played golf, and even that the successful playing of golf demanded, as an essential condition, that the player should be stupid and destitute of all imagination and of all intellectual interests. It was rather an extravagant statement. At the same time also the office of the Irish Secretary was invested with a peculiar importance in the public eye. It was not long after the tragic affair in the Phoenix Park. Ireland was seething with murderous discontent. The man who accepted the secretaryship took his life in his hand with that acceptance, and this risk Mr. Balfour took with all his characteristic coolness and courage. He became at once, both on this account and because of his record as a still rather untried statesman, as a "philosophic doubter" and as a distinguished figure in a certain set of Society to which the name of "Souls" had been rather foolishly given, perhaps the most popular figure in politics. The public eye was upon him and it was known that this man of so many and so varied gifts was an enthusiastic golfer. He went round the links as an object lesson to contradict the unfortunate pronouncement of the aforesaid respectable paper about the stupidity essential to the man who would confess himself a golfer. He also went round the links accompanied at a decent interval by two detectives. I used to play a good deal with him at North Berwick at that time, and it was rather curious to know that we were being stalked every step of the way by these guardians skirmishing among the sandhills and the fringes of the course. It did not in the least interfere with Arthur Balfour's equanimity and concentration on the game. Of course he was not a great golfer, though he brought to the game that faculty which was so invaluable to him in politics of rising to an occasion. You were in good hands if he were your partner and you left him with a putt of just the doubtful distance to win the match at the last hole. But though he was not a great golfer, he was a very great figure in golf; and just because it is very human to be influenced by an example, the effect of his example was to make many a man play golf, on the principle that "there must be something in a game if a fellow like Arthur Balfour plays it." He had been a fine tennis player at Cambridge, and was an extraordinarily good shot at a stag. I used to stalk on the splendid forest of Strathconan which he sold to Mr. Combe, the father of Christian Combe, the present owner, and the stalkers there have spoken to me with bated breath of his deadliness of aim with those old-fashioned rifles which tossed the bullet along in a high curve, and with black powder that made all nature invisible for a minute after the shot. Twenty-six stags without a miss, was his record, as reported to me by one of these stalkers, for one season, and it is a wonderful record in the conditions, especially as he was short-sighted. But then he had, by compensation, not only an accurate vision, but a coolness of nerve which made any idea of "stag-fever" an impossibility to conceive in connection with him. And "putt-fever" at golf was equally far from him. I am very far indeed from saying that if golf had not been at this moment just ready for a "boom" the example of Arthur Balfour would have set the boom going, but as a matter of fact it was just ready. Courses were being made and Clubs founded all over the country, the amateur championship was both a cause and an effect of the new impulse, and then came the beat of the Balfour drum and the note of "Ca ira" came from it triumphantly. I date from that year, and principally as arising from the sources indicated, that "boom" which has never ceased to march and which is marching still. So much for what the incentive of one man's example may be in a race still generously capable of hero-worship. For a while at North Berwick Arthur Balfour's chief henchman was Crawford, Big Crawford, as he was most appropriately called, about whom many a legend clings in North Berwick tradition. The big Crawford was also the caddie of little Sayers in any of the important matches played by that great little man. The Crawford legend might run to far lengths, farther than I care to spin it now, but of all the instances of his wit and repartee the best I think is that which he produced, perfectly impromptu, so far as I know, when there arose a great discussion as to the precise nature of a toad-stool in course of a match which Sayers, his little man, played against Andrew Kirkaldy at St. Andrews. It was lifted, the lifter saying that it was a dead and loose-lying toad-stool, the objector that it had been rooted in the ground and therefore was not legally liftable. The discussion instantly raised numerous side-issues, as to one of which Crawford, having delivered his opinion, heavily, of course, in favour of the view of the case that would assist Ben Sayers--pronounced, finally, "Weel, het's the rule o' the game, an'----" at this point he paused an instant and lifted an enormous fist, "an'," he repeated, indicating this leg of mutton bunch of knuckles, "there's the referee!" It is not the first time, nor the seventh time, that I have told this story; nor do I care if I repeat it seventy times seven. It is good enough to bear it. At the conclusion of an historic home and home foursome in which Sayers and Davie Grant defeated Andrew and Hugh Kirkaldy, Crawford would demand of any whom he could get to listen who it was, in their opinion, that had won the match, and when they professed a doubt, he would draw himself up with enormous dignity to his immense height, and striking himself dramatically on the chest, would exclaim with conviction, if not with grammar--"Me!" and really it was not altogether too large a claim. His overmastering size and the fearsome aggressiveness of his manner might very well give pause to any tactics of an aggressive nature on the other side. He was a tower of moral (or immoral) support to little Sayers, and his presence at the hole when a hostile putter was attempting to approach it had all the effect of a black cloud overshadowing the atmosphere. But beneath all his dourness, and his sardonic air, he had a kindly nature, and of his loyalty to him whom he regarded as his chief, and incidentally the greatest man that ever lived, Arthur Balfour, there is not the slightest question. With his rugged independence, he might stand as the type of the old Scottish caddie, now practically extinct. In later years he set up a booth at the far end of the North Berwick links where he would dispense ginger-beer and the like innocent refreshment, though it was said that to the initiate few a more generous and cordial liquid might be proffered. I do not know. What I do know is that when we went out, of a morning, and came to Crawford at his booth, he would often ask us, "Is Ar-rthur oot the day?" rolling the "r's" upon his tongue as if he loved to prolong the sound of his hero's name. It is thus that he would put the question--for all his worship, making use of the familiar first name. And then, if we were able to comfort his soul by the assurance that the great man would soon appear, he would hoist a little flag on the booth's peak, for honour's sake. And one day it happened that the Grand Duke Michael of Russia, coming to the tent and seeing the flag, inquired of Crawford in whose honour it was flying. I do not know whether the Grand Duke had been put up to making the inquiry, and asked it humorously, to see what Crawford would say. At all events he had his satisfaction, for in answer to the query, "Whom is yon flag flying for?" the uncompromising reply was given, "A better mon than you." No doubt loyalty here leaped over the bounds of courtesy, but there is sign of a better quality than mere rudeness in the reply. Very well must Crawford have known that if he had chosen to reply to the foreign prince that it was in his honour that the bunting waved, it might have meant a piece of gold transferred from the princely pocket to Crawford's, but he did not hesitate. Partly perhaps the native disdain of the foreigner rang in the reply, but chiefly I think a very rugged honesty, which, in spite of the lamentably rude form of the speech, has its dignity. [Illustration: A.J. Balfour.] [Illustration: Crawford. Dispenser of refreshing drinks and counsel.] We had great fun on the short North Berwick course, in those days, where nothing really paid you but accuracy in the pitch, developed to a nicety by Johnny Laidlay, who was always there. And besides him were Walter de Zoete, poor John Penn and many good golfers besides. I think it was with me as partner that Arthur Balfour first played that foursome against De Zoete, and Penn, which afterwards, with Johnny Laidlay taking my place, was played times without number. "Mike" Mitchell was one of the regular frequenters, in the Eton holidays, and playing with him as partner he and I once did three successive holes in two each on that old short course. CHAPTER XVI THE SECOND AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP In 1887 we were back, for the amateur championship, on that Hoylake links which was the arena of the preliminary trial trip that Macfie won in 1885. I see that Arthur Molesworth was in that tournament of 1887, and survived until the fourth round, where he was beaten by J.G. Tait, eldest brother of poor Freddy. Another name of note is that of a small boy, appearing in such big company for the first time, Harold Hilton. He was beaten in the third round by Mr. John Ball, "old John Ball," as we called him for many years, although when I first went to Hoylake he was only John Ball the second, his father and Johnny's grandfather being still alive. One of the most remarkable points in the championship of the year was the game that Johnny's father put up all through it. It never was a showy affair at all, that game of his, but it was wonderful how effective it was on the Hoylake course which he knew as well as the inside of his own pocket. He beat Hilton, as noted, then he knocked out J.G. Gibson, the Black-heathen, who had been going strongly and had defeated Henry Lamb the round before; and in the fifth round, which was the semi-final, I came up against him. I had only survived the previous round by the skin of my teeth, and remember all about it well. It was against Mr. Gregor Macgregor, a sound player, and a Scot, as his name suggests. I was getting on fairly comfortably with him, with a hole or two in hand, when he played a stroke in which I was morally sure that he hit the ball twice. I did not know whether to claim the point or not, and, not being possessed of the ideally equable temperament, was upset by the incident and played the last holes very badly, halving the round and being rather lucky to win the nineteenth hole. I forget whether, in point of fact, I did claim that foul, which I knew that Mr. Macgregor was quite unconscious of making, but what I do know is that I received from him afterwards one of the very nicest letters ever written, saying how sorry he was that anything of the kind should have happened, and that I should have been upset at all. So the conclusion of that nineteenth hole left me with John Ball, the elder, to play in the semi-final; and meanwhile that other John Ball, whom we distinguished as Johnny, was knocking Jack Tait out in the other semi-final. They were playing ahead of us, and as we went to the seventeenth (now the sixteenth) hole old John Ball was one up on me. And I had not played at all badly; only he had played in the most gallant way and had really hardly made a mistake. He was one up sheerly on the merits. Then he said to me, as we walked after our second shots to the seventeenth hole and an emissary came back to say that Johnny had beaten Jack Tait, "It would be a funny thing if father and son had to play it off together." It was an innocent remark enough, and yet it nettled me a little, and I said in answer, "Wait a bit, Mr. Ball: you haven't done with me yet." Perhaps I ought not to have said it: it was rather a boastful answer. I can only plead the excuse of comparative youth. I sincerely hope it was not that reply which put him off his next stroke, but something bothered him as he played it. I saw him look up once, as he addressed the ball, at the legs of the people standing (or not standing as still as they should have been) opposite him. Anyone who knows Hoylake will know the stroke he had to play--to pop the ball over the cross bunker before the green, of the then seventeenth and now sixteenth hole. What happened was that he took his eye off and popped the ball into the bunker instead. I lofted mine over all right and won that hole. Then, by a lucky approach and a good putt, I got the last in three; and that was a stroke better than the hole ought to be done in and one too good for Mr. Ball. So then the next, and the final, problem was the worst--Johnny! I dare say I was a little lucky in that match: I know I had one rather lucky shot. I got into the bunker just before the green, going to the short hole, called the Cop. I dug the ball out, pretty near the hole, and holed the putt. It was fortunate, but I have always contended that with practice, the judgment of the strength with this dig shot is not nearly so difficult as it seems to the uninitiated, and at Westward Ho! there was every opportunity for initiation, in the shape of bunkers close to the hole. Moreover, in those days, there was no rule forbidding you to test the consistency of the sand by a trial dig into it before the real shot. I have always thought the rule which forbids the testing dig a very bad one, because a clever bunker player ought to have the advantage of his cleverness, and this prohibition takes away much of the advantage and puts him more nearly on a level with the man who has no idea of judging strength with this shot. Then, two holes from home, Johnny broke his brassey. I see that Mr. Everard, speaking of this incident in the Badminton Book, described it as "the very bad luck to break his favourite brassey." That is interesting to note now, as a sign of the times. It indicates an importance belonging to a brassey which it certainly would not have now, when a full second shot with a wooden club is hardly ever wanted. But of course it was hard luck then, and perhaps it was due to that that I got dormy one up. Then Johnny obligingly topped his tee shot going to the last hole. I did not play the hole very bravely, and had to hole rather a good putt to get a four. I do not think Johnny troubled to putt out. He was a little nearer than I was, but not stoney. Anyhow, that was the conclusion of a lucky championship for me. This reference to the far greater importance, in those days, of the brassey reminds me of a queer notion that Johnny Laidlay had. If he had a big match to play he always bought a new brassey for it. His theory was that he could play better with one that was strange to his hand. If this paradox is at all to be explained it must be by psychic, rather than physical reasons. I take it to mean that, just because the club was strange to his hand, the strangeness subconsciously suggested to him the need for a closer keeping of the eye on the ball. And the subconscious suggestions are always the best. I may be quite wrong, but that is the only explanation I can find for it. But in this again we see the vastly greater importance of the brassey in the days when the gutta-percha balls were used. It was equally important with those eclipses with which I won both these championships. Johnny Ball and Johnny Laidlay always stuck to the gutties, I think. Certainly the latter did, and so would I too, had the old short course at North Berwick been my chief golfing haunt; for there the value of the pitch shot was out of all proportion greater than on the larger courses elsewhere. But as for the reason why the brassey was so much more in vogue then, it has been rather misunderstood. It was not because you drive so much further off the tee with the rubber-cored balls than with the gutties--if both are hit dead true there is not a mighty difference in this. But it is because you can drive the rubber-cored balls so very much further with the iron clubs than you could the gutties. That is the great difference. Ironing range means a considerably longer distance with the rubber-cores than with the solid balls, and the distance gained by taking a brassey instead of a driving mashie or a cleek is as nothing compared with what it used to be. It is very difficult to draw a correct comparison between these courses of St. Andrews and Hoylake, then and now, in respect of the difficulties that each presented to the golfer. The whins at St. Andrews encroached, on what is now either the clear ground of the course, or is dotted only with occasional trappy bunkers amongst which the ball often finds quite a good lie, in such a dense mass that a wandering ball was hardly worth the trouble of looking for among them. At Hoylake the little rushes, which are now scarcely to be regarded as a hazard at all, used to be very dense too, and in the summer and autumn a tough long grass grew among them, so that your ball lay as if in a plover's nest, and sometimes it took you several strokes to get out. It was a horrid hazard. Then at some of the earlier and later holes of the course the remaining posts and rails of the disused racecourse were very vexing. To find yourself tight up against a post was only a little less annoying than to hit it with a full shot and to find your ball come dancing back to you or flying past your head as if it meant to brain you. All these things happened. Then the rabbit holes were more numerous and came farther out on the course. It was about this time that I was moved to much fury in course of a match by seeing my ball lying at the bottom of a burrow, where I could not reach it, and, when I was on the point of dropping another ball with loss of stroke (as was specifically permitted by the local rule regarding rabbit holes), being told, "You mayn't do that--it's a lost ball." "Lost, be d----d," I said. "What d'you mean by lost? Why there it is: you can see it for yourself." "Yes," said the other, "but a ball is lost unless you can garther it"--he was a Scot, with a patriotic accent, and he spoke of the ball as if it were a daisy or other flower. I concluded the round under protest and a cloud of wrath; and, what made the cloud blacker--the Committee upheld the view of the "gartherer." Possibly they may have been right, but certainly I did not think so at the time. CHAPTER XVII THE FIRST GOLF IN AMERICA In the autumn of 1887 I did a very foolish thing: I went to America. I do not by any means imply that it is not an essential part of a liberal education to visit that great country, nor do I mean that it would be any act of foolishness on the part of a golfer to go there now, but I do mean that in my own golfing circumstances, and in the golfing conditions of the States at that time--which was a condition of no golf at all--it was very silly of me to go away from golf for so long. For that is what it involved. I was abroad for several months. At that date there was no golf in the States. I did not touch a club while I was there; and after I came back, after this long while of letting the hand grow unfamiliar with the club, the game never came so easy to me again. From that experience I believe that it may be taken as a maxim by all golfers who have learnt the game as boys, that they run a risk of losing a measure of skill and confidence, which they may never regain, if they do not touch a club for many months together. You see, this game that a man has grown up with, learning it as his muscles grow, so that it is more or less literally true that he has "grown into it," is rather different from the game that he learns later, after his muscles have set. The effect of going away from golf for a long time is that you lose some of these lessons that you have acquired as you grew; you have then to re-learn them, so far as you may, as if they were a new acquisition that you had to take possession of after you have finished growing; and you never acquire quite the same unconscious and instinctive grasp of them. I went to America again the following year. But it did not matter then. The harm had been done; the first and best lessons, or a large number of them, were lost--their teaching laboriously and only partially to be regained. And on that second visit I actually did take out some clubs. It is a condition of things hardly to be realized now, but at that time there was not, to my knowledge, such a thing as a golf club or a golf ball in the United States. Canada had its established Clubs and courses at Quebec and Montreal. Probably somewhere, in secret places, some few Scots were pursuing their national pastime, on very "natural" courses, in the States too: it is impossible to think that it must not have been so. But probably their sanity was shrewdly doubted, and they did not court the public eye. As for "natural" courses, the whole boundless prairies at certain seasons invite the knocking of the golf ball about on them. On this my second visit to America it had been suggested, I think by Mr. "Bob" Purdey, with whom I stayed near Meadowbrook, on Long Island, that I should bring some clubs over and show the people what sort of a game golf was. But I went first to Mexico and subsequently to California, leaving the clubs in New York the while, and when I came back sundry members of the Meadowbrook Club turned out on a certain Sunday to see me give an exhibition show. We cut some holes in the soil, probably with carving knives, and I proceeded to instruct them, by precept and example, as to what golf meant. I cannot think that my exposition was very effective. They did not seem to think that it meant very much. They tried shots for themselves, and the result of those trials was not such as to give them a very exalted opinion of golf. The most favourable criticism that I can recall was that "it might be a good game for Sundays." I do not think it was extravagant praise. I believe that was the first time golf was ever played in the States, though there may, of course, have been these secret Scots, as I have said. However, the Meadowbrook people were so far impressed as to ask me to send them out some clubs, when I got back--which I did, from the shop of Peter Paxton, then at Eastbourne. But what became of those clubs I never heard. Neither they nor my excellent example inspired America with golfing zeal. That great country had to wait before awaking to a true sense of the merits of the great game. But time has its revenges and the awakening has come. Also, at the moment of writing, it has the effect of making England conscious that she must "Wake up"; for that twenty-year-old Mr. Ouimet has just taken the American championship, in a manner that has made history, out of what seemed the securely holding hands of either Ray or Vardon. I think it was in 1888, soon after I came back from America, that I had my first match of any public note with Johnny Laidlay. I think it was the Town Council or some other people anxious to attract golfers to North Berwick--is it conceivable now that there should be a desire to attract more?--that gave some prizes for a scratch tournament open to all amateurs. Johnny Laidlay persuaded me to enter (he was my host for the occasion), and he gave me a good hammering in the final bout. For we both survived till the final, and I remember that, starting out, we both played badly enough for a hole or two. Then I lighted a pipe and smoked it, and it is a sign of how times have changed that one of the Scottish papers, commenting on the match, said, "At this point Mr. Hutchinson lit a pipe and smoked it and actually did not remove it from his mouth while playing the strokes--a thing never seen before in a big match." That seems queer comment at this time of day, when the incense of tobacco curls perpetually upward from the pipe of champion Ray and when the cigarette of Harold Hilton is like the fire that is never quenched. But the soothing of the nerves and accuracy of game that I had hoped to follow from the lighting of that particular pipe did not ensue. Mr. Laidlay found his game, while I was still looking vainly for mine, and he hammered me, if I remember right, pretty easily. The reporters were fairly out after me that day. They criticised the pipe unfavourably, and then one of them recorded a painful incident of the game in the following terse and pregnant sentence: "Here Mr. Hutchinson broke his niblick, his favourite club." I do not know whether this literary gentleman had seen me in bunkers and niblicking out of them so frequently that he inferred the niblick to be the club that I most loved to have in hand; at all events, that was his comment, and it went home. I think they must have had a golfing reporter at this time with a vein of ironic humour about him, for it was then, or nearly then, that one of them wrote about Captain Willy Burn: "Here the Captain hit one of his characteristic shots--far into the whins!" Whether it all was irony or innocence we did not know, for this commentator did his good work by stealth and we never found him out. I was in no way surprised at losing that match with Mr. Laidlay, especially at North Berwick, where he was very strong. But I did lose a match about this time which I had not thought of losing, and by its loss did a little towards the making of golfing history. All history is curiously made. The coming of a little sandy-haired boy from Northam village to do the work that an odd boy does about our house near Northam village is not an incident that looks big with history, but when the little boy's name is known to be J.H. Taylor, the historical importance becomes evident. He left that "odd boy" work and went as a gardener's assistant, where, for a short while, we lost sight of him. But then he was put on as an assistant on the Westward Ho! links in aid of Sowden, the old Californian Forty-niner, who looked after the green, or left it to look after itself. We passed the time of day with him, quite as if we were his equals, with no notion of his future greatness. Then the Northam village players (I hardly know whether their Club was formally instituted by that date) said they would like to play the Royal North Devon Club a match. I was put to play Taylor. I did not think much about the job. I had hardly seen him play a stroke before. Going to the very first hole I remember a shot of his with a cleek: it went low; I thought he had half topped it; but it continued going. It had seemed certain to fall into the bunker guarding the green. But it carried that bunker and lay close to the hole. Again and again I found the same deceptive low-flying shot going a great deal further than I had expected it to. I began to realize then that it was because of his stance, with the ball so very far back towards his right. I also began to realize that I was a hole or two down. I did not play well; really, at that date, I ought to have beaten him. But he was one up with four to play, and then I laid him a stimy. He had two for the half. But instead of putting round, as all ordinary men of experience would, he tried to loft, for the hole, with his ordinary--and his only--flat iron. He just failed: but he holed the next putt, though he was not dead. Finally he beat me--I think at the last hole--and I congratulated him, as in duty bound, adding that when he knew a little more he would not be trying to loft stimies when he was one up and had two for the half. So I said, thinking to be wise, whereas it was I really who did not know--not knowing of what Taylor even then, and even with a flattish iron, was capable in the way of putting stop on the ball. CHAPTER XVIII HOW I LOST THE CHAMPIONSHIP AND PLAYED THE MOST WONDERFUL SHOT IN THE WORLD In 1888 I lost the amateur championship at Prestwick, and I lost it badly. I do not mean by that that I lost it to a bad player. It was Andy Stuart who knocked me out, and for his game I have always had a high respect. But I do not think that either of us played very well in that match. I know that I did not. For one thing (or for two things) I topped two tee-shots running, and one of them was going to the "Himalayas Coming In," which, as all who know Prestwick will realize, is not a good place to choose for a tee-shot "along the carpet." He was three up and five to play, and I worried him down to one up and two to play, but he did the seventeenth hole better than I and finished by laying me a stimy. But I do not think I should have holed the putt anyhow--I was by no means dead--and at all events he won the hole and so the match. And then the next morning, when he was stropping his razor, he cut his hand so severely that it was against the doctor's advice that he played at all, but play he did, and seeing that he was far from his best by reason of this damaged hand and that it was Johnny Ball that he had to play, it is no great wonder that he was defeated; and he had all my sympathy. He had my sympathy by reason both of his damaged hand and of his defeat, but still I did think that if he were going to cut his hand at all, it would have been as well that he should have done so the morning before. In that case I, and not he, might have been up against Johnny on the morrow. I have no reason to look back on that match with pride, but I remember it with special interest, because it had one of the most extraordinary incidents in it that ever did happen in any match at golf. And this notable incident was as follows. Going to the hole after the Himalayas going out, which was much the same then as it is now, save that the green was not levelled up and that the tee-shot probably did not run as far, I sliced my second very badly, right over the hillocks on the right of the green. I went over the ridge, with my caddie, to play the ball, and pitched it over, with a loft, to the place where I thought the green to be. Then I ran up to the top of the ridge, and looked, but could see no ball. I asked then, as I came down over the ridge, where the ball was. There was a small concourse of perhaps a score of spectators. "Oh," they said, "the ball has not come over." "Not come over!" I repeated, filled with astonishment. "Why, I know it has!" As a matter of fact it had been lofted high into the air and both I and the caddie had seen it with the most perfect distinctness. Still, it appeared that it was not there; it almost seemed as if the ordinary operations of Nature's laws had been suspended and the solid gutty had been dissolved into thin air in mid flight. Then, as we all were looking about, in much surprise, a man spoke up. He was a Mr. Kirk, a townsman of St. Andrews and a fine golfer. He took part in the first amateur championship when it was played at St. Andrews, but he had come to this one as a spectator only. He said, "Well--I did think I felt a tug at my pocket." (By this time we all were very much intrigued to imagine what could have happened to the ball.) And at that he looked into the outside breast pocket of his coat; and there the ball lay, on his handkerchief, like an egg in a nest. Has a more wonderful thing ever happened at golf? I, at all events, have never heard of any more extraordinary series of small marvels ever taking place. In the first instance it was wonderful enough that the ball should thus plump down so cleanly and neatly into the pocket at all; then that none of the score or so of watchers should have seen it; next, that not even the man into whose pocket it thus plumped should have noticed it as it came down, imperilling his very nose and eyes; and, finally, that it should have landed so gently that he did not actually realize that anything had struck him--only "fancied he felt something tug at his pocket." Naturally, if it were not for the cloud of witnesses, I should never have ventured to tell the tale. My own character, if I have any, for veracity is not nearly high enough to stand such a strain. These are the facts; and then of course arose the question as to what should be done with the ball. As it happened, it did not arise in a form very acute, because Andy Stuart was well on the green in two and I, in Mr. Kirk's pocket, standing on the edge of the green, in three. We agreed finally that the pocket should be emptied where the pocketer stood, and from there I played out the hole and lost it. It is almost a question whether such a shot as this did not deserve to win the hole. Curiously enough the only other golfer I ever knew who played a ball into a man's pocket is Andy Stuart himself. He hit a full drive right into the coat tail pocket of Lord Lee, the Scottish Lord of Session. But his lordship was very far from being unaware, like Mr. Kirk, of the pocketing. He was quite painfully aware of it. As Andy was at that time at the Scottish Bar, it seems to me that it was a very injudicious stroke for him, as a rising young advocate, to play. The curiosities of that great shot of mine are not exhausted yet. For a full quarter of a century I told that story, saying that not a soul had seen the ball come over the hill, and that, but for Mr. Kirk bethinking himself of the fancied tug at his pocket, I should have had to treat that ball as lost. And then, one day when I was waiting before the Clubhouse at Biarritz, there came up to me one whom I knew by sight only, Colonel Von Donop, of the Royal Engineers. He introduced himself, using as the medium of introduction that stroke and that ball. It appears that he, though I had not known it all those years, had been standing further along the ridge at a point whence he could see both me as I played the shot on the one side and the little crowd of spectators on the other. He saw the ball rise into the air, and also saw it drop, as he thought even at the time, into a spectator's pocket. He also saw the discussion and the search which took place when I came over the hill, and when I replied with some indignation to the statement that the ball had not gone over also. He was just about to come forward to explain what he had seen when Mr. Kirk found the ball and the incident terminated. It was the last and crowning act in the curious comedy, that I should discover, twenty-five years later, and in the south of France, that there had been an unsuspected spectator of that funny little episode in the West of Scotland. Johnny Ball, thus defeating Andy Stuart, found himself in the final face to face with that very frequent foe, in this and after years, Johnny Laidlay. The latter had been playing very finely: he had won a tournament with a good entry at Carnoustie, and had picked up many medals in the Lothians, but he could not hold Johnny Ball in that final. The Sassenach seemed to have the better of the match all the way and won quite comfortably. The Hoylake folk had comfort at length in the long deferred fulfilment of their great hopes for the local hero, and certainly they have not to complain that he has disappointed them since. There was something very attractive about the Prestwick golf at that time. Nor has it lost that special attraction since. The West of Scotland did not then, nor does it now, take the same general interest in golf as the East, but there was a very zealous and very friendly society of golfers belonging to the Prestwick club. It was the country of the Houldsworths, the iron people, who took the keenest interest in golf. Mr. William Houldsworth, known as Big Bill, was most kind to me when I was a boy at Westward Ho! He made frequent pilgrimages to that green. He was my first host at Prestwick, at his house of Mount Charles, some miles out, and I think looked on it as some disgrace that, coming from his house, I should lose the championship. At Prestwick itself too, looking out on the fourteenth green, lived Mr. Whigham, the father of a family of great golfers, both the brothers and the sisters. And about the whole course there was, and still is, an air of friendliness. It is not great golf, but it is exceedingly pleasant golf and also it is exceedingly difficult golf. In the days of the "gutty" ball it was great, as well as good, golf, but the golf there has never, to me, worn the very business-like aspect of the East Coast golf. I do not say that it is any the worse for that--on the contrary. It lies in a district of more kindly climate and more rich pasturage than the East, and I remember one open championship there when Willie Fernie, always a fellow with a ready jest, came in humorously lamenting that he had lost his ball twice "on the putting green." It was a sad grassy year that season, and if you might not actually lose the ball on the putting green itself, you might, and you did, spend many a minute in search for it only just off the green. No mowing could overtake the growth. And of course Prestwick has all the picturesqueness of the Clyde estuary--the Kyles of Bute, Arran and the rest of the professional natural beauties of that coast--for its setting. CHAPTER XIX JOHNNY BALL AND JOHNNY LAIDLAY I have not said very much, or not as much as the subject deserves, about Johnny Ball as a golfer; have not attempted any appreciation of his game. He would not, as I have indicated already before, do himself any kind of justice at the beginning of his career, when he was off his native Hoylake heath, and this failure was a source of bitter disappointment to his friends at home. They began to be afraid whether he ever would make that mark which they knew his golfing talents ought to put within his achievement. They need not have feared. So now that I have brought the course of this faithful history to the point at which he and the Scottish Johnny--Laidlay--came together in the final of the amateur championship, it seems as if both of them had at length "arrived." They have set their names on the scroll of Fame and will grave them constantly deeper as the years go. The one, to be sure, was destined to perform many more deeds of glory than the other, and the English Johnny to win a big balance of their matches, but they were in constant competition with one another, and for four successive years at this time one or other of them was amateur champion. It was not indeed until after that great tournament had been going for six years that another name than theirs and my own was inscribed on the championship cup. [Illustration: John Ball. As a Yeoman (S. African War).] [Illustration: _From "Golf and Golfers" (Longmans, Green & Co.)_ J.E. Laidlay. Characteristic throw forward of the body at the finish of approach stroke.] I may have suffered--probably I have--under many illusions with regard to my ability to play golf, but I never so deluded myself as to suppose I was as good a player as Johnny Ball. I believe I am right in thinking that Johnny Laidlay has just the same opinion of him, in comparison with himself. He, too, I believe, would put Johnny Ball on a pedestal by himself, and leave him there, as the best match-player that we ever have had among the amateurs. I say match-player with deliberation, for of all amateurs by far the best score-player that we have seen is, in my judgment (and I cannot believe that anyone is likely to think differently), Johnny Ball's younger schoolfellow at Hoylake, Harold Hilton. But of course his is rather a younger story, and so, too, is that of Jack Graham, another Hoylake prodigy, of Freddy Tait, of Bobby Maxwell and others. Still, I make no exception of any of those later ones when I claim that Johnny Ball is the best amateur that has ever been seen, for a match. It did not need that he should win the open championship and the amateur championship eight times, in order to prove this. I knew it well, even before he ever won either championship once. It has always amused me, as it has amused Johnny Laidlay too (we have compared notes about it), to hear people in some of these latter years saying, as Johnny Ball won championship after championship, that "he is as good as he ever was." But the one who has always been most of all amused by these statements is Johnny Ball himself. Perhaps the most humorous thing about it is that they are invariably statements made by those who never saw Johnny Ball at all when he really was at his best. Those who did see him then know better than to make them. I know that I never started out to play a match with Johnny Ball without the full consciousness that if we both played our game I was bound to be beaten, or, rather, that it could only be by an accident if I should win. It is a feeling I have never had, when I was playing tolerably well, with any other amateur, except when playing Bobby Maxwell over Muirfield. But then I cannot pretend that I was playing at all as strongly as I once might have played when I had to encounter that great man. Still I do not suppose I could ever have held him at Muirfield. He was not quite as terrible elsewhere. Curiously enough I have had rather the better of the exchanges, in the so-called "big" matches, amateur championship matches, and the like, that I have played with Johnny Ball. He would sometimes miss a short putt--in fact, I always rated him as good for a couple of missed short putts in the round--and that just gave one a chance to come in. But as to "friendly" matches--though I am sorry to say I have had but few with him--I think he has beaten me every one. It is true they were always on his native Hoylake. With Johnny Laidlay, on the other hand, of whom I never had the same consciousness of being in the hands of a stronger man as I had with the English Johnny, I have had the worse of it in the "big" matches. I beat him, I remember, in an international match, but he beat me at least twice in the amateur championship, and I have not a win from him to my score in that encounter. Yet in the "friendly" matches--and we have played a great many, for I have very often been the guest of his kind hospitality, both at North Berwick and elsewhere--I do not think that I have come off at all the worse. But Johnny Ball, at his best, and especially at Hoylake, was a terror. For one thing he was so very long. Generally driving with a hook, the ball carried very far and then set to work to run till it made you tired watching it. And then he had that wonderful long approach with his brassey, banging the ball right up to the hole, with a concave trajectory--you know what I mean--the ball starting low and rising towards the end of its flight, then dropping nearly perpendicularly, and with no run. It is a shot that I have seen played in any perfection only by three players, and all young ones--Johnny Ball, Hugh Kirkaldy and Jamie Allan. Only the first is still alive, and he does not, probably cannot, play the stroke now. I believe it is a stroke that was easier with the gutta-percha balls than with the modern rubber-hearted things. At all events no one plays the stroke now. Perhaps that foolishly named "push-stroke" of Vardon's comes most near to it, and now and again Taylor gives us something of the sort: but this is with iron clubs, not with wood. In the old days Bob Ferguson had the stroke, with his irons, played up to the plateaux greens at North Berwick with great accuracy; but he did not achieve it so well with the wood. Then Johnny could drive that gutta-percha ball most ferociously with his cleek. I remember Colonel Hegan Kennard saying to him, as he and I were playing a match, "I wish you could teach me to drive as far with my driver as you can with your cleek." Johnny had just driven a huge cleek shot to the end hole. And Kennard was a very fair scratch player of the day. Johnny was full of resource too. When you had him, as you thought, in a tight place, he would bring off some _tour de force_, with a great hook or slice, and lose very little. He delighted, too, in an evil and windy day: the harder it blew the better he could play and the more he enjoyed controlling his ball through the storm. The short game was where he gave you your chances. If you could live with him at all through the green and up to the hole you need not despair of stealing a shot or two back from him, now and then, on, and from just off, the putting green. And that was the very last point at which you might think to have any advantage over that other, the Scottish Johnny. He never could quite trust his wooden clubs. The occasional hook or slice was apt to put in a sudden appearance, after he had been playing perfectly straight for a number of holes. On the putting green he improved very much after I had known him for a year or two. But always, from first to last in a golfing career which has been crammed full of glorious achievement, once he came within ironing reach of the green there was no man, till Taylor came, that was his equal. That is my humble opinion. Bob Ferguson, who was really his teacher, on that fine old nine-hole course at Musselburgh, may have been even better at the full iron bangs up to the hole: he had the concave flight and the straight drop which are worth anything in the approach; but Johnny Laidlay was better than his master at the little chip shots. He learned them, no doubt, at North Berwick, where you are undone, if you cannot play them, and where the other man is undone if you can. And, then, Johnny Laidlay was a very fine finisher in a tight match. How many times I have known him do that last hole at North Berwick in three--a hole hardly to be reached from the tee and guarded by a very tricky valley--when the match depended on it I should be sorry to say. I always thought his stance, as he addressed his ball all "off the left leg," an ungraceful one, and am inclined to think it the cause of the occasional uncertainty of his driving, but his manipulation, by which I mean his hand and finger work, of his iron clubs was beautifully delicate. I do not think he had given much thought to the way in which the different strokes were played--the slice and the pull and the rest of them--but there was not, so far as I know, a stroke or a subtlety with the iron clubs that he was not master of. His clubs were all curiously thin in the grip, and one of his great theories was that the club should be held as lightly as possible. There is not a doubt that most men can put more cut on the ball with a lightly than with a tightly held club, but further than that, there is not any very general recognition, so far as I know, of a virtue in the light grip. After I lost the amateur championship at Prestwick in 1888, these two Johnnies, the English and the Scottish, held it between them, winning two apiece for four years, so that it was not until Mr. Peter Anderson won, in the seventh year of its institution, that we let it go out of the hands of one of the three. Neither Johnny Laidlay nor I were fated to win again, but as for the other Johnny, there seems to be no saying when he will be done with it. To be sure he has a few years' advantage. CHAPTER XX A CHAPTER OF ODDS AND ENDS In 1886 my father took a house at Eastbourne, and I was no longer at Westward Ho! as constantly as before, although a frequent visitor there at the house of Claud Carnegie. He and I used to have many matches on terms that are rather to be commended as a means for bringing together two players of different handicaps. We used to play level, but I had to give him five shillings before starting and at the end he paid me back a shilling for every hole that I was up. It came, of course, to the same thing as giving five holes up, but it is rather a more amusing way of stating these odds. The five shillings puts me in mind of a very much more gambling match that was played about that time, when I was at Hoylake. There was at that date a very festive company of Edinburgh golfers going about the various links under the leadership of old Mr. Robert Clark, who edited the great book on golf. There was Sir Walter Simpson, who also wrote a great golf book and was the son of the doctor who discovered the blessed uses of chloroform, Hall Blyth, Valentine Haggard, Cathcart, Jack Innes, and a few more--all, I fear, except Hall Blyth, gone over to the majority.[4] Five of these warriors started out one day at Hoylake to play a five-ball match, for a fiver a hole, and--this was the prudent stipulation of Mr. Robert Clark, in his ancient wisdom--they were to settle up at the end of each hole. The man who happened to fall into bad trouble would thus have to part with four fivers on the putting green, so it must have needed a well-filled notebook to make a man sure of living through to the finish without bankruptcy. I had suggested that a six-ball match would be really more fun than a five-ball, and that I was willing to make the sixth; but the well-meant suggestion was not taken in good part. I forget the ultimate result of the encounter. Naturally I was at Eastbourne a good deal, as I had no other home than my father's, and I arrived just at the time of the first laying out of the original nine-hole course there. Mayhewe was the most active of its originators, and he and I planned it together. It implies no reflection on the designers of the later eighteen-hole course to say that the old nine-holes were better than any of the later developments. It is a very different problem laying out nine, and laying out eighteen holes on almost the same circumscribed piece of ground; for the later additions to the area do not amount to a great deal. It is amazing to me now to think how ignorant we were in those days of the proper treatment of inland putting greens. We could plan the rest of the course well enough. But the great idea was to keep on rolling and rolling and rolling--the heavier the roller the better--until we had the surface just round the hole so slick that if there was any gradient at all the ball would not stay near the hole even if you placed it there by hand. There was (there still is) a green called "Paradise"--and no green was ever named more aptly according to the classic principle of _lucus a non lucendo_. If you were below the hole, and below it on this green you were sure to be, because the ball would not rest above, you might putt up to the hole, and if you missed the hole the ball would come trickling down to you again, and so you might go on putting "till the cows came home." By which time there might probably be a little dew which possibly might allow your ball to come to rest in the hole's vicinity. But long before that you would have come to the conclusion that golf, on Paradise green, was not a good game. One device used to be to cut some jagged raw edges to stick out on the ball's surface, before driving off the tee for this hole. Thus jagged, the ball would not fly properly, but it was better to lose a shot, owing to this jaggedness, through the green, than to lose twenty on the putting green. On the rough edges of its scars the ball would come to rest even in Paradise. However, this is a picture of that green at its most grievous worst. It was not always thus, and on the whole the course, with its drives over a great chalk pit and over the corners of one or two high woods, gave us great fun and was not a bad test of golf. Peter Paxton was the professional, a humorous little fellow and a wonderful putter on those tricky greens. I remember, when he sent us his credentials, he added the comment "and, Sir, I drink nothing stronger than cold water." I liked the "cold," as if he feared that water with the chill off might go to his head. He grew braver later. This course at Eastbourne, be it understood, was technically of the "inland" kind, though at the seaside. It was of the chalk-down soil; and it was among the first of the new supply of inland courses which the ever spreading vogue of golf demanded. Still we looked on these inland greens as giving us at best only a poor substitute for the real game. We had yet to learn of what inland soil, cleverly treated with an eye to golf, might be capable. The only inland Club which was at this time of any weight in the general golfing councils was the Royal Wimbledon, which had seceded from the London Scottish, building itself a club-house at the opposite end of the common. Some of the golfing leaders of the day, such as Henry Lamb and Purves and others, made this their headquarters, and there they were already hatching schemes which were ultimately to lead to all that great development of golf in the East Neuk, so to say, of Kent, and at first were to take form in the St. George's Club and links, at Sandwich. Purves, with characteristic, energy, was scouring the coast of England in these years, looking for links as by Nature provided, and it was here, at this point, that he had his great success. Of course there was much palaver and indecision, as well as prolonged negotiations with the landowner--or his trustees, seeing that Lord Guildford was then a minor--before any real move could be made; but when it was made it meant a very great deal for London golfers and gave an immense drive forward to the already fast booming boom of English golf. In 1886 Mr. Du Maurier, the _Punch_ artist, was at St. Andrews, already, as I remember, in large goggles and having trouble with his eyes, and he then drew a picture of "the Golf Stream," as he called it--a succession of pilgrims of all sorts, sexes and sizes, making their way to St. Andrews. Will it be believed that this was the first golfing picture in _Punch_; that it was the very first mention, as I think, of golf in a comic paper? What would _Punch_ do to-day, we may ask with wonder and dismay, if all the humorous opportunities which golf gives its artists and its writers were withdrawn from them? They would feel impoverished indeed. A year or two later, when I was editing the Badminton Book on Golf, Mr. Harry Furniss showed me a letter he had just received from Mr. Frank Burnand, then staying at Westward Ho! and then editing _Punch_. Harry Furniss was, and is, a golfer; Frank Burnand was not. "I think you would like this place," wrote the author of _Happy Thoughts_--"there are fine golfing sands (_sic_) here." Therein he expressed an even happier thought than he knew, for Westward Ho! at that moment happened to be suffering from a considerable drought, and a heavy gale had scattered the dry sand far and wide out of the bunkers, so that "golfing sands" gave rather an apt description. The Badminton Library of Sport was then coming out, volume by volume, and delighting all to whom Sports and Pastimes made appeal. I do not wish to bring too great discredit on a very eminent firm of publishers, but it is a fact, sad as it is true, that when I first waited on them, obedient to their summons, in Paternoster Row, and they broached to me the subject of a golf book in their series, they made the very shocking suggestion that it should be included in the same volume with other Scottish sports, such as skating, curling and perhaps tossing the caber. They did not know, they said, when I met them with some mild expostulation, whether the game was "of sufficient importance to carry a volume to itself." I must do them the justice to say that they quickly saw and repented of their error, and I believe that ultimately the golf volume did better than any other in all that popular series. While I was doing some of the writing for this book, Sir Ralph Payne Galway was writing the Shooting volumes, and we were both staying with poor John Penn at his house in Carlton House Terrace. One night John Penn asked Mr. Purdey, the gun-maker, to dinner, to talk guns with Sir Ralph; and these two sat long over the dessert, after the rest of us had left the table, talking of loads and bores and so on. The next morning, while we were at breakfast, a four-wheeler drove up to the door, and Sir Ralph, looking out, said in dismay, "By Jove, John, I believe that under the influence of your champagne I must have ordered a whole 'bus load of guns from Purdey." We looked out, and the four-wheeler was filled, from roof to floor, with guns. It appeared, however, that they were not all on order, but had merely been sent round by Mr. Purdey for inspection. This, however, is not golf; nor was Sir Ralph then, I think, a golfer, in spite of the good service he has since rendered to the dynamics of the golf stroke and in spite of the excellence of the "P.G." ball. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 4: Re-reading this, in 1919, even Hall Blyth's name has to be added to those that have gone.] CHAPTER XXI A MORE LIBERAL POLICY AT ST. ANDREWS In those days Professor Tait used to be a great deal at St. Andrews, in the intervals, which were wide, of his professional duties in Edinburgh. He used to play a round of golf, generally by himself, generally talking to the ball all the time, as if asking it why it behaved as it did, and very frequently laughing at it--for he was essentially a laughing philosopher--long before the ordinary golfer had his breakfast. Six o'clock, it was said, was his hour for starting, and the rest of the day, when he came back, he had at his own command for study, of which he did an enormous amount, for tobacco, of which he consumed a mighty deal, and for chaff and talk, of which he was most genially fond. He was a lover of humanity, and not even the biggest fool on the links (which is a liberal order) was made conscious of his folly when it came up against the Professor's learning. He used to let me come into his laboratory in Edinburgh, and in return used to employ me in driving balls at a revolving plate of clay and all sorts of experiments. Poor young Freddie was not yet of the stature to drive very fiercely, though he was already fiercely keen. He was at school at Sedbergh, in Yorkshire, where Fred Lemarchand, who had been at Oxford with me, was a master. Lemarchand putted the weight for the University, being a very strong fellow, and developed into a very useful golfer. And he, apparently, made it his business to get "rises" out of young Freddie, telling him in chaff that the Scots did not know how to play golf: that Johnny Ball and I were better than their best amateurs, and so on. I have always wondered whether this chaff helped to incite Freddie to become the great golfer that he was. Golf, to be sure, was bred in him--his eldest brother Jack was a fine player--but perhaps Lemarchand's chaff gave him an added zeal. I remember him first as a stalwart, very cheery little boy hitting a ball about with very slight respect for human life or limb. It was about this time that I moved a resolution at a general meeting of the Royal and Ancient Club that their local rules, such as that touching the dreary palisaded cabbage patch magniloquently styled the Stationmaster's Garden, should be taken out of the body of the rules and be printed under a separate heading, in order that the many Clubs which were being established in divers places might adapt more easily for their own use the rules capable of universal employment, and might make their own separate local rules besides. This was passed, and was a useful move for those other Clubs, which heretofore had included in their own rules regulations dealing with a Stationmaster's Garden, a railway and other "amenities" which had no existence at all on their courses. And a little later a Committee, of which I was a member, was appointed under Lord Kingsburgh to revise and amend the rules. We worked hard at the job and evolved something that we thought very admirable, whereupon Sir Alexander Kinloch, on the presentation of our work to the general meeting of the Club, proposed "that the Committee be thanked for their labours and that the result be put into the fire." I think if it had been any other than Sir Alexander that had brought forward the proposal we should have been very angry, but we all knew him and liked him too well to mind. He was rather a specially licensed person with a knack of putting things into words which might give offence if anyone chose to take it. "What's the good," he said once, to another general meeting, "of all this talk about first-class players? There are only three first-class amateurs, Johnny Ball, Johnny Laidlay and Horace Hutchinson." That is as it may be; but evidently it was not a remark that was likely to be received with universal favour. Sir Alexander, father of the present baronet, Sir David, and also of Frank,[5] the writer on golf, was not a first-class player by any means, but he had all the qualities that are connoted by that phrase which was much more often heard then than now--a "first-rate partner in a foursome." He was one of those who liked his caddie to point out to him the line of the putt. Taylor, the one-armed man, who became the caddie-master at St. Andrews later, used to carry for him, and there is a picture of him in the Badminton Book showing the line. We used to be allowed to do a great deal in the way of brushing loose impediments, often more imaginary than real, out of the line with the club: there was no rule against the caddies indicating the line by a club laid right down on that line, and a cunning caddie would often select the roughest spot on the line on which to lay it--with the result that when the club was lifted again that spot was just a little less rough than it had been before. Some of these good old "partners in a foursome" were not at all pleased when the rule was so changed that the caddie was not permitted to touch the line in giving this indication. At first the modification was only to the extent of requiring that the line should be pointed out only by the end of the shaft of the club, and not by the head, but this too was liable to abuse, for the effect often was to leave a little mark on the turf, which served as a guide for the eye. I do not know whether our general recommendations regarding the rules were actually consumed by fire, as advised by Sir Alexander Kinloch, but at all events they were not passed. They were remitted back to Lord Kingsburgh, as a committee of one, to revise, and he brought them back with one only, so far as I know, modification of importance. It was a modification of great importance to the slow player and the short driver, and probably is largely responsible for the modern congestion of greens. It is also responsible, no doubt, for the saving of some lives; but they would be, at best, the lives of short drivers, who, perhaps, do not matter. There used, even of old, to be a rule that parties behind should not drive off the tee until those in front had played their seconds. Obviously this put people who could drive only a hundred and fifty yards very much at the mercy of others coming behind who could drive two hundred yards. In the new version of the rules, according to Lord Kingsburgh, the parties behind had to wait to drive off, not only till those in front had played their seconds, but also until they were out of range. Manifestly that gave the shorter drivers a much better chance for their lives. At the same time it delivered the longer drivers behind right into their hands. They could be as slow as they pleased, and had no fear, under the law, of being harassed by those who came after them. Lord Kingsburgh himself was a short driver, and of course sympathized with his kind. I imagine he made golfing life much more pleasant for himself for the remainder of his days by this enactment. For his version, which altered the old in hardly any other respect than this, was passed by the meeting. There were more short drivers than there are now, in the days of the solid "gutty" ball. The best of the players more or less resident at St. Andrews in the later eighties were Leslie Balfour, Jim Blackwell (it was extraordinary to what extent he lost his game after a residence of some years in South Africa), Mure Ferguson, Andy Stuart and David Lamb. Leslie I have always regarded as one of the soundest golfers I ever met. "If you're playing your best you'll beat him, but if you're playing anything below your best he'll beat you." This used to be Johnny Laidlay's verdict on him, and it always seemed to me to express the reliable quality of Leslie's game very well. I cannot but think that Mure Ferguson became a better golfer in the later years than he was in these early days at St. Andrews, but it is rather difficult for me to do justice to the great game that he had in him because he seldom happened to play his best against me. I have seen him play great matches. In the amateur championship at Hoylake he was in the final with Johnny Ball, and though that champion of champions was four up at one moment of the match, Mure had him square with two holes to go--a great performance! Then Johnny went out for a great second shot to the then seventeenth (now the sixteenth) hole, right across the corner of the field, and so gained the green with his second; and that stroke virtually settled the match. Johnny asked me afterwards if I thought he was right in going for it. All I had to say was, "Absolutely, if you felt that you could do it." It all lay in that--in this confidence in himself. And no man knows Hoylake distances better. No doubt Mure was, and even is, a fine match-player, especially a fine finisher of those few last holes when the match is to be decided by them. David Lamb, brother of Henry, who has been often mentioned, was a great player in his day, but he could not make much of the game unless all was going right with him. And the quality of match-playing depends very largely, as I think, on the ability to make something of the game (if possible sufficient to avert defeat) when things are not going kindly. But of all these St. Andrews' players, just a little the best of the bunch, in my opinion, was Andy Stuart at that particular moment. His golfing day was rather a short one, but few folks realize how great a player he was, when at his best. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 5: Frank Kinloch, as gallant a golfer of his class as ever held a club, has died since this was written.] CHAPTER XXII THE FIRST AMATEUR WIN OF THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP In 1889, having, as aforesaid, exhibited to the Meadowbrook Club, on Long Island, a specimen of what they were good enough to say "might be a very good game for Sundays," I returned to Great Britain a brief while before the amateur championship and went up to St. Andrews, very short of practice, to take part in it. The second or third round brought me up against Johnny Ball, and I put up a very poor fight against him. He was playing respectably enough--not more, for he never has been a real lover of St. Andrews--but I know that he had some satisfaction in thus getting back on me a bit of what was his due. I know that he had a little of this feeling because Johnny Laidlay told me that Hilton said to him, as we started off, "If there is one man that Johnny Ball would like to beat in the amateur championship, it's Horace Hutchinson." So he had his wish, by some four or five holes, and it was at this same championship, I think, that we first began to have an idea how sore a trouble Hilton was going to be to us in the years to come. For he was playing Johnny Laidlay, who was then at just about the best of his game--which is saying much--and he stuck to Johnny like a man, though he was hardly more than a boy, and Johnny confessed to me afterwards that he acquired a great respect for Hilton's play from that time forward. Now the outstanding feature of that meeting was, beyond all possible question, the match between the two Johnnies, Laidlay and Ball. It was not the final match, but probably it decided the final result. They halved the round. Then, setting forth for extra holes, they halved the first of these--and not too creditably, if the truth be told, for I think the figure was five apiece. But the second hole they both played like tigers. They had two good tee shots, Johnny Laidlay's being a yard or two the longer. So Johnny Ball had to play. He took his cleek. Now to reach that second hole in those days, when the ground was not so keen and it was a gutty ball that had to be dealt with, with an iron club, at all was no easy matter; but Johnny's shot looked a beauty. I judged it, as it ran over the gradients, after pitching, to be as near perfection as a shot could be, and to be resting very near the hole. Johnny Laidlay then had to play; he, too, took a cleek; he, too, played a shot as near perfect, as it seemed to me, as might be. My only doubt was whether it was quite strong enough, whether it would quite hold its way over the undulations, whether it might not possibly die away, even towards the bunkers on the left, a little short of the green. I was, as events proved, wrong in my estimate of both shots. Johnny Laidlay's had just the strength to take the undulations at the right curve: it lay on the green quite near the hole. Johnny Ball's had been a shade too strong: it had even over-run the green and was in the bunker, just beyond. Of course that was the end. No doubt it was a most unlucky shot; no doubt it was a shot that deserved to win, rather than lose, a championship. But I do not mean, saying this, to imply that there was any luck in Johnny Laidlay's winning that match and that championship. His shot was perfection. But Johnny Ball's was very perfect too. It must have been given an unduly running fall. However, such is golf, and such is life. Then Johnny Laidlay had to play Leslie Balfour in the final, and beat him, as he really was likely to do, if both played their game. Gallant player as Leslie was, Johnny had all the advantage of the years on his side. Yet the time was to come, and many years later, when Leslie actually should win the championship, beating Johnny in the final, and in a very wonderful manner, as shall be told in its due place in the story. Now all this while I have said mighty little about the open championship, because really the golfing world in general took little interest enough in it at that time. It was regarded as virtually an affair of the professionals. Now and then a few of us amateurs took part in it, but it was with scarcely an idea of possible success. And then, all at once, something happened, in 1890, which put the open championship within the possible grasp of the amateur, and therewith the general interest in that great competition became at once very much more vivid. Johnny Ball had won the amateur championship that year at Hoylake, defeating Johnny Laidlay in the final. My own part in the contest was an ignominious one, for I allowed myself to be defeated rather weakly by Johnny Laidlay at the last hole after being one up with two to play. I missed a short putt at the last hole, of which the memory is still painful. I was playing fairly well that year, notwithstanding, and went to Prestwick for the open championship--began by missing a very holable putt at the first hole and continued in a like vein throughout the two rounds. So that was the end of me. And then I, having finished my futile efforts, heard that Johnny Ball, who was still out, was doing terrible things. I went out to meet him, and as he reeled off hole after hole in the right figure it became apparent that "bar accidents" he was going to do the most terrible thing that had ever yet been done in golf--he, as an amateur, was going to win the open championship. Dr. Purves was hurrying along at my elbow as we went, with the gallery, towards the sixteenth hole. "Horace," he said to me, in a voice of much solemnity, "this is a great day for golf." It was. Johnny was playing with Willy Campbell, poor Willy Campbell, splendid player, most gallant of match-fighters, certainly deserving of championship honours and only missing them on the last occasion of the championship being played at Prestwick by one of those fatal accidents, very near home, bar which, as aforesaid, Johnny Ball was bound to win the championship of 1890. But poor Willy on that occasion got heavily bunkered; lost his head a little and perhaps his temper more than a little. He had strokes to spare; but he wasted them hammering in that bunker, and when I came into Charlie Hunter's shop at Prestwick half an hour later I saw a sad sight. Willy Campbell was sitting on an upturned bucket on one side of the door, his caddie had a similar humble seat on the other side of the door, and both were weeping bitterly. This, however, is a digression into a vale of tears. Johnny Ball did not digress into any such vale. He continued the scoring of the right figures and accomplished the great feat, for an amateur, of winning the open championship. It was a win which made a difference. It seemed at once to bring the open championship within the practical horizon of the amateur for all years to come. It had broken a spell. Incidentally it may be noted that it put Johnny Ball's name higher than any other's had ever been, for he held the championship of the amateurs and of the professionals at the same time. And what interested me much at the moment was the attitude of the professionals towards the result. I had expected that they would feel rather injured by seeing the championship which they had been used to regard as theirs going to an amateur. To my surprise that did not appear to disconcert them in the least. What they did resent, however, so far as resentment may be carried within the limits of perfectly good sportsmanship, was that it should be won by an Englishman. You see, it was not only the first time that it had ever been won by any other than a professional, but also the first time it ever had been won by any other than a Scot. That is a fact which will strike the reader with astonishment now perhaps, when the poor Scots must have become fairly well inured to Englishmen annexing the championship. Taylor and Vardon, to say nothing of Harold Hilton, have taught them to grin and bear it as best they may. But up to that time a Scot had ever been open champion of the game of Scotland, and Scotland did not much like another taking it. So that was "a great day for golf," as Dr. Purves had truly said to me. It gave an added interest to all further competitions for this open championship; for what an amateur had once done, it seemed as if an amateur might do again, and thus the active interest was no longer confined to the professionals. The amateurs became at once something more than mere lookers on. There was only one man who did not seem to realize that Johnny Ball had done a big thing, and that was Johnny Ball. A week or so later he was playing a friendly match at Hoylake, and just as he was starting a stranger came up to him and said, "Can you please tell me, is the open champion playing here to-day?" and Johnny answered, "Yes, I believe he is." On which the stranger started out at score over the links in search of this "open champion," whom, presumably, he expected to recognize by some special halo set about his brow if he should come across him. Willie Park, fine all-round golfer and magnificent putter, was the previous holder of the championship, which he had won in 1889 at Musselburgh; and that was the last occasion on which this open championship ever was played on that excellent old nine-hole course. Just at this time the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers migrated down to Muirfield, and that green, instead of Musselburgh, became the third championship arena, the other two, at that date, being St. Andrews and Prestwick. CHAPTER XXIII GOLF ON THE CONTINENT AND IN THE CHANNEL ISLANDS In 1890 I took rooms in London, near a studio, and begun the serious study of anatomy and sculpture, with the idea of taking up sculpture as a profession. It was an idea which conflicted a good deal with the whole-souled devotion to golf. But following an attack of influenza, I went out to Biarritz in the winter and there found some of the most curious and amusing golf to be played that a man could meet with--up and down immense cliffs, in lies that were unspeakably bad, and yet, withal, the whole making, by some extraordinary means, not only an interesting species of golf, but also a species that has produced some fine players. Massy was then a boy there, going out in the sardine boats when he was not at golf, and thus gaining a perfect indifference to stormy weather which has been very valuable to him in his after life at golf. The storms on the Basque coast are not to be beaten: they are scratch, or even _plus_, as tempests. Then Lord Kilmaine gave that Cup for foursome match competition between Biarritz and Pau, which has been the occasion of grand fun every year since. We had a terrific match on the first occasion of its playing. Eric Hambro and I--he was only a boy then, though a big one--played Johnny Low and poor Bobby Boreel, for Pau. We were any number of holes up--I forget how many, but the result looked a dead certainty--and then at one hole we put three shots running out of bounds. That was the beginning of our undoing. Hole after hole slipped away, and I know that it was only by a kindly dispensation of Providence that we even halved that match, which we had reckoned as safely in our pockets. And in playing off the tie, I think (I am not sure) that we were beaten.[6] [Illustration: The Chasm on the old Biarritz Course.] [Illustration: Arnaud Massy.] But the result of these matches mattered little. What did matter was the admirable fun we had out of them, the going and coming, to and from Pau and Biarritz, the entertaining, the mutual compliments, the eating and drinking. All the amenities of the match were so pleasant; for, with the foursome for the cup, was played, at the same time, a team match, of sides representing the two places. Some humorous incidents nearly always occurred to make us all happy. After I married, my wife, walking in the gallery, would often hear delightful comments on my play and other qualities, and one or two of the most pleasant of these were culled in these Pau and Biarritz matches. On one occasion I had Roller, the old Surrey cricketer, as my partner. He was not playing with very great confidence, and my wife overheard one man in the gallery say to another: "Old Roller seems a bit nervous, doesn't he?" To which the other replied, "Well, you'd be nervous, too, if you were playing with Horace Hutchinson." "Why?" asked the first man, innocently. "Because he's got such a devil of a temper" was the reply. That is the sort of comment which it is most unfortunate that a wife should overhear. A failing common in our family is that of going white-haired at a comparatively early age. I began to put on that "crown of a virtuous life" when I was no more than sixteen. Partly on that account I have usually had the credit of being some years older than I am, and the golfing reporter, with the usual unconscious humour of his kind, began to write of me as "the veteran" at the age of thirty-five. One of the most constant habitués of Biarritz was the fine old sportsman Mr. Corrance, in his day the best shot in Norfolk, and, besides, a fine fisherman, billiard player and expert at all sports and pastimes demanding quick harmony of hand and eye. In the course of one of these Pau and Biarritz matches, when I was playing for the seaside place and we were not going very strongly, Mr. Corrance found himself walking beside my wife. He knew her quite well, but for the moment had forgotten her name, and at once began to discuss with her the chances of the match. "The mistake is, you know," he said, "playing Horace Hutchinson. He was a good player once, a very good player; but he's too old now"--I think I was thirty-eight at the time--"they ought to have put in a young man." One of the attractions of returning year by year to Biarritz was to note the constantly increasing skill and power of Massy. Just off the green at Biarritz the course was very loose and gritty. The accurate approach was most difficult to play. Massy, of his own genius, had developed the playing of the stroke very perfectly, and very curiously. He used to swing the mashie very far back, in proportion to the distance that the ball had to go, and to let it come back to the ball very slowly, with very loose wrist. It is a stroke quite of his own invention, so far as I know, and I never saw anyone else play it quite in the same way nor as accurately. And out of the ranks of the Biarritz caddies came other good and great players, such as Gassiat and that Daugé of whom Braid declares that he can drive a ball to carry as far as his (Braid's) ball will go with run and all. It seems a large order, but no doubt this Frenchman is a wonder. On the way home from Biarritz we used sometimes to take a rest at other French golfing places, and most delightful was Dinard, where the course goes out beside a sparkling sea. It was good golf and beautiful. And on one occasion we took the Channel Islands on our way, and there my wife had yet another chance of hearing pleasant things said of me. Stuart Anderson was at Jersey. He was son of the English clergyman whom we have all known at North Berwick. A match was arranged--I think with some little money on it, though I had none--that I should play him thirty-six holes; and coming out in the train from St. Heliers to Gorey, where the links are, my wife heard some one say to another, discussing the match, "I hope Anderson beats that fellow Hutchinson; he swaggers so." However, on that occasion, I escaped the salutary chastisement. I played fairly steadily, and after a while Stuart Anderson broke up a little and let me win pretty easily. The course at Jersey is a worthy school for those great golfers, the Vardons, Ray and so on that it has sent out since; but at that time the one who gave most promise was Renouf. He was not more than a boy, but he was a demon putter. I had for caddie at Jersey a very small and very stolid little boy. Most of the Jersey folk are bi-lingual, speaking English and French indifferently, but this little boy seemed to have no tongue at all; I could not get a word out of him. But towards the end of the round there is, or there was, a hole which was just to be reached by an extra long drive from the tee. I made a very fine drive to this green, and the ball, as we came up, proved to be stone dead, just six inches to the right of the hole. And then this astonishing little boy did open his mouth, and, still with the solemnity of a cod-fish on his face, ejaculated this comment on what was perhaps the very finest stroke I ever played in my life--"Too much to the roight!" It was perfectly just criticism. The shot was "too much to the roight"--by six inches, at the end of a very long drive. Had it not been so, the ball would have been in the hole. I do not know to this day whether that little boy was a humourist of the very finest and dryest--really of the _extra sec_--quality, or whether he was just the very stupidest thing ever made in the Channel Islands. From there we went to Guernsey, where the caddies were certainly anything but stupid. They were little girls, bare-legged and bare-headed, but wonderfully keen and wonderfully pious, for they would make the sign of the cross over the line of the opponent's putt to prevent the ball going into the hole. And really it is extraordinary how difficult it is to putt straight along a line that has been thus crossed. Guernsey has a course which is finer in some of its natural qualities than that of Jersey, yet it does not seem to have grown a single great golfer, whereas the Jersey soil seems to bring them up like weeds. It is rather curious. But the great days of the Jersey professors had not yet dawned. Harry Vardon was still working in a garden not far from the Gorey links, with dreams, perhaps, of future glory, but no present achievement. Massy was picking the ball up with his marvellous nicety from the loose rubble of the stuff just off the Biarritz greens, but had not yet gone in the train of Sir Everard Hambro, my own most kindly host at Biarritz, to North Berwick. The Scottish golfers had received the first shock to their national pride, in seeing the open championship of their own game won by an Englishman. It had not yet entered into their astonished heads that it was to be won by invaders from outside the British Islands. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 6: I have been since assured, by Eric (now Sir Eric) Hambro, that we won on the last green.--H.G.H.] CHAPTER XXIV ABOUT HAROLD HILTON, FREDDY TAIT AND OTHERS What between trying to be sculptor and succeeding in getting married, I did not pay all the attention that I should have done to golf in the early nineties. Hilton was runner-up in the amateur championship, first to Johnny Laidlay and then to Johnny Ball, in 1891 and 1892 respectively: so we may regard him as thoroughly well arrived. In 1893 Mr. Peter Anderson, at Prestwick, beat Johnny Laidlay in the final for the amateur championship and so broke up our triumvirate. I was not there, and know nothing of the merits of that champion, who soon, on account of an unfortunate chest weakness, migrated to Australia. But the amateur championship of 1892 deserves a special word, because it was played for the first time at Sandwich. It was a sign of the times, sign of a generous policy on part of the Scottish clubs, sign of an extension of the golfing spirit, that this South-country green was welcomed into the sacred number of those on which championships should be played. In that same year, though I was not golfing very assiduously, I was at North Berwick when the open championship was played at Muirfield, and had a narrow escape of winning that open championship. It was the first year that the competition was extended to an affair of seventy-two holes, stretching over two days. Previously, two rounds, or thirty-six holes, had decided it, and at the end of the first two rounds I astonished myself and most other people by finding myself heading all the field. I forget by how many I had the advantage, but I think it was by two or three strokes. Then, on the morning of the second day, hitting off from that first tee at Muirfield, which then was not far out from the wall, I pulled my very first shot over the garden wall, and took I forget how many to the hole. But I remember intimately that this evil start had a baleful influence against which I struggled in vain; I went from bad to worse, and what my eventual score was for the seventy-two holes I do not know. [Illustration: J.E. Laidlay. Horace G. Hutchinson. John Ball, junr. P.C. Anderson.] [Illustration: H.H. Hilton.] Really it was rather hard luck: if only they had deferred that extension of the test, from thirty-six to seventy-two holes, for one year more I might have written myself open champion, but it was not to be; and as it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, so that extra day gave Hilton just the opportunity he wanted. I can see him now as he came up to the last hole--I had gone out to meet him hearing that he had been doing very well--walking along at top speed, chatting volubly with his friends, very pleased with himself, as he well might be, brimful of confidence and with the smoke trailing up from his cigarette, even while he was playing the ball, so that it seemed impossible that he could see through it to hit the ball correctly. But he did hit it mighty correctly, for all that, and won the championship. I believe he did several conjuring tricks during the course of the round, such as holding mashie pitches from the edge of the green. But however he did it, he won, and therewith, from that time forward, established himself as very distinctly the best amateur score-player that we have ever seen. Of that there can be no question. So far as I can make out I played very little golf in 1893. Probably I was amusing myself with being ill, in some form or other, but in 1894, I had golf and greatness thrust upon me by being elected captain of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club. The local people showed me no little kindness, and made my year of office very pleasant. I stayed at the ever hospitable house of Alec Sinclair, most cheery of companions, just beside the links, and I see by the record that they were kind enough to let me win the first medal on the first day of the spring meeting and again the first medal on the first day of the autumn meeting. The following year I was not at the spring meeting, but at the autumn meeting I won the first medal on both days. The next year again I won the second medal on both days of the autumn meeting--rather a quaint record and one that I am proud of. I am proud, because those Hoylake medals were not very easy to win. The local talent, with Johnny Ball and Hilton always on hand--Jack Graham was not yet a force to reckon with--was very formidable. But I remember that on one of these winning occasions I had a portentous piece of luck. It was playing to the then third hole. We drove from the present second tee, but the green was about where some estimable gentleman's dining-room now stands--far to the left of the present second green. It was a ridge and furrow green, so that though you could reach the hole with an iron club for the second shot you were grateful enough if you holed out in four. By some providential chance my second, with the driving iron, found its way into the hole, saving two clear shots. It is the biggest and best fluke I ever had on a medal day, and I took good advantage of it. By way of showing what an extraordinary condition the handicapping at some of the Clubs had fallen into at that date, I may note that Johnny Ball, Hilton and I were all handicapped at Hoylake, for a short time about this period, at _plus_ eleven! You see what the effect was--you see what kind of player a scratch player would be, when there were such penalty handicaps as this. As a matter of fact I believe the absurdity arose from a tender feeling for the too acute sensibilities of certain players who had been what was known as "scratch" in the old days and liked to style themselves so still, and yet could only be kept on the scratch mark, in any reasonable handicap, by penalizing the good players to such a terrific extent as this. In that year, 1894, when I was captain of the club, the amateur championship was played on the Hoylake course, and I have a lively remembrance of it because it was the first time that I came up against poor Freddy Tait, as a grown golfer, and suffered at his hands and from the peculiar characteristics of his game. Again and again I had the better of him, in a tight and well-fought match, and again and again he came up, from somewhere right off the green, with a wonderful approach, which he followed by a good putt and so halved the hole. Going to the last hole we were all even. His second was away to the left, far off the green. He laid up one of his usual approaches and put himself within holable distance. My own second was a very good one, and I had a chance of a three. I know even now that I went for it all too boldly, rather tired by the recoveries of the gallant Freddy. He holed his putt. I, with a much shorter one to hole, missed: and so he won hole and match. He was really but a lad then, though a strong and sturdy one, but in the next round he met his master in Mure Ferguson. That brought Mure into the final with Johnny Ball against him, and very gallantly Mure played. Johnny had some holes the better of him to begin with, but he was not, even then, playing quite like his old self, and he let Mure wear him down, and only by a very daring and splendid shot at the seventeenth hole did he take the lead and practically settle the match, and the championship. Freddy Tait was the very keenest golfer, as a boy, that I ever saw. I had watched him at St. Andrews, growing up from small boy's to young man's estate, and acquiring the mastery of his clubs as he grew. He was a favourite with everybody. At this time, when he beat me at Hoylake, he was still in the hard-hitting phase of his game, rejoicing, as a young man will, in his strength, and delighting to let the ball have it. And he had great strength. Later, as his game developed, he grew to play more within himself with more reserve force to call up when occasion required it, than any other first-class player, and at times he played very finely and very accurately indeed. But at all times, even when he was not playing accurately, he was very dangerous, just by reason of this, his marvellous faculty for recovery, which he exhibited even in this match against me at Hoylake. You never had him beaten at any hole. That not only made him in himself very formidable, but it also made him very difficult to play against, because you never felt any confidence that you had him. I do not know whether it was this quality of his game, or some other influence more psychic and personal, but for some reason Harold Hilton appeared to find it almost impossible to produce his true game when he was brought up against Freddy Tait. He gives some account of it in his own reminiscences, showing too that by steadfast work and stern endeavour to get the better of that influence--really it was as if Freddy put the evil eye on him--he was succeeding in conquering it. He made a progressively better fight in their later matches. For Johnny Ball, on the other hand, Freddy had no terrors. I was surprised, looking through poor Freddy's biography, written by Johnny Low, to see how consistently Johnny Ball had the better of Freddy--I think with only one exception of any importance at all--in the many matches that they played together. I had thought the balance would have stood far more level, especially as Johnny was not quite at his best when Freddy began to tackle him. Their matches were well fought and close, but Johnny won a very big majority. [Illustration: Freddy Tait. (With Championship Cup.)] CHAPTER XXV. THE COMING OF THE THREE GREAT MEN I have said that a little white-haired boy used to carry my clubs at Westward Ho! in my Oxford days. Also that, a few years later, reappearing as an assistant greenkeeper on the course, he was put against me, representing the Northam village club against the Royal North Devon, and gave me a beating. The next year the Club organized a professional tournament. Archie Simpson, at that time in the best of his form and one of the most likely champions, though he never did win the championship, came down to take part in it, and at a certain point in the competition word came in to the club-house that Taylor (he was the little white-haired boy, and the lad who beat me for the village club) was leading the great Archie, and likely to beat him. Therefore there sallied forth a gallery to see this great thing happen; and thereby effectively prevented its happening, for the gallery affected the untried nerves of the lad, he fell away from grace, and Archie Simpson just got home on him. Soon after that, Canon, now Monsignor, Kennard, carried him off to take charge of the green at Burnham in Somersetshire, and a year or two later, at the open championship at Prestwick (I think in the year that Auchterlonie won) Taylor electrified everybody by putting in a first round which was better than ever had been heard of before. But he could not keep it going and failed to make good. [Illustration: _From "Golf and Golfers" (Longmans, Green & Co.)_ J.H. Taylor. (With his eye on the place where the ball used to be.)] [Illustration: Harry Vardon. "Will it go in?"] In 1894 the open was at Sandwich. From first to last there was one, and one only, most likely winner--J. H. Taylor. His driving was of so marvellous a correctness that it was said that the guide flags were his only hazards, and his pitching was perfect. He was but twenty-three, and I feared all the while lest he should not be able to keep it up. Coming to the last hole he had strokes to spare to win it. I think a seven would have served him. I found myself beside Philpot, so long at Mitcham, but an old Northam man, and said, "He's bound to be right now, unless he goes to pieces altogether." Philpot answered with confidence, "He won't do that, if I know anything of 'un." And he did not. He played that last hole quite sufficiently well. The championship was his. It meant a great deal, that championship. It meant a great deal not only to Taylor personally, but also to all English professional golf. You see, Taylor was really the first English professional. Hitherto, when we wanted professionals, we had always been importing them from the North. It did not occur to the English caddie that he might become a professional, that there were possibilities, and money, in it. But all these possibilities the success of Taylor revealed to the English. Moreover, Taylor in himself was not only a very fine golfer; he was also a very fine, in some respects a very remarkable, man. He had a character. He was determined to go straight, to give himself all chances. He was teetotal. He had himself perfectly in hand in every way. He was a great example to the profession and to all the English that should take it up, following his example. It is not easy to over-rate what that success of Taylor's meant for the professional golf of England. It was an influence which re-acted upon Scotland too. The next year, at St. Andrews, Taylor won again, and really there seemed no particular reason at that time why he should not go on winning indefinitely. He was distinctly more accurate and certain than any of the older men, and there seemed no immediate sign of any younger man coming up to dispute his supremacy. And then at Muirfield, the following year, I heard (I was not there) to my surprise that one Harry Vardon, a Jersey man, had tied with him. We had heard of the Vardons by this time, but the common idea was that Tom, the other brother, was the stronger man. It was not Taylor's idea, however. He told me afterwards that he had realized, even then, even before the competition, what a terror this Harry Vardon was. Perhaps it was the consciousness of this that helped Harry Vardon to beat him in playing off the tie; for beat him, to my great surprise, he did, and so there we have the second of our great men already arrived. In spite of this defeat by the great Harry, whose unique greatness even then we did not at all fully appreciate, the big man in golf was still Taylor. He was still at the very top of his game. And about the same time we began to hear that there was a young fellow working as a club-maker at the Army and Navy Stores, who was capable of playing a very good game of golf. He was said to be a cousin of Douglas Rolland, the great driver, and, like him, to come from Elie, in Fifeshire. His name was James Braid. Few people knew much about him, but the few who had seen him play had the greatest opinion of his game. He was brought forward, on half-holidays when he could get away from the Stores, to play exhibition matches, and amongst these matches was one that he played against Taylor at West Drayton; and he played that great man to a level finish. That was a result which caused a buzz of talk. The young fellow at the Stores was evidently worth watching, perhaps worth exploiting. Not very long after this the newly formed club at Romford, in Essex, found itself in want of a professional. James Braid was engaged for the post. I had a game with him shortly after he was appointed to that job, and what impressed me about him more than anything else was the enormous distance that he could smite the ball with the cleek. I remember that this ability to get huge distances with the iron clubs was the quality that had most struck me when first I became acquainted with the game of Rolland, and I said to Braid, "It seems to me you can drive just as far as Douglas Rolland can." He looked at me a moment, as if in a kind of mild surprise that I should make such a comment, and said, "Oh yes, sir, I think I can do that." It was an amusing answer: also it was an answer which meant a good deal, coming from a man so absolutely unable to swagger or to over-rate his own power as James Braid. I realized that we had here a great force in golf; but it was rather a long while before he made that force fully felt. Nevertheless it was there: he too had "arrived," though it was not for a year or two that he was fated to begin the writing of his name first on the championship list. But he was there: the triumvirate was complete. Never, as leaders at any game, were there three men so closely matched with methods so widely different. You may put that down in large measure, if you please, to the physical, anatomical differences of the three: there was Taylor, square, short, compact, stubby; there was Braid, long, loose-jointed; and there was Vardon, a happy medium between the two, and really a very finely-shaped specimen of a powerful human being. It is hardly to be questioned which of the three had the most perfect and beautiful style. Vardon hits up his body a little, away from the ball, as he raises the club--that is a movement which we should tell a learner was apt to unsettle the aim a little. It did not upset Vardon's aim; but then Vardon was rather past the learner stage. For the rest his style was the perfection of power and ease. Taylor, with the ball opposite the right toe and every stroke played rather on the model generally approved for the half iron shot, had a style as peculiar as his "cobby" build, and specially adapted for it. Braid swung in a loose-jointed way at the ball that did not suggest the mastery and the accuracy which he achieved. I have spoken of a kind of "divine fury" with which he launched himself at the ball. Those were long before the days of his studies in "Advanced Golf" and so on. I doubt whether he played according to any very conscious method. But the results well justified the method, or the method-lessness. For a while there was little to choose between these three great ones. [Illustration: James Braid.] [Illustration: Horace Hutchinson and Leslie Balfour Melville at the starting box at St. Andrews.] But by degrees it became evident that there was a choice: that one really was distinctly better than the other two. Certainly there was a while, just before he had to go to a health resort, with a threatening of tuberculosis, when Harry Vardon was in a class by himself. For a while he was, I think, two strokes in the round better than either Taylor or Braid, and, I believe, better than any other man that we have seen. He was the first professional I ever saw play in knickerbockers, and with the flower at his button-hole he set a mode of gaiety and smartness to the rest which younger men were not slow to follow. There was a gay _insouciance_ about his whole manner of addressing himself to the game which was very attractive. It was as different, as their styles were different, from the imperturbability of Braid or again from the tense and highly strung temperament of Taylor. The three great men provided a striking contrast in every particular. But they had this in common, that they all took the game earnestly and kept themselves very fit and well, in order to do their best in it; therein marking a new point of departure from the usual mode of the Scottish professional of old days, who was a happy-go-lucky fellow, not taking all the care of himself that he should if he was to excel in such a strenuous game as golf. And the example of these men was infectious, so that we have now arrived at the date of the coming of the great army of English professionals. CHAPTER XXVI THE REVOLT OF THE AMAZONS Lord Moncrief (then Wellwood) writing in the Badminton Book on Golf, had said that ladies were relegated and restricted to a species of "Jew's quarter" where they were graciously permitted to play with a single club, the putter, those little strokes which we all of us are fond of saying are the most important in the game of golf, but which we all feel to be the least interesting. It was either in 1892 or 1893 that Lord Eldon asked me to stay with him at his Gloucestershire place, Stowell Park, on the Cotswolds, and there, incidentally, I received quite a new impression as to the possibilities of feminine golf. I had already played on the long links at Prestwick in foursome matches with the Misses Whigham--Johnny Laidlay being the man on the other side, and taking one of the sisters as his partner, while I took the other; but they had not then come to their full golfing due. They were rather in the phase which would now be known as the "flapper stage." Still, they played remarkably well. But the most remarkable thing, as we thought then, was not that they should play the long game so well, but that they should play it at all. It was like Dr. Johnson's comment about the dancing dogs. They played, and we as their partners played, with all consciousness that we were guilty things, doing that which we ought not to do. It was an enormity for ladies to play on the long links at all. At Stowell Lord Eldon had a course of nine very good and interesting holes in the park, and there I found the Scott brothers, Osmond and Denys, playing with their sister, Lady Margaret. I had never at that time seen any lady capable of playing at all the same kind of game that Lady Margaret could and did play. You must remember that these were the days of the solid gutta-percha balls, which were far less easy to pick up clean off the ground and raise, without putting a little slice on them, than the modern rubber-cores. The ladies have especially been helped by the more resilient balls which rise more readily. But Lady Margaret Scott had a perfect facility in picking the ball up with her brassey, off the ordinary lie of the course, and sending it flying straight to the mark without any slice on it. She had a very long, an exaggeratedly long, swing back, but then the weakness of the extra long swing back was not realized at that time as it is now, and certainly she never seemed to lose control of the club, although there must have been some wasted labour about it. I never had seen a lady able to play golf at all as Lady Margaret played the game. She had all the crisp and well-cut approach strokes at her command. It was some years after this that the ladies' championship was started. Meanwhile ladies, greatly daring, had begun to play on the long links. As a rule they would have been both better and happier on their own short putting greens; but there were exceptions who were quite able, by their skill, to appreciate the longer courses and to play them as well as the men. As soon as ever the ladies' championship was instituted, Lady Margaret Scott (now Hamilton Russell) justified all the opinions I had formed of her game by winning that championship three times in annual succession. And I think that the only reason why she did not go on winning it was that she did not go on playing for it. Surely she had done enough for glory. It is very unprofitable work trying to estimate the relative golfing merits of different generations, but I am disposed to think that our best ladies of to-day (whom shall we name? I think Miss Ravenscroft and Miss Leitch) are not greatly better, if at all, than Lady Margaret at her best. We have to take the difference in balls into consideration for one thing. It is certain that the change to the livelier ball has helped the best of the ladies more than the best of the men. But I get a certain line of comparison in this way: some of the finest of the lady golfers, when ladies first began to invade the long links, were the Misses Orr. They used to play at North Berwick. But they did not, in the daring fashion of the ladies to-day, claim to play at reasonable hours. They started very early and were finishing their round when lazy men were finishing their breakfast. They were just about representative of the best feminine golf of the time, and on the only occasion in which they took part in the Ladies' Championship one sister beat another in the final. I played one of them at Nairn, giving, as far as I remember, a half, and that seemed to bring us very nearly together. In these latter days, since the ladies have claimed, and as I think, quite rightly claimed, practically an equal right to our long links, we have had several matches at odds of a half, and again they have worked out very level. There was that much-talked-of match between Miss Cecil Leitch and Harold Hilton. The lady won it. I do not think that either played up to his or her true game, unless it was perhaps Miss Leitch in the final round. But the match was a close one, showing that the odds were adequate for bringing the sexes to something like a golfing equality. Then again, giving the same odds of a half, we played a team of men against a team of ladies at Stoke Poges. The one side was just about as representative as the other. Our masculine side won. To this day I do not know how we won: I do not understand how it is that the best of the men (speaking of amateurs) is able to give the best of the ladies anything like a half, but it does appear that these are very approximately the right odds, and it also appears that these have been just about the odds ever since the ladies began to play the long game. The inference is that the quality of the game of the best of them has not greatly altered. I know that when I played Miss Violet Hezlet in that Stoke Poges match, I found myself hardly at all in front of her off the tee, when we both hit good shots, going against the wind. Down the wind it was quite another story: I could outdrive her usefully with the wind behind. And here I think it possible to give ladies a hint by which they might profit: if they would but tee their ball high, going down the wind, they would find it far more easy to give it that hoist into the air which is essential for its getting advantage of the favour of the breeze. They seem to have a lofty-minded idea that there is something not quite right about putting the ball on a high tee--that it is rather on a par with potting the white at billiards. It is splendid of them to have such fine and noble ideals, but it would be to their practical advantage to forget them now and then. And I am quite sure that the ladies, as a rule, do not take the pains they should about their putting and the short game generally. There is but one of them, Miss Grant Suttie, so far as I have seen, who really studies her putts as a good man player studies them, and that is because she has played so much with men at North Berwick and has adopted their methods. She has her advantage therein, for she is the most certain on the green of all the ladies. It is a wonder, seeing that it is a part of the game which demands delicacy of touch and no strength of muscle, that ladies do not putt far better than men. As a general rule they putt far worse. Naturally, when this incursion of the ladies arrived on the links of the men, it intensified the trouble of those problems of the congestion of the green which were already beginning to be acute. Naturally, too, men dealt with the incursion according to their powers and according to their gallantry. No doubt it was felt that it was a hard and discourteous thing to deny the ladies equal rights, even over the private courses. Obviously, on the public courses they had the equal right, and they were not shy of claiming it. On the private courses we used to hear at first, "It's absurd, these ladies not sticking to their own course: they can't drive far enough to be able to appreciate the long course," and so on. But then it very soon became evident that they could drive further and play better than a large number of the male members of the Club, which rather knocked the bottom out of that argument. As a rule some compromise was effected, the ladies being restricted to certain hours--after all, the men were generally workers, so that they had the more claim to have the course at their disposal in their hours of leisure. A very good form of compromise is that which is in vogue at Biarritz, and it may be commended to the notice of other Clubs. There is one afternoon in the week set apart for all and sundry ladies, but besides this there is a permission for ladies whose handicap is four or under to play at any time and on equal terms with the men. This seems to meet the case admirably, for it keeps off the links the inefficient lady players who would be apt to block the green and whose right place is their own short course, while it freely admits those who are capable of appreciating the blessings of the long course and are quite as good golfers as the average of the men whom they will meet there. As time goes on it appears as if we shall be fortunate if the ladies do not take exclusive possession of the links, and only allow us men upon them at the hours which are the least convenient. CHAPTER XXVII THE MAKING OF INLAND COURSES The first architect of the inland courses, when golfers began to learn that inland courses might, in some large measure, give them the game that they wanted, was Tom Dunn. He went about the country laying the courses out, and as he was a very courteous Nature's gentleman, and always liked to say the pleasant thing, he gave praise to each course, as he contrived it, so liberally that some wag invented the conundrum. "Mention any inland course of which Tom Dunn has not said that it is the best of its kind ever seen." His idea--and really he had but one--was to throw up a barrier, with a ditch, called for euphony's sake a "bunker," on the near side of it, right across the course, to be carried from the tee, another of the same kind to be carried with the second shot, and similarly a third, if it was a three shot hole, for the third shot. It was a simple plan, nor is Tom Dunn to be censured because he could not evolve something more like a colourable imitation of the natural hazard. A man is not to be criticized because he is not in advance of his time. Moreover, these barriers had at least the merit that they were uncompromising. You had to be over them, or else you found perdition, and if you only hacked the ball out a little way beyond the first barrier with your first shot you could not carry the second barrier with your third. You were like a hurdle racer who has got out of his stride. The course, constructed on these lines, on which I used to play most, from London, was Prince's at Mitcham--the most convenient of access of all, before the days of motors. I used to have great matches here with Jack White, before Sunningdale was made and he went there in charge. Subsequently the mantle of Tom Dunn, as course constructor in chief, fell on the shoulders of Willy Park, and his ideas were more varied. He was also a good deal more thorough, more elaborate and more expensive in his dealings with the inland courses. He was the first to advocate the wholesale ploughing up of the soil of the course, and the re-sowing. He architected Broadstone, Sunningdale and a host more, and when he had finished with the Sunningdale green he had certainly produced the best thing in the way of an inland course that up to that time had been created. He did his work well, but it was not entirely or even mainly due to him that Sunningdale was so good. The soil was more light and sandy, more like the real seaside links, than that of any other inland course. They had done wonderful things at New Zealand, where Mr. Lock-King, with Mure Ferguson aiding and abetting, had fastened mighty engines to pine trees and dragged them up by the roots, fashioning a golf course out of a pine forest. That was pioneer's work in a double sense, for it not only engineered this particular course where the trees had covered all the land, but it also showed to other people how possible it was to make a course out of forest in other places. It is not only possible, but it is also a good deal less laborious, to grub up the forest trees than it is to get rid of a very dense growth of smaller undergrowth, such as there was to deal with at Le Touquet, in France, for instance. Then the soil in all this pine forest country, such as we see about Woking and Byfleet, is very light and sandy, as the inland soils go, so that it was fine natural material for golf when once the trees had gone. The latest construction of the kind is at St. George's Hill, near Weybridge, where the trees had been much better cared for for generations and in consequence were far larger and more difficult of up-rooting than at New Zealand. There they had to blast the boles of the trees with dynamite before they could get them out of the ground. But of course the bigger timber was of greater value and helped to pay the labour bill. These forest courses have done another thing for us, they have taught us the value of a tree as a golfing hazard. Our forefathers would have scoffed at the idea of a tree on a golf links, although there was for many a long year opportunity for the golfer to find trouble in the trees which came out threatening the course at a certain point at North Berwick. But then they did not have their actual roots in the soil of the links itself. They were outside it, over the boundary wall. But as for the opportunities which the tree hazard gives for those subtleties of slicing and pulling round, or of cutting the ball up with a very vertical rise, let those who have seen Harry Vardon on a course of this tree-beset kind bear witness. And the tree has at least this virtue: that it is permanent. It does not get trodden down and hacked out of existence by a niblick as the faint-hearted whin does. At Woking the natural trouble on the ground was heather rather than trees, and a fine course they have made of it. But of all, that at Sunningdale has always seemed to me just about the best of the inland ones--certainly the best of the earlier made ones. Then I was at Walton Heath, as a guest of Mr. Cosmo Bonsor's kindly hospitality, when that great inland green was opened. Harry Colt had by that time gone to Sunningdale, and was making improvements on the original plan of Willy Park, but Walton Heath was a monument to the skill of that other of our amateur course constructors, Herbert Fowler. He made a very good thing of it, as the wonderful success of that Club has testified since. But it soon passed out of the hands of Mr. Bonsor, and for how much the energy of Sir George Riddell, who acquired the chief interest in it, counted in its popularity it would be very hard to say. Assuredly it counted for a great deal. Then they had James Braid, importing him from Romford, and his attractive personality and great fame helped the Club. Another like him, our old friend Taylor, was by this time established at Mid-Surrey, and the Club there was a power, by reason of the goodness of its green, its numbers and the strong players belonging to it. It would be a very dull and futile business to go into all the development of the inland golf which went on during these years. Enough has been said. But you could not draw anything like a full picture of the golf of the last fifty years without noticing this development. The inland Clubs, and especially those about London, have become a force. As their members go forth to play from the big City which is the common centre they are the better able to make their opinion felt; and their word has become of importance in modern golf. It is possible that it is destined to have a larger importance yet. But I have no business with prophecy. And also there are big inland Clubs, which have already brought weight to bear on golfing counsels, in the Midlands. They have associated themselves into a Union, as have several other clusters, and all these help in the forming and expression of opinion. But, apart from all this, the great reason why they attract members and why they are able to carry weight at all is that their courses are so good. The course constructor has been learning, and so has the greenkeeper. I had a delightful letter from Peter Lees, the famous greenkeeper to the Mid-Surrey Club. He writes: "When I find the worms too numerous, I reduce them." The worm used to be the great trouble and despair of the guardian of the inland putting green in the old days, but here we have Lees writing of dealing with them as it were by the very nod of Jove. When he finds them too numerous, he "reduces them." The mode of reduction is so well known and so easy that he does not think it worth while to waste a word of explanation on it. We have the nice story of a certain greenkeeper of the olden school being asked, "What kind of grass is this?" the inquirer referring to a sample that he had just picked up from the course. "Oh," came the puzzled reply, "there's only one sort of grass--green grass." That is a reply that is almost typical of the "green-ness" of the greenkeeper in the earliest days of the management--if that is the right word for it--of the inland greens, but the modern keeper has to "discourse in learned phrases" of such varieties as fescues and poas, and hardly thinks himself entitled to full respect unless he can fire you off all the Latin names of the varieties of grasses that occur on our inland greens and courses. The keeping has really become quite a science. And at their best, that is when the weather is treating them kindly, there is not that vast difference in quality between the best of our inland greens and the seaside greens which our forefathers have led us to suppose. The big merit of the seaside links, which the inland can never hope to match, is that it is such a good all-weather course. With its porous soil it does not become so water-logged in the wet years, nor does it become so dessicated in the dry. It is a more perpetual joy. But the days are long past when men could say that the seaside links were the only ones worth playing on, or that the seaside Clubs alone were worthy of attention. CHAPTER XXVIII VARIOUS CHAMPIONSHIPS AND THE WANDERING SOCIETIES Whether on account of ill-health, or for what reasons, I do not know, I was not a very sedulous attendant at the championships in the later nineties. The consequence was that I missed seeing one or two very notable finishes. I was not at St. Andrews, for instance, that year when Leslie Balfour-Melville won, having carried each of his last three matches to the nineteenth hole, and each of his three opponents being obliging enough to plop his ball into the burn at that very crucial point of the business. What made it the more notable is that the last of these burn-ploppers was no other than Johnny Ball himself. Neither was I at Muirfield when Dr. Allan won, bicycling over each day, from a considerable distance, to the course, and playing without a nail in his boot--surely the most casual and unconcerned of champions. And I missed, too, that great finish between Johnny Ball and Freddy Tait, at Prestwick, when they were all even at the end of thirty-six holes, after playing the ball out of water and doing all kinds of conjuring tricks at the thirty-fifth hole: and then Johnny settled the affair by getting a scarcely human three at the thirty-seventh. But I was at Sandwich a year or two before when Freddy Tait did win the championship, beating Harold Hilton in the final. I was even one of his victims on that occasion. He was playing well, but he gave me a chance or two going out and I was two up at the turn. Then, at the tenth hole I had a bit of bad luck: I lay, off the tee shot, in the middle of the course, right in a deep divot-cut left by a never identified but never to be sufficiently execrated sinner. So Freddy won that hole, and he out-played me soundly on the long holes coming in. I remember that I had a great fight the day before with that very gallant golfer, who never did himself full justice in the big fights, Arnold Blyth. We halved the round and I only beat him at the twenty-second hole. [Illustration: Amateur Championship, St. Andrews, 1901. J.L. Low (driving) and H.H. Hilton.] [Illustration: Amateur Championship, St. Andrews, 1895. John Ball. F.G. Tait (studying his putt).] I was at St. Andrews, too, in 1901 and saw the finish between Harold Hilton and Johnny Low, one of the best that ever has been played. Here, too, I was the victim of the ultimate winner; and I do not know that I had any need to be beaten by him, for though Hilton won this championship, he has said himself in his memoirs that he was not playing as he should, at the time. I believe the truth to have been, as he himself suggests, that we were all a little frightened of him. I remember we started in pouring rain, and he won the first three holes off me. Then the weather improved and so did I, so that I wore off these three holes and got one up with five to play. At this fatal point I pulled my tee shot into one of those pernicious little bunkers on the Elysian Fields called the Beardies, and the final holes Hilton played more strongly than I did and won by two and one to play. It is a curious thing that the only other time of my meeting him in the amateur championship, which was at Hoylake in the year that Johnny Ball won from Aylmer in the final, the match was almost a replica of this former one. Again he won the first three holes, again I wore him down and got one up with five to play, and again I chucked away the advantage, and it looked almost sure that he would again win by two and one. But I holed a good putt at the seventeenth to save that hole. He gave me no chance of winning the last, and so again he beat me. These are the only two meetings we have had in the championship, and neither, from my point of view, is very glorious in the telling. The year 1900 was a very unhappy one in the history of golf. In that year a Boer bullet ended the life of one of the most gay and gallant-hearted fellows that ever took up a club, Freddy Tait, and incidentally took a good deal of the interest out of the golf of our generation. That year, and also the next, Johnny Ball was out at the war, and did not take part in the championship; and I think that these are actually the only two occasions since the institution of the amateur championship that he has not had a hand in it. He is very capable of taking a master hand still. I have said little of the open championship during these years, for the reason that it has never had anything like the same attraction for me, either to play in or as a spectacle, as the amateur, in which golfers are brought together in matches, and there is the clash of temperaments, the man to man contest, the one bringing out (or driving in, as the case may be) all that is best in the other. I cannot see that any scoring competition ever competes, in the human and psychological interest, with such duels as these. But the story of the open championship for very many a year now--that is to say, from 1899 right away to 1913--is the story of the repeated triumphs of three men, Taylor, Vardon, Braid, one or other accounting for the championship in no less than fifteen of these years, and for the rest allowing a win each to Harold Hilton, to Herd, to White, to Massy and to Ray--a wonderful record, but one which shows a certain monotony. Of the championship of 1902, both amateur and open, the story has its peculiar interest, because this was the year of the introduction of the indiarubber-cored--then called Haskell--balls, about which many fables are to be narrated. And I am going to cut the story of these championships rather short, at this point, because I seem to have so much to say both about the first Haskell ball championship and also about the amateur championships of 1903 and 1904, that either one of them cries aloud for the dignity of a chapter all to itself. These, or just about these, were the years of the formation of the wandering teams, notably of the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society, formed on the model of the wandering cricket clubs, such as the I. Zingari and the Free Foresters. These admirable institutions had no club-house, no green, only a corporate existence, and they said to the various Clubs, "Now, you give us the free run of your course and a free luncheon and other entertainment, and if you do this we'll be so good as to come down and play a team match against your members and probably give them a jolly good beating." That was the kind of proposal which they made to the Clubs, and the pleasant sign of the times and of good sportsmanship and feeling is that the Clubs were so very ready to entertain it--both the proposals and the societies. There were the Bar Golfing Society, the Solicitors', the Army--every self-respecting profession had to have its Golfing Society. The Oxford and Cambridge, of which I had the honour to be first president, being succeeded in that honourable post by Mr. Arthur Balfour, went on pilgrimage actually as far as the United States; and very well they did there, under the leadership of Johnny Low and with Johnny Bramston, the Hunter brothers and other fine golfers assisting. But as for the most part of these golfing enterprises of the wanderers, who, generally speaking, had their headquarters in the great metropolis, it is evident that they had to find their happy hunting grounds somewhere round about London, within reasonable reach, and that was only possible by virtue of the rise of all those inland greens within a short distance of the big town, which has had the further effect of drawing down into what we call the "Southern Section" the very big majority of the best professional players. This geographical golfing phrase of "Southern Section" is one that has arisen only out of the conditions created by that great tournament for the professionals promoted by the _News of the World_ newspaper; and that competition itself is a witness to the growing recognition by the English world of the importance of golf and of its financial meaning. Golf was of use in the way of big advertisement. Also, the largest proprietors of the _News of the World_ were, and are, very good golfers and sportsmen, and doubtless appreciate all the good sport that this tournament provides. But, at the same time, we should, I think, wrong their commercial instincts if we did not realize that they see good advertisement in it besides. Men's motives are mixed. How well that team of Oxford and Cambridge graduates that went to America performed, we hardly realized at the time. We had a tendency to under-rate the American ability for golf, and the very fact that these pilgrims did so well inclined us all the more to make light of the American prowess. We are now, in course of the story, within sight of the year when Mr. Walter Travis, coming over here, was to give us a very different idea of the American capacity. We then began, perhaps, to go to the other extreme and to over-rate what they could do. They seemed to have "established a funk," to put it in homely phrase, which only Harold Hilton, going to America as our amateur champion and coming back with all the glory of the American amateur championship about him too, could altogether dissipate. But before that happened a lot of water had to run under the bridges. CHAPTER XXIX THE COMIC COMING OF THE HASKELL BALL In 1891 my brother-in-law, returning from a visit to America, came down to stay and to play golf with me at Ashdown Forest, and brought with him a dozen or two of a new kind of ball which, he said, had lately been invented in the United States and was the best ball in the world. The balls were called, as he told me, Haskells. We went out to play with them. He, as it happened, played very badly, and in a very short time he was perfectly ready to go into any court of law and take his oath that they were the worst balls in the world. I had formed my own opinion of them, much more in accord with the verdict with which he had first introduced them to me than with that condemnatory one which he passed on them after two days of being off his game; but I refrained from expressing my opinion too emphatically, with the result that when he went away he said that, as for the remnant of the balls, he was not going to be bothered "to take the beastly things away," so that I found myself the possessor of a couple of dozen or so of excellent Haskell balls--being, as he had said, in the first instance, the best balls in the world--at a time when no one else in Great Britain had such a ball at all! [Illustration: Old Leather Ball.] [Illustration: Hand-hammered Gutty.] [Illustration: Machine-marked Gutty.] [Illustration: Duncan. Taylor. Braid. Vardon. Gutty _v._ Rubber Core.] It is quite true that some months previously, at North Berwick, I had been given to try, by a professional who had just returned from the States, a ball which I now recognized to be the same, in some of its essentials, as these Haskells which my brother-in-law brought over. It was the same, except for one external but extremely important essential--its nicks were ridiculously too light and slight, not nearly enough indented. So I tried that ball and found it wanting--it would not fly at all. But what I did not realize at the time was the reason why it did not fly; or, if I did realize, as one could not fail to do, that the nicks were not emphatic enough, I had not a suspicion of the merit of its interior qualities. I had not appreciated that it was an amazingly good ball if only this slight matter of its exterior marking had been attended to. I had taken no more thought or notice of it. Armed with these new weapons I prepared to go out to Biarritz, where the annual foursome match against Pau was just impending. My partner was to be Evy Martin Smith, and as soon as I arrived I told him that we must use these new balls for the match. He strongly objected, being a firm Conservative, tried the balls, with every intention of disliking them, and disliked them accordingly. The fact is that I was, at this moment, just the last man in the world to appear on any scene as an advocate of a new ball. Only a year or two before I had taken an unfortunate interest in a patent substance called "Maponite," of which, in addition to a thousand and one other things for which gutta-percha and indiarubber are used, golf balls were to be made. And wherein exactly was the weak point about the stuff as a material for golf balls I never knew, for the trial balls that they made for us were excellent--I remember that I won an open tournament at Brancaster with them--but as soon as ever they began to turn them out in numbers they were useful for one end only--for the good of the club-makers--for they were hard stony things which broke up the wooden clubs as if one had used the clubs as stone hammers. So I was not a good apostle of a new ball--rather discredited in fact--but I did induce Evy Smith to play with the ball finally, under deep protest, and we justified its use by winning. Meanwhile the balls were beginning to filter from America into England. It was difficult indeed to get people to appreciate their merits: the balls were not numerous, and were still hard to obtain. At Johnny Low's request I sent him one for trial. He was writing at that time in the _Athletic News_. He wrote a most amusing article about the ball--said that he had tried a stroke or two with it in his room, and had found it so resilient that it went bounding about the room like a fives ball in a squash court and finally disappeared up the chimney and was never seen again. In fine, he gave the ball his banning, "not because it was an expensive ball"--it is to be remembered that it was rather a shock to be asked to pay two and sixpence for a golf ball, whereas before we had paid a shilling as the normal price--"but because it was a bad ball," meaning a ball "singularly ill-adapted for the purpose" of golf. So difficult is it for even a clever man and wise in the royal and ancient wisdom, as Johnny Low undoubtedly is, to keep an unprejudiced judgment about any new thing. Expensive as the ball was in the beginning, it was soon found that it was far more economical than the solid "gutty"; both because it lasted in playable condition far longer and also because it did not knock about the wooden club to anything like the same extent. But within a very short while there came such a demand for those balls, so greatly in excess of the supply, that there was a time when as much as a guinea apiece was paid for them, and numbers changed hands at ten shillings. That was round and about the time of the championships, both open and amateur being held that year at Hoylake, and both these championships were won with the Haskell balls. I am calling these balls Haskells, because that is the name by which they were known and spoken of, after their American inventor, at this time. The reluctance of players to use them, and the gradual overcoming of that reluctance, had many comic incidents associated with it. The amateur championship that year was full of wonders. It was won by Charles Hutchings, he being then a grandfather and fifty-two years of age. He knocked me out, among other better men, beating me at the last hole. And then he beat that brilliant and greatly to be regretted young golfer, Johnny Bramston. In the final he had to play Fry, and established a very big lead on him in the first round. He had about six holes in hand with only nine to play, and then Fry began to do conjuring tricks, holing putts from the edge of the green, and so on. In the event Charles Hutchings just won by a single hole after one of the most remarkable final matches in the whole story of that championship. And it is to be noted that these two finalists, who proved themselves better able than most others to adapt themselves to the new touch of these livelier balls--for nearly all the competitors used the Haskells--were extremely good billiard players. Fry had won the amateur championship of billiards more than once, and Hutchings was quite capable of such atrocities as a three-figure break. I think the sensitive fingers of these billiard players helped them to get the touch of these livelier balls which were so "kittle" for the approach and putting. After the amateur came the open, in which I did not take a hand, but I heard a great deal of the preliminary discussions about it. Of course, if the amateurs were difficult to convince about the merits of the new balls, the professionals, who had their vested interest in the old, and did not know how these were to be affected by the coming of the new, were harder still to convince. However, the balls were too good to be denied. Andrew Kirkaldy, a shrewd man, and one, besides, who had no interest in the sale of balls, solid or rubber cored, was one of the first and most enthusiastic converts. "The puggy," he declared, "is a great ba'." He called it "puggy," which is Scottish for monkey, because it jumped about so. "Ye canna' tak' eighty strokes to the roun' wi' a puggy--the puggy will na' gae roun' in eighty strokes." However, on the morrow of making that brave statement, he contrived, even with the "puggy," to take several strokes more than eighty to go round the Hoylake course for the championship. Alec Herd was one of the most uncompromising opponents of the new ball until the very day of the championship. He had declared that he hoped everybody else would play with the Haskell, but that for his own part he meant to stick to his old friend. And then, on the day of the play, behold Herd, who had said these things, teeing up a Haskell himself on the first tee, and continuing play with it until he had won the championship! It was a bit of luck for him, hitting on the truth about the merits of the ball just at the right moment. I do not think he would ever have won the championship save for the Haskell ball. At the same time it is only fair to him to say this, that he was--at least I think so--quite unlucky not to win the championship two years previously. It was the year that Taylor won at St. Andrews, and at that date, and for some little while before the championship, Herd had certainly been playing the best golf of anybody. Then the weather changed, just on the eve of the championship. There came abundance of rain, which put the greens into just the condition that Taylor liked. He won that championship, and Herd, I think, was a little unfortunate not to win. But fortune restored the balance of her favours by giving him this win at Hoylake with the new ball long after we had ceased to think him a likely champion. Thus once again, "justice has been done." Therewith the Haskell ball made its reputation and came to stay. There was a talk of ruling it out, by the Rules of Golf Committee, but Hall Blyth, then chairman, agreed with me and others that it had won its way too far into popularity to be made illegal, and the idea of legislating it out was dropped. CHAPTER XXX AN HISTORIC MATCH AND AN HISTORIC TYPE Willy Park, always a man of some practical ingenuity, as well as a magnificent golfer, had lately invented and patented a peculiar type of putter. He had also invented, by way of an advertisement of this crooked-necked club of his, the dictum that "the man who can putt is a match for anybody." Now Park, besides his other fine qualities, was a very gallant golfer. It had been his way for some years, as soon as some man--be it Douglas Rolland, or any other--had come to the top of the golfing tree, so that everybody was talking about him and saying what a fine fellow he was, to challenge this fine top bird of the roost, and back his challenge with a £50 or £100 stake. There may have been a tinge of advertisement about it, for Park was a good man of business and the first of the professionals to realize what money there was in establishing golf shops, but chiefly, I think, he played these matches for the pure sport of the thing. So now, Harry Vardon, being beyond dispute, at the tree top, Park must issue a challenge to play him for a money stake, a home and home match, two rounds at North Berwick and two at Ganton. Now you have to realize that in those days Harry Vardon was so great a man, there was so much keenness to see him play, that when he went out the gallery followed him, they watched his every stroke, and they paid no more attention than if he had no existence at all to the poor wretch who chanced to be partnered with him. They would trample on this unfortunate creature's ball without the slightest remorse: he was rather lucky if he were not thrown down and trampled to death himself by the throng. [Illustration: The Amateur Side at Sandwich in 1894. Standing (from left to right): A. Stuart, S. Mure Fergusson, John Ball, F.G. Tait. Sitting: H.G. Hutchinson, Charles Hutchings, A.D. Blyth, H.H. Hilton.] [Illustration: The Professional Side at Sandwich in 1894. Standing (from left to right): Willie Park, A. Simpson, A. Kirkcaldy, W. Auchterlonie. Sitting: J.H. Taylor, A. Herd, D. Rolland, W. Fernie.] [Illustration: "Fiery"--Willie Park's Caddie.] Willy Park was a shrewd Scot. He was not going to have any of this nonsense when "the man who could putt" set out to prove, for money, that he was a match for anyone, even for Harry Vardon at his best. The match opened, therefore, at its very second shot, on the note of comedy. Park had gone a little further off the tee than Harry Vardon, toward the bunker guarding Point Garry Hill. That meant that Harry Vardon had to play first, and after his play of the second shot the gallery made a start to dash in, in their accustomed manner, quite regardless of the other partner to the match. Park proceeded to teach them their lesson at the outset. He did not hurry, like a guilty thing, to play his shot, as most of the others who played with Vardon used to do: instead, he left his ball altogether, with "Fiery," his faithful caddie, standing guard over it. The people crowded forward as far as Fiery, but they were not at all likely to go beyond him, most faithful henchman, and rather truculent watch-dog, with round Scotch bonnet and streamers floating behind, the clubs loose held, out of the bag, beneath his arm--I rather think he would have called it his "oxter"--because he had for years carried clubs before bags came into use, and the fine smoothness and polish of the club handles was apt to be spoilt by dragging them in and out of the bag. I never heard nor cared what other name he had than Fiery, of which the propriety was written in flaming colours on his face. So he stood, facing and keeping back the crowd from the ball--a subject not unworthy of an historical picture and by no means to be disregarded as a point in the golfing story of the last fifty years, because he was a type, and nearly the last, of the old Scottish caddies, and because this match was among the last of those of the old style. Park's school was really a generation behind that to which belonged the modern triumvirate. So Park walked on, having left his ball; he walked on to the foot of Point Garry Hill; then he ascended it, with great leisure, quite regardless that the people raged together, and he looked at the flag, which he did not in the least desire to see. All he did desire was to teach the gallery their lesson, that he, Park, meant to count for something in this match, that Harry Vardon was not the only player; and when he had thus taught the lesson, which it were better that the people should learn first than last, he came back leisurely to his ball again and played it. They took their lesson well--a Scottish crowd is not slow at the up-take and has its sense of humour. Moreover, Park was their man, being a Scot. They liked to see him taking himself seriously, and they did not crowd on him inconveniently again. And it was a most amusing match to watch, though just a little pathetic too. Willy Park was most emphatically "the man who could putt." He told me that he had been practising putting for that match to the tune of from six to eight hours a day. It sounds terribly dull work; but certainly Park was rewarded for it, for I never saw such putting, day in and day out, as he was doing about the time of that match. And in the match he putted extraordinarily. I speak only of the first portion, at North Berwick. I did not see the latter end of it at Ganton; but I think the result, if there ever could be, from the start, a moment's doubt about it, was virtually all settled on the first thirty-six holes. Park putted extraordinarily, but he still had to prove his dictum that the man who could putt was a match for anybody. Vardon as surely could not putt; but then he played all the rest of the game to a beautiful perfection, whereas poor Park could not drive. He developed, at its worst, that tendency to hook his drives which has always been a danger to him. He arrived on the greens one stroke, or even two, behind Vardon. But then he put the putt in, whereas Vardon often neglected the simple precaution of laying it dead. So it went on, Park saving himself again and again by this marvellous putting, and at last, after he had holed one of fifteen yards right across the green, a crusty old Scot in the gallery was heard grumbling to himself in his beard: "The on'y raisonable putt I've seen the day." What he had come out expecting, an all-knowing Providence alone can say. But the strain of those repeated saves of holes apparently lost was too severe to last. Vardon put a useful balance of holes to his credit even at North Berwick. The final half of the match was to be played on his own course of Ganton. There was only one possible conclusion to it. At the end of the North Berwick contest I suggested to Park that he would have to re-edit his dictum so that it should run "the man who can putt is a match for anybody--except Harry Vardon," and he confessed, with a melancholy grin, that he believed he would have to accept that emendation. With the disappearance of the old Scottish caddie, of whom Fiery might very well stand for the prototype, there passed much of the old order of golf, making way for the new. These old caddies themselves counted for very much more in the play of the game than our modern club-carriers, who are usually beasts of burden (and little beasts at that, just passed out of their Board School standards) and nothing more. They know the names of the clubs, so as to give you what you ask for, and that is about as much as is expected of them. Sometimes they take a keen interest, and identify themselves with their master's interests; but such fidelity and keenness are rather exceptional. The ancient caddie was a grown man: he was not, perhaps, an ensample of all the virtues, and if he turned up on a Monday morning without a certain redness of the nose and possibly a blackness of the eye, indicating a rather stormy Saturday night, of which the intervening day of rest had not wholly removed the damages, you might admire and be thankful. But his zeal for your matches was unfailing. He made it a point of honour to do all that the law allowed him, and all that it did not allow him, so long as he was not found out, to aid and abet your inefficiency. He expected that you should consult him about the club that you should take, about the line on which you should play and about the gradients of a putt. He was a profound student of human nature, discovered the weaknesses of your opponent and urged you by counsel and example to take advantage of them. In my early days at St. Andrews, when I was playing a match with David Lamb, I was surprised, and more than a little shocked, by the counsel that one of these sapient caddies gave me: "Let us walk oot pretty smartly after the ba', sir. Mr. Lamb canna' bear to be hurried." That was the proposal--that just because Mr. Lamb had a dislike to playing in a hurry, we should hasten on after the ball so as to induce him, by the power of suggestion, to hurry also, and so put him off his game. Needless to say, as soon as my innocence had succeeded in comprehending the inward meaning of the counsel, I repudiated it with scorn and rebuked the caddie bitterly for suggesting it; and, equally needless to say, he thought me both a thankless person and a very particular species of Sassenach fool for so rejecting it. I have often thought that had Bret Harte known the old Scottish caddie he would not have needed to go to the Orient and to the Yellow Race for the type of mind that he has sketched in his _Heathen Chinee_. Nevertheless there was very much that was attractive and likeable in these henchmen of a fervid loyalty and few moral attributes besides, and their extermination, with that of other strange _feræ naturæ_, is to be regretted. CHAPTER XXXI THE INTERNATIONAL MATCH Certainly the Royal Liverpool Club has deserved well of the golfing community. It started the amateur championship, and in 1891 or 1892 the idea occurred to some enterprising genius at Hoylake of the International Match. What though interest rather waned in it, and it has been abandoned now, during the years that it was played it was an interest to many, both of those who played in it and of those who merely looked on. They called me into their counsels and we roughed out some such scheme as was ultimately adopted. There was much talk as to whether it were better to score by match only, or by aggregate of holes won and lost only, or by a combination of the two. I favoured the combination, but lost, and "matches only" has always been the scoring adopted. It is not to be denied that we of England received a very grievous shock when we learned that Jack Graham was not going to play on our side, but intended to throw in his golfing lot with Scotland, the country of his origin. Of course he had a perfect right to do so. He is a Scot,[7] I believe on both sides, but then the idea had been, in the institution of this match, trial of the golf learnt in England against the golf of Scotland, and if Jack Graham himself was pure Scot, his golf was pure Sassenach, every stroke of it learnt on that Hoylake where he lived. It is not too much to say that that decision of Jack Graham upset the balance of forces very materially, for this match was always (save for one occasion) played before the amateur championship tournament, and Jack was, and is, a terrible player in the early stages of any meeting. It is apparently his constitutional misfortune that he is not able to last through a long sustained trial. Twice certainly, and I think three times, I have taken one of the bronze medals of the championship while he has had the other: that is to say, that both of us have survived to the semi-final heat. But further than that, Jack has never been able to last, and has been beaten at that point by men to whom he could give three strokes comfortably in ordinary circumstances and in the earlier stages of the tournament. He has been a terrible disappointment to us all, in this way, for a more brilliant amateur golfer never played. It is his health that has knocked him out every time--a lack of robust nerves. This going over of Jack Graham to the enemy, as we regarded it, introduced another small trouble into the International Match. It was always said (with what basis of fact I hardly know) that it would cause too much "feeling" in Hoylake if he were pitted against either Johnny Ball or Harold Hilton in this match. So the sides had to be so arranged that this terrible thing should not happen--it was all rather farcical. As it was, I had to play Jack Graham in the first International Match, which was at Hoylake, and took a sound beating from him. That first fight was the occasion of a battle royal between Johnny Ball and Bobby Maxwell, the former only winning, though it was on his own green, by a single hole on the thirty-six. During these years Bobby was rather regarded as the champion of the Scottish amateurs, and the International Match would be notable, if for nothing else, for the Homeric contests between these two. The most fantastic of them happened in the year when exceptionally, as I have noted above, the match was played before, not after, the amateur championship. It was at Muirfield, in 1903, when I got into the final, only to be beaten handsomely there by Bobby Maxwell. We played the International Match the next day, and I had to fight Fred Mackenzie, who afterwards went as a professional to America and is now at home again and playing very good golf at St. Andrews. He did not play very good golf that day, however, though it was good enough to beat me; for I found myself not tired exactly, but utterly indifferent, after all the strain of the championship, which I had had to endure up to the final round, and could not tune myself up to concert pitch at all. But on Bobby it was very clear that the strain had not told in anything like the same way. He played extraordinarily. I do not believe that Johnny Ball played badly at all, yet he was beaten, I think, by more holes than any other man ever has lost in the International Match. Whenever he did a hole in a stroke over the right number, Bobby Maxwell did it in the right number; and whenever Johnny did it in the right number, Bobby performed a miracle and did it in one less. One of the most amusing matches I ever did play was with Gordon Simpson, a few years later, in the International when again it was at Muirfield. On the first round I was four up at the fourteenth hole; and then I let him win all the last four holes, so that we came in to luncheon all even. Then, in the next round, he was four up at the fourteenth, and, exactly as I had done in the morning, so he, in the afternoon, let me win all the last four holes. He got a good three at the thirty-seventh--the hole was in a very "kittle" place and the green was mighty keen, so that the three was hard to get--and so won the match. But in the course of that match I did a thing that I never have done before or since. He laid me a stimy, with his ball so near the hole that the only chance was to pitch my own ball right into the hole. By a bit of good luck I did it, but by a bit of unconscionable bad luck, the ball, after rattling about against the tin inside, came out again and stood on the lip of the hole. As the match was played, it just made the difference; but even had I won, it would not have made the difference in the whole team match. Scotland, as usual, were too good for us and had a match to spare. I had played Gordon Simpson once, many years before, in the amateur championship, when he was a student at St. Andrews' University, and the circumstances had been amusing. He was the champion of the University, and when we set forth from the first tee we were accompanied by a gallery which appeared to me as if it must include all the youth of that venerable seat of learning. They behaved wonderfully well, with a great deal of sportsmanlike consideration for my feelings, but at the same time were naturally so dead keen on their own man that they would have been something more than human, or older than undergraduates, had they been able to refrain from a little baring back of the teeth, and just the murmur of a growl, when I happened to hole a good putt. Unfortunately things went rather badly for their hero at the start. I contrived to get a lead of some four holes on him, and hung on to them till the match was finished. Of course I did my best to win, but I never in my life won a match which gave me less satisfaction. It was so hard on the University champion, surrounded by all his best friends. However, he had his revenge, as said, at Muirfield. But as for this stimy loft, into the hole and out again, it is quite sure that there was something not just right about the tins in use in the Muirfield holes at that time, for it happened to Bernard Darwin to play precisely the same stroke with precisely the same result in the championship. The fact is that if the flooring of the tin is set at a certain angle this chucking out again of a ball lofted in becomes a dynamical certainty. The makers of the tins ought to see to it that the floor is not set at this angle. If it is set nearly horizontal the thing does not happen, and it is when set too vertically that it is almost bound to occur. But, except for this case of my own ball and that of Bernard Darwin's, I have never heard of another instance of the kind, though probably golfing history can furnish many. The last occasion, before its death of inanition, on which the International Match was played, it was played in foursomes. I do not think that was an experiment likely to prolong its life. With all respect in the world for the foursome as a very pleasant pastime, I cannot believe in it as anything like the test of golf that a single provides. To me it is an infinitely more easy form of the game, though I am well aware there are good judges and good players who think otherwise. I can only say that for my own part it has always been easier for me to play well in a foursome than in a single. It is not, I believe, the common experience. I am inclined to think it is a pity that the International Match is dead. There are many who would like it revived. It gave useful practice to the young players coming on, who thus had a chance, apart from the championship, of showing what they could do in good company. That was its value, more than as a spectacle of the two countries set in array against each other. Scotland nearly always had the better of us. For one thing they have always seemed to lunch more wisely or more well than we of England. Perhaps their digestion is more powerful. At all events it has happened again and again that we have been leading finely at luncheon, only to be beaten decisively in the end. But if we had had Jack Graham on our side even this lack of the gastric juices would not, I think, have turned the day so often against us. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 7: Alas, if writing to-day, in 1919, it is in the past tense that this and some following passages would need to be phrased. He was gallant in volunteering, joined a Scottish regiment, and met a soldier's death.] CHAPTER XXXII HOW MR. JUSTICE BUCKLEY KEPT HIS EYE ON THE HASKELL BALL One night I was going North by one of the sleeping trains and, having business late in the afternoon in Holborn, did not return to the civilized parts of the town, but dined at the Inns of Court Hotel. There are little tables for two, and at mine was dining also a man with whom I got into conversation. He told me he came from Glasgow and was in town on a business which he dared say I should think a very curious one--a big lawsuit pending about such a small matter as a ball used in the playing of the game of golf. Did I play golf? I said, "A little." I also said that in all the history of coincidences this was just about the most singular, for that I, too, had been engaged as a witness in the very same case. It was the case that the manufacturers of the Haskell ball were bringing against the manufacturers of the Kite ball. The point was to prove the Haskell patent good for their protection in a monopoly of making rubber-cored balls. The Haskell people had asked me to give evidence, because I was the first man to play with these balls in England, and because I considered them, and _pace_ the law, still consider them, an absolutely new departure in golf-ball manufacture. It would be ungrateful not to think that providence designed this meeting at the Inns of Court Hotel, for my new friend was able to tell me what the right fee was for me to charge as an expert witness. He told me that that was what I was--an expert witness. I did not know it before, although I knew, without his telling me, the ancient divisions of the species "liar," into "liar," "d----d liar," and "expert witness." I was prepared to play my part, especially when I heard, with pleased surprise, the large fees paid for witnesses of this expert and unimpeachable character. So, in due course of time, I was summoned up to London to attend the trial. I suppose other trials are sometimes as humorous, but I could not have believed it possible that there could be such good entertainment as I found in that Court, where I sat with much enjoyment calculating, between the acts, the sum to which my expert witness fees were mounting up as I waited. The Judge, Mr. Justice Buckley, if I remember right, was not a golfer; yet the way in which he kept his eye on the ball during the three days or so of that trial was above all praise. And the ball took a deal of keeping of the eye on itself, for there were many balls of different sorts brought into Court, and they were constantly running off the judge's desk, and tumbling and jumping about in the body of the Court, where learned gentlemen knocked their wigs together as they bent down to search for them. There was an old lady who said she had made balls which were practically identical with these Haskells all her life--balls for boys to play with. So she was commanded to go away and to come back with all her apparatus and to show in Court how the balls were made. She returned, and it appeared that, after some winding of thread about a core, the next proceeding was to dip the balls into a molten solution of some boiling stuff which smelt abominably. She cooked this up in Court, and the whole business was very suggestive of the making of the hell-broth of the witches in "Macbeth," only that perhaps the Court of Law did not give a striking representation of the "blasted heath." The balls were apt to escape from the old lady when they were half cooked and to go running about the Court where the barristers, retrieving them, got their fingers into the most awfully sticky state and their wigs seemed to be the appropriate places on which to rub the stickiness off. Willie Fernie was there, enjoying himself hugely too. He, it seems, had long ago made a ball resembling the Haskell. There, too, was Commander Stewart, whom I had known in the early eighties at St. Andrews. He was the maker of the "Stewart patent" balls, which had a vogue for a time, though they had not the least resemblance to the Haskell balls. They were of some composition, quite solid, and with iron filings in them. Nevertheless, Commander Stewart, as it appeared, had made a ball similar to the Haskell, though it could not have been the one known as his patent. All these were testimony to what the lawyers call "previous user." Then an old gentleman was called who said that he had played at ball as a boy with another old gentleman whose name he gave, with a ball similar in all its essentials to the Haskell golf ball. The other old gentleman was called then, and he was asked whether his memory corroborated this, and whether it was in essentials the same ball. To which he answered, to the delight of the Court, that it was not the same ball at all. "What then," asked the Counsel, in a profoundly shocked voice, "do you mean to say that you think your old friend is a liar?" "No," he replied quite readily, "I don't think so, I know it." I looked out to see these two old friends going out of Court, to discover whether they were quite as good friends as they had been before, but I could not see them. I do not remember much about my own testimony. I think what I said was true, but I am nearly sure that it was quite unimportant. The present Lord Moulton, I remember, examined, or cross-examined me, but he did not turn me inside out very badly, and I believe I left the Court "without a stain on my character," according to the stereotyped phrase. At all events the conclusion of the whole matter was that we lost our case very handsomely. The Judge, considering the evidence of the old lady, of Commander Stewart, of Willie Fernie and so on, said that he thought there were sufficient witnesses to "previous user," and no doubt "Messrs. Hutchison, Maine and Co."--I think this was the name of the firm opposing us--fought a good fight in the best interests of the golfer, for it would have been a bad job for us all if there had been a monopoly in the hands of one firm of the manufacture of the rubber-cored balls. They put the prices up against us fairly high as it was, without that. Had there been a monopoly of manufacture we might now be paying five shillings each perhaps, instead of half-a-crown, for the balls--a very solemn thought. They carried this case to the Court of Appeal, but that Court only confirmed the finding of the Court below, and thereto added this further comment, that whether there were "previous users" or no, they did not think that the invention in itself had sufficient novelty for the patent to be good. So that "put the lid on," to use homely phrase. A while afterwards I met the American manager of a big athletic outfitting house, and he told me that in his opinion, looking at the thing with the commercial eye of the manufacturer, if the Kite people had been "real cute," they would not have driven this fight to a finish. Instead, they would have come to the Haskell people, when the case seemed likely to go in favour of the defendants, and come to a compromise with them. They would then have abandoned the case, as if despairing of success, under a secret agreement with the Haskell folk to allow them to make balls on certain agreed terms. The effect of that would have been that the abandoning of the case would have frightened other companies out of ever bringing the like case against the Haskell Company, and the two might have gone on merrily working their monopoly, at the expense of the ball-buyers, "till the cows came home." That, as my friend the manager said, would have been "real smart," but I think we have to congratulate ourselves that this real smartness did not commend itself to the Scottish firm that fought and won this historic battle. We pay enough for our golf balls even now, even under the relatively blessed conditions of competition. Surely it is not for me, who went no further in study of the law than to eat, though indifferently to digest, those singular dinners at the singular hour of six o'clock at the Inner Temple, to criticise the high findings of the law, but it does seem to my uninstructed wisdom that if ever there were a substantially new invention, making a new departure, it was this of these that we then called Haskells and now call indiarubber-cored balls. Nobody, before Haskell, had ever given them to us as reasonable things with which to play the game of golf. He gave them to us as the best balls hitherto invented. They spoilt the game in a sense, it is true. The ability to hit the ball absolutely exactly has not the same value now as in the days of the solid gutty ball; nor does forceful hitting count for as much. On the other hand, the greater resiliency of the ball makes the game more pleasant, especially for weak muscles. But that, the quality of the ball, is another story. The story the Court had to sit in judgment on was woven round about the question whether substantially the ball was a novelty. They found that it was not, and we all should be very thankful that they did find so; but at the same time it is quite possible that we may think it a queer finding. CHAPTER XXXIII THE AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP OF 1903 In the twentieth century I was no longer regarding myself with great seriousness as a likely champion, and it is very certain that I should not have troubled to go to Muirfield for the amateur championship of 1903 had it not been for a kindly invitation from David Kinloch to stay with him for it at his place Gilmerton, about nine miles from the course. I was salmon fishing on the Wye at the time, and the river was in good order, so it was a wrench. I remember that there was staying also at Gilmerton on that occasion poor Harold Finch-Hatton, most humorous of good companions. We used to drive the nine miles in a high dog-cart, the horse generally taking fright at the railway crossing at Drem each morning; so the excitement of the day began long before we came to the links. I only arrived the day before the fight began, and I remember my first tee-shot in that championship as if it were yesterday. I was playing Mr. Frank Booth, affectionately known as "Father Booth" to men of Sandwich. The spectators were drawn up in a line parallel with the line of play to the first hole, and I hit my tee-shot on the extreme tip of the toe of the club, so that it went out to cover point and right away to the right of the spectators altogether. I had to play back over their heads, up to the hole. After that promising start I played quite steadily and beat Booth comfortably. Then I went along uneventfully till I met A.M. Ross. A.M. Ross was already something of a veteran, but he gave me some extremely tough work. The match had its element of humour. We had not, at that time, the rule that all putts should be holed out, and very early in the match he did not give a putt which I thought to be stony dead. Therefore at the next hole, where he had a putt still more stony, I did not give that to him. He repaid me again by making me perform a still more ridiculous task of holing out; and so I him again, until at the end of that match we were scrupulously, but without a smile or a word said on either side, holing out putts of two inches with the solemnity of a religious rite. But it was all with quite good temper on both sides: I think both of us were too old stagers to take offence. In the last eight I beat Dick, playing very steadily, and then I met Angus Macdonald. I had never played him before. He was, no doubt, an immensely strong man. He was so strong and big that he seemed unable to swing round his body, as it were. He was the shortest driver for a player of his ability I ever met; but he was also the longest putter. Time and again, when I thought I had the hole, having arrived on the green a stroke before him, he upset calculations by holing a gigantic putt. He smoked all the time, a long meerschaum pipe, and had all the air of a man playing the game for pleasure--which is not at all a common aspect for a man to wear when he is playing a championship heat. And after he had been holing these prodigious putts time after time, and I had been following them up by holing humble little things of a yard and a half or so, he fairly petrified me with astonishment by remarking, in a tone of almost pained surprise, "You're putting very well!" I looked at him to see whether he was chaffing, but his face did not show the twinkle of a smile, and I had to assume that it was simple honest comment, and that he was accustomed, that he expected, to hole these gigantic putts, but that he did not expect his opponent to hole the little ones after him. Perhaps that explains how, being so short a driver, he was yet so good a golfer. But eventually I defeated him, and thus came into the final. In the other semi-final tie a terrific battle had been raging between Bobby Maxwell and Herman de Zoete. Of course I did not see it, being very fully occupied with Macdonald, but I heard all about it, and what I heard was that Herman de Zoete was driving tremendous balls, very seldom on the course, and following up these huge erratic efforts by wonderful recoveries and putting, so that, as they said, if he had beaten Bobby, who was playing a sound steady game down the middle of the course, it would have been a crying iniquity. But it was an iniquity that was as nearly as possible perpetrated: he had Bobby, as a matter of fact, stone cold. This was at the nineteenth hole, which they had to go out to play, having halved the round; and at that hole I believe that Bobby's first shot was in the neighbourhood of the wall and the second still some little way from the hole. Herman's first was short of the green, but not very short. It looked as if he had but to do that hole in four to win the match, and it did not look as if he could fail to do it in four. But then, as he told me afterwards, for the first time in the whole match nerves got hold of him, and having hold of him they seem to have taken their hold very hard. He was unable, he said, to see the ball with any distinctness. It looked all in fog; and, playing at it through this obscuring atmosphere, he sent it about a foot. The end of the hole was that Bobby, by holing a very missable putt, did get a four, and Herman took five and lost the hole. The tale, as told me, was peculiarly painful to listen to, for though Bobby Maxwell is a very pleasant fellow to play with, still, for the final round of a championship, especially over Muirfield, I would rather have had to play Herman de Zoete. However, there it was. And then an unfortunate thing, for me, happened. On the next day we found the wind exactly opposite in its direction to what it had been all the week before. Of course that did not make any difference to Bobby, to whom every grass-blade on Muirfield was a personal friend and every distance known to a foot, no matter in what trend or force of wind. But to me, who had been painfully learning the distances all these days, the right about face of the wind put a very changed aspect on the business. Not that I believe for a moment that the ultimate result was affected by it. I have no delusion that in the year 1903, or possibly in any other, I could make a match with Bobby over Muirfield. Elsewhere it might be another story. As it was, I did make a very good match with him for fourteen holes, for at that point we were all even. But then I made the fatal error of letting him win the last four holes of that round. I hardly know how it happened, for I do not remember that I played these holes extraordinarily badly, but I do know that I did not have nearly as good an appetite, when we went in for luncheon, as I should have had if the break had come at the end of fourteen, instead of eighteen, holes. To start out, as I had to, afterwards, to give Bobby four holes up, was rather a large order, and I found it a good deal too large for me to fill. I did not play badly. I had a vision of bringing him down to quite a reasonable number of holes up, and making a close match of it, at one point on the way out, but there--it was the hole before the windmill--he made a great recovery out of the rough and won the hole which I had looked forward to winning. I took three on the green and he only took one. That was the final touch. He played the rest of the round, as far as we had to take it, far better than I did--drove much farther, for one thing, which is always useful--and finally hammered me out by the tune of seven and six to play. He deserved to win by quite that margin; but I still cannot help rather regretting that attack of nerves which seized Herman de Zoete so unfortunately at the approach to the nineteenth hole the day before. One thing, however, that championship taught me, that if I was to live with some of these younger golfers and harder hitters I must do something to add yards to my driving. And the way I tried was by adding, as soon as I went South, inches--to the number of six--to my wooden clubs, both driver and brassey. And it had its effect. The extra length was useful at all angles of the wind, but especially against the wind, and for some years these long clubs did me very good service. Of course, the longer the club the lighter you must have the head. That has to be understood, for otherwise you get a weaver's beam that is quite unlike the club of the balance that is familiar to your hand. But if you reduce the head-weight judiciously you can lengthen the shaft unbelievably without making accurate hitting any harder. And with the longer shaft it seems, according to my experience, that you get a longer ball. CHAPTER XXXIV TRAVIS'S YEAR In 1904, the amateur championship being that year at Sandwich, Frank Penn[8] entertained me for it at Bifrons, near Canterbury, about fifteen miles from the arena of action. He used to motor me in each day, and the driving of a big motor through the streets of Sandwich town appears a very cork-screwy business. Nevertheless he accomplished it perfectly and never once bunkered us by the way. I came across a lot of old friends and enemies at that meeting--first Johnny Laidlay in the International Match, then Mure Ferguson, if I remember right, in the first round of the championship; I forget whom then, but I know that a few more heats brought me up against Johnny Ball. All these adventures, even that last and worst, I succeeded in getting through with success, and then I had to meet Bobby Maxwell on the last day but one of the play. I was playing fairly well, being much helped by the longer clubs I had taken to since the Muirfield championship, where Bobby beat me in the final. [Illustration: Walter Travis.] [Illustration: Charles B. MacDonald. From a portrait in plaster by Prince Paul Troubetzkoy, presented to the National Golf Links of America of which Mr. Macdonald is the founder.] Staying, as I was, with Penn fifteen miles away, I did not hear much of the gossip going on at this championship, but from time to time I did find one man or the other coming to me and saying, "Have you seen that American who is putting with an extraordinary thing like a croquet mallet? He's putting most extraordinarily well with it." Of course I had not seen him: I had been too busy myself, putting by no means extraordinarily well. That sort of thing was said, now and then, but no one thought any more about it. It was known that some Americans had come over and had entered for the championship, but if anybody had prophesied that one of them was likely to give trouble or to get into the final heats he would have been looked on as a lunatic. The truth is, that we much under-rated the American amateur at that time. Partly, I suppose, this was our "d----d insular insolence," but partly, too, it was due to the very successful tour in the States, a year or two before, of a team of the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society. They won their matches so consistently as to give us the idea that the Americans could not play golf. The man with the mallet putter was in process of teaching us better, though even yet we did not realize it. Mr. Harold Reade, the Irishman, ought to have beaten him, for he was two up and either two or three to play, but the American played the final holes very finely and just won. So he survived, until in the heath before the semi-final, wherein I had to meet Bobby, he had Hilton to play. But Hilton was in no sort of form and Travis beat him as he pleased. Meanwhile I beat Bobby and had revenge for the year before, in the Muirfield final, but it was by no means as I pleased. I started badly and let Bobby win the first three holes. Then I steadied down and he gave me chances. It is always a different thing playing Bobby anywhere else than at Muirfield. Had he gained this start there I should never have seen the way he went. But he let me get hole after hole back until on the eighteenth green we were all even, we had played three apiece, I was stone dead and my ball laid him a dead stymie. It was not a stymie at all difficult to loft. There was nice room to pitch the ball and let it run on into the hole. Still, at that crisis of the match, it was a fine piece of work on Bobby's part to play it perfectly as he did. Then I holed my unimportant little putt and we had to start out to play extra holes. My second shot to the first (or nineteenth) hole, I put carefully into the bunker guarding the green. Bobby, I suppose, determined to be over, seeing that I was in, rather over-ran the green. A bunker near the hole never had the terrors for me that it has for some people: we were too familiar with them at Westward Ho! Tom Vardon said to me afterwards, respecting the stroke which I played out of that bunker: "That was a plucky shot of yours, to go straight for the hole like that." Of course it is always pleasant to be told one is a hero, but really there was nothing very heroic about this. If the sand were taken at the right point behind the ball there was no trouble about the stroke. If you hit differently from your intention there was bound to be trouble, but that is the case with most golfing strokes. What happened in this case was that I howked the ball out fairly near the hole, about a couple of yards off, perhaps, and Bobby, playing from the far end of the green, put his just inside it. But whereas I had a straight up-hill putt to the hole, he had to come along the curve of the slope, so that my putt was far the easier. I holed it all right. Bobby allowed a little too much for the slope and that was the end of that business. "Now see, Horace," he said, as we walked back to the club-house, "that you don't get beaten by that American." I started out in the afternoon without the smallest idea in life that I was to be beaten by "that American"; but I had not played two shots before I knew that all the best of the fight had been taken out of me by that stiff morning match. As Andrew Kirkaldy said to me afterwards: "That," pointing to Bobby, "that was your murderer." He had, in truth, done most of the killing, and Travis had but to finish it. He did not really play very well. Still, he was one up on me going to the thirteenth hole, and there gave me every chance of winning it and squaring the match, but I played a very bad shot, and followed it with another indifferent one, and so let him win that hole which I ought to have won. He gave me no further chances, and beat me by, I think, three and two. But I reckoned things up afterwards and found, by the score of the holes, that if I had played as well as I did in any of the previous matches, I should have been up on him, instead of down, at the point where he beat me. That, however, is what makes an amateur champion--that, amongst other things--the ability to "stay" through a long fight and not to suffer reaction after a hard match. In the final, Travis had to meet Ted Blackwell, and I never had great hopes for England as to the result of that encounter. I say this, with all respect for Ted Blackwell's great game as he developed it almost immediately afterwards; but he was not his great self then. At that time he was still putting with a thin-bladed little cleek which must have been forged about the date that Tubal Cain was in active work as a smith. Very shortly afterwards someone, who deserves to suffer lingering death at the hands of all Ted Blackwell's later opponents, induced him to take to an aluminium putter. The difference it made in his game was nearer a third than four strokes, as I reckon it. From a really bad putter he became all at once a very good putter indeed. I knew all about it, for I had been playing him and beating him comfortably in several matches at St. Andrews, in course of a little party which Lord Dudley took up there. I met him again in an international match at Hoylake only a little later, when he had exchanged the tinkling cleek for the aluminium putter, and he beat me--not by length of driving, but by length of putting. As for this final at Sandwich, which was played in his pre-aluminium days, Travis has put it on record that he felt confident of winning from the start; and he looked like a winner all through. With the black cigar and the deliberate methods, including the practice swing before each stroke, he was perhaps rather a hard man to play against, but at the same time, and although I have said that he did not play very well when I met him, I think those critics make a great mistake who say that he was not a first-class golfer. He was, and is, a wonderful putter. I know that, not only by the wonderful week of putting that he put in over here at that time, but by what Jim Whigham and others who have played a great deal with him in America have told me. Whigham said that you were grateful, thinking that you had a lucky escape, if you were his opponent and he did not hole the ball from fifteen yards. This was at Garden City, where he knows the greens better than his drawing-room carpet. Indeed, all Travis's record disproves the statement that "he was not fit to win the championship." That he was "lucky to win" we must think. Unless a man is a head and shoulders above his field, he has to have luck if he is to live through a tournament such as our amateur championship; and Travis had no such head and shoulders advantage as this. But put him down at a hundred and eighty or any less number of yards from the hole, and there was no player, amateur or professional, better than he. Perhaps there was no amateur as good. His weakness was out of bunkers and rough ground, but that was a weakness which troubled him little because he very seldom got into these difficulties. I hardly know whether he would have won our championship if Ted Blackwell and the aluminium putter had been introduced to each other a few years earlier; but it is no use arguing about "ifs." As soon as he had won that final, the price of Schenectady putters went up a hundred per cent., and Bobby Maxwell, by way of insult, made me a present of one of them, with which I often putted till our legislation banned them. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 8: Again I have to append the sad note, so often written, that in the interval between the telling of this tale and its publication, he, too, has been taken from the world of living men.] CHAPTER XXXV HOW GOLF HAS GRIPPED AMERICA The difference in the golfing condition of the America which I had last visited in the early nineties and that to which I went again in 1910, was striking, and not a little amusing. On that former visit I had given an exhibition of golf to a few indifferent spectators at the Meadowbrook Club on Long Island, on which they had reported that it "might be a good game for Sunday"--conveying thereby a studied and profane insult both to the game and to the day. On my return in 1910 I found an America even more completely in the throes of golf than any portion of our native islands. But on this visit my approach to the American courses was made in an unconventional manner that is worth a word of notice. Lord Brassey had asked my wife and myself to come with him, on the _Sunbeam_, to Iceland, across the Atlantic to Newfoundland, and up the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The first golfing place at which we put in, after joining the yacht in the Cromarty Firth, was Dornoch, where is as glorious a natural links as the soul of the golfer can desire or his most industrious inquiry discover. The conformation of Iceland, chiefly mountain, or plain strewn with lava-blocks, hardly seems to lend itself kindly to golf; but on arrival, after many days, during some of them rather storm-tossed, at St. John's, Newfoundland, we found there a golf course, still a little in the rough, carved out of primeval pine forest, of undulating surface, astonishingly good considering how new it was, and promising to give really amusing and good golf of the inland type in the future. Neil Shannon, a Troon man, is the professional, and I astonished both myself and him by beating him. The next point at which we touched golf was Tadousac, a watering-place at the mouth of the famed Saguenay River which runs into the St. Lawrence. It is the oldest fur-trading station in Canada. Here is a short course, much _accidenté_, at two points traversing a deep ravine which has real sand in it. There is a more elaborate and carefully kept course at Murray Bay, a little further along the north shore of the St. Lawrence. At Quebec, on the Heights of Abraham, in a magnificent situation, is one of the oldest courses in North America. I was beaten by a putt by the better ball of two of the native golfers, Mr. Ash and Mr. McGreevy. Noble hospitality was shown us, both in Canada and in the States. Scarcely could one be permitted so much as to pay for one's own caddie, and any question of green fees was dismissed as quite out of the picture. We sailed up to Montreal on the night of August 12th, and on the 15th I find the following note in my diary: "Mr. Huntley Drummond took me around in his car, after luncheon, to the Bank of Montreal, where we picked up Mr. W. Clouston, and went out to the Beaconsfield course--not at all a bad green, of the inland type, flat in general, but with the club-house set on a hill from which most of the course is overlooked. They do themselves very well in the matter of club-houses in this country--most commodious, with bathrooms and all kinds of luxuries." On the following day I played on the Dixie course, also quite near Montreal, "a really good one--inland in its type, as all are over here, but interesting and varied and very pretty at a certain corner where much use is made of a stream, with weeping willows, and so on. There is one respect in which the architects of the course might have been more clever, for they have so ordained things that all the hazards are on the left, all the penalty is for the pulled ball, and a man may slice and slice to his heart's full content, and never suffer. The turf and the greens are very good, and the butterflies and grasshoppers very numerous, and large and splendid of hue." At Montreal we said good-bye, with many tears, to the _Sunbeam_ and her host, and made our next stop at Toronto, where are two excellent courses. On August 19th I find in my diary that "self and A.E. Austin beat Lyon and Breckenridge on the Lambton course." This Lyon is that Mr. George Lyon whom we have seen over here competing in our amateur championship. He has not done himself justice on this side, for he is a very fine player. He has won the Canadian championship often--precisely how often, I forget. "Lambton Golf Club very comfortable," my notes record, "piano set out on balcony, lawn tennis court and all 'amenities.' Beautiful view of course from house--natural sand in bunkers--very pretty, with woodland, water and undulating open country. The course is laid on several big levels in terraces. You play across a stream again and again--it is no course for non-floating balls. Some of the greens are irrigated by sub-surface pipes from the stream, leading to porous tiles, from which the hot sun sucks up the water to the surface. I saw a thing this day that I never saw before--played a ball up to a hole that had the flag standing in it; the ball jumped up, wrapped itself up in the flag, and stayed there swaddled up in the flag. Query--what is the rule that meets the case?" The next day I played with Mr. Edgar on the Toronto Club's course, but this is being given up to the builders, and the Club is moving to a course further out along the lake. There is a third course, also, for the Toronto folk--Rosedale--which is well spoken of. On the whole I was very much struck with the quality of these Canadian courses of which we hear but little over here. Among inland courses they take a very high place. Thence we went on by night, a sixteen hours' journey to Boston, where Charlie Macdonald, the creator of the National Golf Links of America, met us. Immediately on arrival we started out for the Myopia Club, where Macdonald and I beat T. Stephenson and Leeds. The last is the constructor of the Myopia course, and for its construction deserves no little credit. From what I have seen of American courses I put the National Golf Links first and this Myopia second, a very good second. The National is that much-talked-of course of which it was said that it was to be composed of replicas of the eighteen best holes that its creator could anywhere discover, and he journeyed over all the courses in Europe discovering them. My notes on Myopia course run: "fine inland course--rather many blind shots" (but some of these, I know, have been eliminated), "steeply undulating, sloping greens, no trees--good test of golf, long and trying. Record in competition 75." My next golfing note touches the Brookline course. "Went out in Willett's car to Brookline, the County Club. This is a tree-y course, like New Zealand, really good, good greens, well bunkered, a trifle on the short side, but full of interest. At all the American Clubs great care is taken in bunkering the courses." This last note is worth attention, because I see it is a comment of Vardon, after his visit in which he and Ray had to lower the British flag to Mr. Ouimet, that the bunkers on the American courses were not severe enough. But he did not see the National Links. That would have satisfied even his passion for bunkers. My notes continue: "Lunched at Brookline, then motored thirty miles to Essex Club, where Charlie MacDonald and I again beat, as we had already beaten in the morning at Brookline, T. Stephenson and Willett. The course tree-y, like Brookline, with great hills here and there. Natural sand in the bunkers--a fine course. Rather in transition state, as I saw it, but with all the making of a good thing." I see that I was at Myopia again on the 23rd, when Charlie MacDonald and I again beat Stephenson and Leeds. In the afternoon we went to see Mr. Fricks' grand collection of pictures at his house on North Shore--a fine sight, though "not golf." But there was little rest from golf when we arrived, at 3 p.m. on the 24th, in New York, very hot and dusty. Macdonald motored us out to his house at Rosslyn and then took me for a round at Garden City in the evening, where I beat him in a single. "Course very brown and baked," according to my diary, "but quite long, and putting greens good. Rather ugly surroundings, but fine test of golf. No trees as hazards, except a line of them on right of the 17th, which is a very good hole. The finish is to a short hole over a pond. Doubtless a good course, but not very inspiring." On the 25th I see that "Charles Macdonald and self played F. Herreshoff and L. Livingstone, at Garden City, in morning, but lost by a hole, and in the afternoon Herreshoff and self played our better ball against the best ball of C. Macdonald, L. Livingstone and R. Watson, but lost by a hole again." I have a note appended to this day's golf: "Never played worse--eyes bad with heat and motoring." I may break off here to give a hint to the British golfer visiting the States. I doubtless got a little "touch of the sun" on this day at Garden City, and it is a thing that the Briton coming fresh to American golf has to be very carefully on his guard against. He is menaced, really, by three dangers--the blaze and glare of the sun, the abounding energy of the native golfers and their abounding hospitality. Between the three he is in much peril of being overdone, as I quickly was. I played golf on various courses afterwards--on the Shinnecock Hills, finely undulating, but too short and with too many blind shots, where natural advantages have not been turned to the best possible account; at Easthampton, where, for two holes, you actually find yourself among real seaside sand dunes (unhappily this blessed dispensation does not last); on the National Links, of which I have already noted my high appreciation; at Baltusrol, very tree-y and very hilly, but a good, interesting course, and others too many to name. Their witness suffices. It suffices to show the zeal and kindness of your American hosts in taking you vast distances to play on many courses. It shows the vengeance that golf has taken on them for that comment on it of a quarter of a century ago when I exhibited to them some feeble sample of it and they said that it might do "for Sundays." There are men in America now who will play golf even on a week-day. In fact golf is, with many, the real interest of their lives. They do a bit of work, no doubt, urged by the painful necessity of earning a livelihood, but there are many whom their work does not grip. A quarter of a century ago the business men of New York talked dollars: to-day they talk golf. It is a very sanitary change. And not only will they talk golf, but they will spend money on it. The care that they take of their putting greens would hardly be credited, without being seen. It is not enough for them that the turf shall all be of grass, with no blend of weeds: it is demanded that it shall be all of one variety of grass, and that variety the finest. The National Golf Links has not only every green watered; it is watered all through the green, from extensive sprinklers kept going all night long in the dry weather. CHAPTER XXXVI THE END OF THE ROUND I did not see the finish of the amateur championship of 1905 when Gordon Barry beat Osmond Scott, but I understand what the moral of that match was--that indiarubber handles are not good things for a soaking wet day. We have had one or two terrible soakers for the finish of the amateur championship, and for the open championship too, in the last few years. The worst that ever I saw was that in which Johnny Ball beat Palmer in 1907 at St. Andrews. Almost the whole links was water-logged, it had been raining during most of the week. Johnny Laidlay prophesied that the man who would win the championship would be the man that had most changes of clothes, for one got wet through every round. I do not know how many changes Johnny Ball had, but I do know that he looked dead beat both in the semi-final and in the anti-penultimate heats, and that anybody else would have been beaten. It was only his wonderful match-play ability that took him through. He was not playing at all well, in spite of his win. In the final it never looked for a moment as if he could fail to win, and his greater power, in weather like that, gave Palmer, who was his opponent, mighty little chance with him. After that, to commemorate his sixth amateur championship, the Royal and Ancient Club did itself honour by electing him an honorary member. But he was far from having finished with the championship even then; and I much doubt whether he has finished even now. One of the interesting features of recent golfing story is the rise of fine players of the working-men class in England, as well as in Scotland, and at Ashdown Forest, where I lived for some years, the Cantelupe Club, and especially the great golfing family of Mitchell, has become famous. They became famous even before one of the family, Abe, rather took a big share of fame to himself. I had a cousin, Tom Mitchell, in my garden, who was nearly as good as Abe, and when I had a golfing guest staying with me and did not want to play golf myself, I used to say, "There's a boy in the garden will give you something of a game, if you do not mind playing with him." That guest always came back from his game in a very chastened frame of mind. Abe Mitchell chiefly made good his name by fine play in the amateur championship, and most of all in that of 1912, when the tournament was played for the first time at Westward Ho! That is the last of its kind that I attended, and I had to go to that because it was on my own old home course. I drew Denys Scott to start with, and I am afraid neither of us played very faultless golf. But he redeemed the match by some very fine runs up with his aluminium putter, and beat me. One of the episodes of the match was that the poor "Old Mole" came out to watch it, bringing with him a small pack of whippet dogs which danced about us as we played, to the exasperation of tried nerves. I have already paid due honour to the great work that he did in early days for English golf, and it is only while these pages were in course of writing that his death happened, where so much of his life had been passed, at Westward Ho! Johnny Ball won his eighth championship at this Westward Ho! meeting, and his final opponent was Abe Mitchell. I was referee and saw the whole of that match. Johnny had only escaped by the skin of his teeth, and by his imperturbable match-playing ability, from the hands of Mr. Bond, in an earlier heat. Mr. Bond had been five up, no less, and eight to play. And then he drank a bottle of ginger-beer, and never did a hole in the right number afterwards. But it is all to Johnny Ball's credit, and just like him, that even when his fortunes were thus apparently desperate he never did despair. He, for his part, went on doing the holes in the right number (which was more than he had done on the way out, when he lost five holes), and won at the nineteenth after a halved round. Abe Mitchell was not hitting the ball at his hardest in the match with Johnny, but both played well. In the afternoon it came on to pelt with rain, which suited Johnny, but Abe did not mind it either. The match stood all square with three to play and Abe laid Johnny what looked like a very dead stymie at the sixteenth, but Johnny somehow got round it. Abe won the seventeenth, thus making himself dormy, and both were on the last green with two shots each. Johnny holed out in two putts, Abe just failed to do so. Then they halved the thirty-seventh hole--not with quite blameless golf on either side--and at the thirty-eighth Abe topped his tee shot heavily, and that was the end of it. I regret to say that I did not go to Muirfield in 1909; for they had one of the finest finishes there of any championship. Cecil Hutchison was a hole up and two to play in the final against Bobby Maxwell: he did the last two holes in four and five, and the last on that day was very hard to reach in two. We may almost say that he did both in the right number. Yet he lost both, and therewith the championship, to Bobby, who did them in three and four. The three was scarcely human. It is not very easy to find a man who, all through his golfing time, has delighted more in the storms and the rain than Johnny Ball, but I believe there is one--that same who came as a little flaxen-haired boy to our house at Northam--J.H. Taylor. He is open champion, for the fifth time, as I write, and he won that championship at Hoylake in weather as villainous, especially on the second day, as any that has generally been served out to us for the finals of the amateur championship. One cannot say worse of it. He had a stroke or so in hand, of the whole of his field, at the start of that second day, but the curious thing is that when the rest of the professors saw what kind of day it was, they never doubted that Taylor would win. He has a mastery over the ball in these circumstances, both in the drive and in his low and heavily cut approaches, that none other can rival--not even Vardon nor Braid themselves. In respect of these more recent years I find that my reminiscences begin to deal more and more with things I have seen and less with things I have done--which is as much as to say that they must begin to lose the vivid personal touch. In 1908 the Royal and Ancient Club did me the high honour to elect me, first of Englishmen, as their Captain. As one of my wife's relations was good enough to say--"I'm glad they've made Horace that--it will look so well in his obituary notice." So it will; but I hope not yet. I had great ambitions to win the medal on the day that I struck off the ball whereby I played myself in as Captain, but though I contrived to hit that ball, and actually to hit it into the air, I was not well enough to take part in the medal play. In the winter of 1909 a little party of us--Tony Fairlie, Charles Hutchings and myself had been at Westward Ho! I had not seen the course for seven years, and it struck us all, with one accord, as the finest thing in golf (did we make reservation in St. Andrews' favour? I hardly think so) that we had ever seen. And during that visit I had played better than I had played for years and years before. I was in great delight and really had visions of a renewed youth and of having "got it back." And then returning home, I caught the worst go of influenza that I ever have had, which is a great deal to say, and never played golf properly again. At the moment of writing it is most unlikely, according to all the doctors say, that I shall ever play, properly or improperly, again; but it would not do for me to grumble. I have had a very full and pleasant golfing day--much interrupted, it is true, by illness, but still as extensive as a reasonable man could ask. And if all active part in the game is to be denied in the future, at all events I can still take interest undiminished in the work and play of others. Golf is not only the best of games to play: it is also, in many respects, the best to look on at. You cannot sit still, it is true, in the comfort of the pavilion, nor are aeroplanes as yet fitted with silencers so efficient that a match can be watched from them without discomposure of the golfer's nerves, but in the very fact that you must walk, and even run, if you are to see much of the game--such a meteor as Duncan is not to be caught without much sprinting--there are compensations. Watching a modern golf match means a good deal of healthful exercise and produces a more hearty appetite than sitting in the pavilion at Lords. As for the rival merits of the games, I need not raise so vexatious a question now at the very finish of the long round which the reader may have been patient enough to endure with me. Let it suffice to say that, whatever other games may be, golf is good enough. If golf, taken sanely and considered in all its various aspects, fails to satisfy us, we must be hard to please; and I will ask you to note, as one of the aspects worth considering, the very striking growth of the game in favour during the half-century over which this record runs. So the last stroke is played. Or is it, of a certainty, the last stroke after all? That is a question which at once is raised--not fancifully, but in all seriousness--if we are to place any credence whatever on such revelations as, for instance, Sir Oliver Lodge gives us in _Raymond_, as we have in _Claud's Book_--Claud actually states that he has been golfing--or as Sir Conan Doyle strenuously affirms to be proven true to his satisfaction. If any one of these even so much as approximate to the fact, in regard to that world to which we go after death, it must then be evident that it is a world so like that in which we live and labour and play golf for our relaxation now, that it is impossible but to think that there must be something of the nature of the same pastime in that "beyond." Such revelations, if we attach value to them at all, inevitably carry the inference that we shall there find golf, together with other conditions not widely different from those that we have known on earth--not any "fancy" golf on illimitable Elysian Fields, with never a bad lie on the whole immense, monotonous expanse, but real golf, difficult golf, golf with bunkers and all incidental troubles to be overcome--not without vexation of spirit--golf in which (for we cannot presume an infinity of halved matches), one or other player will be beaten. So it may be. It needs at least equal boldness to deny it as to affirm it. And, if it be so, arises then the further question: "Will those who are champions now, be champions then? Are we to carry on, into that beyond, any portion of the skill acquired so painfully here below? Will Harry Vardon still be, golfily speaking, Harry Vardon there?" It scarcely seems an equitable prospect. Have we not more reason, and even some high authority, to suppose that the blessed law of compensation will be in operation: that the first here will be the last there, and the eighteen-handicap man, now the scratch player, or better, of that bright future? This is the vision splendid, for the many--on which they may gratefully close the page. _Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner, _Frome and London_. A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICES OF "COUNTRY LIFE" [Illustration: 20, TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, W.C.2] _The "Country Life" Library_ WINDSOR CASTLE AN ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY Collected and written by command of Their Majesties QUEEN VICTORIA, KING EDWARD VII and KING GEORGE V. By SIR WILLIAM H. ST. JOHN HOPE, LITT.D., D.C.L. _Imperial Quarto, in Two Volumes, and a Portfolio._ _Bound in Half Sheepskin_, £7 17_s._ 6_d._ _net_; _Whole Sheepskin_, £10 10_s._ _net_; _Full Morocco_, £13 2_s._ 6_d._ _net_. Windsor Castle stands alone among the buildings of Great Britain. It is the greatest among our early fortresses and the most splendid of Royal Palaces. The story of English Building during eight centuries is very fully written in the stones of Windsor, but not so that every one may read. The slow accretions of centuries are not easy to disentangle, and it needed the skill and wide archaeological experience of Sir William H. St. John Hope to set out in its true proportions the fascinating story of the growth of this great architectural organism. The edition is limited to 1,050 numbered copies, of which nearly 400 were subscribed prior to publication. It has been printed from new type on pure rag paper, specially made for this edition. It is illustrated by exquisite reproductions in colour of drawings by Paul Sandby; by a large number of collotype plates reproducing a unique collection of original drawings, engravings and photographs which show the Castle at every stage of its development, as well as by beautiful woodcuts, prepared expressly by the great engraver Orlando Jewitt for this History, when it was first projected. Many of the illustrations are reproduced for the first time, by special permission of His Majesty the King, from originals in the Royal Library at Windsor. The work is issued in two sumptuous volumes, together with a portfolio containing a notable reproduction of Norden's View of Windsor and a complete series of plans, specially printed in fourteen colours, which show the dates of all the buildings in the Castle and their successive changes. _The Times_ says: "A piece of historical research and reconstruction of which all who have been concerned in it may be proud." _The Manchester Guardian_ says: "It may at once be safely said that no monograph on a single building has ever before been attempted on such a scale or has been carried out in so sumptuous and at the same time so scholarly a manner." GARDEN ORNAMENT By GERTRUDE JEKYLL. _Large folio (16 by 11), with over 600 matchless Illustrations and charming coloured frontispiece_, £3 3s. _net_, _by post_ £3 4s.; _in half levant grain_, £3 15s. _net_. With the continuous development of garden design there has arisen an increasing demand for a practical and comprehensive book entirely devoted to the right use of Garden Ornament, and this volume has been carefully designed to meet that demand. Every word, every illustration in the volume conveys a lesson to the reader, and the publishers feel they are entitled to congratulate themselves and the public upon the fact that Miss Jekyll, whose reputation in garden design is world-wide, was induced to undertake the authorship of the book. The right use of water in the garden; the happy employment of Steps and Gateways; the skilful placing of Garden Houses, Sundials, and Seats; the definite value and proper construction of Pergolas; the use of climbing plants; the wanton growth and misuse of ivy and other creepers, are all depicted and described in an authoritative and exhaustive manner. 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28107	----	THE COMPLETE GOLFER THE COMPLETE GOLFER BY HARRY VARDON OPEN CHAMPION, 1896, 1898, 1899, 1903 AMERICAN CHAMPION, 1900 WITH SIXTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS SECOND EDITION METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON _First Published June 1905_ _Second Edition June 1905_ PREFACE Many times I have been strongly advised to write a book on golf, and now I offer a volume to the great and increasing public who are devoted to the game. So far as the instructional part of the book is concerned, I may say that, while I have had the needs of the novice constantly in mind, and have endeavoured to the best of my ability to put him on the right road to success, I have also presented the full fruits of my experience in regard to the fine points of the game, so that what I have written may be of advantage to improving golfers of all degrees of skill. There are some things in golf which cannot be explained in writing, or for the matter of that even by practical demonstration on the links. They come to the golfer only through instinct and experience. But I am far from believing that, as is so often said, a player can learn next to nothing from a book. If he goes about his golf in the proper manner he can learn very much indeed. The services of a competent tutor will be as necessary to him as ever, and I must not be understood to suggest that this work can to any extent take the place of that compulsory and most invaluable tuition. On the other hand, it is next to impossible for a tutor to tell a pupil on the links everything about any particular stroke while he is playing it, and if he could it would not be remembered. Therefore I hope and think that, in conjunction with careful coaching by those who are qualified for the task, and by immediate and constant practice of the methods which I set forth, this book may be of service to all who aspire to play a really good game. If any player of the first degree of skill should take exception to any of these methods, I have only one answer to make, and that is that, just as they are explained in the following pages, they are precisely those which helped me to win my five championships. These and no others I practise every day upon the links. I attach great importance to the photographs and the accompanying diagrams, the objects of which are simplicity and lucidity. When a golfer is in difficulty with any particular stroke--and the best of us are constantly in trouble with some stroke or other--I think that a careful examination of the pictures relating to that stroke will frequently put him right, while a glance at the companion in the "How not to do it" series may reveal to him at once the error into which he has fallen and which has hitherto defied detection. All the illustrations in this volume have been prepared from photographs of myself in the act of playing the different strokes on the Totteridge links last autumn. Each stroke was carefully studied at the time for absolute exactness, and the pictures now reproduced were finally selected by me from about two hundred which were taken. In order to obtain complete satisfaction, I found it necessary to have a few of the negatives repeated after the winter had set in, and there was a slight fall of snow the night before the morning appointed for the purpose. I owe so much--everything--to the great game of golf, which I love very dearly, and which I believe is without a superior for deep human and sporting interest, that I shall feel very delighted if my "Complete Golfer" is found of any benefit to others who play or are about to play. I give my good wishes to every golfer, and express the hope to each that he may one day regard himself as complete. I fear that, in the playing sense, this is an impossible ideal. However, he may in time be nearly "dead" in his "approach" to it. I have specially to thank Mr. Henry Leach for the invaluable services he has rendered to me in the preparation of the work H.V. TOTTERIDGE, _May 1905_. CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I GOLF AT HOME 1 The happy golfer--A beginning at Jersey--The Vardon family--An anxious tutor--Golfers come to Grouville--A fine natural course--Initiation as a caddie--Primitive golf--How we made our clubs--Matches in the moonlight--Early progress--The study of methods--Not a single lesson--I become a gardener--The advice of my employer--"Never give up golf"--A nervous player to begin with--My first competition--My brother Tom leaves home--He wins a prize at Musselburgh--I decide for professionalism--An appointment at Ripon. CHAPTER II SOME REMINISCENCES 11 Not enough golf--"Reduced to cricket"--I move to Bury--A match with Alexander Herd--No more nerves--Third place in an open competition--I play for the Championship--A success at Portrush--Some conversation and a match with Andrew Kirkaldy--Fifth for the Championship at Sandwich--Second at the Deal tournament--Eighth in the Championship at St. Andrews--I go to Ganton--An invitation to the south of France--The Championship at Muirfield--An exciting finish--A stiff problem at the last hole--I tie with Taylor--We play off, and I win the Championship--A tale of a putter--Ben Sayers wants a "wun'"--What Andrew thought of Muirfield--I win the Championship again at Prestwick--Willie Park as runner-up--My great match with Park--Excellent arrangements--A welcome victory--On money matches in general--My third Championship at Sandwich--My fourth at Prestwick--Golf under difficulties. CHAPTER III THE WAY TO GOLF 25 The mistakes of the beginner--Too eager to play a round--Despair that follows--A settling down to mediocrity--All men may excel--The sorrows of a foozler--My advice--Three months' practice to begin with--The makings of a player--Good golf is best--How Mr. Balfour learned the game--A wise example--Go to the professional--The importance of beginning well--Practise with each club separately--Driver, brassy, cleek, iron, mashie, and putter--Into the hole at last--Master of a bag of clubs--The first match--How long drives are made--Why few good players are coming on--Golf is learned too casually. CHAPTER IV THE CHOICE AND CARE OF CLUBS 37 Difficulties of choice--A long search for the best--Experiments with more than a hundred irons--Buy few clubs to begin with--Take the professional's advice--A preliminary set of six--Points of the driver--Scared wooden clubs are best--Disadvantages of the socket--Fancy faces--Short heads--Whip in the shaft--The question of weight--Match the brassy with the driver--Reserve clubs--Kinds of cleeks--Irons and mashies--The niblick--The putting problem--It is the man who putts and not the putter--Recent inventions--Short shafts for all clubs--Lengths and weights of those I use--Be careful of your clubs--Hints for preserving them. CHAPTER V DRIVING--PRELIMINARIES 52 Advantage of a good drive--And the pleasure of it--More about the driver--Tee low--Why high tees are bad--The question of stance--Eccentricities and bad habits--Begin in good style--Measurements of the stance--The reason why--The grip of the club--My own method and its advantages--Two hands like one--Comparative tightness of the hands--Variations during the swing--Certain disadvantages of the two-V grip--Addressing the ball--Freaks of style--How they must be compensated for--Too much waggling--The point to look at--Not the top of the ball, but the side of it. CHAPTER VI DRIVING--THE SWING OF THE CLUB 64 "Slow back"--The line of the club head in the upward swing--The golfer's head must be kept rigid--The action of the wrists--Position at the top of the swing--Movements of the arms--Pivoting of the body--No swaying--Action of the feet and legs--Speed of the club during the swing--The moment of impact--More about the wrists--No pure wrist shot in golf--The follow-through--Timing of the body action--Arms and hands high up at the finish--How bad drives are made--The causes of slicing--When the ball is pulled--Misapprehensions as to slicing and pulling--Dropping of the right shoulder--Its evil consequences--No trick in long driving--Hit properly and hard--What is pressing and what is not--Summary of the drive. CHAPTER VII BRASSY AND SPOON 78 Good strokes with the brassy--Play as with the driver--The points of the brassy--The stance--Where and how to hit the ball--Playing from cuppy lies--Jab strokes from badly-cupped lies--A difficult club to master--The man with the spoon--The lie for the baffy--What it can and cannot do--Character of the club--The stance--Tee shots with the baffy--Iron clubs are better. CHAPTER VIII SPECIAL STROKES WITH WOODEN CLUBS 85 The master stroke in golf--Intentional pulling and slicing--The contrariness of golf--When pulls and slices are needful--The stance for the slice--The upward swing--How the slice is made--The short sliced stroke--Great profits that result--Warnings against irregularities--How to pull a ball--The way to stand--The work of the right hand--A feature of the address--What makes a pull--Effect of wind on the flight of the ball--Greatly exaggerated notions--How wind increases the effect of slicing and pulling--Playing through a cross wind--The shot for a head wind--A special way of hitting the ball--A long low flight--When the wind comes from behind. CHAPTER IX THE CLEEK AND DRIVING MASHIE 98 A test of the golfer--The versatility of the cleek--Different kinds of cleeks--Points of the driving mashie--Difficulty of continued success with it--The cleek is more reliable--Ribbed faces for iron clubs--To prevent skidding--The stance for an ordinary cleek shot--The swing--Keeping control over the right shoulder--Advantages of the three-quarter cleek shot--The push shot--My favourite stroke--The stance and the swing--The way to hit the ball--Peculiar advantages of flight from the push stroke--When it should not be attempted--The advantage of short swings as against full swings with iron clubs--Playing for a low ball against the wind--A particular stance--Comparisons of the different cleek shots--General observations and recommendations--Mistakes made with the cleek. CHAPTER X PLAY WITH THE IRON 112 The average player's favourite club--Fine work for the iron--Its points--The right and the wrong time for play with it--Stance measurements--A warning concerning the address--The cause of much bad play with the iron--The swing--Half shots with the iron--The regulation of power--Features of erratic play--Forced and checked swings--Common causes of duffed strokes--Swings that are worthless. CHAPTER XI APPROACHING WITH THE MASHIE 118 The great advantage of good approach play--A fascinating club--Characteristics of a good mashie--Different kinds of strokes with it--No purely wrist shot--Stance and grip--Position of the body--No pivoting on the left toe--The limit of distance--Avoid a full swing--The half iron as against the full mashie--The swing--How not to loft--On scooping the ball--Taking a divot--The running-up approach--A very valuable stroke--The club to use--A tight grip with the right hand--Peculiarities of the swing--The calculation of pitch and run--The application of cut and spin--A stroke that is sometimes necessary--Standing for a cut--Method of swinging and hitting the ball--The chip on to the green--Points of the jigger. CHAPTER XII ON BEING BUNKERED 131 The philosopher in a bunker--On making certain of getting out--The folly of trying for length--When to play back--The qualities of the niblick--Stance and swing--How much sand to take--The time to press--No follow-through in a bunker--Desperate cases--The brassy in a bunker--Difficulties through prohibited grounding--Play straight when length is imperative--Cutting with the niblick. CHAPTER XIII SIMPLE PUTTING 141 A game within another game--Putting is not to be taught--The advantage of experience--Vexation of missing short putts--Some anecdotes--Individuality in putting--The golfer's natural system--How to find it--And when found make a note of it--The quality of instinct--All sorts of putters--How I once putted for a Championship--The part that the right hand plays--The manner of hitting the ball--On always being up and "giving the hole a chance"--Easier to putt back after overrunning than when short--The trouble of Tom Morris. CHAPTER XIV COMPLICATED PUTTS 150 Problems on undulating greens--The value of practice--Difficulties of calculation--The cut stroke with the putter--How to make it--When it is useful--Putting against a sideways slope--A straighter line for the hole--Putting down a hill--Applying drag to the ball--The use of the mashie on the putting-green--Stymies--When they are negotiable and when not--The wisdom of playing for a half--Lofting over the stymie--The run-through method--Running through the stymie--How to play the stroke, and its advantages--Fast greens for fancy strokes--On gauging the speed of a green. CHAPTER XV SOME GENERAL HINTS 160 Too much golf--Analysis of good strokes--One's attitude towards one's opponent--Inaccurate counting of strokes--Tactics in match play--Slow couples on the course--Asking for halves--On not holing out when the half is given--Golfing attire--Braces better than belts--Shoes better than boots--How the soles should be nailed--On counting your strokes--Insisting on the rules--Play in frosty weather--Chalked faces for wet days--Against gloves--Concerning clubs--When confidence in a club is lost--Make up your mind about your shot--The golfer's lunch--Keeping the eye on the ball--The life of a rubber-core--A clean ball--The caddie's advice--Forebodings of failure--Experiments at the wrong time--One kind of golf at a time--Bogey beaten, but how?--Tips for tee shots--As to pressing--The short approach and the wayward eye--Swinging too much--For those with defective sight--Your opponent's caddie--Making holes in the bunkers--The golfer's first duty--Swinging on the putting-greens--Practise difficult shots and not easy ones, etc. CHAPTER XVI COMPETITION PLAY 177 Its difficulties--Nerves are fatal--The philosophic spirit--Experience and steadiness--The torn card--Too much hurry to give up--A story and a moral--Indifference to your opponent's brilliance--Never slacken when up--The best test of golf--If golf were always easy--Cautious play in medal rounds--Risks to be taken--The bold game in match play--Studying the course--Risks that are foolishly taken--New clubs in competitions--On giving them a trial--No training necessary--As to the pipe and glass--How to be at one's best and keenest--On playing in the morning--In case of a late draw--Watch your opponents. CHAPTER XVII ON FOURSOMES 188 The four-ball foursome--Its inferiority to the old-fashioned game--The case of the long-handicap man--Confusion on the greens--The man who drives last--The old-fashioned two-ball foursome--Against too many foursomes--Partners and each other--Fitting in their different games--The man to oblige--The policy of the long-handicap man--How he drove and missed in the good old days--On laying your partner a stymie--A preliminary consideration of the round--Handicapping in foursomes--A too delicate reckoning of strokes given and received--A good foursome and the excitement thereof--A caddie killed and a hole lost--A compliment to a golfer. CHAPTER XVIII GOLF FOR LADIES 198 As to its being a ladies' game--A sport of freedom--The lady on the links--The American lady golfer--English ladies are improving--Where they fail, and why--Good pupils--The same game as the man's--No short swings for ladies--Clubs of too light weight--Their disadvantages--A common fault with the sex--Bad backward swings--The lady who will find out for herself--Foundations of a bad style--The way to success. CHAPTER XIX THE CONSTRUCTION OF COURSES 205 Necessity for thought and ingenuity--The long-handicap man's course--The scratch player's--How good courses are made--The necessary land--A long nine-hole course better than a short eighteen--The preliminary survey--A patient study of possibilities--Stakes at the holes--Removal of natural disadvantages--"Penny wise and pound foolish"--The selection of teeing grounds--A few trial drives--The arrangement of long and short holes--The best two-shot and three-shot holes--Bunkers and where to place them--The class of player to cater for--The scratch man's game--The shots to be punished--Bunkers down the sides--The best putting greens--Two tees to each hole--Seaside courses. CHAPTER XX LINKS I HAVE PLAYED ON 219 Many first-class links--The best of all--Sandwich--Merits of the Royal St. George's course--Punishments for faults and rewards for virtue--Not a short course--The best hole--The Maiden--Other good holes--Prestwick an excellent course--The third and the ninth holes--The finest hole anywhere--Hoylake--Two or three tame holes--A means of improvement--Good hazards and a premium on straight play--St. Andrews--Badly-placed bunkers--A good second hole--The finest one-shot hole to be found anywhere--An unfair hole--The best holes at Muirfield--Troon--North Berwick--Cruden Bay--Dornoch--Machrihanish--A splendid course at Islay--The most difficult hole I know--Gullane--Kilspindie--Luffness--Links in Ireland--Portrush--Portmarnock--Dollymount--Lahinch--Newcastle--Welsh courses--Ashburnham--Harlech--On the south and south-west coasts--The rushes at Westward Ho!--Newquay--Good holes at Deal--Littlestone--Rye--The advantage of Cromer--Brancaster--Hunstanton--Sheringham--Redcar--Seaton Carew--St. Anne's--Formby--Wallasey--Inland courses--Sunningdale--A splendid course--Another at Walton Heath--Huntercombe--London links--Courses in the country--Sheffield--Manchester--Huddersfield--"Inland" courses at the seaside--A warning. CHAPTER XXI GOLF IN AMERICA 232 Good golf in the United States--My tour through the country--Mr. Travis's victory in our Amateur Championship--Not a surprise--The man who played the best golf--British amateurs must wake up--Other good Americans will come--Our casual methods of learning golf--The American system--My matches in the States--A good average--Driving well--Some substantial victories--Some difficult matches--Course records--Enthusiasm of the American crowds--The golf fever--The king of baseball takes to golf--The American Open Championship--A hard fight with J.H. Taylor--A welcome win--Curious experiences in Florida--Greens without grass--The plague of locusts--Some injury to my game--"Mr. Jones"--Fooling the caddies--Camping out on the links--Golf reporting in America--Ingenious and good--Mistakes made by non-golfing writers--Lipping the hole for a hundred dollars. CHAPTER XXII CONCERNING CADDIES 245 Varieties of caddies--Advice to a left-handed player--Cock-shots at Ganton--Unearned increments--An offer to carry for the fun of the thing--The caddie who knows too much--My ideal caddie--His points--The girl caddie--A splendid type--Caddies' caustic humour--Some specimens of it--Mr. Balfour's taste in caddies--When the caddie is too anxious--Good human kindness--"Big Crawford"--"Lookin' aifter Maister Balfour"--An ingenious claim--A salute for the Chief Secretary--A story of a distressed clergyman--Sandy Smith--The clothes he wore--An excess of zeal--The caddies' common-sense--When his lot is not a happy one. CHAPTER XXIII REFLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS 259 Good golf to come--Giants of the past--The amateurs of to-day--The greatness of "Freddy" Tait--Modern professionals--Good sportsmen and good friends--A misconception--The constant strain--How we always play our best--Difficult tasks--No "close season" in golf--Spectators at big matches--Certain anecdotes--Putting for applause--Shovelling from a bunker--The greatest match I have ever played in--A curious incident--A record in halves--A coincidence--The exasperation of Andrew--The coming of spring--The joyful golfer. APPENDIX (Rules of the Game) 267 INDEX 279 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PORTRAIT _Frontispiece_ PLATE PAGE I. My set of clubs 48 II. The grip with the left hand 58 III. The overlapping grip 58 IV. The overlapping grip 58 V. The overlapping grip 58 VI. Driver and brassy. The stance 66 VII. Driver and brassy. Top of the swing 66 VIII. Driver and brassy. Top of the swing from behind 66 IX. Driver and brassy. Finish of the swing 66 X. How not to drive 72 XI. How not to drive 72 XII. How not to drive 72 XIII. How not to drive 72 XIV. Driver and brassy. Stance when playing for a slice 86 XV. Driver and brassy. Top of the swing when playing for a slice 86 XVI. Driver and brassy. Finish when playing for a slice 86 XVII. Driver and brassy. Playing for a pull. Stance 90 XVIII. Driver and brassy. Top of the swing when playing for a pull 90 XIX. Driver and brassy. Finish when playing for a pull 90 XX. Driver and brassy. Stance for a low ball against the wind 96 XXI. Driver and brassy. Stance for a high ball with the wind 96 XXII. Full shot with the cleek. Stance 102 XXIII. Full shot with the cleek. Top of the swing 102 XXIV. Full shot with the cleek. Finish 102 XXV. Full shot with the cleek. Finish 102 XXVI. The push shot with the cleek. Stance 106 XXVII. The push shot with the cleek. Top of the swing 106 XXVIII. The push shot with the cleek. Finish 106 XXIX. A low ball (against wind) with the cleek. Stance 106 XXX. A low ball (against wind) with the cleek. Top of the swing 106 XXXI. A low ball (against wind) with the cleek. Finish 106 XXXII. Faulty play with the cleek 110 XXXIII. Faulty play with the cleek 110 XXXIV. Faulty play with the cleek 110 XXXV. Faulty play with the cleek 110 XXXVI. Faulty play with the cleek 110 XXXVII. Full iron shot. Stance 114 XXXVIII. Full iron shot. Top of the swing 114 XXXIX. Full iron shot. Finish 114 XL. Play with the iron for a low ball (against wind). Stance 114 XLI. Play with the iron for a low ball (against wind). Top of the swing 114 XLII. Play with the iron for a low ball (against wind). Finish 114 XLIII. Mashie approach (pitch and run). Stance 122 XLIV. Mashie approach (pitch and run). Top of the swing 122 XLV. Mashie approach (pitch and run). Finish 122 XLVI. Mistakes with the mashie 122 XLVII. Mistakes with the mashie 122 XLVIII. Mistakes with the mashie 122 XLIX. Running-up approach with mashie or iron. Finish, with stance also indicated 122 L. A cut approach with the mashie. Stance 122 LI. A cut approach with the mashie. Top of the swing 122 LII. A cut approach with the mashie. Finish 122 LIII. The niblick in a bunker. Top of an ordinary stroke when it is intended to take much sand 136 LIV. "Well out!" Finish of an ordinary stroke in a bunker when much sand is taken 136 LV. Another bunker stroke. Top of the swing when intending to take the ball cleanly and with a little cut 136 LVI. Finish, after taking the ball cleanly from a bunker 136 LVII. Putting 146 LVIII. Putting 146 DIAGRAMS. Trajectory of ball when a distant slice is required 89 Trajectory of ball in the case of a quick slice 90 Method and effect of pulling into a cross wind from the right 94 The push shot with the cleek 106 Putting with cut on a sloping green 154 Nails in golfing boots and shoes 167 Points to look at when addressing the ball 170 THE COMPLETE GOLFER CHAPTER I GOLF AT HOME The happy golfer--A beginning at Jersey--The Vardon family--An anxious tutor--Golfers come to Grouville--A fine natural course--Initiation as a caddie--Primitive golf--How we made our clubs--Matches in the moonlight--Early progress--The study of methods--Not a single lesson--I become a gardener--The advice of my employer--"Never give up golf"--A nervous player to begin with--My first competition--My brother Tom leaves home--He wins a prize at Musselburgh--I decide for professionalism--An appointment at Ripon. I have sometimes heard good golfers sigh regretfully, after holing out on the eighteenth green, that in the best of circumstances as to health and duration of life they cannot hope for more than another twenty, or thirty, or forty years of golf, and they are then very likely inclined to be a little bitter about the good years of their youth that they may have "wasted" at some other less fascinating sport. When the golfer's mind turns to reflections such as these, you may depend upon it that it has been one of those days when everything has gone right and nothing wrong, and the supreme joy of life has been experienced on the links. The little white ball has seemed possessed of a soul--a soul full of kindness and the desire for doing good. The clubs have seemed endowed with some subtle qualities that had rarely been discovered in them before. Their lie, their balance, their whip, have appeared to reach the ideal, and such command has been felt over them as over a dissecting instrument in the hands of a skilful surgeon. The sun has been shining and the atmosphere has sparkled when, flicked cleanly from the tee, the rubber-cored ball has been sent singing through the air. The drives have all been long and straight, the brassy shots well up, the approaches mostly dead, and the putts have taken the true line to the tin. Hole after hole has been done in bogey, and here and there the common enemy has been beaten by a stroke. Perhaps the result is a record round, and, so great is the enthusiasm for the game at this moment, that it is regarded as a great misfortune that the sun has set and there is no more light left for play. These are the times when the golfer's pulse beats strong, and he feels the remorse of the man with the misspent youth because he was grown up and his limbs were setting before ever he teed a ball. Well, at least I can say that I have not missed much of the game that I love with a great fondness, for I played a kind of prehistoric golf when I was a bad boy of seven, and off and on I have played it ever since. It was fortunate for me that the common land at Jersey was years ago the ideal thing for a golfing links, and that golfers from abroad found out its secret, as they always do. If they had failed to do so in this case, I might still have been spending my life in horticultural pursuits. For I was born (on May 9, 1870) and bred in Jersey, at that little place called Grouville, which is no more than a collection of scattered cottages and farmhouses a few miles from St. Heliers. Both my parents were natives of Jersey, and my father, who was seventy-four on the 5th of last November, has been a gardener there all his life, holding the proud record of having changed his place of employment only once during the whole period. There was a big family of us--six boys and two girls--and all, except one of my sisters, are still alive. My brothers were George, Phil, Edward, Tom, and Fred, and I came fourth down the list, after Edward. As most golfers know, my brother Tom, to whom I owe very much, is now the professional at the Royal St. George's Club at Sandwich, while Fred is a professional in the Isle of Man. In due course we all went to the little village school; but I fear, from all that I can remember, and from what I have been told, that knowledge had little attraction for me in those days, and I know that I very often played truant, sometimes for three weeks at a stretch. Consequently my old schoolmaster, Mr. Boomer, had no particular reason to be proud of me at that time, as he seems to have become since. He never enjoys a holiday so much in these days as when he comes over from Jersey to see me play for the Open Championship, as he does whenever the meeting is held at Sandwich. But when I did win a Championship on that course, he was so nervous and excited about my play and my prospects that he felt himself unequal to watching me, and during most of the time that I was doing my four rounds he was sitting in a fretful state upon the seashore. I was a thin and rather delicate boy with not much physical strength, but I was as enthusiastic as the others in the games that were played at that time, and my first ambition was to excel at cricket. A while afterwards I became attached to football, and I retained some fondness for this game long after I took up golf. Even after my golfing tour in America a few years ago, when quite at my best, I captained the Ganton football team and played regularly in its matches. One day, when I was about seven years of age, a very shocking thing happened at Grouville. All the people there lived a quiet, undisturbed life, and had a very wholesome respect for the sanctity of the Sabbath day. But of all days of the week it was a Sunday when a small party of strange gentlemen made their appearance on the common land, and began to survey and to mark out places for greens and tees. Then the story went about that they were making preparations to play a game called golf. That was enough to excite the wrathful indignation of all the tenant-farmers round about, and without delay they began to think out means for expelling these trespassers from the common land. A tale of indignation spread through Grouville, and these golfers, of whom I remember that Mr. Brewster was one, were not at first regarded in the light of friendship. But they soon made their position secure by obtaining all necessary authority and permission for what they were about to do from the constable of the parish, and from that day we had to resign ourselves to the fact that a new feature had entered into the quiet life of Jersey. The little party went ahead with the marking out of their course, though indeed the natural state of the place was so perfect from the golfer's point of view that very little work was necessary, and no first-class golf links was ever made more easily. There were sand and other natural hazards everywhere, the grass was short and springy just as it is on all good sea-coast links, and all that it was necessary to do was to put a flag down where each hole was going to be, and run the mower and the roller over the space selected for the putting green. Rooms were rented at a little inn hard by, which was forthwith rechristened the Golf Inn, and the headquarters of the Jersey golfers are still at the same place, though a large club-room has been added. That was the beginning of the Royal Jersey Golf Club. The links as they were when they were first completed were really excellent--much better than they are to-day, for since then, in order to prevent the sand being blown all over the course by the strong winds which sweep across the island, the bunkers have in most cases been filled with clay, which has to a great extent spoiled them. When everything was ready, more of these golfers came across from England to play this new game which we had never seen before, and all the youngsters of the locality were enticed into their service to carry their clubs. I was among the number, and that was my first introduction to the game. We did not think much of it upon our first experience; but after we had carried for a few rounds we came to see that it contained more than we had imagined. Then we were seized with a desire to play it ourselves, and discover what we could do. But we had no links to play upon, no clubs, no balls, and no money. However, we surmounted all these difficulties. To begin with, we laid out a special course of our very own. It consisted of only four holes, and each one of them was only about fifty yards long, but for boys of seven that was quite enough. We made our teeing grounds, smoothed out the greens, and, so far as this part of the business was concerned, we were soon ready for play. There was no difficulty about balls, for we decided at once that the most suitable article for us, in the absence of real gutties, was the big white marble which we called a taw, and which was about half the size of an ordinary golf ball, or perhaps a little less than that. But there was some anxiety in our juvenile minds when the question of clubs came to be considered, and I think we deserved credit for the manner in which we disposed of it. It was apparent that nothing would be satisfactory except a club fashioned on the lines of a real golf club, and that to procure anything of the sort we should have to make it ourselves. Therefore, after several experiments, we decided that we would use for the purpose the hard wood of the tree which we called the lady oak. To make a club we cut a thick branch from the tree, sawed off a few inches from it, and then trimmed this piece so that it had a faint resemblance to the heads of the drivers we had seen used on the links. Any elaborate splicing operations were out of the question, so we agreed that we must bore a hole in the centre of the head. The shaft sticks that we chose and trimmed were made of good thorn, white or black, and when we had prepared them to our satisfaction we put the poker in the fire and made it red hot, then bored a hole with it through the head, and tightened the shaft with wedges until the club was complete. With this primitive driver we could get what was for our diminutive limbs a really long ball, or a long taw as one should say. In these later days a patent has been taken out for drivers with the shaft let into the head, which are to all intents and purposes the same in principle as those which we used to make at Grouville. By and by some of us became quite expert at the making of these clubs, and we set ourselves to discover ways and means of improving them. The greater elaboration of such brassies as we had seen impressed us, and we also found some trouble with our oak heads in that, being green, they were rather inclined to chip and crack. Ultimately we decided to sheathe the heads entirely with tin. It was not an easy thing to make a good job of this, and we were further troubled by the circumstance that our respective fathers had no sympathy with us, and declined upon any account to lend us their tools. Consequently we had no option but to wait until the coast was clear and then surreptitiously borrow the tools for an hour or two. We called these tin-plated drivers our brassies, and they were certainly an improvement on our original clubs. Occasionally a club was made in this manner which exhibited properties superior to those possessed by any other, as clubs will do even to-day. Forthwith the reputation of the maker of this club went up by leaps and bounds, and he was petitioned by others to make clubs for them, a heavy price in taws and marbles being offered for the service. The club that had created all this stir would change hands two or three times at an increasing price until it required the payment of four or five dozen marbles to become possessed of it. But the boy who owned the treasure was looked upon as the lord of the manor, and odds were demanded of him in the matches that we played. We practised our very elementary kind of golf whenever we could, and were soon enthusiastic. I remember particularly that many of our best matches were played in the moonlight. The moon seemed to shine more clearly at Jersey than in England, and we could see splendidly. Four of us would go out together on a moonlight night to play, and our little competition was arranged on the medal system by scores. Usually a few marbles were at stake. To prevent the loss of taws one of us was sent ahead to watch for their coming and listen for the faint thud of their fall, while the other three drove from the tee. Then the three came forward while the watcher went back to drive, and I am sorry to say that our keenness in those days led us to disregard certain principles of the sportsman's code of honour which we appreciated better as we grew up. What I mean is that the watcher was often handicapped in a way that he little suspected, for when he went back to the tee, and we went forward and found that our balls were not always so well up as we had hoped, we gave them a gentle kick forwards; for in the dim light we were able to do this unknown to each other. But in legitimate play we often got a 3 at these fifty-yard holes, and with our home-made clubs, our little white taws, our lack of knowledge, and our physical feebleness all taken into consideration, I say we have often done less creditable things since then. After such beginnings, we progressed very well. We began to carry more and more for the golfers who came to Grouville; we found or were given real balls that took the place of the taws, and then a damaged club occasionally came our way, and was repaired and brought into our own service. Usually it was necessary to put in new shafts, and so we burnt holes in the heads and put in the sticks, as we did with clubs of our own make; but these converted clubs were disappointing in the matter of durability. It happened once or twice that golfers for whom we had been carrying gave us an undamaged club as a reward for our enthusiasm, and we were greatly excited and encouraged when such a thing happened. I used to carry clubs about twice a week. I remember that Mr. Molesworth and Dr. Purves, both well known in the golfing world, were two players for whom I very often carried, and only the other day when I saw the former at the Professional Tournament at Richmond, watching the play, I was able to remind him of those times and of a particular shot he once played. We young caddies were very eager to learn the game thoroughly, and we were in the habit of watching these golfers very closely, comparing their styles, and then copying anything from them that seemed to take our fancy. I may say at once, in reply to a question that I am often asked, and which perhaps my present readers may themselves be inclined to put, that I have never in my life taken a single golfing lesson from anyone, and that whatever style I may possess is purely the result of watching others play and copying them when I thought they made a stroke in a particularly easy and satisfactory manner. It was my habit for very many years after these early days, until in fact I had won the Open Championship, to study the methods of good golfers in this way, and there are few from whom one is not able to learn something. I cannot say that the play of any one man particularly impressed me; I cannot point to any player, past or present, and declare that I modelled my style on his. It seemed to me that I took a little from one and a little from another until my swing was a composition of the swings of several players, and my approach shots likewise were of a very mixed parentage. Of course when I took a hint from the play of anyone I had been watching it required much subsequent practice properly to weld it into my own system; but I think that this close watching of good players, and the borrowing from their styles of all information that you think is good, and then constantly practising the new idea yourself, is an excellent method of improving your golf, though I do not recommend it as the sole method of learning, despite the success which I personally have achieved. However, this is a matter for later consideration. As we were such a large family and my father's means were very limited, there was the necessity which is common in such cases for all of the boys to turn out early in life and do something towards helping the others, and accordingly I went to work when I was thirteen. Some time afterwards I became gardener to the late Major Spofforth of Beauview, who was himself a very keen golfer, and who occasionally gave me some of his old clubs. Now and then, when he was in want of a partner, he used to take me out to play with him, and I shall never forget the words he spoke to me one day after we had played one of these matches. "Henry, my boy," he said, "take my advice, and never give up golf. It may be very useful to you some day." Certainly his words came true. I can only remember about these games that I was in the habit of getting very nervous over them, much more so than I did later on when I played matches of far more consequence. I joined a working men's golf club that had been formed, and it was through this agency that I won my first prize. A vase was offered for competition among the members, the conditions being that six medal rounds were to be played at the rate of one a month. When we had played five, I was leading by so very many strokes that it was next to impossible for any of the others to catch me up, and as just then my time came for leaving home and going out into the greater world of golf, the committee kindly gave me permission to play my last round two or three weeks before the proper time. It removed all doubt as to the destination of the prize, which has still one of the most honoured places on my mantelpiece. At that time my handicap for this club was plus 3, but that did not mean that I would have been plus 3 anywhere else. As a matter of fact, I should think I must have been about 8 or 10. By this time my younger brother Tom had already gone away to learn club-making from Lowe at St. Anne's-on-Sea. He played very much the same game of golf as I did at that time, and it was his venture and the success that waited upon it that made me determine to strike out. While Tom was at St. Anne's he went on a journey north to take part in a tournament at Musselburgh, where he captured the second prize. Thereupon I came to the conclusion that, if Tom could do that, then I too with a little patience might do the same. Indeed, I was a very keen golfer just then. At last Lowe was summoned to Lord Ripon's place at Ripon, near Harrogate, to lay out a new nine-holes course, and Tom wrote to me saying that they would be wanting a professional there, and if I desired such an appointment I had better apply for it without delay. I did so, and was engaged. I was twenty years of age when I left home to assume these duties. CHAPTER II SOME REMINISCENCES Not enough golf--"Reduced to cricket"--I move to Bury--A match with Alexander Herd--No more nerves--Third place in an open competition--I play for the Championship--A success at Portrush--Some conversation and a match with Andrew Kirkaldy--Fifth for the Championship at Sandwich--Second at the Deal tournament--Eighth in the Championship at St. Andrews--I go to Ganton--An invitation to the south of France--The Championship at Muirfield--An exciting finish--A stiff problem at the last hole--I tie with Taylor--We play off, and I win the Championship--A tale of a putter--Ben Sayers wants a "wun'"--What Andrew thought of Muirfield--I win the Championship again at Prestwick--Willie Park as runner-up--My great match with Park--Excellent arrangements--A welcome victory--On money matches in general--My third Championship at Sandwich--My fourth at Prestwick--Golf under difficulties. No true golfer is satisfied with a little of the game, if there is no substantial reason why he should not have much of it. I was greenkeeper as well as professional to the Studley Royal Golf Club, Ripon; but golf did not seem to have taken a very deep root there up to that time. There was so little of it played that I soon found time hang heavily upon my hands, and in the summer I was reduced to playing cricket, and in fact played more with the bat than I did with the driver. There were one or two good players on the links occasionally, and now and then I had some good games with visitors to the place. One day after such a match my opponent remarked very seriously to me, "Harry, if you take my advice you will get away from here as quickly as you can, as you don't get half enough golf to bring you out." I took the advice very much to heart. I was not unduly conceited about my golf in those days, and the possibility of being Champion at some future time had taken no definite shape in my mind; but I was naturally ambitious and disinclined to waste any opportunities that might present themselves. So, when I saw that the Bury Golf Club were advertising for a professional, I applied for the post and got it. It was by no means a bad nine-holes course that I found at Bury, and I was enabled to play much more golf than at Ripon, while there were some very good amateurs there, Mr. S.F. Butcher being one of the best. I was now beginning to play fairly well, and the first professional match of my life was arranged for me, Alexander Herd of Huddersfield being my opponent in this maiden effort, upon the result of which a stake of a few pounds a side depended. Herd was by that time a famous player and accomplishing some very fine golf, so that on paper at all events the unknown Bury professional had no chance whatever. So indeed it proved. It was fixed that we were to play thirty-six holes, home and home, Herd having the privilege of playing on his own course first. I forget how many he was up at Huddersfield, but it was so many that I had practically no chance of wiping out the difference when I brought my opponent to Bury, and in the end he won quite easily. "Sandy" Herd, as we all call him, and I have had many great matches since then, and many of them of far greater consequence than this, but I shall never forget this beginning. Neither in those days, nor in the others that soon followed, when it became clear that I had a chance of becoming Champion, was I ever in the least troubled with nervousness. I was completely cured of my early complaint. Moreover, I have not known what it is to be nervous even in a Championship round when my fate depended upon almost every stroke, and particularly on those at the last few holes. The feeling that was always uppermost in my mind was that I had everything to gain and nothing to lose. It is only when a man has everything to lose and nothing to gain that he should become uneasy about his game. When you have won a few prizes and there are critical eyes upon you, there may be some excuse for nerves, but not before. All young players should grasp the simple truth of this simple statement; but it is surprising how many fail to do so. No stroke or game ever seemed to cause me any anxiety in those young days, and my rapid success may have been in a large measure due to this indifference. In 1893 I decided that I would enter for the Open Championship, which in that year was played for at Prestwick, and I went north in company with my brother Tom, stopping on our way to take part in the tournament at Kilmalcolm, which was attended by most of the other professionals. I did fairly well in this, the first open competition for which I entered, being bracketed with poor Hugh Kirkaldy for third place. But I failed in the Championship competition, as, of course, I fully expected to do. That was Willie Auchterlonie's year, and I was some way down the list. I started in great style, and, though I broke down badly later on, there was just the consolation left for me that after all I did better than my partner, Willie Campbell. There were some curious circumstances attending the first big success of any kind that I achieved. This was at Portrush in Ireland, shortly after the Championship meeting, and the competition was a professional tournament. I was drawn against Andrew Kirkaldy in the first round, and his brother Hugh was one of the next pair, so it seemed that the two Kirkaldys would meet in the second round. Andrew assumed that that would happen, as he had every right to do, and he was heard to remark that it was rather hard luck that the brothers should be set against each other in this manner so early in the competition. The night before the match-play part of the business commenced, I was walking down one of the streets of Portrush when I encountered Andrew himself, and in his own blunt but good-humoured way he remarked, "Young laddie, d'ye think y're gaun to tak the money awa' with ye? Ye've no chance, ye ken." I said nothing in reply, because I felt that he spoke the truth. Next day a heavy gale was blowing, and I started very cautiously. The first hole was on the side of a hill, and when my ball lay a yard from the flag and I had the next stroke for the hole, it was trembling in the wind and threatening every moment to start rolling. So I waited for it to steady itself, and my waiting exasperated Andrew to such an extent that at length he exclaimed, "Man, d'ye ken I'm cauld? Are ye gaun to keep me waiting here a' nicht?" Then I took the putt and missed it, so the hole was halved. However, I set about my opponent after that, and had begun to enjoy the game immensely by the time we reached the turn. At this point two of the holes ran parallel to each other, and as we were playing one of them we passed Hugh and his partner going up to the other. "Man, Andrew, hoo's the game?" called out brother Hugh. "Man alive, I'm five doon!" Andrew replied in tones of distress. "Ma conscience!" muttered Hugh as he passed along. Andrew was more than five down at the finish of that game, and in the second round I had the satisfaction of removing the remaining member of the Kirkaldy family from the competition, while in the semi-final I beat an old Open Champion, D. Brown. But in the final, Herd defeated me on the last green, and so I had to be content with the prize given for runner-up. Shortly afterwards I won another prize in a tournament at Ilkley, this time accounting for Herd as well as my brother Tom and many other well-known players. Tom was professional at Ilkley, and the course there was a very difficult nine holes. I did better in the competition for the Open Championship in the following year when the meeting was held at Sandwich, playing a particularly good game on the second day, when my 80 and 81 were one of the two lowest combined returns. At the finish I was fifth, and felt very pleased to occupy the position, for the excellence of the golf that I witnessed was a surprise to me. From Sandwich the professionals went on to Deal, where a tournament was held, in which I managed to secure second place. It was Herd who beat me once again. At St. Andrews in the 1895 Competition, I returned the lowest score in the first round, but could only tie for the ninth place at the finish. My old friend, J.H. Taylor, who made his first essay to capture the blue ribbon of golf at Prestwick at the same time that I did, was the winner at both this and the previous Championship meeting. A few months later I left Bury for Ganton; Tom, who had been over there with some Ilkley players at the Yorkshire meeting, having heard that they were in need of a new professional, and written to me at once with advice to apply. Between leaving Bury and going to Ganton I had three weeks of good golf at Pau, in the south of France, the great and unexpected honour being paid me of an invitation to form one of a small party of professionals for whom a series of matches and competitions had been arranged there. Taylor, Herd, Archie Simpson, Willie Auchterlonie, and Lloyd, the local professional, were the others. Professional golfers when they are out together usually manage to have a pretty good time, and this occasion was no exception. Knowing a little French, I was once appointed cashier and paymaster for the party, but I did not know enough of the language to feel quite at home when large figures were the subject of discussion, and I remember that the result was an awkward incident at Bordeaux on the return journey. We were called upon to pay excess fare for the luxury of travelling in the express, and, failing to understand the ticket collector, I was filling his hand with francs, one by one, waiting for him to tell me when he was in possession of the required amount. But he needed more and more, and the situation was becoming embarrassing, when the guard whistled and the train moved off. If it had not been for that intervention we might still have been paying him excess fare. I went to Ganton immediately on my return, and in the spring of that year, 1896, a match between Taylor and myself was arranged on my new course, when I had the satisfaction of winning. I was looking forward very keenly to the Open Championship that year. It was at Muirfield, and it took place only four or five weeks after this encouraging victory over Taylor. In the meantime I had been a little off my game, and when I teed my first ball at Muirfield it seemed to me that I was as likely to make a bad drive as a good one, and I was equally uncertain with all the other clubs in my bag. But as it happened I was fortunate enough to be playing well during the competition, and was close up at the end of the first day, with Taylor in the next place above me. The next day I was again playing well, and the result was exciting. Taylor was doing his rounds only a few holes in front of me, and late in the contest it became apparent that the issue would be left between us. I did not know exactly what I had to do to win until about four holes from the finish, when someone, who had seen Taylor putt out at the last green, came up to me and told me what number of strokes was still left to me to play if I were to tie with him. When I came to the last hole I had set me what I think was the most anxious problem that has ever come my way since I first took up golf. I had five strokes left to play in order to tie with Taylor and give me the right to play off with him for the Championship, and four left with which to win it outright. It is a fairly long hole--a drive and a good brassy, with a very nasty bunker guarding the green. Thus, while it was an easy 5, it was a difficult 4, and the bold golfer who made his bid for the low figure might possibly be punished with a 6. My drive was good, and then I had to make my choice between the bold game and the sure one. A Championship hung upon the decision. The prospect of being the winner in less than five minutes was tempting. The brassy would give me the Championship or nothing. The iron would admit me to the privilege of playing off with Taylor another day. I hesitated. I think I would have taken the iron in any case; but just when I was longing for an inspiration, my eye wandered among the spectators some sixty or seventy yards in front of me, and I caught sight of my friend James Kay of Seaton Carew making frantic efforts to attract my attention, and pointing with his hand to the ground on the near side of the bunker as a hint to play short. That settled it. I played short, got my 5, and tied with Taylor with a total score of 316. The play-off was full of interest and excitement. Taylor and I were granted permission to take part in a tournament at North Berwick before we settled the question between us. When at length we teed up again at Muirfield, I felt as though I were fit to play for anything, and started in a way that justified my confidence, for I picked up a useful lead of five strokes in the first half-dozen holes. After that Taylor settled down to most brilliant golf, and brought my lead down to a single stroke; but at the end of the first round I was two to the good. To my exasperation, this lead disappeared with the very first stroke that I made after lunch. There is a wood running along the left-hand side of the line of the first hole on this course. With my cleek shot from the tee I pulled the ball into this dismal place, and by the rule in force at the time I lost two strokes and played again from the tee, Taylor holing out in 3 to my 5. However, at this crisis I came out again and won a stroke at each of the next three holes, and only lost one of them from that point to the seventeenth. Two strokes to the good and two holes to go--that at least seemed good for the Championship. On the seventeenth green, my brother Tom, who was carrying my clubs for me, took a lot of trouble to point out the line of a putt the whole length of the green, but something prompted me to take an entirely different course, and I holed the putt, gaining another stroke. There we were, Taylor and I, at that last hole again, but this time we were together, and I had a big advantage over my good friend on this occasion. There was more mental golf to be played, and though Taylor's ordeal was the more trying, neither of us had any difficulty in coming to a decision. My course was clear. With a lead of three strokes I had to play for a 5, as on the previous occasion, because it was certain to give me the Championship. Taylor's only chance was to blaze away with both his driver and his brassy, and trust to getting his second shot so well placed on the green as to secure a 3, which, in the event of my dropping a stroke through an accident in the bunker or elsewhere and taking 6, would enable him to tie. I obtained my 5 without difficulty, but Taylor's gallant bid for 3 met with an unhappy fate, for his second shot was trapped in the bunker, and it took him 6 to hole out. And so with a score of 157 to Taylor's 161, I was Open Champion at last, and for the first time in my life I felt some emotion as a golfer. I was too dazed to speak, and it seemed as if my feet had taken root on the eighteenth green, for I don't think I moved for several minutes. There is a little tale I want to tell about that Championship, illustrating the old saying that golf is a very funny game, and giving some point to a recommendation that I shall have to make later on. Never in my life have I putted better than I did in those two rounds. If, when I had a putt the whole length of the green, I did not actually rattle it into the tin, I laid it stone dead on the lip of the hole; on no green did I take more than two putts. Yet in the various rounds I had played on several days before my putting had been very indifferent. How came this remarkable change? It seems to me that it was entirely due to a chance visit that I paid to Ben Sayers's shop when I was at North Berwick in the interval between tieing with Taylor and playing the deciding rounds. I told the clubmaker who was in charge that I was off my putting, and wanted a new putter. Hitherto I had been playing with one of the bent-necked variety. While I was looking about the shop my eye was attracted by an old cleek that lay in a corner--a light and neglected club, for which nobody seemed to have any use. The strange idea occurred to me that this would make a grand putter, and so I told the man to take out the old shaft and put a new and shorter one in, and when this process had been completed I determined to experiment with it in the play-off with Taylor. I fancied this new discovery of mine and had confidence in it, and that was why I got all those long putts down and achieved the golfer's greatest ambition. But though I keep it still and treasure it, I have never played with that putter since. It has done its duty. I must tell just one other story concerning this Muirfield Championship. Among the favourites at the beginning of operations were Ben Sayers and Andrew Kirkaldy, and a victory on the part of either of them would have been most popular in the North, as it would have settled the cup on the other side of the Tweed. Ben was rather inclined to think his own prospects were good. Someone asked him the day before the meeting who was the most likely Champion. "Jist gie me a wun' an' I'll show ye wha'll be the Champion," he replied, and he had some reason for the implied confidence in himself, for he knew Muirfield very well, and no one had better knowledge of how to play the strokes properly there when there was a gale blowing over the course, and pulling and slicing were constantly required. But neither Ben nor Andrew was as successful as was wished, and not unnaturally they thought somewhat less of Muirfield than they had done before. Therefore it was not fair to ask Kirkaldy, after the competition had been completed, what he really considered to be the merits of the course. I was standing near him when a player came up and bluntly asked, "What d'ye think o' Muirfield now, Andrew?" Andrew's lip curled as he replied, "No for gowff ava'. Just an auld watter meedie. I'm gled I'm gaun hame." But the inquirer must needs ejaculate, "Hooch ay, she would be ferry coot whateffer if you had peen in Harry Fardon's shoes." There was an exciting finish also to the 1898 Championship, which was held at Prestwick. The final struggle was left to Willie Park and myself, and at the end of the third round, when Willie was three strokes to the good, it seemed a very likely victory for him. In the last round I was playing a hole in front of him, and we were watching each other as cats watch mice the whole way round the links. I made a reckoning when we reached the turn that I had wiped out the three strokes deficit, and could now discuss the remainder of the game with Park without any sense of inferiority. I finished very steadily, and when Park stood on the last tee just as I had holed out, he was left to get a 3 at this eighteenth hole to tie. His drive was a beauty, and plop came the ball down to the corner of the green, making the 3 seem a certainty. An immense crowd pressed round the green to see these fateful putts, and in the excitement of the moment, I, the next most concerned man to Park himself, was elbowed out. I just saw his long putt roll up to within about a yard of the hole, which was much too dead for my liking. Then, while Park proceeded to carry out his ideas of accomplishing a certainty, I stood at the edge of the crowd, seeing nothing and feeling the most nervous and miserable man alive. Never while playing have I felt so uncomfortable as during those two or three minutes. After what seemed an eternity there rose from all round the ring one long disappointed "O-o-o-h!" I didn't stop to look at the ball, which was still outside the hole. I knew that I had won the Championship again, and so I hastened light-heartedly away. I must admit that Park was playing an exceedingly fine game at that time, and it was only the fact that I was probably playing as well as ever I did in my life that enabled me to get the better of him. The day after winning the Championship I gained the first prize in a tournament at the adjoining course of St. Nicholas, and thereafter I frequently took part in competitions, winning much more often than not. But the most important event, and the biggest match I ever had with anyone, was my engagement with Willie Park, who, not altogether satisfied at having missed the Championship by a putt, challenged me to play him home and home matches, thirty-six holes each time, for £100 a side. There was some difficulty in arranging final details, but eventually we agreed to play at North Berwick and Ganton, North Berwick first. I have never seen such a golfing crowd as there was at North Berwick the day we played there. All golfing Scotland seemed to be in attendance, and goodness knows how many people would have been watching the play if it had not happened that the lukewarm golfers went instead to Edinburgh to see the Prince of Wales, who was visiting the capital that day. As it was, there were fully seven thousand people on the links, and yet this huge crowd--surely one of the very biggest that have ever watched a golf match--was perfectly managed, and never in the least interfered with a single stroke made by either Park or myself. The arrangements, indeed, were admirable. In order to keep the crowd informed of the state of the game at each hole, two flags were made, one being white with a red "P" on it, and the other red with a "V" worked on in white. When Park won a hole the flag with his initial was hoisted, and the "V" was sent up when I won a hole, both flags being waved when it was a half. At each teeing ground a rope three hundred yards long was stretched, and fourteen constables and a like number of honorary officials took control of it. In order to prevent any inconvenience at the dyke on the course, a boarding, forty feet wide and fifty yards out of the line from the tee to the hole, was erected, so that the crowd could walk right over. Mr. C.C. Broadwood, the Ganton captain, acted as my referee, and Lieutenant "Freddy" Tait served in the same capacity on behalf of Park. One of the most laborious tasks was that undertaken by the two Messrs. Hunter, who acted as forecaddies, and did their work splendidly. In two practice rounds that I played before the great encounter opened I did 76 each time, and I felt very fit when we teed up on the eventful morning. And I played very steadily, too, though my putting was sometimes a little erratic, and Park is one of the greatest putters who have ever lived. The early part of the game was very extraordinary in that the first ten holes were halved in 4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 4. Then Park drew first blood, but in the end I finished two up on the day's play. When Park came to Ganton three weeks later, I beat him on the two matches by 11 up with 10 to play. Naturally he was disappointed, but he was very sportsmanlike. He was acknowledged to be the greatest match-player of his time. I do not care for myself to lay any more stress on the importance of this match, or of the value of my own achievement; but those who have taken up golf quite lately can have no conception of the stir that it caused. It was the event of my lifetime. The remembrance of this encounter brings forward the question of big money matches generally, which several people have declared they would like to see renewed. Fifty years ago they were common enough, and there are great stories told of foursomes between Allan Robertson and Tom Morris on the one side and the brothers Dunn on the other for a stake of £400, and so on. The sightseers of golf ask why there are no such matches now. I think it is because golf professionals have to work too hard for the money they earn, and they do not care for the idea of throwing it away again on a single match. They do not receive large "benefits" or gate money, as do professionals in other branches of sport. So they deem it best to be careful of their savings. Besides, such matches tend to create bad feeling among the players, and we professionals are such a happy family that we distrust any scheme with such a tendency. Moreover, golf at the present time is a delightfully pure game, so far as gambling is concerned--purer than most others--and such matches would very likely encourage the gambling idea. That would be a misfortune. I contend that after all, for the best and fairest and most interesting trial of strength there is nothing like a good tournament where each player has to test himself against all comers. Every man plays to win, the golf is generally good, and what more is wanted? When I won the Championship again in the following year at Sandwich, my success was chiefly due to my brassy play, which was better than it ever was before or has been since. From my brassy strokes the ball was often enough laid dead near the hole; certainly my second shots were always the winning shots. The game seemed very easy to me then, and I gained the Championship for the third time with less difficulty than on either of the two previous occasions. In 1900 I made a long tour in America, and won the American Championship. Concerning these events I desire to write at some length in a later chapter. The greatest success which I have ever achieved in face of difficulties was when I again became Open Champion at Prestwick in 1903. For some time beforehand I had been feeling exceedingly unwell, and, as it appeared shortly afterwards, there was serious trouble brewing. During the play for the Championship I was not at all myself, and while I was making the last round I was repeatedly so faint that I thought it would be impossible for me to finish. However, when I holed my last putt I knew that I had won. My brother Tom was runner-up, six strokes behind, and, glad as I was of the distinction of having equalled the record of the two Morrises in having won the Championship four times, I could have wished, and did wish, that Tom had been the victor. In all the circumstances I was very much surprised that I did so well. The last day's work was an enormous strain, yet on the following day I played in a tournament at Irvine, won the first prize, and broke the record of the course. It is wonderful what golf can be played when one's mind is given to the task, whatever the adverse factors in the case may be. However, these are the events of recent golfing history, and I have no desire to inflict upon my readers a narrative of any more of them. As nearly as I can reckon, I have up to date won the first prize in forty-eight first-class tournaments, and by being four times British Open Champion and once American have still that record to my credit. And I hope to play many of my best games in the future, for it takes longer to kill the golf in a man than it does to breed it. CHAPTER III THE WAY TO GOLF The mistakes of the beginner--Too eager to play a round--Despair that follows--A settling down to mediocrity--All men may excel--The sorrows of a foozler--My advice--Three months' practice to begin with--The makings of a player--Good golf is best--How Mr. Balfour learned the game--A wise example--Go to the professional--The importance of beginning well--Practise with each club separately--Driver, brassy, cleek, iron, mashie, and putter--Into the hole at last--Master of a bag of clubs--The first match--How long drives are made--Why few good players are coming on--Golf is learned too casually. There are different ways of learning to play the great game of golf, each of which enjoys its share of patronage. Here as elsewhere, there are, of course, the two broad divisions into which the methods of doing all things are in the first instance classed--the right way and the wrong way--and, generally speaking, the wrong way has proved the more popular and is accountable for much of the very bad golf that one sees almost every day upon the links. There are two mistakes to which the beginner is much addicted, and to them is due the unhappy circumstance that in so many cases he never gets his club handicap down to single figures. Before he has ever played golf in his life, but at that interesting period when he has made up his mind to do so, and has bought his first set of clubs, he is still inclined to make the same error that is made by so many people who know nothing of the game, and loftily remark that they do not want to know anything--that it is too absurdly simple to demand serious thought or attention, and can surely need no special pains in learning to play. Is not the ball quite still on the tee before you, and all that is necessary being to hit it, surely the rest is but a question of strength and accuracy of aim? Well, we need not waste time in discussing the opinions of the scoffers outside, or in submitting that there never was a game less easy to learn than golf. But the man who has been converted to golf most frequently has a vestige of this superstition of his heathen days lingering with him, and thus at the outset he is not inclined to waste any time, as he would say, in tuition, particularly as it happens that these new converts when quite fresh are invariably most delightfully enthusiastic. They have promised themselves a new sensation, and they are eager to get on to the links and see how much further than the two hundred yards that they have heard about they can drive at the first attempt or two. Then comes the inevitable disappointment, the despair, the inclination to give it up, and finally the utter abject despondency which represents the most miserable state on earth of the golfer, in which he must be closely watched lest he should commit murder upon the beautiful set of clubs of which at the beginning he was so proud, and which he spent his evenings in brightening to the degree that they resembled the family plate. Then after this passage through purgatory come the first gleams of hope, when two holes in succession have been done in only one over bogey, and a 24 handicap man has actually been beaten by 3 up and 2 to play--a conquest which, if it is the first one, is rarely forgotten in the golfer's lifetime. After that there is a steady settling down to mediocrity. There is afterwards only an occasional fit of despair, the game is for the most part thoroughly enjoyed, there are times when, after a round in which driving and putting have been rather better than usual, the golfer encourages himself over his cup of tea with the fancy that after all he may some day win a medal and become a senior; but in the main the conviction forces itself upon him that it is impossible that he can ever become a really fine player. He argues that this is not at all his own fault. He points out to himself that circumstances are too strong for him. He considers that he is not very young--at least not so young as many of the experts of his club who have been golfing ever since they were boys. His limbs have not that suppleness which makes the scratch player. His eye is not so keen as theirs. Besides, he is a business man who has to give up so much of his time to the earning of his daily bread that it is impossible he should ever devote himself to the game with that single-mindedness which alone can ensure proficiency. He must take himself as he finds himself, and be satisfied with his 18 handicap. These are the somewhat pathetic excuses that he makes in this mood of resignation. Of course he is wrong--wrong from the beginning to the end--but there is little satisfaction in that for the earnest lover of the game who would see all men excel, and who knows only too well that this failure is but a specimen of hundreds of his kind--good golfing lives thrown away, so to speak. If a man is not a cripple, if he suffers from no physical defect, there is no reason why he should not learn to play a good game of golf if he goes about it in the right way. There is indeed a one-armed golfer who plays a very fair game, and one may admit all these things without in any way suggesting that golf is not a game for the muscles and the nerves and all the best physical qualities of a well-grown man. No great amount of brute force is necessary, and fleetness of foot, which men lose as they grow old, is never wanted; but still golf is a game for manly men, and when they take it up they should strive to play it as it deserves to be played. Now I know what severe temptation there will be to all beginners to disregard the advice that I am about to offer them; but before proceeding any further I will invite them to take the opinion of any old golfer who, chiefly through a careless beginning (he knows that this is the cause), has missed his way in the golfer's life, and is still plodding away as near the limit handicap as he was at the beginning. The beginner may perhaps be disposed to rely more upon the statement of this man of experience and disappointment than on that of the professional, who is too often suspected of having his own ends in view whenever he gives advice. Let the simple question be put to him whether, if he could be given the chance of doing it all over again from the beginning, he would not sacrifice the first three or six months of play to diligent study of the principles of the game, and the obtaining of some sort of mastery over each individual shot under the careful guidance of a skilled tutor, not attempting during this time a single complete round with all his clubs in action, and refusing all temptations to play a single match--whether he would not undergo this slow and perhaps somewhat tedious period of learning if he could be almost certain of being able at the end of it to play a really good game of golf, and now at this later period of his career to have a handicap much nearer the scratch mark than his existing one is to the border-line between the senior and the junior? I am confident that in the great majority of cases, looking back on his misspent golfing youth, he would answer that he would cheerfully do all this learning if he could begin again at the beginning. Now, of course, it is too late, for what is once learned can only with extreme difficulty be unlearned, and it is almost impossible to reform the bad style and the bad habits which have taken root and been cultivated in the course of many years; and if it were possible it would be far more difficult than it would have been to learn the game properly at the beginning. My earnest advice to the beginner is to undergo this slow process of tuition for nothing less than three months, and preferably more. It is a very long time, I know, and it may seem painfully tedious work, simply knocking a ball backwards and forwards for all those months; but if he does not accept my suggestion he will have harder things to try his patience during many years afterwards, while, if he takes my advice, he may be down very near to scratch at the end of his first year, and he will be very thankful that he spent the period of probation as he did. He will constantly be giving a half to players who have been playing for more years than he has months, and he will be holding his own in the very best golfing company. He will be getting the finest delight out of the game that it is possible to get. It is said that the long handicap man gets as much pleasure out of the game as the short handicap man. As the former has never been a short handicap man he is evidently not qualified to judge. The scratch man, who has been through it all, would never change his scratch play for that of his old long-handicap days--at least I have never yet met the scratch man who would. No doubt the noble army of foozlers derive an immense amount of enjoyment from the practice of their game, and it is my earnest prayer that they may long continue to do so. It is one of the glorious advantages of golf that all, the skilled and the unskilled, can revel in its fascinations and mysteries; but there is no golfing delight so splendid as that which is obtained from playing the perfect game, or one which nearly approaches it. The next best thing to it is playing what one knows to be an improving game, however bad, and the golfer whose play has been incorrectly established has not often even the knowledge that his game is improving. He declares more often than not that it gets worse, and one is frequently inclined to believe him. Now the middle-aged man may say that he is too old to go in for this sort of thing, that all he wants is a little fresh air and exercise, and as much enjoyment as he can get out of playing the game in just the same sort of way that the "other old crocks" do. He would rather play well, of course, if it were not too late to begin; but it is too late, and there is an end of it. That is the way in which he puts it. So large a proportion of our new converts to golf belong to this middle-aged class, that it is worth while giving a few special words of advice to them. Mr. Forty and Mr. Forty-Five, you are not a day too old, and I might even make scratch men of you, if I were to take you in hand and you did all the things I told you to do and for as long as I told you. Given fair circumstances, there is no reason why any man should despair of becoming either a scratch player or one who is somewhere very near it, and it is as easy to learn to play well as it is to learn to play badly. So I advise every golfer to get hold of the game stroke by stroke, and never be too ambitious at the commencement. I have heard it stated on very good authority that when Mr. Balfour first began to play he submitted himself to very much the same process of tuition as that which I am about to advise, and that under the guidance of Tom Dunn he actually spent a miserable fortnight in bunkers only, learning how to get out of them from every possible position. The right honourable gentleman must have saved hundreds of strokes since then as the result of that splendid experience, trying as it must have been. He is in these days a very good and steady player, and he might be still better if parliamentary cares did not weigh so heavily upon him. I may humbly suggest that the way in which he began to play golf was characteristic of his wisdom. Therefore, when the golfer has become possessed of his first set of clubs, let him proceed to the shop of a good professional player--presumably it will be the shop where he bought his clubs--and let him place himself unreservedly in the hands of this expert in the game. Most professionals are good players and good teachers, and the golfer cannot go far wrong in this matter if he allows himself to be guided by his own instincts. I say that he should place himself unreservedly in this man's hands; but in case it should be necessary I would make one exception to this stipulation. If he thinks well of my advice and desires to do the thing with the utmost thoroughness from the beginning, he may request that for the first lesson or two no ball may be put upon the ground at which to practise swings. The professional is sure to agree that this is the best way, though he encounters so few beginners who are prepared to make all the sacrifices that I have suggested, that he might have hesitated in recommending this course of procedure himself. A golfer's swing is often made for good or ill in the first week of his experience. His first two days of practice may be of the greatest importance in fashioning his style. If, when he takes his first lesson or two and makes his first few swings, he has a ball on the ground before him which he is trying to hit, all his thoughts will be concentrated on what appears to him to be the necessity of hitting it--hitting it at any cost. No matter what he has been told about the way to swing, he will forget it all in this moment of anxiety, and swing anyhow. In such circumstances a really natural and proper swing is rarely accomplished, and, before the golfer is aware of the frightful injustice he has done himself, his future prospects will probably have been damaged. But if he has no ball before him he will surely learn to swing his club in exactly the way in which it ought to be swung. His whole mind will be concentrated upon getting every detail of the action properly regulated and fixed according to the advice of his tutor, and by the time he has had two lessons in this way he will have got so thoroughly into the natural swing, that when he comes to have a ball teed up in front of him he will unconsciously swing at it in the same manner as he did when it was absent, or nearly so. The natural swing, or some of its best features, will probably be there, although very likely they will be considerably distorted. At the same time the young golfer must not imagine because he has mastered the proper swing when there is no ball before him, that he has overcome any considerable portion of the difficulties of golf, for even some of the very best players find that they can swing very much better without a ball than with one. However, he may now taste the sweet pleasure of driving a ball from the tee, or of doing his best with that object in view. His initial attempts may not be brilliant; it is more than likely that they will be sadly disappointing. He may take comfort from the fact that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they are so. But by and by a certain confidence will come, he will cease, under the wise advice of his tutor, to be so desperately anxious to hit the ball anyhow so long as he hits it, and then in due course the correctness of swing which he was taught in his first two days will assert itself, and the good clean-hit drives will come. There will be duffings and toppings and slicings, but one day there will be a long straight drive right away down the course, and the tyro will be told that the professional himself could not have done it better. This is one of the most pleasurable moments in life. His system of practice thereafter should be upon the following lines. He should continue to practise diligently with his driver until he gets these good, long balls nearly every time, sternly resisting the temptation even to so much as look at any of the other nice new clubs that he has got in his bag, and whose mysteries he is exceedingly curious to investigate. It may take him a week or a fortnight or a month to master the driver; but he should do it before he gives a thought to any other club. When he can use the driver with confidence, he may take out his new brassy and go through the same process with that, until he feels that on a majority of occasions, from a fairly decent lie, he could depend upon making a respectable brassy shot. He will find unsuspected difficulties in the brassy, and in doing his best to overcome them he will probably lose to some extent the facility for driving which he had acquired. Therefore, when he has become a player with his brassy, he should devote a short space of time to getting back on to his drive. It will not take him long, and then he should take out both the clubs he has been practising with and hammer away at the two of them together, until after a large amount of extra practice he finds that he is fairly reliable in driving a ball from the tee to begin with, and putting in a creditable second shot with his brassy from the lie upon which he found his ball. During this second stage of learning he must deny himself the pleasure of trying his iron clubs just as rigorously as he restrained himself from the brassy when he was practising drives only; but when the driver and the brassy are doing well, he may go forward with the cleek. He will not find this learning such dull work after all. There will be something new in store for him every week, and each new club as it is taken out of the bag will afford an entirely new set of experiences. After the driver and the brassy it will be like a new game when he comes to try cleek shots, and in the same way he will persevere with the cleek until it is evident that he really knows how to use it. The driver, the brassy, and the cleek may then be practised with on the same occasion, and if he has made the best use of his time and is an apt pupil, he will find himself now and then, with these three shots taken in turn, getting beyond the green at some of the longest holes. Next it will be the turn of the iron, and so in due season he will be able to practise with the driver, the brassy, the cleek, and the iron. The mashie will follow, and then the five of them together, and at last he may have an afternoon on the green trying his skill with a putter, and listening for the first time to the music of the ball--no such music as this to the golfer's ear, though it consists of but a single note--as it drops into the tin and is holed out at last. He is at work now with all the clubs that are usually necessary to play a hole; but at the risk of seeming over careful I would warn him once more against going along too fast, and thinking that even at this stage he is able to embark on match play with all the days of studentship left behind. When he takes out his full set of clubs, he will find, in using them as occasion demands, that he is strangely erratic all of a sudden with one or two of them. Let him have half an hour's practice once more alone with these troublesome fellows until the old order of things has been restored. Let him treat all other offenders in the same manner. He must be determined that there shall not be a club in his bag that shall be allowed to play these tricks with him. Let one day's hard labour be the invariable penalty, until at last they are all obedient in his hands, and the joyful day comes when he feels that he can pick any tool out of his golfing bag and use it skilfully and well, and that after examining a ball in any lie, at any distance from the hole, or with any hazard before him, he knows exactly how it should be played, and feels that he has a very reasonable chance of playing it in that way and achieving the success that such a shot deserves. Such a stroke will not be brought off correctly every time; the golfer has not yet been born who always does the right thing in the right way. But the more one practises the more frequently will he succeed. Following Mr. Balfour's good example, the beginner may do worse than spend a few days trying the most difficult strokes he can discover on his links, for in actual play he will find himself in these difficult places often enough to begin with, and a little special study of such shots at the outset will prove a very valuable investment of time. The ball should be thrown down carelessly at different places, and should be played from the spot at which it settles, however uninviting that spot may be. When he has secured a fair command over all his clubs, from the driver to the niblick, the golf student may play a round of the links; but he should do so only under the watchful eye of the professional, for he will find that in thus marching on from hole to hole, and perhaps getting a little excited now and then when he plays a hole more than usually well, it is only too easy to forget all the good methods in which he has been so carefully trained, and all the wise maxims he knows so well by heart that he could almost utter them in his sleep. Let him play a few rounds in this way, and in between them devote himself as assiduously as ever to practise with individual clubs, before he thinks of playing his first match. He must settle his game on a secure foundation before he measures his strength against an opponent, for unless it is thus safeguarded it is all too likely that it will crumble to ruins when the enemy is going strongly, and the novice feels, with a sense of dismay, that he is not by any means doing himself justice. Of course I am not suggesting that he should wait until he has advanced far towards perfection before he engages in his first match. When he has thoroughly grasped the principles and practice of the game, there is nothing like match play for proving his quality, but he should not be in haste thus to indulge himself. Any time from three to six months from the day when he first took a club in hand will be quite soon enough, and if he has been a careful student, and is in his first match not overcome with nerves, he should render a good account of himself and bring astonishment to the mind of his adversary when the latter is told that this is the first match of a lifetime. During the preparatory period the golfer will be wise to limit his practices to three or four days a week. More than this will only tire him and will not be good for his game. I have only now to warn him against a constant attempt, natural but very harmful, to drive a much longer ball every time than was driven at the previous stroke. He must bring himself to understand that length comes only with experience, and that it is due to the swing becoming gradually more natural and more certain. He may see players on the links driving thirty or forty yards further than he has ever driven, and, wondering why, he is seized with a determination to hit harder, and then the old, old story of the foozled drive is told again. He forgets that these players are more experienced than he is, that their swing is more natural to them, and that they are more certain of it. In these circumstances the extra power which they put into their stroke is natural also. To give him an exact idea of what it is that he ought to be well satisfied with, I may say that the learner who finds that he is putting just two or three yards on to his drive every second week, may cease to worry about the future, for as surely as anything he will be a long driver in good time. In the course of this volume there are several chapters describing the way in which the various strokes should be played, but I am no believer in learning golf from books alone. I do not think it likely that the professional teacher who is giving the pupil lessons will disagree with any of the chief points of the methods that I explain, and, read in conjunction with his frequent lessons at the beginning of his golfing career, and later on studied perhaps a little more closely and critically, I have hope that they will prove beneficial. At all events, as I have already suggested, in the following pages I teach the system which has won Championships for me, and I teach that system only. It is perhaps too much to hope, after all, that any very large proportion of my readers will make up their minds to the self-sacrificing thoroughness which I have advocated, and undertake a careful preparation of from three to six months' duration before really attempting to play golf. If they all did so we should have some fine new players. It is because they do not learn to play in this way that so few good players are coming to the fore in these days. One is sometimes inclined to think that no new golfer of the first class has come forward during the last few years. In my opinion it is all due to the fact that nowadays they learn their game too casually. CHAPTER IV THE CHOICE AND CARE OF CLUBS Difficulties of choice--A long search for the best--Experiments with more than a hundred irons--Buy few clubs to begin with--Take the professional's advice--A preliminary set of six--Points of the driver--Scared wooden clubs are best--Disadvantages of the socket--Fancy faces--Short heads--Whip in the shaft--The question of weight--Match the brassy with the driver--Reserve clubs--Kinds of cleeks--Irons and mashies--The niblick--The putting problem--It is the man who putts and not the putter--Recent inventions--Short shafts for all clubs--Lengths and weights of those I use--Be careful of your clubs--Hints for preserving them. The good golfer loves his clubs and takes a great and justifiable pride in them. He has many reasons for doing so. Golf clubs are not like most other implements that are used in sport. A man may go to a shop and pick out a cricket bat or a billiard cue with which he may be tolerably certain he will be able to play something approaching to his best game when he is in the mood for playing it. The acquaintance which is begun in the shop is complete a few days later. But a man may see a golf club which he strongly fancies and buy it, and yet find himself utterly incapable of using it to good advantage. He may purchase club after club, and still feel that there is something wanting in all of them, something which he cannot define but which he knows ought to exist if his own peculiar style of play is to be perfectly suited. Until he finds this club he is groping in the dark. One driver may be very much like another, and even to the practised eye two irons may be exactly similar; but with one the golfer may do himself justice, and with the other court constant failure. Therefore, the acquisition of a set of clubs, each one of which enjoys the complete confidence of its owner, is not the task of a week or even a year. There are some golfers who do not accomplish it in many years, and happy are they when at last they have done so. Then they have a very sincere attachment to each one of these instruments, that have been selected with so much difficulty. It is not always possible to give reasons for their excellence, for the subtle qualities of the clubs are not visible to the naked eye. Their owners only know that at last they have found the clubs that are the best for them, and that they will not part with them for any money--that is, if they are golfers of the true breed. In these days I always play with the same set of irons. They are of different makes, and to the average golfer they appear quite ordinary irons and very much like others of their class. But they are the results of trials and tests of more than one hundred clubs. Therefore no golfer in his early days should run away with the idea that he is going to suit himself entirely with a set of clubs without much delay, and though his purse may be a small one, I feel obliged to suggest that money spent in the purchase of new clubs which he strongly fancies, during his first few years of play, is seldom wasted. Many of the new acquisitions may be condemned after a very short trial; but occasionally it will happen that a veritable treasure is discovered in this haphazard manner. With all these possibilities in view, the beginner, knowing nothing of golf, and being as yet without a style to suit or any peculiar tastes that have to be gratified, should restrain himself from the desire to be fully equipped with a "complete outfit" at the very beginning of his career. Let him buy as few clubs as possible, knowing that it is quite likely that not one of those which he purchases at this stage will hold a place in his bag a year or two later. As he can have no ideas at all upon the subject, he should leave the entire selection of his first bag to some competent adviser, and he will not generally find such an adviser behind the counter at a general athletic outfitting establishment in the town or city, which too often is the direction in which he takes his steps when he has decided to play the game. In these stores the old and practised golfer may often pick up a good club at a trifling cost; but the beginner would be more likely to furnish himself with a set which would be poor in themselves and quite unsuited for his purpose. The proper place for him to go to is the professional's shop which is attached to the club of which he has become a member. Nearly all clubs have their own professionals, who are makers and sellers of clubs, and I know no professional who is not thoroughly conscientious in this part of his business. It pays him to give the completest satisfaction to his clients, and particularly to the members of his own club. This professional is also a first-class golfer, who knows all, or nearly all, that there is to be known about the game, and who in his time has had imposed upon him the difficult task of teaching hundreds of beginners their first steps in golf. Thus he knows better than any man the erratic tendencies of the golfing initiate and the best means of counteracting them. Experience has given him the faculty for sizing up the golfing points of the tyro almost at the first glance, and therefore he can supply him at the beginning with those clubs with which certainly he will have most chance of success. He will suit his height and his build and his reach, and he will take care that the clubs in the set which he makes up are in harmony with each other and will have that lie which will best suit the player who is to use them. And even though, when the beginner gathers knowledge of the game and finds out his own style--which neither he nor the professional can determine in advance--some of them may gradually become unsuitable to him, they are nevertheless likely to be in themselves good clubs. A beginner may at the outset limit himself to the purchase of six new clubs. He must have a driver, a brassy, a cleek, an iron, a mashie, and a putter. At an early opportunity he may add a niblick to this small set, but there is no need to invest in it at the outset, and as this club is one which is least likely to require change, it is best that it should not be bought until the player has some ideas of his own as to what is wanted. By way of indicating what will be needful to make this set complete for the purposes of good golf, when the player has obtained a fairly complete experience, I may mention the instruments that I take out when playing an important match. I have two drivers, one brassy, a baffy or spoon, two cleeks (one shorter than the other), an iron, sometimes one mashie, sometimes two (one for running up and the other for pitch shots), a niblick, and sometimes two putters (one for long running-up putts and the other for holing out). This selection may be varied slightly according to the course on which the match is to be played and the state of the weather, but in general principles the constitution of the bag remains the same, and a player who is equipped with such a set ought to be able to play any hole in any way, and if he cannot do so it is his own skill that is lacking and not an extra club. We may now consider in order a few of the points of these clubs. I shall have occasion, when dealing with the method of play with each of them, to call attention to many points of detail which can only be properly explained when indicating particular objects which it is desired to achieve with them, so for the present I shall confine myself chiefly to general features. Take the driver to begin with, and the preliminary word of advice that I have to offer concerning the choice of this club is at variance with the custom of the present moment, though I am confident that before long the golfing world will again come round to my view of the matter--not my view only, but that of many of the leading amateur and professional players. One of the problems which agitate the mind of the golf-club maker deals with the best and most effectual method of attaching the head of the club to the shaft. For a very long period this was done by what we call scaring or splicing, the neck of the club having a long bevel which was spliced with the shaft and bound round for several inches with black twine. Latterly, however, a new kind of club has become the fashion with all but the oldest and most experienced players, and it is called the socket driver. The continuation of the neck of this club is shorter than in the case of the spliced driver, and instead of there being any splicing at all, a hole is bored vertically into the end of the neck and the shaft fitted exactly into it, glued up, and finally bound round for less than an inch. This club certainly looks neater than the old-fashioned sort, and the man who is governed only by appearances might very easily imagine that it is really more of one piece than the other, that the union of the shaft with the head has less effect upon the play of the club, and that therefore it is better. But experience proves that this is not the case. What we want at this all-important part of the driver is spring and life. Anything in the nature of a deadness at this junction of the head with the shaft, which would, as it were, cut off the one from the other, is fatal to a good driver. I contend that the socket brings about this deadness in a far greater degree than does the splice. The scared or old-fashioned drivers have far more spring in them than the new ones, and it is my experience that I can constantly get a truer and a better ball with them. When the wood of the shaft and the wood of the neck are delicately tapered to suit each other, filed thin and carefully adjusted, wood to wood for several inches, and then glued and tightened up to each other with twine for several inches, there is no sharp join whatever but only such a gradual one as never makes itself felt in practice. Moreover, these clubs are more serviceable, and will stand much more wear and tear than those which are made with sockets. Sometimes they give trouble when the glue loosens, but the socketed club is much easier to break. On club links generally in these days you will probably see more socketed drivers and brassies (for these remarks apply to all wooden clubs) than those that are spliced; but this is simply the result of a craze or fashion with which neat appearance has something to do; and if you desire to convince yourself that I am right, take note of the styles of the drivers used by the best players at the next first-class amateur or professional tournament that you witness. The men who are playing on these occasions are ripe with experience, and so long as they get the best results they do not care what their clubs look like. The head of the club should be made of persimmon or dogwood--both very hard and full of driving power. Usually the bare face of such a club is good enough for contact with any ball on any tee, but the time will come when the golfer, developing innumerable fads and fancies, will reach the conclusion that he must have an artificial face of some kind fitted on at the place of contact with the ball. Or such an artificial face may become necessary by reason of the wear and tear on the face of the driver. Why forsake the old leather face? There is an idea abroad in these days that it is too soft and dead for the purposes of the new rubber-cored ball; and the impression that the latter likes the very hardest surface it is possible to apply to it has resulted in horn, vulcanite, and even steel faces being fitted to drivers and brassies. I do not think that in actual practice they are any better than leather, though some golfers may persuade themselves that they are. If a man, who is a good and steady driver, makes several drives from the tee with a club which has a leather face, and several more with another possessing a steel or vulcanite face, I am confident that he will on the average get at least as far with the leather as with the other, and I shall be surprised, if the test is fair and reliable, if he does not get further. I have leather faces on my drivers, and I think that latterly I have been driving further than I ever did. A point of objection to the harder surfaces, which at times is very serious, is that the ball is very much more liable to skid off them than off others, and thus the golfer may often blame himself for shots that look like a mixture of foozle and slice when the fault is not his at all, but that of the peculiarity of the club with which he is so much in love. On the other hand, it must be admitted that he scores over his opponent with the leather-faced club when the weather is wet, for the leather is then liable to soften and becomes very dead. Never select a club because it has a long head, but let your preference be in favour of the shorter heads. The beginner, or the player of only moderate experience, puts it to himself that it is a very difficult thing always to strike the ball fairly on the face of the club, and that the longer the face is the more room he has for inaccuracy of his stroke. But he is wrong. Whatever the length of the face, unless the ball is hit fairly and squarely in the centre, it will not travel properly, and the effect is really worse when the point of contact is a little off the centre in a long-faced club than when it is the same distance removed from the centre of a short face. Moreover, despite this fact, which will soon become apparent to the golfer, the knowledge that he has a long-faced driver may very easily get him into a loose way of playing his tee shots. He may cease to regard exactness as indispensable, as it always is. The tendency of late years has been to make the heads of wooden clubs shorter and still shorter, and this tendency is well justified. The question of the whip or suppleness of the shaft must generally be decided by individual style and preference; but I advise the beginner against purchasing a whippy driver to start with, whatever he may do later on. He should rather err on the side of stiffness. When a man is well on his drive, has a good style, and is getting a long ball from the tee every time, it is doubtless true that he obtains better results from a shaft with a little life in it than from a stiff one. But the advantage is not by any means so great as might be imagined, and many fine players drive their best balls with stiff clubs. It must always be remembered that when the stroke is not made perfectly there is a much greater tendency to slice with a supple shaft than with a stiff one, and the disadvantages of the former are especially pronounced on a windy day. It is all a matter of preference and predilection, and when these are absent the best thing to do is to strike the happy medium and select a shaft that is fairly supple but which still leaves you in the most perfect command of the head of the club, and not as if the latter were connected with your hands by nothing more than a slender rush. Weight again is largely a matter of fancy, and there is no rule to the effect that a slender player should use a light club and one of powerful build a heavy one; indeed, one constantly finds the slim men employing the most ponderous drivers, as if, as it were, to make up for their own lightness, while heavy men will often prefer clubs that are like pen-holders to them. Once more I suggest the adoption of the medium as being generally the most satisfactory. I have a strong dislike to drivers that are unusually light, and I do not think that anyone can consistently get the best results from them. They entail too much swinging, and it is much harder to guide the club properly when the weight of the head cannot be felt. Of course a club that is strongly favoured by a golfer and suits him excellently in all respects save that it errs on the side of lightness, can easily be put right by the insertion of a little lead in the sole. Little need be said in this place about the selection of the brassy. Whatever may be the amount of whip in the shaft of the driver, the brassy should not possess any undue suppleness, for it has heavier and rougher work to do than the club which is used for the tee shots, and there must be very little give in the stick if satisfactory results are to be obtained when the ball is lying at all heavily. The head and the face should be small; but in other respects the pattern of the driver should be closely adhered to, for it is one of the principles of my tuition that when the golfer takes his brassy in his hand to play his second shot, he should be brought to feel as nearly as possible that he is merely doing the drive over again. Many authorities recommend that the shaft of the brassy shall be an inch or so shorter than that of the driver; but I can see no necessity for its being shorter; and, on the other hand, for the reason I have just stated, I think it is eminently desirable that it should be exactly the same length. On this point I shall have more to say in another chapter. Care should be taken that both the brassy and the driver have exactly the same lie, that is to say, that when the soles of both clubs are laid quite flat upon the ground the shafts shall be projecting towards the golfer at precisely the same angle. If they have not the same lie, then, if the player takes up the same stance at the same distance from the ball when making a brassy shot as when he struck the ball from the tee with his driver, the sole of the club will not sweep evenly along the turf as it comes on to the ball, and the odds will be against a good shot being made. I am a strong believer in having reserve drivers and brassies, even if one is only a very moderate golfer. Everybody knows what it is to suffer torture during the period when one is said to be "off his drive," and I think there is no remedy for this disease like a change of clubs. There may be nothing whatever the matter with the club you have been playing with, and which at one time gave you so much delight, but which now seems so utterly incapable of despatching a single good ball despite all the drastic alterations which you make in your methods. Of course it is not at all the fault of the club, but I think that nearly everybody gets more or less tired of playing with the same implement, and at length looks upon it with familiar contempt. The best thing to do in such circumstances is to give it a rest, and it will soon be discovered that absence makes the heart grow fonder in this matter as in so many others. But the reserve clubs which are taken out while the first string are resting should be in themselves good and almost as exactly suitable to the player's style as the others. It is a mistake to take up a club which has been regarded as a failure, and in which one has no confidence. Therefore, I suggest that so soon as the golfer has really found his style and is tolerably certain about it, and the exact kind of club that he likes best, he should fit himself up with both a spare driver and a spare brassy, and give them each a turn as occasion demands. It is hardly necessary to add that whenever an important game is being played, considerable wisdom will be exercised if the reserves are taken out in the bag along with the clubs with which it is intended to play, for though breakages are not matters of everyday occurrence, they do happen sometimes, and nothing would be more exasperating in such a contingency than the knowledge that for the rest of the game you would be obliged to play your tee shots with your brassy or your brassy shots with your cleek. The driving cleek, for long shots, should have a fairly straight face with very little loft upon it. It should have a thick blade, should be fairly heavy, and its shaft should be stout and stiff. This makes a powerful club, with which some fine long work can be accomplished. I am inclined to think that one reason why so many players find it extremely difficult to get good work out of their cleeks, is that they use them with heads too thin and light. A large proportion of the cleeks one sees about are too delicate and ladylike. It is sometimes expected of a cleek that it will despatch a ball for, say, a hundred and sixty yards, and no club will do that, no matter how skilful the golfer who wields it may be, unless there is sufficient weight in it. A second cleek, which will be found in the bag of the experienced golfer, will have a thinner blade and much more loft upon it, but in other respects will be very much like the other one, though not nearly so heavy. This instrument is for the shorter cleek-shot distances, which are just so long that an iron cannot reach them. There is great diversity in irons, and the player may be left in the first place in the hands of his professional adviser, and afterwards to his own taste, with the single hint from me that undue lightness should at all times be avoided. Of the two mashies which the complete golfer will carry out with him on to the links, one, for pitching the ball well up with very little run to follow, will have a deep face, will be of medium weight, and be very stiff in the shaft. I emphasise the deep face and the rigidity of the shaft. This mashie will also have plenty of loft upon it. The other one, for use chiefly in running up to the hole, will have a straighter face, but will otherwise be much the same. However, not all golfers consider two mashies to be necessary, and I myself depend chiefly upon one. Of the niblick it need only be said that it must be strong, heavy, and well lofted. I have stated that the golfer may carry two putters in his bag; but I mean that he should do so only when he has a definite and distinct purpose for each of them, and I certainly do not advise his going from one kind to the other for the same sort of putt. There is great danger in such a practice. If he is doing very poor putting with one club, he will naturally fly for help to the other one, and the probability is that he will do just as badly with that. Then he returns to the first one, and again finds that his putts do not come off, and by this time he is in a hopeless quandary. If he has only one putter he will generally make some sort of a success of it if he can putt at all, and my private belief is that the putter itself has very little to do with the way in which a golfer putts. It is the man that counts and not the tool. I have tried all kinds of putters in my time, and have generally gone back to the plainest and simplest of all. I have occasionally used the aluminium putter. It has much to recommend it to those who like this style of implement, and Braid always does very well with it. The Travis or Schenectady putter, which was so popular for a short time after the Amateur Championship last year, owing to the American player having done such wonderful things with it, I do not succeed with. When I try to putt with it I cannot keep my eye away from its heel. But the fact is, as I have already indicated, that you can putt with anything if you hit the ball properly. Everything depends on that--hitting the ball properly--and no putter that was ever made will help you to hole out if you do not strike the ball exactly as it ought to be struck, while if you do so strike it, any putter will hole out for you. The philosophy of putting is simple, but is rarely appreciated. The search for the magic putter that will always pop the ball into the hole and leave the player nothing to do will go on for ever. One other observation that I have to make on clubs in general is, that I think it is a mistake to have the shafts any longer than is absolutely necessary. Some golfers think that an iron or a cleek is just the right length for them when there are still a few inches of stick projecting inwards, towards their bodies, when they have made their grip. Why that spare stick? It cannot possibly be of any use, and may conceivably be harmful. It is surely better to have it cut off and then to grip the club at the end of the handle. A larger sense of power and control is obtained in this manner. My own clubs seem to most golfers who examine them to be on the short side, and this is a convenient opportunity for giving a few details concerning my favourites, which may prove of interest to the readers of these notes. I should prefix the statement with the observation that I am 5 feet 9-1/4 inches in height, and that normally I weigh 11-1/2 stones. Young players who might be inclined to adapt their clubs to my measurements should bear these factors in mind, though I seem to be of something like average height and build. Here, then, are the statistics of my bag:-- Club. Length. Weight. Driver 42 inches 12-3/4 oz. Brassy 42 " 12-1/2 " Driving mashie 38 " 14-1/2 " Driving cleek 37 " 13-1/2 " Light cleek 37 " 13-1/2 " Iron 35-1/2 " 15-1/4 " Mashie 36-1/2 " 15-1/4 " Niblick 37 " 19 " Putter (putting cleek) 33-1/2 " 15 " Each measurement was made from the heel to the end of the shaft. [Illustration: _PLATE I._ MY SET OF CLUBS] I have two explanations to make concerning this list of dimensions. I have included the driving mashie, of which I have said nothing in this chapter. It is an alternative club, and it is better that it should be discussed exclusively in its proper place, which is when cleek shots are being considered. Again, on making a critical examination of these measurements, the golfer of a little experience will promptly ask why my mashie is an inch and a quarter longer than my iron. It is longer because one has sometimes to play high lofting shots over trees and the like, and in such cases the loft of the mashie is necessary and a considerable amount of power as well--hence the extra stick. As I have said, the collection of a set of clubs that conform in essentials to their owner's ideal is a very slow and often an expensive process. A club that was bought in the shop for six shillings might have cost its owner six sovereigns when the many unsatisfactory and discarded articles that were bought while this one perfect gem was being searched for are taken into account. Therefore it behoves the man who is to any extent satisfied with his clubs to take a proper pride in them and look well after them. I like to see a golfer play with bright irons, and shafts that give evidence of tender and affectionate care. It jars upon one's nerves to see rusty irons and mashies which have evidently not been cleaned for months, and which are now past hope. Such a man does not deserve to have good clubs, nor to play good strokes with them. But many golfers, even when they have a tender and careful regard for the excellent merits of their favourites, seem to imagine that the beginning and end of their duty towards them is to keep their irons bright and free from the slightest semblance of rust. More often than not the shaft is never given a thought, and yet a perfect shaft that just suits the man who has to play with it is one of the rarest and most difficult things to discover. It would be difficult to replace it, and to keep it in its best condition it needs constant care and attention. An unreasoning golfer may play with his clubs on wet days, see that the irons are brightened afterwards, and store his collection in his locker without another thought concerning them. And then some time later when he is out on the links snap goes one of his shafts, and "Confound that rotten wood!" he exclaims. But it is not a case of rotten wood at all. When shafts are constantly allowed to get wet and are afterwards merely wiped with a rag and given no further attention, all the life dries out of the wood, and they are sure to break sooner or later. It should be your invariable practice, when you have been out on a wet day, first to see that your shafts are well dried and then to give them a thoroughly good oiling with linseed oil, applied with a rag kept specially for the purpose. This will keep them in excellent condition. The tops of the club heads may be oiled in the same way; but extreme care should be taken that not a drop of oil is allowed to touch the face of the wooden clubs. It would tend to open the grain, and then, when next you played in the wet, the damp would get inside the wood and cause it gradually to rot. I counsel all golfers when playing in wet weather to have covers or hoods attached to their bags, so that the heads of their instruments may always be kept in shelter. This will do much for their preservation, and at the same time add materially to the satisfaction of the player, for he can never feel that he has the means to do himself justice on the tee when the head of his driver is in a half soaked state. No player, whatever his abilities as a golfer, should refrain from exercising this precautionary measure because he has seen only the very best players doing so, and because he fancies it may be regarded by his friends as affectation. The fact that it is chiefly the best players who do these things only indicates that they know better than others what is due to their clubs and how to look after them. There is no affectation in copying their methods in this respect. CHAPTER V DRIVING--PRELIMINARIES Advantage of a good drive--And the pleasure of it--More about the driver--Tee low--Why high tees are bad--The question of stance--Eccentricities and bad habits--Begin in good style--Measurements of the stance--The reason why--The grip of the club--My own method and its advantages--Two hands like one--Comparative tightness of the hands--Variations during the swing--Certain disadvantages of the two-V grip--Addressing the ball--Freaks of style--How they must be compensated for--Too much waggling--The point to look at--Not the top of the ball but the side of it. It has been said that the amateur golfers of Great Britain are in these days suffering from a "debauchery of long driving." The general sense of Mr. Travis's remark is excellent, meaning that there is a tendency to regard a very long drive as almost everything in the playing of a hole, and to be utterly careless of straightness and the short game so long as the ball has been hit from the tee to the full extent of the golfer's power. A long drive is not by any means everything, and the young golfer should resist any inclination to strive for the 250-yard ball to the detriment or even the total neglect of other equally important, though perhaps less showy, considerations in the playing of a hole. But having said so much, and conveyed the solemn warning that is necessary, I am obliged to admit that the long driver has very full justification for himself, and that the wisely regulated ambition of the young player to be one is both natural and laudable. The long drive, as I say, is not everything; but to play well it is as necessary to make a good drive as to hole a short putt, or nearly so, and from the golfer who does not drive well a most marvellous excellence is required in the short game if he is to hold his own in good company, or ever be anything more than a long-handicap man. The good drive is the foundation of a good game, and just as one and one make two, so it follows that the man who drives the longer ball has the rest of the game made easier and more certain for him. This apart, there is no stroke in golf that gives the same amount of pleasure as does the perfect driving of the ball from the tee, none that makes the heart feel lighter, and none that seems to bring the glow of delight into the watching eye as this one does. The man who has never stood upon the tee with a sturdy rival near him and driven a perfect ball, the hands having followed well through and finished nicely up against the head, while the little white speck in the distance, after skimming the earth for a time, now rises and soars upwards, clearing all obstacles, and seeming to revel in its freedom and speed until at last it dips gracefully back to earth again--I say that the man who has not done this thing has missed one of the joys of life. I have heard the completest sportsmen say that there are very few things in the entire world of sport that can be compared with it, and none that is superior. So now let us get on to our drive. In the first place, the driver must be selected, and the hints I have already given upon the choice of clubs will serve tolerably well in this respect. Let it only be said again that the golfer should do his utmost to avoid extremes in length or shortness. One hears of the virtues of fishing-rod drivers, and the next day that certain great players display a tendency to shorten their clubs. There is nothing like the happy medium, which has proved its capability of getting the longest balls. The length of the club must, of course, vary according to the height of the player, for what would be a short driver for a six-foot man would almost be a fishing-rod to the diminutive person who stands but five feet high. Let the weight be medium also; but for reasons already stated do not let it err on the side of lightness. The shaft of the club should be of moderate suppleness. As I have said, if it is too whippy it may be hard to control, but if it is too stiff it leaves too much hard work to be done by the muscles of the golfer. Practising what I preach, my own drivers are carefully selected for this delicate medium of suppleness of shaft, and when a stick is found that is exactly perfect it is well worth great care for ever. Also I reiterate that the head of the club should not be too large; driving is not thereby made any easier, and carelessness is encouraged. The face should not be quite vertical: if it were, only the top edge and not the full face would be seen when the stance had been taken and the club head was resting upon the tee in its proper place. There must be just so much loft that the face can be seen when the golfer is ready and in position for the swing. But avoid having too much loft filed on the club as a fancied remedy for driving too low and getting into all the bunkers. You do not fail to get the ball up because there is not sufficient loft on the club, but because you are doing something wrong which can easily be remedied; while, on the other hand, be very careful of the fact that, as you add loft to the face of the driver so at the same time you are cutting off distance and losing both power and the delightful sense of it. When the weather is wet, it is a good plan to chalk the face of the club, as this counteracts the tendency of the ball to skid from it. Tee the ball low, rejecting the very prevalent but erroneous idea that you are more certain of getting it away cleanly and well when it is poised high off the ground. The stroke that sweeps the ball well away from the low tee is the most natural and perfect, and it follows that the ball, properly driven from this low tee, is the best of all. Moreover, one is not so liable to get too much underneath the ball and make a feeble shot into the sky, which is one of the most exasperating forms of ineffectual effort in the whole range of golf. Another convincing argument in favour of the low tee is that it preserves a greater measure of similarity between the first shot and the second, helping to make the latter, with the brassy, almost a repetition of the first, and therefore simple and comparatively easy. If you make a high tee, when you come to play your second stroke with your brassy, you will be inclined to find fault with even the most perfect brassy lies--when the ball is so well held up by the blades of grass that the best possible shot with this far-sending club should be the result. If you are favoured with an ordinary brassy lie, you imagine the ball to be in a hole, exclaim that you are badly cupped, and call out vexatiously for an iron. This is the regular result of playing from a high tee, whereas, when the low one is systematically adopted, the difference between the play with the driver and with the brassy from a good lie is inconsiderable, the brassy is used more frequently, and the results are regularly better. As I have already suggested, one of the principles of my long game is to make the play with the brassy as nearly similar to that with the driver as possible, and a low tee is the first step in that direction. There are wide variations in the stances adopted by different players, and extremes of one sort or another are usually the result of bad habits contracted in the early stages of initiation into the mysteries of the game. Sometimes the ball is seen opposite the toe of the left foot; at others it is far away to the right. Either of these players may get long balls constantly, but it is in spite of the stance and not because of it, for they are contending against a handicap all the time, and have unconsciously to introduce other mannerisms into their play to counteract the evil which a bad stance inevitably brings about. It is certain that if they had driven in the easier way from their youth upwards, they would in their golfing prime have been getting longer balls than those with which they are after all apparently satisfied. But I have already admitted generally, and here again admit in a specific instance, the dissatisfaction, and even danger, that is likely to accrue from an attempt to uproot a system of play which has been established in an individual for many years. One can only insist upon the necessity of starting well, and plead earnestly to any readers who may not yet be far advanced in their experience of the game, to see that their play is based on wise and sure foundations. There is nothing of my own discovery or invention in my stance for the drive. It is simply that which is theoretically and scientifically correct, being calculated, that is, to afford the greatest freedom of movement to the arms, legs, and body in the swinging of the club, so that the strength may be exerted to the fullest advantage at the right moment and continued in its effect upon the ball for the longest possible period. First, then, as to distance from the ball. The player should stand so far away from it that when he is in position and the club face is resting against the teed ball, just as when ready to strike it, the end of the shaft shall reach exactly up to his left knee when the latter is ever so slightly bent. In this position he should be able, when he has properly gripped the club, to reach the ball comfortably and without any stretching, the arms indeed being not quite straight out but having a slight bend at the elbows, so that when the club is waggled in the preliminary address to the ball, plenty of play can be felt in them. I must now invite the player who is following me in these remarks to give his attention simultaneously to the photograph of myself, as I have taken my stance upon the tee for an ordinary drive (Plate VI.), with the object of getting the longest ball possible under conditions in all respects normal; and to the small diagram in the corner of the picture giving all the measurements necessary to a complete understanding of the position. I may point out again that my height is 5 feet 9-1/4 inches, and that the length of my driver from the heel to the end of the shaft is 42 inches. My stature being medium, the majority of players who desire to follow my suggestions will be able to do so without any altering of the measurements given in these diagrams; and, indeed, until any variation in height one way or the other becomes considerable, there is no necessity to vary them. Remember that in this and all subsequent illustrations the line marked A points to the direction in which it is desired that the ball should travel, and that the B line over which the player stands is at right angles to it. Those who wish at this moment to examine the stance in the most practical manner, and to compare it with that which they have been in the habit of playing from, need hardly be informed that at the corners of nearly every carpet there are rectangular lines either in the pattern or made by borders, which may be taken to represent those in the diagram, and a penny placed at the junction will stand for the ball. It will be observed that, for the most lucid and complete exposition of the stances, in this and all subsequent cases, the diagrams have been turned about, so that here the player has, as it were, his back to the reader, while in the photographs he is, of course, facing him. But the stances are identical. The diagrams have been drawn to scale. It will be noticed, in the first place, that I have my toes turned well outwards. The pivoting which is necessary, and which will be described in due course, is done naturally and without any effort when the toes are pointed in this manner. While it is a mistake to place the feet too near each other, there is a common tendency to place them too far apart. When this is done, ease and perfection of the swing are destroyed and power is wasted, whilst the whole movement is devoid of grace. It will be seen that my left foot is a little, but not much, in advance of the ball. My heel, indeed, is almost level with it, being but an inch from the B line at the end of which the ball is teed. The toe, however, is 9-1/2 inches away from it, all measurements in this case and others being taken from the exact centre of the point of the toe. The point of the right toe is 19 inches distant from the B line, and while this toe is 27-1/2 inches from the A line the other is 34 inches from it, so that the right foot is 6-1/2 inches in advance of the left. After giving these measurements, there is really little more to explain about the stance, particularly as I shall show shortly how variations from it almost certainly bring about imperfect drives. Theoretically, the reason for the position is, I think, fairly obvious. The right foot is in advance of the left, so that at the most critical period of the stroke there shall be nothing to impede the follow-through, but everything to encourage it, and so that at the finish the body itself can be thrown forward in the last effort to continue the application of power. It would not be in a position to do so if the left foot were in front to bar the way. The position of the ball as between the right foot and the left is such that the club will strike it just at the time when it is capable of doing so to the utmost advantage, being then, and for the very minute portion of a second during which ball and club may be supposed to remain in contact, moving in as nearly as possible a straight line and at its maximum speed. [Illustration: _PLATE II._ THE GRIP WITH THE LEFT HAND] [Illustration: _PLATE III._ THE OVERLAPPING GRIP] [Illustration: _PLATE IV._ THE OVERLAPPING GRIP] [Illus ration: _PLATE V._ THE OVERLAPPING GRIP] Now comes the all-important consideration of the grip. This is another matter in which the practice of golfers differs greatly, and upon which there has been much controversy. My grip is one of my own invention. It differs materially from most others, and if I am asked to offer any excuse for it, I shall say that I adopted it only after a careful trial of all the other grips of which I had ever heard, that in theory and practice I find it admirable--more so than any other--and that in my opinion it has contributed materially to the attainment of such skill as I possess. The favour which I accord to my method might be viewed with suspicion if it had been my natural or original grip, which came naturally or accidentally to me when I first began to play as a boy, so many habits that are bad being contracted at this stage and clinging to the player for the rest of his life. But this was not the case, for when I first began to play golf I grasped my club in what is generally regarded as the orthodox manner, that is to say, across the palms of both hands separately, with both thumbs right round the shaft (on the left one, at all events), and with the joins between the thumbs and first fingers showing like two V's over the top of the shaft. This is usually described as the two-V grip, and it is the one which is taught by the majority of professionals to whom the beginner appeals for first instruction in the game. Of course it is beyond question that some players achieve very fine results with this grip, but I abandoned it many years ago in favour of one that I consider to be better. My contention is that this grip of mine is sounder in theory and easier in practice, tends to make a better stroke and to secure a straighter ball, and that players who adopt it from the beginning will stand a much better chance of driving well at an early stage than if they went in for the old-fashioned two-V. My grip is an overlapping, but not an interlocking one. Modifications of it are used by many fine players, and it is coming into more general practice as its merits are understood and appreciated. I use it for all my strokes, and it is only when putting that I vary it in the least, and then the change is so slight as to be scarcely noticeable. The photographs (Plates II., III., IV., and V.) illustrating the grip of the left hand singly, and of the two together from different points of view, should now be closely examined. It will be seen at once that I do not grasp the club across the palm of either hand. The club being taken in the left hand first, the shaft passes from the knuckle joint of the first finger across the ball of the second. The left thumb lies straight down the shaft--that is to say, it is just to the left of the centre of the shaft. But the following are the significant features of the grip. The right hand is brought up so high that the palm of it covers over the left thumb, leaving very little of the latter to be seen. The first and second fingers of the right hand just reach round to the thumb of the left, and the third finger completes the overlapping process, so that the club is held in the grip as if it were in a vice. The little finger of the right hand rides on the first finger of the left. The great advantage of this grip is that both hands feel and act like one, and if, even while sitting in his chair, a player who has never tried it before will take a stick in his hands in the manner I have described, he must at once be convinced that there is a great deal in what I say for it, although, of course, if he has been accustomed to the two V's, the success of my grip cannot be guaranteed at the first trial. It needs some time to become thoroughly happy with it. We must now consider the degree of tightness of the grip by either hand, for this is an important matter. Some teachers of golf and various books of instruction inform us that we should grasp the club firmly with the left hand and only lightly with the right, leaving the former to do the bulk of the work and the other merely to guide the operations. It is astonishing with what persistency this error has been repeated, for error I truly believe it is. Ask any really first-class player with what comparative tightness he holds the club in his right and left hands, and I am confident that in nearly every case he will declare that he holds it nearly if not quite as tightly with the right hand as with the left. Personally I grip quite as firmly with the right hand as with the other one. When the other way is adopted, the left hand being tight and the right hand simply watching it, as it were, there is an irresistible tendency for the latter to tighten up suddenly at some part of the upward or downward swing, and, as surely as there is a ball on the tee, when it does so there will be mischief. Depend upon it the instinct of activity will prevent the right hand from going through with the swing in that indefinite state of looseness. Perhaps a yard from the ball in the upward swing, or a yard from it when coming down, there will be a convulsive grip of the right hand which, with an immediate acknowledgment of guilt, will relax again. Such a happening is usually fatal; it certainly deserves to be. Slicing, pulling, sclaffing, and the foundering of the innocent globe--all these tragedies may at times be traced to this determination of the right hand not to be ignored but to have its part to play in the making of the drive. Therefore in all respects my right hand is a joint partner with the left. The grip with the first finger and thumb of my right hand is exceedingly firm, and the pressure of the little finger on the knuckle of the left hand is very decided. In the same way it is the thumb and first finger of the left hand that have most of the gripping work to do. Again, the palm of the right hand presses hard against the thumb of the left. In the upward swing this pressure is gradually decreased, until when the club reaches the turning-point there is no longer any such pressure; indeed, at this point the palm and the thumb are barely in contact. This release is a natural one, and will or should come naturally to the player for the purpose of allowing the head of the club to swing well and freely back. But the grip of the thumb and first finger of the right hand, as well as that of the little finger upon the knuckle of the first finger of the left hand, is still as firm as at the beginning. As the club head is swung back again towards the ball, the palm of the right hand and the thumb of the left gradually come together again. Both the relaxing and the re-tightening are done with the most perfect graduation, so that there shall be no jerk to take the club off the straight line. The easing begins when the hands are about shoulder high and the club shaft is perpendicular, because it is at this time that the club begins to pull, and if it were not let out in the manner explained, the result would certainly be a half shot or very little more than that, for a full and perfect swing would be an impossibility. This relaxation of the palm also serves to give more freedom to the wrist at the top of the swing just when that freedom is desirable. I have the strongest belief in the soundness of the grip that I have thus explained, for when it is employed both hands are acting in unison and to the utmost advantage, whereas it often happens in the two-V grip, even when practised by the most skilful players, that in the downward swing there is a sense of the left hand doing its utmost to get through and of the right hand holding it back. There is only one other small matter to mention in connection with the question of grip. Some golfers imagine that if they rest the left thumb down the shaft and let the right hand press upon it there will be a considerable danger of breaking the thumb, so severe is the pressure when the stroke is being made. As a matter of fact, I have quite satisfied myself that if the thumb is kept in the same place there is not the slightest risk of anything of the kind. Also if the thumb remains immovable, as it should, there is no possibility of the club turning in the hands as so often happens in the case of the two-V grip when the ground is hit rather hard, a pull or a slice being the usual consequence. I must be excused for treating upon these matters at such length. They are often neglected, but they are of extreme importance in laying the foundations of a good game of golf. In addressing the ball, take care to do so with the centre of the face of the club, that is, at the desired point of contact. Some awkward eccentricities may frequently be observed on the tee. A player may be seen addressing his ball from the toe of the driver, and I have even noticed the address being made with the head of the club quite inside the ball, while in other cases it is the heel of the club which is applied to the object to be struck. The worthy golfers who are responsible for these freaks of style no doubt imagine that they are doing a wise and proper thing, and in the most effectual manner counteracting some other irregularity of their method of play which may not be discoverable, and which is in any case incurable. Yet nothing is more certain than that another irregularity must be introduced into the drive in order to correct the one made in the address. To the point at which the club is addressed it will naturally return in the course of the swing, and if it is to be guided to any other than the original place, there must be a constant effort all through the swing to effect this change in direction, and most likely somewhere or other there will be sufficient jerk to spoil the drive. In the case where the ball is addressed with the toe of the club, the player must find it necessary almost to fall on the ball in coming down, and it is quite impossible for him to get his full distance in such circumstances. A waggle of the head of the club as a preliminary before commencing the swing is sometimes necessary after the stance and grip have been taken, but every young golfer should be warned against excess in this habit. With the stance and grip arranged, the line of the shot in view, and a full knowledge of what is required from the stroke, there is really very little more that needs thinking about before the swing is taken. One short preliminary waggle will tend to make the player feel comfortable and confident, but some golfers may be observed trying the patience of all about them by an interminable process of waggling, the most likely result of which is a duffed shot, since, when at last the stroke is made, the player is in a state of semi-catalepsy, and has no clear idea of what he is going to do or how he is going to do it. In addressing the ball, and during the upward and downward swings until it has been safely despatched, the sight should be kept riveted, not on the top of the ball, as is customary, but upon the ground immediately to the right of it (see diagram on p. 170). To the point where the gaze is fixed the head of the club will automatically be guided. That is why you are told to keep your eye on the ball. But you do not want to hit the top of the ball. So look to the side, where you do want to hit it. CHAPTER VI DRIVING--THE SWING OF THE CLUB "Slow back"--The line of the club head in the upward swing--The golfer's head must be kept rigid--The action of the wrists--Position at the top of the swing--Movements of the arms--Pivoting of the body--No swaying--Action of the feet and legs--Speed of the club during the swing--The moment of impact--More about the wrists--No pure wrist shot in golf--The follow-through--Timing of the body action--Arms and hands high up at the finish--How bad drives are made--The causes of slicing--When the ball is pulled--Misapprehensions as to slicing and pulling--Dropping of the right shoulder--Its evil consequences--No trick in long driving--Hit properly and hard--What is pressing and what is not--Summary of the drive. Now let us consider the upward and downward swings of the club, and the movements of the arms, legs, feet, and body in relation to them. As a first injunction, it may be stated that the club should be drawn back rather more slowly than you intend to bring it down again. "Slow back" is a golfing maxim that is both old and wise. The club should begin to gain speed when the upward swing is about half made, and the increase should be gradual until the top is reached, but it should never be so fast that control of the club is to any extent lost at the turning-point. The head of the club should be taken back fairly straight from the ball--along the A line--for the first six inches, and after that any tendency to sweep it round sharply to the back should be avoided. Keep it very close to the straight line until it is half-way up. The old St. Andrews style of driving largely consisted in this sudden sweep round, but the modern method appears to be easier and productive of better results. So this carrying of the head of the club upwards and backwards seems to be a very simple matter, capable of explanation in a very few words; but, as every golfer of a month's experience knows, there is a long list of details to be attended to, which I have not yet named, each of which seems to vie with the others in its attempt to destroy the effectiveness of the drive. Let us begin at the top, as it were, and work downwards, and first of all there is the head of the golfer to consider. The head should be kept perfectly motionless from the time of the address until the ball has been sent away and is well on its flight. The least deviation from this rule means a proportionate danger of disaster. When a drive has been badly foozled, the readiest and most usual explanation is that the eye has been taken off the ball, and the wise old men who have been watching shake their heads solemnly, and utter that parrot-cry of the links, "Keep your eye on the ball." Certainly this is a good and necessary rule so far as it goes; but I do not believe that one drive in a hundred is missed because the eye has not been kept on the ball. On the other hand, I believe that one of the most fruitful causes of failure with the tee shot is the moving of the head. Until the ball has gone, it should, as I say, be as nearly perfectly still as possible, and I would have written that it should not be moved to the extent of a sixteenth of an inch, but for the fact that it is not human to be so still, and golf is always inclined to the human side. When the head has been kept quite still and the club has reached the top of the upward swing, the eyes should be looking over the middle of the left shoulder, the left one being dead over the centre of that shoulder. Most players at one time or another, and the best of them when they are a little off their game, fall into every trap that the evil spirits of golf lay for them, and unconsciously experience a tendency to lift the head for five or six inches away from the ball while the upward swing is being taken. This is often what is imagined to be taking the eye off the ball, particularly as, when it is carried to excess, the eye, struggling gallantly to do its duty, finds considerable difficulty in getting a sight of the ball over the left shoulder, and sometimes loses it altogether for an instant. An examination of the photograph showing the top of the swing (Plate VII.) will make it clear that there is very little margin for the moving of the head if the ball is to be kept in full view for the whole of the time. [Illustration: _PLATE VI._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. THE STANCE] [Illustration: _PLATE VII._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. TOP OF THE SWING] [Illustration: _PLATE VIII._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. TOP OF THE SWING. FROM BEHIND] [Illustration: _PLATE IX._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. FINISH OF THE SWING] In the upward swing the right shoulder should be raised gradually. It is unnecessary for me to submit any instruction on this point, since the movement is natural and inevitable, and there is no tendency towards excess; but the arms and wrists need attention. From the moment when the club is first taken back the left wrist should begin to turn inwards (that is to say, the movement is in the same direction as that taken by the hands of a clock), and so turn away the face of the club from the ball. When this is properly done, the toe of the club will point to the sky when it is level with the shoulder and will be dead over the middle of the shaft. This turning or twisting process continues all the way until at the top of the swing the toe of the club is pointing straight downwards to the ground. A reference to Plate VII. will show that this has been done, and that as the result the left wrist finishes the upward swing underneath the shaft, which is just where it ought to be. When the wrist has not been at work in the manner indicated, the toe of the club at the top of the drive will be pointing upwards. In order to satisfy himself properly about the state of affairs thus far in the making of the drive, the golfer should test himself at the top of the swing by holding the club firmly in the position which it has reached, and then dropping the right hand from the grip. He will thus be enabled to look right round, and if he then finds that the maker's name on the head of the club is horizontal, he will know that he has been doing the right thing with his wrists, while if it is vertical the wrist action has been altogether wrong. During the upward swing the arms should be gradually let out in the enjoyment of perfect ease and freedom (without being spread-eagled away from the body) until at the top of the swing the left arm, from the shoulder to the elbow, is gently touching the body and hanging well down, while the right arm is up above it and almost level with the club. The picture indicates exactly what I mean, and a reference to the illustration showing what ought not to be the state of affairs generally when the top of the swing is reached (Plate XI.), should convince even the veriest beginner how much less comfortable is the position of the arms in this instance than when the right thing has been done, and how laden with promise is the general attitude of the player in the latter position as compared with his cramped state in the former. I think I ought to state, partly in justice to myself, and partly to persuade my readers that the best way in this case, as in all others, is the most natural, that I found it most inconvenient and difficult to make such extremely inaccurate swings as those depicted in this and other photographs of the "How not to do it" series, although they are by no means exaggerations of what are seen on the links every day, even players of several years' experience being constantly responsible for them. In the upward movement of the club the body must pivot from the waist alone, and there must be no swaying, not even to the extent of an inch. When the player sways in his drive the stroke he makes is a body stroke pure and simple. The body is trying to do the work the arms should do, and in these circumstances it is impossible to get so much power into the stroke as if it were properly made, while once more the old enemies, the slice and the pull, will come out from their hiding-places with their mocking grin at the unhappy golfer. The movements of the feet and legs are important. In addressing the ball you stand with both feet flat and securely placed on the ground, the weight equally divided between them, and the legs so slightly bent at the knee joints as to make the bending scarcely noticeable. This position is maintained during the upward movement of the club until the arms begin to pull at the body. The easiest and most natural thing to do then, and the one which suggests itself, is to raise the heel of the left foot and begin to pivot on the left toe, which allows the arms to proceed with their uplifting process without let or hindrance. Do not begin to pivot on this left toe ostentatiously, or because you feel you ought to do so, but only when you know the time has come and you want to, and do it only to such an extent that the club can reach the full extent of the swing without any difficulty. While this is happening it follows that the weight of the body is being gradually thrown on to the right leg, which accordingly stiffens until at the top of the swing it is quite rigid, the left leg being at the same time in a state of comparative freedom, slightly bent in towards the right, with only just enough pressure on the toe to keep it in position. To the man who has never driven a good ball in his life this process must seem very tedious. All these things to attend to, and something less than a second in which to attend to them! It only indicates how much there is in this wonderful game--more by far than any of us suspect or shall ever discover. But the time comes, and it should come speedily, when they are all accomplished without any effort, and, indeed, to a great extent, unconsciously. The upward swing is everything. If it is bad and faulty, the downward swing will be wrong and the ball will not be properly driven. If it is perfect, there is a splendid prospect of a long and straight drive, carrying any hazard that may lie before the tee. That is why so very much emphasis must be laid on getting this upward swing perfect, and why comparatively little attention need be paid to the downward swing, even though it is really the effective part of the stroke. Be careful not to dwell at the turn of the swing. The club has been gaining in speed right up to this point, and though I suppose that, theoretically, there is a pause at the turning-point, lasting for an infinitesimal portion of a second, the golfer should scarcely be conscious of it. He must be careful to avoid a sudden jerk, but if he dwells at the top of the stroke for only a second, or half that short period of time, his upward swing in all its perfection will have been completely wasted, and his stroke will be made under precisely the same circumstances and with exactly the same disadvantages as if the club had been poised in this position at the start, and there had been no attempt at swinging of any description. In such circumstances a long ball is an impossibility, and a straight one a matter of exceeding doubt. The odds are not very greatly in favour of the ball being rolled off the teeing ground. So don't dwell at the turn; come back again with the club. The club should gradually gain in speed from the moment of the turn until it is in contact with the ball, so that at the moment of impact its head is travelling at its fastest pace. After the impact, the club head should be allowed to follow the ball straight in the line of the flag as far as the arms will let it go, and then, having done everything that is possible, it swings itself out at the other side of the shoulders. The entire movement must be perfectly smooth and rhythmical; in the downward swing, while the club is gaining speed, there must not be the semblance of a jerk anywhere such as would cause a jump, or a double swing, or what might be called a cricket stroke. That, in a few lines, is the whole story of the downward swing; but it needs some little elaboration of detail. In the first place, avoid the tendency--which is to some extent natural--to let the arms go out or away from the body as soon as the downward movement begins. When they are permitted to do so the club head escapes from its proper line, and a fault is committed which cannot be remedied before the ball is struck. Knowing by instinct that you are outside the proper course, you make a great effort at correction, the face of the club is drawn across the ball, and there is one more slice. The arms should be kept fairly well in during the latter half of the downward swing, both elbows almost grazing the body. If they are properly attended to when the club is going up, there is much more likelihood of their coming down all right. The head is still kept motionless and the body pivots easily at the waist; but when the club is half-way down, the left hip is allowed to go forward a little--a preliminary to and preparation for the forward movement of the body which is soon to begin. The weight is being gradually moved back again from the right leg to the left. At the moment of impact both feet are equally weighted and are flat on the ground, just as they were when the ball was being addressed; indeed, the position of the body, legs, arms, head, and every other detail is, or ought to be, exactly the same when the ball is being struck as they were when it was addressed, and for that reason I refer my readers again to the photograph of the address (No. VI.) as the most correct position of everything at the moment of striking. After the impact the weight is thrown on to the left leg, which stiffens, while the right toe pivots and the knee bends just as its partner did in the earlier stage of the stroke, but perhaps to a greater extent, since there is no longer any need for restraint. Now pay attention to the wrists. They should be held fairly tightly. If the club is held tightly the wrists will be tight, and _vice versâ_. When the wrists are tight there is little play in them, and more is demanded of the arms. I don't believe in the long ball coming from the wrists. In defiance of principles which are accepted in many quarters, I will go so far as to say that, except in putting, there is no pure wrist shot in golf. Some players attempt to play their short approaches with their wrists as they have been told to do. These men are likely to remain at long handicaps for a long time. Similarly there is a kind of superstition that the elect among drivers get in some peculiar kind of "snap"--a momentary forward pushing movement--with their wrists at the time of impact, and that it is this wrist work at the critical period which gives the grand length to their drives, those extra twenty or thirty yards which make the stroke look so splendid, so uncommon, and which make the next shot so much easier. Generally speaking, the wrists when held firmly will take very good care of themselves; but there is a tendency, particularly when the two-V grip is used, to allow the right hand to take charge of affairs at the time the ball is struck, and the result is that the right wrist, as the swing is completed, gradually gets on to the top of the shaft instead of remaining in its proper place. The consequence is a pulled ball,--in fact, this is just the way in which I play for a pull. When the fault is committed to a still greater extent, the head of the club is suddenly turned over, and then the ball is foundered, as we say,--that is, it is struck downwards, and struggles, crippled and done for, a few yards along the ground in front of the tee. I find that ladies are particularly addicted to this very bad habit. Once again I have to say that if the club is taken up properly there is the greater certainty of its coming down properly, and then if you keep both hands evenly to their work there is a great probability of a good follow-through being properly effected. When the ball has been struck, and the follow-through is being accomplished, there are two rules, hitherto held sacred, which may at last be broken. With the direction and force of the swing your chest is naturally turned round until it is facing the flag, and your body now abandons all restraint, and to a certain extent throws itself, as it were, after the ball. There is a great art in timing this body movement exactly. If it takes place the fiftieth part of a second too soon the stroke will be entirely ruined; if it comes too late it will be quite ineffectual, and will only result in making the golfer feel uneasy and as if something had gone wrong. When made at the proper instant it adds a good piece of distance to the drive, and that instant, as explained, is just when the club is following through. An examination of the photograph indicating the finish of the swing (No. IX.) will show how my body has been thrown forward until at this stage it is on the outward side of the B line, although it was slightly on the other side when the ball was being addressed. Secondly, when the ball has gone, and the arms, following it, begin to pull, the head, which has so far been held perfectly still, is lifted up so as to give freedom to the swing, and incidentally it allows the eyes to follow the flight of the ball. [Illustration: _PLATE X._ HOW NOT TO DRIVE _In this case the player's feet are much to close together, and there is a space between the hands as there should never be, whatever style of grip is favored. Also the right hand is too much underneath the shaft. The result of these faults will usually be a pulled ball, but a long drive of any sort is impossible._] [Illustration: _PLATE XI._ HOW NOT TO DRIVE _In this case the left wrist instead of being underneath the handle is level with it--a common and dangerous fault. The left arm is spread-eagled outwards, and the toe of the club is not pointing downwards as it ought to be. The pivoting on the left toe is very imperfect. There is no power in this position. Sometimes the result is a pull, but frequently the ball will be foundered. No length is possible._] [Illustration: _PLATE XII._ HOW NOT TO DRIVE _This is an example of a bad finish. Instead of being thrown forward after the impact the body has fallen away. The usual consequence is a sliced ball, and this is also one of the commonest causes of short driving._] [Illustration: _PLATE XIII._ HOW NOT TO DRIVE _Here again the body has failed to follow the ball after impact. The stance is very bad, the forward position of the left foot preventing a satisfactory follow-through. The worst fault committed here, however, is the position taken by the left arm. The elbow is far too low. It should be at least as high as the right elbow. Result--complete lack of power and length._] I like to see the arms finish well up with the hands level with the head. This generally means a properly hit ball and a good follow-through. At the finish of the stroke the right arm should be above the left, the position being exactly the reverse of that in which the arms were situated at the top of the swing, except that now the right arm is not quite so high as the left one was at the earlier stage. The photograph (No. IX.) indicates that the right arm is some way below the level of the shaft of the club, whereas it will be remembered that the left arm was almost exactly on a level with it. Notice also the position of the wrists at the finish of the stroke. Having thus indicated at such great length the many points which go to the making of a good drive, a long one and a straight one, yet abounding with ease and grace, allow me to show how some of the commonest faults are caused by departures from the rules for driving. Take the sliced ball, as being the trouble from which the player most frequently suffers, and which upon occasion will exasperate him beyond measure. When a golfer is slicing badly almost every time, it is frequently difficult for him to discover immediately the exact source of the trouble, for there are two or three ways in which it comes about. The player may be standing too near to the ball; he may be pulling in his arms too suddenly as he is swinging on to it, thus drawing the club towards his left foot; or he may be falling on to the ball at the moment of impact. When the stance is taken too near to the ball there is a great inducement to the arms to take a course too far outwards (in the direction of the A line) in the upward swing. The position is cramped, and the player does not seem able to get the club round at all comfortably. When the club head is brought on to the ball after a swing of this kind, the face is drawn right across it, and a slice is inevitable. In diagnosing the malady, in cases where the too close stance is suspected, it is a good thing to apply the test of distance given at the beginning of the previous chapter, and see whether, when the club head is resting in position against the teed ball, the other end of the shaft just reaches to the left knee when it is in position, and has only just so much bend in it as it has when the ball is being addressed. The second method of committing the slicing sin is self-explanatory. As for the third, a player falls on the ball, or sways over in the direction of the tee (very slightly, but it is the trifles that matter most) when his weight has not been properly balanced to start with, and when in the course of the swing it has been moved suddenly from one leg to the other instead of quite gradually. But sometimes falling on the ball is caused purely and simply by swaying the body, against which the player has already been warned. When the slicing is bad, the methods of the golfer should be tested for each of these irregularities, and he should remember that an inch difference in any position or movement as he stands upon the tee is a great distance, and that two inches is a vast space, which the mind trained to calculate in small fractions can hardly conceive. Pulling is not such a common fault, although one which is sometimes very annoying. Generally speaking, a pulled ball is a much better one than one which has been sliced, and there are some young players who are rather inclined to purr with satisfaction when they have pulled, for, though the ball is hopelessly off the line, they have committed an error which is commoner with those whose hair has grown grey on the links than with the beginner whose handicap is reckoned by eighteen or twenty strokes. But after all pulling is not an amusement, and even when it is an accomplishment and not an accident, it should be most carefully regulated. It is the right hand which is usually the offender in this case. The wrist is wrong at the moment of impact, and generally at the finish of the stroke as well,--that is, it is on the top of the club, indicating that the right hand has done most of the work. In a case of this sort the top edge of the face of the club is usually overlapping the bottom edge, so that the face is pointing slightly downwards at the moment of impact; and when this position is brought about with extreme suddenness the ball is frequently foundered. If it escapes this fate, then it is pulled. A second cause of pulling is a sudden relaxation of the grip of the right hand at the time of hitting the ball. When this happens, the left hand, being uncontrolled, turns over the club head in the same manner as in the first case, and the result is the same. I have found from experience that it is necessary to enjoin even players of some years' standing to make quite certain that they are slicing and pulling, before they complain about their doing so and try to find cures for it. In a great number of cases a player will take his stance in quite the wrong direction, either too much round to the right or too much to the left, and when the ball has flown truly along the line on which it was despatched, the golfer blandly remarks that it was a bad slice or a bad pull, as the case may be. He must bring himself to understand that a ball is neither sliced nor pulled when it continues flying throughout in the direction in which it started from the tee. It is only when it begins performing evolutions in the air some distance away, and taking a half wheel to the right or left, that it has fallen a victim to the slice or pull. There is one more fault of the drive which must be mentioned. It is one of the commonest mistakes that the young golfer makes, and one which afflicts him most keenly, for when he makes it his drive is not a drive at all; all his power, or most of it, has been expended on the turf some inches behind the ball. The right shoulder has been dropped too soon or too low. During the address this shoulder is necessarily a little below the left one, and care must be taken at this stage that it is not allowed to drop more than is necessary. At the top of the swing the right shoulder is naturally well above the other one, and at the moment of impact with the ball it should just have resumed its original position slightly below the left. It often happens, however, that even very good golfers, after a period of excellent driving, through sheer over-confidence or carelessness, will fall into the way of dropping the right shoulder too soon, or, when they do drop it, letting it go altogether, so that it fairly sinks away. The result is exactly what is to be expected. The head of the club naturally comes down with the shoulder and flops ineffectually upon the turf behind the tee, anything from two to nine inches behind the ball. Yet, unless the golfer has had various attacks of this sort of thing before, he is often puzzled to account for it. The remedy is obvious. I can imagine that many good golfers, now that I near the end of my hints on driving, may feel some sense of disappointment because I have not given them a recipe for putting thirty or forty yards on to their commonplace drives. I can only say that there is no trick or knack in doing it, as is often suspected, such as the suggestion, already alluded to, that the wrists have a little game of their own just when the club head is coming in contact with the ball. The way to drive far is to comply with the utmost care with every injunction that I have set forth, and then to hit hard but by the proper use of the swing. To some golfers this may be a dangerous truth, but it must be told: it is accuracy and strength which make the long ball. But I seem to hear the young player wail, "When I hit hard you say 'Don't press!'" A golfer is not pressing when he swings through as fast as he can with his club, gaining speed steadily, although he is often told that he is. But it most frequently happens that when he tries to get this extra pace all at once, and not as the result of gradual improvement and perfection of style, that it comes not smoothly but in a great jerk just before the ball is reached. This is certainly the way that it comes when the golfer is off his game, and he tries, often unconsciously, to make up in force what he has temporarily lost in skill. This really is pressing, and it is this against which I must warn every golfer in the same grave manner that he has often been warned before. But to the player who, by skill and diligence of practice, increases the smooth and even pace of his swing, keeping his legs, body, arms, and head in their proper places all the time, I have nothing to give but encouragement, though long before this he himself will have discovered that he has found out the wonderful, delightful secret of the long ball. Two chapters of detailed instruction are too much for a player to carry in his mind when he goes out on to the links to practise drives, and for his benefit I will here make the briefest possible summary of what I have already stated. Let him attend, then, to the following chief points:-- _Stance._--The player should stand just so far away from the ball, that when the face of the driver is laid against it in position for striking, the other end of the shaft exactly reaches to the left knee when the latter is slightly bent. The right foot may be anything up to seven inches in front of the left, but certainly never behind it. The left toe should be a trifle in advance of the ball. The toes should be turned outwards. Make a low tee. _Grip._--As described. Remember that the palm of the right hand presses hard on the left thumb at all times except when nearing and at the top of the swing. The grip of the thumb and the first two fingers of each hand is constantly firm. _Upward Swing._--The club head must be taken back in a straight line for a few inches, and then brought round gradually--not too straight up (causing slicing) nor too far round in the old-fashioned style. The speed of the swing increases gradually. The elbows are kept fairly well in, the left wrist turning inwards and finishing the upward swing well underneath the shaft. The body must not be allowed to sway. It should pivot easily from the waist. The head must be kept quite still. The weight is gradually thrown entirely on to the right leg, the left knee bends inwards, the left heel rises, and the toe pivots. There must be no jerk at the turn of the swing. _Downward Swing._--There should be a gradual increase of pace, but no jerk anywhere. The arms must be kept well down when the club is descending, the elbows almost grazing the body. The right wrist should not be allowed to get on to the top of the club. The head is still motionless. The left hip is allowed to move forward very slightly while the club is coming down. The weight of the body is gradually transferred from the right leg to the left, the right toe pivoting after the impact, and the left leg stiffening. The right shoulder must be prevented from dropping too much. After the impact the arms should be allowed to follow the ball and the body to go forward, the latter movement being timed very carefully. The head may now be raised. Finish with the arms well up--the right arm above the left. _Slicing._--This may be caused by standing too near to the ball, by pulling in the arms, or by falling on the ball. _Pulling._--Usually caused by the head of the club being turned partly over when the ball is struck, or by relaxing the grip with the right hand. I can only agree with those who have followed me so patiently through these two chapters, that to drive a golf ball well is a thing not to be learned in a week or a month. CHAPTER VII BRASSY AND SPOON Good strokes with the brassy--Play as with the driver--The points of the brassy--The stance--Where and how to hit the ball--Playing from cuppy lies--Jab strokes from badly-cupped lies--A difficult club to master--The man with the spoon--The lie for the baffy--What it can and cannot do--Character of the club--The stance--Tee shots with the baffy--Iron clubs are better. When to your caddie you say "Give me my brassy" it is a sign that there is serious work to be done--as serious and anxious as any that has to be accomplished during the six or seven minutes' journey from the tee to the hole. Many golfers have a fondness for the brassy greater even than for the driver, and the brassy shot when well played certainly affords a greater sense of satisfaction than the drive--great as is the joy of a good drive--because one is conscious of having triumphed over difficulties. When the ball is lying very well when it has to be played through the green, the driver is naturally taken, but when the lie is very low, approaching even to a cuppy character, the brassy is called for so that an effort may be made to pick the ball up cleanly and despatch it to the full distance. Again, the stroke with the brassy must always be a first-class one. One that is a little inferior to the best may place the player in serious difficulties. On the other hand, the brassy seldom flatters its user, though in the hands of a master player it is perhaps the club that will gain a stroke for him more often than any other, the last bunker being surmounted and the green reached without any need for a short approach with an iron club. Therefore the golfer must make up his mind to attain excellence with the brassy, for mediocrity with it will always handicap him severely. I have already insisted that the method of play, the stance, the swing, and all the rest of it, should be the same with the brassy as with the driver, and that I do not believe in allowing the slightest difference, the only result of which can be to increase the difficulty of the brassy shot. Given a ball through the green lying fairly well, a level piece of earth to stand upon, and a practically unlimited distance to be played, then the brassy stroke is absolutely identical with the drive, and if the ball is sufficiently well teed, or its lie is clean enough, there is no reason whatever why the driver should not be taken for the stroke. Obviously, however, as the lie which you get for your second shot depends on chance, and must be taken as it is found, there are times when a variation from the standard method of driving will be necessary, and it is to the process of play on these occasions that I shall chiefly direct my remarks in this chapter. First, however, as to the brassy itself. Its shaft should be slightly stiffer than that of the driver, for it has much harder and rougher work to accomplish, for which the whippy stick of a slender driver would be too frail. In a desperate case, when the ball is lying in an apparently impossible place, the brassy is sometimes taken, in the hope that the best may happen and the situation be saved. That is why the brassy has a sole of brass which will cut away obstructions behind the ball as the head of the club is swept on to it. It often happens that you must hit, as it were, an inch or two behind the ball in order to get it up. Therefore let the shaft be strong. It should be exactly the same length as that of the driver, and not a half inch or an inch shorter, as is often recommended. I do not accept any argument in favour of the shorter shaft. The golfer having driven from the tee needs to be persuaded that he has again what is practically a driving shot to make for his second, and thus to be imbued with that feeling of experience and confidence which makes for success. When the clubs are of the same length there is equal familiarity in using them; but if he is given a shorter club to play his brassy shot with, he feels that there is something of a novel nature to be done, and he wonders how. The face of the brassy should be a little shorter than that of the driver, to permit of its being worked into little depressions in which the ball may be lying; but this variation of the construction of the head should not be carried to excess. Obviously there needs to be more loft on the face of the club than on that of the driver. The stance for the brassy stroke (see Plate VI.) is generally the same as for the drive, and for reasons already stated my recommendation is that, so far as circumstances will permit,--we are not on the teeing ground when we are playing the brassy,--it should always be the same. If the player feels it to be desirable, he may stand an inch or two nearer to the ball, and perhaps as much behind the ball when he wishes to get well underneath so as to lift it up. The swing should be the same, save that more care should be taken to ensure the grip with the hands being quite tight, for as the club head comes into contact with the turf before taking the ball, the club may turn in the hands and cause a slice or pull unless perfect control be kept over it. A more important question is, where and how to hit the ball. If it is lying fairly well, it is only necessary to skim the top of the turf and take it cleanly. There is no necessity in such a case, as is too often imagined by inexperienced players, to delve down into the turf so that the ball may be lifted up. If the stroke is played naturally, in the way I have indicated, the loft on the face of the brassy is quite sufficient to give the necessary amount of rise to the ball as it leaves the club. But if, as so often happens, the ball is just a trifle cupped, a different attitude must be adopted towards it. It is now desired that the club should come down to the turf about an inch behind the ball, and with this object in view the eyes should be directed to that point, but as in addressing the ball the said point may be covered by the head of the club, the sight should be set, not really on to the top of the club head, but to an imaginary spot just at the side of the ball, so that when the club is drawn back the turf and the point to look at come into full view and retain the attention of the eyes until the stroke has been made. When the club is swung down on to that spot, its head will plough through the turf and be well under the ball by the time it reaches it, and the desired rise will follow. Swing in the same manner as for the drive. The commonest fault in the playing of this stroke comes from the instinct of the player to try to scoop out the ball from its resting-place, and in obedience to this instinct down goes the right shoulder when the club is coming on to the ball. In the theory of the beginner this course of procedure may seem wise and proper, but he will inevitably be disappointed with the result, and in time he will come to realise that all attempts to scoop must fail. What the club cannot do in the ordinary way when pushed through the turf as I have indicated, cannot be done at all, and it is dangerous to the stroke and dangerous to one's game to trifle with the grand principles. When the ball is really badly cupped, a moment must be given for inspection and consideration, for the situation is an awkward one. At the first glance an iron club is usually suggested, but there are many times when the golfer prefers to take the brassy if there is a reasonable chance of its proving effective. In a case of this sort the ordinary methods of brassy play must necessarily be departed from. What is wanted is a jabbing-out stroke, and to effect it properly the sight must be set (as before) and the club come down on a spot almost two inches behind the ball. There must be no timidity about hitting the ground or anxiety about the follow-through, for in this case the follow-through, as we have understood it so far, is next to an impossibility, and must not be sought for. In the upward swing the club should be taken out straighter than usual, that is to say, the club head should be kept more closely to the A line, and it should not be carried so far back as if an ordinary shot were being played. Obviously the club must be held with an absolutely firm grip, and for the proper execution of a shot like this the shaft should be exceptionally strong and stiff. If there is the least suggestion of whip in it the ball is not extricated in the same way, and moreover there is sometimes a danger of breaking a slender stick. However, if the golfer only carries one brassy in his bag--and the average player will seldom carry two--this stroke might as well be risked, when the necessity for it arises, with the brassy that is carried for all-round work. Beyond these few observations there is little more to be said about simple brassy play, although it is so difficult to master thoroughly, so supremely important to a good game, and so full of variety and interest. In the use of no club is constant and strenuous practice better rewarded by improvement in play and strokes gained. The man with the spoon is coming back again to the links, and this seems to be the most convenient opportunity for a few remarks on play with this club--the baffy, as it is frequently called. One rarely mentions the spoon without being reminded of the difficulty as to the nomenclature of golf which beset a certain Frenchman on his first introduction to the game. "They zay to me," he complained, "'Will you take ze tee?' and I answer, 'Ah, oui,' but they give me no tea, but make a leetle hill with the sand. Then they zay, 'Will you take the spoon?' They have give me no tea, but no matter. I answer again, 'Ah, oui, monsieur,' but they give no spoon either. So I give up the thought of the tea, and play with the new club that they do give to me." However, that is neither here nor there. The baffy, or spoon, is a very useful club, which at one time was a great favourite with many fine players, and if it has of late years been largely superseded by the cleek, it is still most valuable to those players who are not so skilful or reliable with this latter instrument as they would like to be. The baffy demands, for the achievement of such success as it can afford, a fairly good lie, and when this is given it is a tolerably easy club to play with. A good lie is essential because of its wooden head and long face, which prevent it from getting down to the ball when the latter is at all cupped, as the cleek would do, or as the brassy may be made to do when the jab shot is played. The baffy with its long face cannot be burrowed into the turf so easily, nor can it nick in between the ball and the side of the cup, but it makes a bridge over it, as it were, and thus takes the ball right on the top and moves it only a few yards. A cleek would take the turf and the ball and make a good hit. Therefore, when the lie is not reasonably perfect, the baffy is of little use, though in favourable circumstances it is a useful stick. The shaft should be slightly longer than that of the cleek, but appreciably shorter than that of the brassy, and it should be fairly stiff. Its face, as already remarked, is much longer than that of the brassy, and it is given several degrees more loft. The method of play with the spoon is very much the same as with the brassy, with only such modifications as are apparently necessary. For example, the club being shorter, the feet will be placed slightly nearer to the ball; and although the baffy calls for a fairly long swing, the player will find that he is naturally indisposed to take the club head so far round to his back as he was with the other and longer wooden clubs. In other respects, the upward and downward swing, the grip, the follow-through, and everything else are the same. With many players the club is a particular favourite for the tee shot at short holes of, say, 140 to 160 yards length with a tolerably high bunker guarding the green--a type of hole very frequently encountered, and which simply calls for steady, sure play to get the bogey 3. The baffy does its work very well in circumstances of this kind, and the ball is brought up fairly quickly upon the green; but the man who is skilled with his irons will usually prefer one of them for the stroke, and will get the coveted 2 as often as the man with the spoon. CHAPTER VIII SPECIAL STROKES WITH WOODEN CLUBS The master stroke in golf--Intentional pulling and slicing--The contrariness of golf--When pulls and slices are needful--The stance for the slice--The upward swing--How the slice is made--The short sliced stroke--Great profits that result--Warnings against irregularities--How to pull a ball--The way to stand--The work of the right hand--A feature of the address--What makes a pull--Effect of wind on the flight of the ball--Greatly exaggerated notions--How wind increases the effect of slicing and pulling--Playing through a cross wind--The shot for a head wind--A special way of hitting the ball--A long low flight--When the wind comes from behind. Which is the master stroke in golf? That is an engaging question. Is it the perfect drive, with every limb, muscle, and organ of the body working in splendid harmony with the result of despatching the ball well beyond two hundred yards in a straight line from the tee? No, it is not that, for there are some thousands of players who can drive what is to all intents and purposes a perfect ball without any unusual effort. Is it the brassy shot which is equal to a splendid drive, and which, delivering the ball in safety over the last hazard, places it nicely upon the green, absolving the golfer from the necessity of playing any other approach? No, though that is a most creditable achievement. Is it the approach over a threatening bunker on to a difficult green where the ball can hardly be persuaded to remain, yet so deftly has the cut been applied, and so finely has the strength been judged, that it stops dead against the hole, and for a certainty a stroke is saved? This is a most satisfying shot which has in its time won innumerable holes, but it is not the master stroke of golf. Then, is it the putt from the corner of the green across many miniature hills and dales with a winding course over which the ball must travel, often far away from the direct line, but which carries it at last delightfully to the opening into which it sinks just as its strength is ebbing away? We all know the thrilling ecstasy that comes from such a stroke as this, but it has always been helped by a little good luck, and I would not call it the master stroke. There are inferior players who are good putters. Which, then, is the master stroke? I say that it is the ball struck by any club to which a big pull or slice is intentionally applied for the accomplishment of a specific purpose which could not be achieved in any other way, and nothing more exemplifies the curious waywardness of this game of ours than the fact that the stroke which is the confounding and torture of the beginner who does it constantly, he knows not how, but always to his detriment, should later on at times be the most coveted shot of all, and should then be the most difficult of accomplishment. I call it the master shot because, to accomplish it with any certainty and perfection, it is so difficult even to the experienced golfer, because it calls for the most absolute command over the club and every nerve and sinew of the body, and the courageous heart of the true sportsman whom no difficulty may daunt, and because, when properly done, it is a splendid thing to see, and for a certainty results in material gain to the man who played it. [Illustration: _PLATE XIV._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. STANCE WHEN PLAYING FOR A SLICE] [Illustration: _PLATE XV._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. TOP OF THE SWING WHEN PLAYING FOR A SLICE] [Illustration: _PLATE XVI._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. FINISH WHEN PLAYING FOR A SLICE] I will try, then, to give the golfers who desire them some hints as to how by diligence and practice they may come to accomplish these master strokes; but I would warn them not to enter into these deepest intricacies of the game until they have completely mastered all ordinary strokes with their driver or brassy and can absolutely rely upon them, and even then the intentional pull and slice should only be attempted when there is no way of accomplishing the purpose which is likely to be equally satisfactory. Thus, when a long brassy shot to the green is wanted, and one is most completely stymied by a formidable tree somewhere in the foreground or middle distance, the only way to get to the hole is by working round the tree, either from the right or from the left, and this can be done respectively by the pull and the slice. Of the two, the sliced shot is the easier, and is to be recommended when the choice is quite open, though it must not be overlooked that the pulled ball is the longer. The slicing action is not quite so quick and sudden, and does not call for such extremely delicate accuracy as the other, and therefore we will deal with it first. The golfer should now pay very minute attention to the photographs (Nos. XIV., XV., and XVI.) which were specially taken to illustrate these observations. It will be noticed at once that I am standing very much more behind the ball than when making an ordinary straight drive or brassy stroke, and this is indeed the governing feature of the slicing shot as far as the stance and position of the golfer, preparatory to taking it, are concerned. An examination of the position of the feet, both in the photograph (XIV.) and the accompanying diagram, will show that the left toe is now exactly on the B line, that is to say, it is just level with the ball, while the right foot is 25-1/2 inches away from the same mark, whereas in the case of the ordinary drive it was only 19. At the same time the right foot has been moved very much nearer to the A line, more than 10 inches in fact, although the left is only very slightly nearer. Obviously the general effect of this change of stance is to move the body slightly round to the left. There is no mystery as to how the slice is made. It comes simply as the result of the face of the club being drawn across the ball at the time of impact, and it was precisely in this way that it was accidentally accomplished when it was not wanted. In addressing the ball there should be just the smallest trifle of extra weight thrown on the right leg; but care must be taken that this difference is not exaggerated. The golfer should be scarcely conscious of it. The grip is made in the usual manner, but there is a very material and all-important difference in the upward swing. In its upward movement the club head now takes a line distinctly outside that which is taken in the case of the ordinary drive, that is to say, it comes less round the body and keeps on the straight line longer. When it is half-way up it should be about two or three inches outside the course taken for the full straight drive. The object of this is plain. The inflexible rule that as the club goes up so will it come down, is in operation again. The club takes the same line on the return, and after it has struck the ball it naturally, pursuing its own direction, comes inside the line taken in the case of the ordinary drive. The result is that at the moment of impact, and for that fractional part of a second during which the ball may be supposed to be clinging to the club, the face of the driver or brassy is being, as it were, drawn across the ball as if cutting a slice out of it. There is no means, so far as I know, of gauging how unthinkably short is the time during which this slicing process is going on, but, as we observed, when we were slicing unintentionally and making the ball curl round sometimes to an angle of ninety degrees before the finish of its flight, it is quite long enough to effect the most radical alteration in what happens afterwards. In that short space of time a spinning motion is put upon the ball, and a curious impulse which appears to have something in common with that given to a boomerang is imparted, which sooner or later take effect. In other respects, when a distant slice is wanted, the same principles of striking the ball and finishing the swing as governed the ordinary drive are to be observed. What I mean by a distant slice is one in which the ball is not asked to go round a corner until it is well on its way, the tree, or whatever it is that has to be circumvented, being half-way out or more, as shown in the diagram on opposite page. This is the most difficult kind of slice to perform, inasmuch as the ball must be kept on a straight line until the object is approached, and then made to curl round it as if by instinct. In such a case the club should be drawn very gradually across, and not so much or so suddenly as when the slice is wanted immediately. [Illustration: TRAJECTORY OF BALL WHEN A DISTANT SLICE IS REQUIRED.] [Illustration: TRAJECTORY OF BALL IN THE CASE OF A QUICK SLICE.] When the tree or thicket that stymies you is only twenty or thirty yards away, the short sliced shot is not only the best but perhaps the only one to play, that is to say, if it is first-class golf that is being practised and there is an opponent who is fighting hard. Take a case for exemplification--one which is of the commonest occurrence. There is a long hole to be played, and some thirty yards from the point which will be reached by a good drive, but well away to the right there is a spinny of tall trees. The golfer is badly off the line with his drive, with the result that he now has the trees in the direct line between him and the hole which is the best part of a hundred yards from the other edge of the wood, or say a hundred and forty from where the ball is lying. He might by a wonderfully lofted shot play the ball over the obstacle, but he would have to rise at such an angle that any length would be an impossibility, and he would be short of the green. The only alternative to the slice would be to accept the loss of a stroke as inevitable, play away to the right or left, and then get on to the green with the next one. Thus in either case a valuable stroke is lost, and if the enemy is playing the correct game the loss may be most serious. The short or quick slice comes to the rescue admirably. Turn the ball round the spinny, give it as much length as you can in the circumstances, and if the job has been well done you will be on the green after all with the highly comforting sensation that for once you have proved yourself a golfer of the first degree of skill, and have snatched a half when the hole seemed lost. The diagram here presented illustrates the best possibilities of a quick slice. I can explain in a line exactly how this is done, but I cannot guarantee that my readers will therefore be able to do it until they have practised, and practised, and practised yet again. Instead of hitting the ball with the middle of the club face as in playing for the distant slice as already explained, hit it slightly nearer the heel of the club. Swing upwards in the same way, and finish in the same way, also. Taking the ball with the heel results in the slice being put on more quickly and in there being more of it, but I need hardly observe that the stroke must be perfectly judged and played, and that there must be no flaw in it anywhere, or disaster must surely follow. As I say, it is not an easy shot to accomplish, but it is a splendid thing to do when wanted, and I strongly recommend the golfer who has gained proficiency in the ordinary way with his wooden clubs, to practise it whenever possible until at length he feels some confidence in playing it. It is one of those strokes which mark the skilled and resourceful man, and which will win for him many a match. Beyond the final admonition to practise, I have only one more piece of advice to give to the golfer who wants to slice when a slice would be useful, and that is in the downward swing he must guard against any inclination to pull in the arms too quickly, the result of his consciousness that the club has to be drawn across the ball. Whatever is necessary in this way comes naturally as the consequence of taking the club head more outwards than usual in the upward swing. Examine the photographs very carefully in conjunction with the study of all the observations that I have made. [Illustration: _PLATE XVII._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. PLAYING FOR A PULL. STANCE] [Illustration: _PLATE XVIII._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. TOP OF THE SWING WHEN PLAYING FOR A PULL] [Illustration: _PLATE XIX._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. FINISH WHEN PLAYING FOR A PULL] Now there is the pulled ball to consider; for there are times when the making of such a shot is eminently desirable. Resort to a slice may be unsatisfactory, or it may be entirely impossible, and one important factor in this question is that the pulled ball is always much longer than the other, in fact it has always so much length in it that many players in driving in the ordinary way from the tee, and desiring only to go straight down the course, systematically play for a pull and make allowances for it in their direction. Now examine Plate XVII. and the accompanying diagram illustrating the stance for the pull, and see how very materially it differs from those which were adopted for the ordinary drive and that in which a slice was asked for. We have moved right round to the front of the ball. The right heel is on the B line and the toe 4 inches away from it, while the left toe is no less than 21-1/2 inches from this line, and therefore so much in front of the ball. At the same time the line of the stance shows that the player is turned slightly away from the direction in which he proposes to play, the left toe being now only 26-1/2 inches away from the A line, while the right toe is 32 inches distant from it. The obvious result of this stance is that the handle of the club is in front of the ball, and this circumstance must be accentuated by the hands being held even slightly more forward than for an ordinary drive. Now they are held forward in front of the head of the club. In the grip there is another point of difference. It is necessary that in the making of this stroke the right hand should do more work than the left, and therefore the club should be held rather more loosely by the left hand than by its partner. The latter will duly take advantage of this slackness, and will get in just the little extra work that is wanted of it. In the upward swing carry the club head just along the line which it would take for an ordinary drive. The result of all this arrangement, and particularly of the slackness of the left hand and comparative tightness of the right, is that there is a tendency in the downward swing for the face of the club to turn over to some extent, that is, for the top edge of it to be overlapping the bottom edge. This is exactly what is wanted, for, in fact, it is quite necessary that at the moment of impact the right hand should be beginning to turn over in this manner, and if the stroke is to be a success the golfer must see that it does so, but the movement must be made quite smoothly and naturally, for anything in the nature of a jab, such as is common when too desperate efforts are made to turn over an unwilling club, would certainly prove fatal. It follows from what has been happening all the way through, that at the finish of the stroke the right hand, which has matters pretty well its own way, has assumed final ascendancy and is well above the left. Plates XVIII. and XIX. should be carefully examined. The pulled ball is particularly useful in a cross wind, and this fact leads us naturally to a consideration of the ways and means of playing the long shot with the wooden club to the best advantage when there are winds of various kinds to test the resources of the golfer. Now, however, that this question is raised, I feel it desirable to say without any hesitation that the majority of golfers possess vastly exaggerated notions of the effect of strong cross winds on the flight of their ball. They greatly overestimate the capabilities of a breeze. To judge by their observations on the tee, one concludes that a wind from the left is often sufficient to carry the ball away at an angle of forty-five degrees, and indeed sometimes, when it does take such an exasperating course, and finishes its journey some fifty yards away from the point to which it was desired to despatch it, there is an impatient exclamation from the disappointed golfer, "Confound this wind! Who on earth can play in a hurricane!" or words to that effect. Now I have quite satisfied myself that only a very strong wind indeed will carry a properly driven ball more than a very few yards out of its course, and in proof of this I may say that it is very seldom when I have to deal with a cross wind that I do anything but play straight at the hole without any pulling or slicing or making allowances in any way. If golfers will only bring themselves to ignore the wind, then it in turn will almost entirely ignore their straight ball. When you find your ball at rest the aforementioned forty or fifty yards from the point to which you desired to send it, make up your mind, however unpleasant it may be to do so, that the trouble is due to an unintentional pull or slice, and you may get what consolation you can from the fact that the slightest of these variations from the ordinary drive is seized upon with delight by any wind, and its features exaggerated to an enormous extent. It is quite possible, therefore, that a slice which would have taken the ball only twenty yards from the line when there was no wind, will take it forty yards away with the kind assistance of its friend and ally. [Illustration: METHOD AND EFFECT OF PULLING INTO A CROSS WIND FROM THE RIGHT.] However, I freely admit that there are times when it is advisable to play a fancy shot when there is an excess of wind, and the golfer must judge according to circumstances. Let me give him this piece of advice: very rarely slice as a remedy against a cross wind. Either pull or nothing. If there is a strong wind coming from the right, the immature golfer who has been practising slices argues that this is his chance, and that it is his obvious duty to slice his ball right into the teeth of that wind, so that wind and slice will neutralise each other, and the ball as the result will pursue an even course in the straight line for the flag. A few trials will prove to him that this is a very unsatisfactory business, and after he has convinced himself about it I would recommend him to try pulling the ball and despatching it at once along a line to the right directly against that same wind. When the pull begins to operate, both this and the wind will be working together, and the ball will be carried a much greater length, its straightness depending upon the accuracy of allowance. The diagram explains my meaning. But I reiterate that the ordinary shots are generally the easiest and best with which to get to the hole. The principle of the golfer should be, and I trust is, that he always wants to reach the hole in the simplest and easiest way, with a minimum of doubt and anxiety about any shot which he is called upon to play, and one usually finds that without these fancy shots one comes to the flag as easily as is possible in all the circumstances. Of course I am writing more particularly with the wind in mind, and am not recommending the ordinary shot when there is a tree or a spinny for a stymie, in contradiction to what I have said earlier in this chapter. However, there is one kind of wind difficulty which it is certainly necessary to deal with by a departure from the ordinary method of play with the driver or the brassy, and that is when the wind is blowing straight up to the player from the hole, threatening to cut off all his distance. Unless measures are taken to prevent it, a head wind of this description certainly does make play extremely difficult, the comparative shortness of the drive making an unduly long approach shot necessary, or even demanding an extra stroke at long holes in order to reach the green. But, fortunately, we have discovered a means of dealing very satisfactorily with these cases. What we want to do is to keep the ball as low down as possible so as to cheat the wind, for the lower the ball the less opportunity has the breeze of getting to work upon it. A combination of two or three methods is found to be the best for obtaining this low turf-skimming ball, which yet has sufficient driving power in it to keep up until it has achieved a good length. Evidently the first thing to do is to make the tee--if it is a tee shot--rather lower than usual--as low as is consistent with safety and a clean stroke. The player should then stand rather more in front of the ball than if he were playing for an ordinary drive, but this forward position should not by any means be so marked as it was in the stance for the pulled drive. A reference to Plate XX. and the diagram will show that now we have the ball exactly half-way between the toes, each toe being twelve inches to the side of the B line, while both are an inch nearer to the ball than was the case when the ordinary drive was being made. But the most important departure that we make from the usual method of play is in the way we hit the ball. So far we have invariably been keeping our gaze fixed on a point just behind it, desiring that the club shall graze the ground and take the ball rather below the centre. But now it is necessary that the ball shall be struck half-way up and before the club touches the turf. Therefore keep the eye steadily fixed upon that point (see the right-hand ball in the small diagram on page 170) and come down exactly on it. This is not an easy thing to do at first; it requires a vast amount of practice to make sure of hitting the ball exactly at the spot indicated, but the stroke when properly made is an excellent and most satisfying one. After striking the ball in this way, the club head should continue its descent for an instant so that it grazes the turf for the first time two or three inches in front of the spot where the ball was. The passage of the club through the ball, as it were, is the same as in the case of the push shot with the cleek, and therefore reference may usefully be made to the diagram on page 106, which illustrates it. A natural result of the stance and the way the stroke is played is that the arms are more extended than usual after the impact, and in the follow-through the club head keeps nearer to the turf. So excellent are the results obtained when the stroke is properly played, that there are many fine players, having a complete command over it, who systematically play it from the tee whether there is a wind to contend against or not, simply because of the length and accuracy which they secure from it. Braid is one of them. If the teeing ground offers any choice of gradient, a tee with a hanging lie should be selected, and the ball is then kept so low for the first forty or fifty yards that it is practically impossible for the wind to take it off the line, for it must be remembered that even when the wind comes dead from the front, if there is the slightest slice or pull on the ball to start with, it will be increased to a disconcerting extent before the breeze has done with it. [Illustration: _PLATE XX._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. STANCE FOR A LOW BALL AGAINST THE WIND] [Illustration: _PLATE XXI._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. STANCE FOR A HIGH BALL WITH THE WIND] When the wind is at the back of the player blowing hard towards the hole, the situation presents no difficulty and needs very little consideration. The object in this case is to lift the ball well up towards the clouds so that it may get the full benefit of the wind, though care must be taken that plenty of driving length is put into the stroke at the same time. Therefore tee the ball rather higher than usual, and bring your left foot more in a line with it than you would if you were playing in the absence of wind, at the same time moving both feet slightly nearer the ball. Plate XXI. will make the details of this stance quite clear. The ball being teed unusually high, the golfer must be careful not to make any unconscious allowance for the fact in his downward swing, and must see that he wipes the tee from the face of the earth when he makes the stroke. Though in my explanations of these various strokes I have generally confined myself to observations as to how they may be made from the tee, they are strokes for the driver and the brassy,--for all cases, that is, where the long ball is wanted from the wooden club under unusual circumstances of difficulty. Evidently in many cases they will be more difficult to accomplish satisfactorily from a brassy lie and with the shorter faced club than when the golfer has everything in his favour on the teeing ground, and it must be left to his skill and discretion as to the use he will make of them when playing through the green. CHAPTER IX THE CLEEK AND DRIVING MASHIE A test of the golfer--The versatility of the cleek--Different kinds of cleeks--Points of the driving mashie--Difficulty of continued success with it--The cleek is more reliable--Ribbed faces for iron clubs--To prevent skidding--The stance for an ordinary cleek shot--The swing--Keeping control over the right shoulder--Advantages of the three-quarter cleek shot--The push shot--My favourite stroke--The stance and the swing--The way to hit the ball--Peculiar advantages of flight from the push stroke--When it should not be attempted--The advantage of short swings as against full swings with iron clubs--Playing for a low ball against the wind--A particular stance--Comparisons of the different cleek shots--General observations and recommendations--Mistakes made with the cleek. It is high time we came to consider the iron clubs that are in our bag. His play with the irons is a fine test of the golfer. It calls for extreme skill and delicacy, and the man who is surest with these implements is generally surest of his match. The fathers of golf had no clubs with metal heads, and for a long time after they came into use there was a lingering prejudice against them; but in these days there is no man so bold as to say that any long hole can always be played so well with wood all through as with a mixture of wood and iron in the proper proportions. It may be, as we are often told, that the last improvement in iron clubs has not yet been made; but I must confess that the tools now at the disposal of the golfer come as near to my ideal of the best for their purpose as I can imagine any tools to do, and no golfer is at liberty to blame the clubmaker for his own incapacity on the links, though it may frequently happen that his choice and taste in the matter of his golfing goods are at fault. There are many varieties of every class of iron clubs, and their gradations of weight, of shape, of loft, and of all their other features, are delicate almost to the point of invisibility; but the old golfer who has an affection for a favourite club knows when another which he handles differs from it to the extent of a single point in these gradations. Some golfers have spent a lifetime in the search for a complete set of irons, each one of which was exactly its owner's ideal, and have died with their task still unaccomplished. Happy then is the player who in his early days has irons over all of which he has obtained complete mastery, and which he can rely upon to do their duty, and do it well, when the match is keen and their owner is sorely pressed by a relentless opponent. First of these iron clubs give me the cleek, the most powerful and generally useful of them all, though one which is much abused and often called hard names. If you wish, you may drive a very long ball with a cleek, and if the spirit moves you so to do you may wind up the play at the hole by putting with it too. But these after all are what I may call its unofficial uses, for the club has its own particular duties, and for the performance of them there is no adequate substitute. Therefore, when a golfer says, as misguided golfers sometimes do, that he cannot play with the cleek, that he gets equal or superior results with other clubs, and that therefore he has abandoned it to permanent seclusion in the locker, you may shake your head at him, for he is only deceiving himself. Like the wares of boastful advertisers, there is no other which is "just as good," and if a golfer finds that he can do no business with his cleek, the sooner he learns to do it the better will it be for his game. And there are many different kinds of cleeks, the choice from which is to a large extent to be regulated by experiment and individual fancy. Some men fancy one type, and some another, and each of them obtains approximately the same result from his own selection, but it is natural that a driving cleek, which is specially designed for obtaining length, having a fairly straight face and plenty of weight, will generally deliver the ball further than those which are more lofted and lighter. Making a broad classification, there are driving cleeks, ordinary cleeks, pitching cleeks, and cleeks with the weight in the centre. For the last-named variety I have little admiration, excellent as many people consider them to be. If the ball is hit with absolute accuracy in the centre of the club's face every time, all is well; but it is not given to many golfers to be so marvellously certain. Let the point of contact be the least degree removed from the centre of the face, where the weight is massed, and the result will usually be disquieting, for, among other things, there is in such cases a great liability for the club to turn in the hands of the player. As an alternative to the cleek the driving mashie has achieved considerable popularity. It is undoubtedly a most useful club, and is employed for the same class of work as the cleek, and, generally speaking, may take its place. The distinctive features of the driving mashie are that it has a deeper face than that of the cleek, and that this depth increases somewhat more rapidly from the heel to the toe. By reason of this extra depth it is often a somewhat heavier club, and there is rather less loft on it than there is on the average cleek. When you merely look at a driving mashie it certainly seems as if it may be the easier club to use, but long experience will prove that this is not the case. In this respect I think the driving cleek is preferable to either the spoon or the driving mashie, particularly when straightness is an essential, as it usually is when any of these clubs is being handled. It frequently happens that the driving mashie is used to very good effect for a while after it has first been purchased; but I have noticed over and over again that when once you are off your play with it--and that time must come, as with all other clubs--it takes a long time to get back to form with it again,--so long, indeed, that the task is a most painful and depressing one. Five years ago I myself had my day with the driving mashie, and I played so well with it that at that time I did not even carry a cleek. I used to drive such a long ball with this instrument, that when I took it out of my bag to play with it, my brother professionals used to say, "There's Harry with his driver again"; and I remember that when on one occasion Andrew Kirkaldy was informed that I was playing a driving mashie shot, he was indignant, and exclaimed, "Mashie! Nay, man, thon's no mashie. It's jest a driver." Then the day came when I found to my sorrow that I was off my driving mashie, and not all the most laborious practice or the fiercest determination to recover my lost form with it was rewarded with any appreciable amount of success. After a time I got back to playing it in some sort of fashion, but I was never so good with it again as to justify me in sticking to it in preference to the cleek, so since then I have practically abandoned it. This, I am led to believe, is a fairly common experience among golfers, so the moral would seem to be, that you should make the most of your good days with the driving mashie, that at the first sign of decaying power with the club another and most thorough trial should be given to the deserted cleek, and that at this crisis that club should be persevered with in preference to the tool which has failed. The driving mashie usually demands a good lie if it is to be played with any amount of success. When, in addition to the lie being cuppy, the turf is at all soft and spongy--and these two circumstances are frequently combined--the ball very often skids off the face of the club, chiefly because of its perpendicularity, instead of rising nicely from the moment of impact as it would do when carefully played by a suitable cleek. Of course if the turf is firm there is much greater chance of success with the driving mashie than if it is loose. But one finds by long experience that the cleek is the best and most reliable club for use in all these difficult circumstances. Even the driving cleeks have a certain amount of loft on their faces which enables them to get nicely under the ball, so that it rises with just sufficient quickness after being struck. And there is far less skidding with the cleek. This question of skidding calls to mind another feature of iron clubs generally, and those which are designed for power and length in particular, which has not in the past received all the consideration that it deserves. I am about to speak of the decided advantage which in my opinion accrues from the use of iron clubs with ribbed faces in preference to those which are smooth and plain. Some golfers of the sceptical sort have a notion that the ribs or other marking are merely ornamental, or, at the best, give some satisfaction to the fancy; but these are certainly not their limits. The counteraction to skidding by the ribbed face is undoubtedly very great, and there are certain circumstances in which I consider it to be quite invaluable. Suppose the ball is lying fairly low in grass. It is clear to the player that his iron club, as it approaches it, will be called upon to force its way through some of the grass, and that as it comes into contact with the ball many green blades will inevitably be crushed between the face of the club and the ball, with the result, in the case of the plain-faced club, that further progress in the matter of the follow-through will be to some extent impeded. But when the face of the club is ribbed, at the instant of contact between ball and club the grass that comes between is cut through by the ribs, and thus there is less waste of the power of the swing. The difference may be only small; but whether it is an ounce or two or merely a few pennyweights, it is the trifle of this kind that tells. And, of course, the tendency to skid is greater than ever when the grass through the green, or where the ball has to be played from, is not so short as it ought to be, and the value of the ribbed face is correspondingly increased. [Illustration: _PLATE XXII._ FULL SHOT WITH THE CLEEK. STANCE] [Illustration: _PLATE XXIII._ FULL SHOT WITH THE CLEEK. TOP OF THE SWING] [Illustration: _PLATE XXIV._ FULL SHOT WITH THE CLEEK. FINISH] [Illustration: _PLATE XXV._ FULL SHOT WITH THE CLEEK. FINISH] Now we may examine the peculiarities of play with the cleek, the term for the remainder of this chapter being taken to include the driving mashie. It will be found that the shaft of the cleek is usually some two to four inches shorter than the driver, and this circumstance in itself is sufficient to demand a considerable modification in the stance and method of use. I now invite the reader to examine the photograph and diagram of the ordinary cleek shot (Plate XXII.), and to compare it when necessary with Plate VI., representing the stance for the drive. It will be found that the right foot is only 21-1/2 inches from the A line as against 27-1/2 when driving, and the left toe is only 24 inches from it as compared with 34. From this it appears that the left foot has been brought more forward into line with the right, but it is still behind it, and it is essential that it should be so, in order that the arms may be allowed a free passage through after the stroke. The feet remain about the same distance apart, but it should be noticed that the whole body has been moved forward some four inches in relation to the ball, the distances of the right and left toes from the B line being respectively 19 and 9-1/2 inches in the case of the drive and 15 and 12 in that of the cleek shot. The stance in the case of all iron clubs should be studied with great care, for a half inch the wrong way seems to have a much greater power for evil than it does in the case of wooden clubs. The handle of the cleek is gripped in the same manner as the driver, but perhaps a little more tightly, for, as the club comes severely into contact with the turf, one must guard against the possibility of its turning in the hands. Ground the club behind the ball exactly in the place and in the way that you intend to hit it. There is a considerable similarity between the swings with the driver and the cleek. Great care must be taken when making the backward swing that the body is not lifted upwards, as there is a tendency for it to be. When pivoting on the left toe, the body should bend slightly and turn from the waist, the head being kept perfectly still. Thus it comes about that the golfer's system appears to be working in three independent sections--first from the feet to the hips, next from the hips to the neck, and then the head. The result of this combination of movements is that at the top of the swing, when everything has happened as it should do, the eyes will be looking over the top of the left shoulder--just as when at the top of driving swing. The body should not be an inch higher than when the address was made, and the right leg will now be straight and stiff. When the club is held tightly, there will be practically no danger of overswinging; but, as with the drive, the pressure with the palms of the hands may be a little relaxed at the top. The backward swing must not be so rapid that control of the club is in any degree lost, and once again the player must be warned against allowing any pause at the top. In coming down the cleek should gain its speed gradually, so that at the time of impact it is travelling at its fastest pace, and then, if the toes are right and the shoulders doing their duty, the follow-through will almost certainly be performed properly. The right shoulder must be carefully watched lest it drops too much or too quickly. The club must, as it were, be in front of it all the way. If the shoulder gets in front, a sclaffed ball is almost sure to be the result, the club coming into contact with the turf much too soon. If the stroke is finished correctly, the body will then be facing the flag. So much, for the time being, for the full shot with the cleek. Personally, however, I do not favour a really full shot either with the cleek or any other iron club. When the limit of capability is demanded with this or most other iron clubs in the bag, it is time to consider whether a wooden instrument should not be employed. Therefore I very seldom play the full cleek shot, but limit myself to one which may be said to be slightly above the three-quarters. This is usually quite sufficient for all purposes of length, and it is easier with this limit of swing to keep the wrists and the club generally more under control. Little more can be said by way of printed instruction regarding the ordinary cleek shot, which is called for when the distance to be played falls short of a full brassy, or, on the other hand, when the lie is of too cuppy a character to render the use of the brassy possible with any amount of safety. [Illustration: THE PUSH SHOT WITH THE CLEEK.] Many players, however, who are young in experience, and some who are older too, seem to imagine that the simplest stroke, as just described, is the limit of the resources of the cleek, and never give it credit for the versatility which it undoubtedly possesses. There is another shot with the cleek which is more difficult than that we have just been discussing, one which it will take many weeks of arduous practice to master, but which, in my opinion, is one of the most valuable and telling shots in golf, and that is the push which is a half shot. Of all the strokes that I like to play, this is my favourite. It is a half shot, but as a matter of fact almost as much length can be obtained with it as in any other way. It is a somewhat peculiar shot, and must be played very exactly. In the first place, either a shorter cleek (about two inches shorter, and preferably with a little more loft than the driving cleek possesses) should be used, or the other one must be gripped lower down the handle. A glance at Plate XXVI. and the diagram in the corner will show that the stance is taken much nearer to the ball than when an ordinary cleek shot was being played, that particularly the right foot is nearer, and that the body and feet have again been moved a trifle to the left. Moreover, it is recommended that in the address the hands should be held a little more forward than usual. In this half shot the club is not swung so far back, nor is the follow-through continued so far at the finish. To make a complete success of this stroke, the ball must be hit in much the same manner as when a low ball was wanted in driving against the wind. In playing an ordinary cleek shot, the turf is grazed before the ball in the usual manner; but to make this half or push shot perfectly, the sight should be directed to the centre of the ball, and the club should be brought directly on to it (exactly on the spot marked on the diagram on page 170). In this way the turf should be grazed for the first time an inch or two on the far side of the ball. The diagram on this page shows the passage of the club through the ball, as it were, exactly. Then not only is the ball kept low, but certain peculiarities are imparted to its flight, which are of the utmost value when a half shot with the cleek is called for. Not only may the ball be depended upon never to rise above a certain height, but, having reached its highest point, it seems to come down very quickly, travelling but a few yards more, and having very little run on it when it reaches the turf again. When this shot is once mastered, it will be found that these are very valuable peculiarities, for a long approach shot can be gauged with splendid accuracy. The ball is sent forwards and upwards until it is almost overhanging the green, and then down it comes close to the pin. I admit that when the ball is hit in this way the shot is made rather difficult--though not so difficult as it looks--and, of course, it is not absolutely imperative that this method should be followed. Some good players make the stroke in the same way as the full shot, so far as hitting the ball is concerned, but in doing so they certainly lose the advantages I have pointed out, and stand less chance of scoring through a finely placed ball. I may remark that personally I play not only my half cleek stroke but all my cleek strokes in this way, so much am I devoted to the qualities of flight which are thereby imparted to the ball, and though I do not insist that others should do likewise in all cases, I am certainly of opinion that they are missing something when they do not learn to play the half shot in this manner. The greatest danger they have to fear is that in their too conscious efforts to keep the club clear of the ground until after the impact, they will overdo it and simply top the ball, when, of course, there will be no flight at all. I suggest that when this stroke is being practised a close watch should be kept over the forearms and wrists, from which most of the work is wanted. The arms should be kept well in, and the wrists should be very tight and firm. It should be pointed out that there are some circumstances in which it is not safe to attempt to play this stroke. When the club comes to the ground after impact with the ball, very little turf should be taken. It is enough if the grass is shaved well down to the roots. But if the turf is soft and yielding, the club head will have an inevitable tendency to burrow, with the result that it would be next to impossible to follow-through properly with the stroke, and that the ball would skid off, generally to the right. The shot is therefore played to greatest advantage on a hard and fairly dry course. [Illustration: _PLATE XXVI._ THE PUSH SHOT WITH THE CLEEK. STANCE] [Illustration: _PLATE XXVII._ THE PUSH SHOT WITH THE CLEEK. TOP OF THE SWING] [Illustration: _PLATE XXVIII._ THE PUSH SHOT WITH THE CLEEK. FINISH] [Illustration: _PLATE XXIX._ A LOW BALL (AGAINST WIND) WITH THE CLEEK. STANCE] [Illustration: _PLATE XXX._ A LOW BALL (AGAINST WIND) WITH THE CLEEK. TOP OF THE SWING] [Illustration: _PLATE XXXI._ A LOW BALL (AGAINST WIND) WITH THE CLEEK. FINISH] Many people are inclined to ask why, instead of playing a half shot with the cleek, the iron is not taken and a full stroke made with it, which is the way that a large proportion of good golfers would employ for reaching the green from the same distance. For some reason which I cannot explain, there seems to be an enormous number of players who prefer a full shot with any club to a half shot with another, the result being the same or practically so. Why is it that they like to swing so much and waste so much power, unmindful of the fact that the shorter the swing the greater the accuracy? The principle of my own game, and that which I always impress upon others when I have an opportunity, is, "Reach the hole in the easiest way you can." The easier way is generally the surer way. When, therefore, there is a choice between a full shot with one club or a half shot with another, I invariably ask the caddie for the instrument with which to make the half shot. Hence, apart from the advantageous peculiarities of the stroke which I have pointed out, I should always play the half cleek shot in preference to the full iron, because, to my mind, it is easier and safer, and because there is less danger of the ball skidding off the club. In the same way I prefer a half iron shot to a full one with the mashie. If the golfer attains any proficiency with the stroke, he will probably be very much enamoured of it, and will think it well worth the trouble of carrying a club specially for the purpose, at all events on all important occasions. There is another variety of cleek shot which calls for separate mention. It is played when a low ball is wanted to cut its way through a head wind, and for the proper explanation of this useful stroke I have supplied a special series of photographs from which it may be studied to advantage. As will be seen from them, this stroke is, to all intents and purposes, a modified half or push stroke, the most essential difference being in the stance. The feet are a trifle nearer the ball and considerably more forward, my right heel as a matter of fact being only 2-1/2 inches from the B line. Take a half swing, hit the ball before the turf as in the case of the push, and finish with the shaft of the club almost perpendicular, the arms and wrists being held in severe subjection throughout. The ball skims ahead low down like a swallow, and by the time it begins to rise and the wind to act upon it, it has almost reached its destination, and the wind is now welcome as a brake. Having thus dealt with these different cleek shots separately, I think some useful instruction may be obtained from a comparison of them, noting the points of difference as they are set forth in the photographs. An examination of the pictures will at once suggest that there is much more in the stance than had been suspected. In the case of the full cleek shot it is noticeable that the stance is opener than in any of the others, and that the body is more erect. The object of this is to allow freedom of the swing without altering the position of the body during the upward movement. I mean particularly that the head is not so likely to get out of its place as it would be if the body had been more bent while the address was being made. It ought not to be, but is the case, that when pivoting on the left foot during the progress of a long upward swing, there is a frequent inclination, as already pointed out, to raise the body, so that the position of the latter at the top of the swing is altogether wrong, and has to be corrected in the downward swing before the ball is reached. When, as often happens, this is done too suddenly, a sclaff is the result. Therefore an obvious recommendation is to stand at the ball with the same amount of erectness as there will be at the top of the swing. And remember that when you pivot on the left toe, the lift that there is here should not spread along to the head and shoulders, but should be absorbed, as it were, at the waist, which should bend inwards and turn round on the hips. Once the head has taken its position, it should never move again until the ball has been struck. Mind that you do not fall away from the ball when the club is about to come into contact with it. I have observed a considerable tendency in that direction on the part of many young players. I have pressed several of these points home in other places, but the success of the stroke is so bound up with a proper observation of them that I think they cannot be too frequently or too strongly insisted upon. If we take one more glance at all the different cleek stroke photographs, we shall see that in each case the toes are turned well outwards. I find that unless they take this position the player has not the same freedom for turning upon them. In the case of full shots the weight is more evenly divided upon both feet than in the case of others. Thus, when the stance for a half or three-quarter cleek shot is taken, the weight of the body falls more on the right leg than on the left. As you have not to swing so far back, you are able to maintain this position. You could not do so if a full stroke were being taken; hence you would not then adopt it. Again, one allows the wrists and muscles less play in the case of half shots than in full ones. There is more stiffness all round. This, however, must not be taken to suggest that even in the case of the full shot there is any looseness at the wrists. If there were, it would be most in evidence just when it would be most fatal, that is to say, at the moment of impact. The wrists must always be kept severely under control. It will also be noticed from the photographs, that at the top of the swings for both the full shot and the half shot the body is in much the same position, but when the low shot against the wind is being played it is pushed a little forward. I mention these details by way of suggesting how much can be discovered from a close and attentive study of these photographs only. Little things like these, when not noticed and attended to, may bother a player for many weeks; while, on the other hand, he may frequently find out from a scrutiny of the pictures and diagrams the faults which have baffled him on the links. In this connection the "How not to do it" photographs should be of particular value to the player who is in trouble with his cleek. Look at the faulty stance and address in Plate XXXII. At the first glance you can see that this is not a natural stance; the player is cramped and uncomfortable. The grip is altogether wrong. The hands are too far apart, and the right hand is too much under the shaft. The body would not hold its position during the swing, and in any case a correct swing would be impossible. Yet this photograph does not exaggerate the bad methods of some players. In Plate XXVII. we have the player in a stance which is nearly as bad as before; but it is evident that in this case the body has been lifted during the upward swing, and the left hand is rather too much on the top of the shaft. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXII._ FAULTY PLAY WITH THE CLEEK _The stance in this case is very bad. The whole of the weight is on the left leg instead of being evenly divided. The hands are too far apart, and the right hand is far too much underneath the shaft. Moreover the player is bending too far towards his ball. He must stand up to his work. The almost certain consequence of this attitude is a foozle._] [Illustration: _PLATE XXXIII._ FAULTY PLAY WITH THE CLEEK _Some very common and very fatal defects in the swing are illustrated here. It is evident that both the body and the head have been lifted as the club has been swung up, and the whole arrangement is thus thrown out of gear. Both hands are in wrong positions (compare with XXIII) with the result that the toe of the club is pointing sideways instead of to the ground. Result--the player is likely to strike anything except the ball._] [Illustration: _PLATE XXXIV._ FAULTY PLAY WITH THE CLEEK _Here at the finish of the stroke the position of the arms is exceedingly bad. They are bent and huddled up towards the body, plainly indicating that they did not go through with the ball. There was no power in this stroke, nothing to send the ball along. Therefore length was impossible, and a foozle was quite likely. Compare with XXIV._] [Illustration: _PLATE XXXV._ FAULTY PLAY WITH THE CLEEK _The mistakes here are numerous, but less pronounced than before. The stance is not accurate, but it is not bad enough to be fatal in itself. The play is very uncomfortable with his left arm, which is in a badly cramped position. The hands are too far apart and the left wrist is too high. The result is rather doubtful. Quite possibly the ball will be pulled. Anyhow a good shot is out of the question._] [Illustration: _PLATE XXXVI._ FAULTY PLAY WITH THE CLEEK _In the case of this finish the player has fallen away from the ball instead of going forward with it as in XXIV. It is evident that the club has been drawn across the ball. Result--a slice._] Evidently it will take some time to bring the cleek completely into subjection. There is, of course, no such thing as an all-round club in golf, but the nearest to it is this one, and the man who is master of it is rarely in a serious difficulty. He can even play a respectable round with a cleek alone, and there is no form of practice less wearisome, more diverting, or more eminently valuable and instructive, than that which is to be obtained on a fine afternoon by taking out the cleek and doing a round of the course with it from the tee to the hole in every case, and making use of all the different strokes that I have described in the course of this chapter. CHAPTER X PLAY WITH THE IRON The average player's favourite club--Fine work for the iron--Its points--The right and the wrong time for play with it--Stance measurements--A warning concerning the address--The cause of much bad play with the iron--The swing--Half shots with the iron--The regulation of power--Features of erratic play--Forced and checked swings--Common causes of duffed strokes--Swings that are worthless. When I mention that useful iron-headed club that goes by the simple name of iron, I am conscious that I bring forward a subject that is dear to the hearts of many golfers who have not yet come to play with certainty with all their instruments. For the iron is often the golfer's favourite club, and it has won this place of affection in his mind because it has been found in the course of long experience that it plays him fewer tricks than any of the others--that it is more dependable. This may be to some extent because with the average golfer such fine work is seldom required from the simple iron as is wanted from other clubs from time to time. The distance to be covered is always well within the capabilities of the club, or it would not be employed, and the average golfer of whom we speak, who has still a handicap of several strokes, is usually tolerably well satisfied if with it he places the ball anywhere on the green, from which point he will be enabled to hole out in the additional regulation two strokes. And the green is often enough a large place, so the iron is fortunate in its task. But it goes without saying that by those who have the skill for it, and sufficiently realise the possibilities of all their tools, some of the finest work in golf may be done with the iron. When it is called for the player is within easy reach of the hole. The really long work has been accomplished, and the prime consideration now is that of accuracy. Therefore the man who feels himself able to play for the pin and not merely for the green, is he who is in the confidence of his iron and knows that there are great things to be done with it. The fault I have to find with the iron play of most golfers is that it comes at the wrong time. I find them lunging out with all their power at full shots with their irons when they might be far better employed in effecting one of those pretty low shots made with the cleek at the half swing. It is not in the nature of things that the full iron should be as true as the half cleek, where there is such a reserve of strength, and the body, being less in a state of strain, the mind can be more concentrated on straightness and the accurate determination of length. I suspect that this full shot is so often played and the preference for the iron is established, not merely because it nearly always does its work tolerably satisfactorily, but because in the simple matter of looks there is something inviting about the iron. It has a fair amount of loft, and it is deeper in the face than the cleek, and at a casual inspection of its points it seems an easy club to play with. On the other hand, being a little nearer to the hole, the average player deserts his iron for the mashie much sooner than I care to do. Your 10-handicap man never gives a second thought as to the tool he shall use when he has arrived within a hundred yards of the hole. Is he not then approaching in deadly earnest, and has he not grown up in golf with a definite understanding that there is one thing, and one only, with which to give the true artistic finish to the play through the green? Therefore out of his bag comes the mashie, which, if it could speak, would surely protest that it is a delicate club with some fine breeding in it, and that it was never meant to do this slogging with long swings that comes properly in the departments of its iron friends. I seldom use a mashie until I am within eighty yards of the hole. Up to that point I keep my iron in action. Much better, I say, is a flick with the iron than a thump with the mashie. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXVII._ FULL IRON SHOT. STANCE] [Illustration: _PLATE XXXVIII._ FULL IRON SHOT. TOP OF THE SWING] [Illustration: _PLATE XXXIX._ FULL IRON SHOT. FINISH] [Illustration: _PLATE XL._ PLAY WITH THE IRON FOR A LOW BALL (AGAINST WIND). STANCE] [Illustration: _PLATE XLI._ PLAY WITH THE IRON FOR A LOW BALL (AGAINST WIND). TOP OF THE SWING] [Illustration: _PLATE XLII._ PLAY WITH THE IRON FOR A LOW BALL (AGAINST WIND). FINISH] The iron that I most commonly use is nearly two inches shorter than my cleek. It follows that the stance is taken slightly nearer to the ball; but reason for moving closer to our A line is to be found in what I might describe as the more upright lie of an iron as compared with a cleek. When the lower edge of the club is laid evenly upon the level turf, the stick will usually be found to be a trifle more vertical than in the case of the cleek, and therefore for the proper preservation of the natural lie of the club the golfer must come forward to it. Consequently I find that when I have taken my stance for an iron shot (Plate XXXVII.), my right foot has come forward no less than 8-1/2 inches from the point at which it rested when I was taking a tolerably full shot with the cleek. The left foot is 3-1/2 inches nearer. Thus the body has been very slightly turned in the direction of the hole, and while the feet are a trifle closer together, the ball is rather nearer to the right toe than it was when being addressed by the cleek. Those are the only features of the stance, and the only one I really insist upon is the nearness to the ball. The commonest defect to be found with iron play is the failure to address the ball and play the stroke through with the sole of the club laid evenly upon the ground from toe to heel. When the man is too far from the ball, it commonly follows that the blade of the club comes down on to the turf heel first. Then something that was not bargained for happens. It may be that the ball was taken by the centre of the iron's face, and that the upward and downward swings and the follow-through were all perfection, and yet it has shot away to one side or the other with very little flight in it. And perhaps for a week or two, while this is constantly happening, the man is wondering why. When, happily, the reason is at last made apparent, the man goes forward to its correction with that workmanlike thoroughness which characterises him always and everywhere, and lo! the erring ball still pursues a line which does not lead to the green. At the same time it may very likely be noticed that the slight sense of twisting which was experienced by the hands on the earlier occasion is here again. The truth is that the first fault was over-corrected, and the toe of the club, instead of the heel, has this time had the turf to itself while the ball was being removed. Obviously, when either of these faults is committed, the club head is twisted, and nothing is more impossible than to get in a perfect iron shot when these things are done. I am making much ado about what may seem after all to be an elementary fault, but a long experience of the wayward golfer has made it clear to me that it is not only a common fault, which is accountable for much defective play with the iron, but that it is often unsuspected, and lurks undiscovered and doing its daily damage for weeks or even months. The sole of the iron must pass over the turf exactly parallel with it. There is nothing new to say about the swing of the iron. It is the same as the swing of the cleek. For a full iron the swing is as long as for the full cleek, and for the half iron it is as long as for the half cleek, and both are made in the same way. The arms and wrists are managed similarly, and I would only offer the special advice that the player should make sure that he finishes with his hands well up, showing that the ball has been taken easily and properly, as he may see them in the photograph (Plate XXXIX.), which in itself tells a very good story of comfortable and free play with the club, which is at the same time held in full command. The whole of the series of photographs of iron shots brings out very exactly the points that I desire to illustrate, and I cannot do better than refer my readers to them. When it is desired to play a half iron shot that will give a low ball for travelling against the wind, the same methods may be pursued as when playing the corresponding shot with the cleek. When one comes to play with the iron, and is within, say, 130 yards of the hole, the regulation of the precise amount of power to be applied to the ball becomes a matter of the first importance, and one that causes unceasing anxiety. I feel, then, that it devolves upon me to convey a solemn warning to all players of moderate experience, that the distance the ball will be despatched is governed entirely by the extent of the backward swing of the club. When a few extra yards are wanted, put an additional inch or two on to the backward swing, and so on; but never, however you may satisfy yourself with excuses that you are doing a wise and proper thing, attempt to force the pace at which the club is travelling in the downward swing, or, on the other hand, attempt to check it. I believe in the club being brought down fairly quickly in the case of all iron shots; but it should be the natural speed that comes as the result of the speed and length of the upward swing, and the gain in it should be even and continuous throughout. Try, therefore, always to swing back at the same rate, and to come on to the ball naturally and easily afterwards. Of course, in accordance with the simple laws of gravity and applied force, the farther back you swing the faster will your club be travelling when it reaches the ball, and the harder will be the hit. Therefore, if the golfer will learn by experience exactly how far back he should swing with a certain club in order to get a certain distance, and will teach himself to swing to just the right length and with always the same amount of force applied, the rest is in the hands of Nature, and can be depended upon with far more certainty than anything which the wayward hands and head of the golfer can accomplish. This is a very simple and obvious truth, but it is one of the main principles of golf, and one that is far too often neglected. How frequently do you see a player take a full swing when a half shot is all that is wanted, and even when his instinct tells him that the half shot is the game. What happens? The instinct assumes the upper hand at the top of the swing, and the man with the guilty conscience deliberately puts a brake on to his club as it is coming down. He knows that he has gone too far back, and he is anxious then to reduce the speed of the club by unnatural means. But the principles of golf are not to be so lightly tampered with in this manner, and it affords the conscientious player some secret satisfaction to observe that very rarely indeed is anything of a success made of shots of this sort. A duffed stroke is the common result. In such cases the swing is of no more value than if it had not taken place at all. CHAPTER XI APPROACHING WITH THE MASHIE The great advantage of good approach play--A fascinating club--Characteristics of a good mashie--Different kinds of strokes with it--No purely wrist shot--Stance and grip--Position of the body--No pivoting on the left toe--The limit of distance--Avoid a full swing--The half iron as against the full mashie--The swing--How not to loft--On scooping the ball--Taking a divot--The running-up approach--A very valuable stroke--The club to use--A tight grip with the right hand--Peculiarities of the swing--The calculation of pitch and run--The application of cut and spin--A stroke that is sometimes necessary--Standing for a cut--Method of swinging and hitting the ball--The chip on to the green--Points of the jigger. There is an old saying that golf matches are won on the putting greens, and it has often been established that this one, like many other old sayings, contains an element of truth, but is not entirely to be relied upon. In playing a hole, what is one's constant desire and anxiety from the tee shot to the last putt? It is to effect, somehow or other, that happy combination of excellent skill with a little luck as will result practically in the saving of a whole stroke, which will often mean the winning of the hole. The prospect of being able to exercise this useful economy is greatest when the mashie is taken in hand. The difference between a good drive and a poor one is not very often to be represented by anything like half a stroke. But the difference between a really good mashie approach stroke and a bad one is frequently at least a stroke, and I have known it to be more. Between the brilliant and the average it is one full stroke. Of course a stroke is saved and a hole very often won when a long putt is holed, but in cases of this kind the proportion of luck to skill is much too great to give perfect satisfaction to the conscientious golfer, however delightful the momentary sensation may be. When a man is playing his mashie well, he is leaving himself very little to do on the putting green, so that, if occasionally he does miss a putt, he can afford to do so, having constantly been getting so near to the flag that one putt has sufficed. When the work with the mashie is indifferent or poor, the player is frequently left with long putts to negotiate, and is in a fever of anxiety until the last stroke has been made on the green. It often happens at these times that the putting also is poor, and when this is the case a sad mess is made of the score. Therefore, while I say that he is a happy and lucky man who is able constantly to save his game on the putting greens, happier by far is he who is not called upon to do so. In this way the skilled golfer generally finds the mashie the most fascinating club to play with, and there are few pleasures in the game which can equal that of laying the ball well up to the pin from a distance of many yards. One expects to get much nearer to it with this last of the irons than with the cleek or the simple iron, and the more nearly the flag is approached the greater the skill and experience of the player. Here, indeed, is a field for lifelong practice, with a telling advantage accruing from each slight improvement in play. First a word as to the club, for there is scarcely an article in the golfer's kit which presents more scope for variety of taste and style. Drivers and brassies vary a little, cleeks and irons differ much, but mashies are more unlike each other than any of them. So much depends upon this part of the game, and so much upon the preferences and peculiarities of the player, that it is unlikely that the first mashie in which he invests will go alone with him through his experience as a golfer. To his stock there will be added other mashies, and it is probable that only after years of experiment will he come to a final determination as to which is the best for him to use. In this question of the choice of mashie it is necessary that taste and style should be allowed to have their own way. However, to the hesitating golfer, or to him whose mashie play so far has been somewhat disappointing, I give with confidence the advice to use a mashie which is very fairly lofted and which is deep in the blade. I can see no use in the mashie with the narrow blade which, when (as so often happens when near the green) the ball is lying in grass which is not as short as it might be, often passes right under the ball--a loss of a stroke at the most critical moment, which is the most exasperating thing I know. Again, for a last hint I suggest that he should see that his shaft is both stiff and strong. This instrument being used generally for lighter work than the other iron clubs, and the delicacy and exactness of it being, as a rule, the chief considerations, there is a natural tendency on the part of the golfer sometimes to favour a thinner stick than usual. But it should be borne in mind that there should be no trace of "give" in the shaft, for such would be all against the accuracy that is wanted, and a man when he is playing the short approach shot wants to feel that he has a club in his hand that can be relied upon in its every fibre. Moreover, gentle as is much of its work, even the mashie at times has some very rough jobs to accomplish. So let the stick be fairly stiff. Of mashie shots there is an infinite variety. In this stroke not only are the lie of the ball and the distance it has to be sent controlling factors in the way it has to be played, but now the nature and qualities of the green which is being approached constitute another, and one which occasions more thought and anxiety than any. Generally all mashie shots may be separated into three groups. There is what we may call the ordinary mashie shot to begin with--meaning thereby a simple lofted stroke,--there is the running-up mashie shot, and there is the special stroke which applies extra spin and cut to the ball. There are very pronounced differences between these strokes and the ways of playing them. One is often told that "all mashies should be played with the wrist." I beg to differ. As I have said before, I contend that there is no such thing as a purely wrist shot in golf--except on the putting green. If anybody really made up his mind to play his mashie with his wrist and his wrist alone, he would find the blade of his club in uncomfortable proximity to his face at the finish of the stroke, and I should not like to hazard a guess as to where the ball might be. The fact of the matter is, that those who so often say that the mashie must be played with the wrist never attempt to play it in this way themselves. They are merely misled by the fact that for the majority of mashie strokes a shorter swing and less freedom of the arms are desirable than when other iron clubs are being employed. An attempt has been made to play a pure wrist shot in the "How not to do it" photograph, No. XLVIII., and I am sure nobody ever made a success of a stroke like that. The stance for the mashie differs from that taken when an iron shot is being played, in that the feet are placed nearer to each other and nearer to the ball. Comparison between the photographs and diagrams will make the extent of these differences and the peculiarities of the stance for the mashie quite clear. The right toe is advanced until it is within 11 inches of the A line, the ball is opposite the left heel, the left foot is turned slightly more outwardly than usual. As for the grip, the only observation that it is necessary to make is, that if a very short shot is being played it is sometimes best to grasp the club low down at the bottom of the handle, but in no circumstances do I approve of the hands leaving the leather and getting on to the wood as players sometimes permit them to do. When the player is so desperately anxious to get so near to the blade with his hands, he should use a shorter club. It should also be noticed that the body is more relaxed than formerly, that there is more bend at the elbows, that the arms are not so stiff, and that there is the least suspicion, moreover, of slackness at the knees. The whole attitude is arranged for ease, delicacy of touch, and extreme accuracy, whereas formerly simple straightness and power were the governing considerations. To the eye of the uninitiated, many of these photographs may seem very much alike; but a little attentive study of those showing the stances for the iron and mashie will make the essential differences very apparent. In the address the right knee is perceptibly bent, and all the weight of the body is thrown on to it. In the backward swing the right knee stiffens and the left bends in, the left foot leaning slightly over to facilitate its doing so. There is a great tendency on the part of inexperienced or uncertain players to pivot on the left toe in the most exaggerated manner even when playing a very short mashie stroke. Unless a full shot is being taken, there should not only be no pivoting with the mashie, but the left heel, throughout the stroke, should be kept either touching the ground or raised only the least distance above it. In the backward swing the right knee is stiffened and the left knee bends in towards the ball, simply in order to let the club go back properly, which it could hardly do if the original pose were retained. It is particularly requisite that, though there is so much ease elsewhere, the club in the case of these mashie shots should be held quite tightly. They are not played with the wrists alone, but with the wrists and the forearms, and a firm grip is an essential to success. [Illustration: _PLATE XLIII._ MASHIE APPROACH (PITCH AND RUN). STANCE (_Distance 70 to 80 yards from the hole._)] [Illustration: _PLATE XLIV._ MASHIE APPROACH (PITCH AND RUN). TOP OF THE SWING (_Distance 70 to 80 yards from the hole._)] [Illustration: _PLATE XLV._ MASHIE APPROACH (PITCH AND RUN). FINISH (_Distance 70 to 80 yards from hole._)] [Illustration: _PLATE XLVI._ MISTAKES WITH THE MASHIE _The hands are too far apart. Whatever method of grip is favoured at least the right thumb should be down the shaft to guide it in the case of this delicate shot. The face of the club is turned in slightly from the toe, and the face also is too straight up and is not allowed its natural angle. The toe of the club is likely to come on to the ball first, and that will cause a pull. In any case the club cannot be guided properly, and there can be no accuracy._] [Illustration: _PLATE XLVII._ MISTAKES WITH THE MASHIE _Here in this upward swing the body is being held too stiffly. It is not pivoting from the waist as it ought to do. Besides the hands being too far apart, the left one is spoiling everything. It is out of control and is trying to get above the shaft, instead of being underneath it at this stage. The result will either be a foozle or a pulled ball. The face of the mashie will not be straight at the moment of impact._] [Illustration: _PLATE XLVIII._ MISTAKES WITH THE MASHIE _This is merely a "wrist shot," such as is often recommended, and which I say cannot possibly give a good result. There is no mere wrist shot. The result of an attempt of this kind is always very doubtful. In any case, even when the ball is fairly hit, there can be no length from the stroke._] [Illustration: _PLATE XLIX._ RUNNING UP APPROACH WITH MASHIE OR IRON. FINISH, WITH STANCE ALSO INDICATED] [Illustration: _PLATE L._ A CUT APPROACH WITH THE MASHIE. STANCE] [Illustration: _PLATE LI._ A CUT APPROACH WITH THE MASHIE. TOP OF THE SWING] [Illustration: _PLATE LII._ A CUT APPROACH WITH THE MASHIE. FINISH] When considering the nature of the backward swing, the question arises as to how far it should be prolonged, and I have already declared myself against making long shots with the mashie. It is my strong conviction that a man is playing the best and safest golf when he attempts nothing beyond eighty yards with his mashie, using an iron or a cleek for anything longer. It is very seldom that I play my mashie at a distance of over eighty yards, and the limit of the swing that I ever give to it is a three-quarter, which is what I call an ordinary mashie stroke, and should be sufficient to do anything ever to be attempted with this club. But some golfers like taking the fullest mashie stroke that they can, and, when hesitating between the use of an iron or the lofting club, they usually decide in favour of the latter. "I think I can reach it with my mashie," they always say, and so they whirl away and commit the most frightful abuse on a splendid club, which was never intended to have its capabilities strained in order to reach anything. Instead of saying that "they think they can reach it with their mashie," these golfers should try to decide that "a half iron will not carry them too far." It is easier and safer. Whenever a ball has a distance to go, I believe in keeping it fairly low down, as low as the hazards will permit, believing that in this way by constant practice it is possible to ensure much greater accuracy than in any other way. No golfer has much control over a ball that is sent up towards the sky. The mashie is meant to loft, and it is practically impossible to play a long shot with it without lofting the ball very much and exposing it to all the wind that there is about. As very little driving power has been imparted to the ball, what wind there may be has considerably more effect upon it than upon the flight of other balls played with other iron clubs. The line of the backward swing should be much the same as that for the half shot with the cleek, but the body should be held a little more rigidly, and not be allowed to pivot quite so much from the waist as when playing with any of the other clubs which have been described. The downward swing is the same as before, and in the case of the ordinary stroke which we are speaking of, the turf should be hit immediately behind the ball. As soon as the impact has been effected, the body should be allowed to go forward with the club, care being taken that it does not start too soon and is in front. The great anxiety of the immature player when making this stroke is to get the ball properly lofted, and in some obstinate cases it seems to take several seasons of experience to convince him completely that the club has been specially made for the purpose, and, if fairly used, is quite adequate. This man cannot get rid of the idea that the player lofts the ball, or at least gives material assistance to the club in doing it. What happens? Observe this gentleman when he and his ball are on the wrong side of a hazard which is guarding the green, and notice the very deliberate way in which he goes about doing the one thing that he has been told hundreds of times by the most experienced players can only be attended by the most disastrous and costly failure. He has made up his mind that he will scoop the ball over the bunker. He will not trust to his club to do this important piece of business. So down goes the right shoulder and into the bunker goes the ball, and one more good hole has been lost. He doesn't know how it happened; he thinks the mashie must be the most difficult club in the world to play with, and he complains of his terrible luck; but by the time the approach shot to the next hole comes to be played he is at it again. There is nobody so persistent as the scooper, and the failure that attends his efforts is a fair revenge by the club for the slight that is cast upon its capabilities, for the chances are that if the stroke had been played in just the ordinary manner without any thought whatever of the bunker, and if the ground had been hit just a trifle behind the ball, the latter would have been dropped easily and comfortably upon the green. Some golfers also seem to imagine that they have done all that they could reasonably be expected to do when they have taken a divot, and even if the shot has proved a failure they derive some comfort from the divot they have taken, the said divot usually being a huge slab of turf, the removal of which makes a gaping wound in the links. But there is nothing to be proud of in this achievement, for it does not by any means imply that the stroke has been properly made. To hit the ball correctly when making an approach with the mashie, it is necessary to take a little--just a very little--turf. This is so, because the ball will not fly and rise properly as the club desires to make it do, unless it is taken in the exact middle of the club, which has a deeper face than others. I mean middle, not only as regards the distance from heel to toe, but between the top edge of the blade and the sole. A moment's consideration will make it clear that if the stroke were to be made quite cleanly, that is to say, if the club merely grazed the ground without going into it, the ball would inevitably be taken by the lower part of the blade near to the sole and much below the centre where the impact ought to be. Therefore it is apparent that, in order to take it from the centre, the blade must be forced underneath, and if the swing is made in the manner directed and the turf is taken just the least distance behind the ball--which, of course, means keeping the eye just so much more to the right than usual--all that is necessary will be easily accomplished. Apart from the loft, I think a little more accuracy is ensured by the removal of that inch or two of turf. Now there is that most valuable stroke, the running-up approach, to consider. When skilfully performed, it is often most wonderfully and delightfully effective. It is used chiefly for short approaches when the ground outside the putting green is fairly good and there is either no hazard at all to be surmounted, or one that is so very low or sunken as not to cause any serious inconvenience. When the running-up shot is played in these circumstances by the man who knows how to play it, he can generally depend on getting much nearer to the hole than if he were obliged to play with a pitch alone. It is properly classified as a mashie shot, but there are golfers who do it with an iron. Others like a straight-faced mashie for the purpose; and a third section have a preference for the ordinary mashie, and play for a pitch and run. These are details of fancy in which I cannot properly interfere. The stance for the stroke differs from that for an ordinary mashie shot in that the feet and body are further in front, the right toe, for instance, being fully six inches nearer to the B line (see Plate XLIX.). The club may be gripped lower down the handle. Moreover, it should be held forward, slightly in front of the head. The swing back should be very straight, and should not be carried nearly so far as in playing an ordinary mashie stroke, for in this case the ball requires very little propulsion. This is one of the few shots in golf in which the right hand is called upon to do most of the work, and that it may be encouraged to do so the hold with the left hand should be slightly relaxed. With the right hand then fastening tightly to the handle, it comes about that the toe of the club at the time of the impact is slightly in front of the heel, and this combination of causes tends to give the necessary run to the ball when it takes the ground. The work of the right hand in the case of this stroke is delicate and exact, and it must be very carefully timed, for if it is done too suddenly or too soon the result is likely to be a foundered ball. The club having been taken so straight out in the backward swing, the natural tendency will be to draw it very slightly across the ball when contact is made, and the blade, then progressing towards the left foot, should to finish be taken a few inches further round towards the back than in the case of an ordinary mashie shot. One cannot very well compare the two in words, however, for the finishes are altogether different, as an examination of the illustration of the finish of the running-up stroke will show. In this case the swing stops when the shaft of the club is pointing a little to the left of the direction of the ball that is speeding onwards, the blade being on a level with the hands. It will be observed that at the finish the right hand is well over on the handle. This is the kind of stroke that the practised and skilful golfer loves most, for few others afford him such a test of calculation and judgment. It will not do to make the stroke haphazard. Before the blade of the club is moved for the upward swing, a very clear understanding should have been formed as to the amount of pitch that is to be given to the ball and the amount of run. They must be in exactly the proper proportion to suit the circumstances, which will vary almost every time the stroke is made. Nearly everything depends on the state of the land that is to be traversed. The fact of the matter is, that this shot is really a combination of lofting and putting with many more uncertain quantities to be dealt with than when one is really putting on the green. When one has decided where the pitch must be, the utmost pains should be taken to pitch there exactly, which, as the distance will usually be trifling, ought not to be a difficult matter. An error of even a foot in a shot of this kind is sometimes a serious matter. When properly done it is an exceedingly pretty shot, and one which brings great peace to the soul of the man who has done it. And now we come to that exquisite stroke, the approach, to which much cut and spin have been applied for a specific purpose. It is a shot which should only be played when circumstances render it absolutely necessary. There are times when it is the only one which will afford the golfer a good chance of coming well through a trying ordeal. When we play it we want the ball to stop dead almost as soon as it reaches the turf at the end of the pitch. If there is a tolerably high bunker guarding the green, and the flag is most awkwardly situated just at the other side, it is the only shot that can be played. A stroke that would loft the ball over the bunker in the ordinary manner would carry it far beyond the hole--too far to make the subsequent putting anything but a most difficult matter. Or, on the other hand, leaving out of the question the hole which is hiding just on the other side of the hazard protecting the green, it often happens in the summer-time, when greens are hard and fiery, that it is absolutely impossible to make a ball which has been pitched on to them in the ordinary manner stay there. Away it goes bouncing far off on to the other side, and another approach shot has to be played, often by reason of a hazard having been found, more difficult than the first. If there must be a pitch, then the thing to do is to try to apply a brake to the ball when it comes down, and we can only do this by cutting it. There are greens which at most seasons of the year demand that the ball reaching them shall be cut for a dead drop, such as the green laid at a steep angle when the golfer has to approach it from the elevated side. A little cut is a comparatively easy thing to accomplish, but when the brake is really wanted it is usually a most pronounced cut, that will bring the ball up dead or nearly so, that is called for, and this is a most difficult stroke. I regard the ordinary mashie as the best club with which to make it, but there are some good golfers who like the niblick for this task, and it is undoubtedly productive of good results. However, I will suppose that it is to be attempted with the mashie. The stance is quite different from that which was adopted when the running-up shot was being played. Now the man comes more behind the ball, and the right foot goes forward until the toe is within 8 inches of the A line, while the instep of the left foot is right across B. The feet also are rather closer together. An examination of Plate L. will give an exact idea of the peculiarities of the stance for this stroke. Grip the club very low down on the handle, but see that the right hand does not get off the leather. This time, in the upward swing let the blade of the mashie go well outside the natural line for an ordinary swing, that is to say, as far away from the body in the direction of the A line as is felt to be comfortable and convenient. While this is being done, the left elbow should be held more stiffly and kept more severely under control than the right. At the top of the swing--which, as will be seen from the picture of it (Plate LI.), is only a short half swing, and considerably shorter than that for an ordinary mashie shot--neither arm is at full length, the right being well bent and the left slightly. When this upward swing has been made correctly, the blade of the mashie naturally comes across the ball at the time of impact, and in this way a certain amount of cut is applied. But this is not the limit of the possibilities of cutting, as many golfers seem to imagine, nor is it sufficient to meet some of the extreme cases which occasionally present themselves. To do our utmost in this direction we must decide that extremely little turf must be taken, for it is obvious that unless the bare blade gets to work on the ball it cannot do all that it is capable of doing. The metal must go right underneath the ball, just skimming the grass in the process, and scarcely removing any of the turf. It is also most important that at the instant when ball and club come into contact the blade should be drawn quickly towards the left foot. To do this properly requires not only much dexterity but most accurate timing, and first attempts are likely to be very clumsy and disappointing. But many of the difficulties will disappear with practice, and when at last some kind of proficiency has been obtained, it will be found that the ball answers in the most obedient manner to the call that is made upon it. It will come down so dead upon the green that it may be pitched up into the air until it is almost directly over the spot at which it is desired to place it. In playing this stroke a great deal depends on the mastery which the golfer obtains over his forearms and wrists. At the moment of impact the arms should be nearly full length and stiff, and the wrists as stiff as it is possible to make them. I said that the drawing of the blade towards the left foot would have to be done quickly, because obviously there is very little time to lose; but it must be done smoothly and evenly, without a jerk, which would upset the whole swing, and if it is begun the smallest fraction of a second too soon the ball will be taken by the toe of the club, and the consequences will not be satisfactory. I have returned to make this the last word about the cut because it is the essence of the stroke, and it calls for what a young player may well regard as an almost hopeless nicety of perfection. There is another little approach shot which is usually called the chip on to the green, but which is really nothing but the pitch and run on a very small scale. It is used when the ball has only just failed to reach the green, or has gone beyond it, and is lying in the rougher grass only a very few yards from the edge of it. It often happens in cases of this sort that the putter may be ventured upon, but when that is too risky a little pitch is given to the ball and it is allowed to run the last three or four yards to the hole. An ordinary iron will often be found the most useful club for the purpose. Latterly a new kind of club has become fashionable in some quarters for approaching. They call it the jigger, and, having a longer blade than the ordinary mashie, its users argue that it is easier to play with. That may be true to a certain extent when the ball is lying nicely, but we are not always favoured with this good fortune, and I have no hesitation in saying that for inferior or cuppy lies the jigger is a very ineffectual instrument. The long head cannot get into the cups, and the accuracy that is always called for in approaching is made impossible. If a jigger must be carried in the bag, it should be merely as an auxiliary to the ordinary mashie. Such are the shots with the mashie, and glad is the man who has mastered all of them, for he is then a golfer of great pretensions, who is to be feared by any opponent at any time or place. CHAPTER XII ON BEING BUNKERED The philosopher in a bunker--On making certain of getting out--The folly of trying for length--When to play back--The qualities of the niblick--Stance and swing--How much sand to take--The time to press--No follow-through in a bunker--Desperate cases--The brassy in a bunker--Difficulties through prohibited grounding--Play straight when length is imperative--Cutting with the niblick. This is a hateful subject, but one which demands the most careful and unprejudiced consideration, for are not even the best of us bunkered almost daily? There is nothing like the bunkers on a golf links for separating the philosophic from the unphilosophic among a golfing crowd, and when a representative of each section is in a bunker at the same time it is heavy odds on the philosopher winning the hole. There are two respects in which he differs from his opponent at this crisis in his golfing affairs. He does not become flurried, excited, and despondent, and give the hole up for lost with a feeling of disgust that he had committed the most unpardonable sin. He remembers that there are still various strokes to be played before the hole is reached, and that it is quite possible that in the meantime his friend may somewhere lose one and enable him to get on level terms again. When two players with plus handicaps are engaged in a match, a bunkered ball will generally mean a lost hole, but others who have not climbed to this pinnacle of excellence are far too pessimistic if they assume that this rule operates in their case also. The second matter in which the philosophic golfer rises superior to his less favoured brother when there is a bunker stroke to be played, is that he fully realises that the bunker was placed there for the particular purpose of catching certain defective shots, and that the definite idea of its constructors was that the man who played such a shot should lose a stroke as penalty for doing so--every time. It is legitimate for us occasionally to put it to ourselves that those constructors did not know the long limits of our resource nor the craftiness we are able to display when in a very tight corner, and that therefore, if we find a favourable opportunity, we may cheat the bunker out of the stroke that it threatens to take from us. But this does not happen often. When the golfer has brought himself to realise that, having played into a bunker, he has lost a stroke or the best part of one, and accepts the position without any further ado, he has gone a long way in the cultivation of the most desirable properties of mind and temperament with which any player of the game can be endowed. This man, recognising that his stroke is lost, when he goes up to his ball and studies the many difficulties of its situation, plays for the mere purpose of getting out again, and probably putting himself on the other side in that one stroke which was lost. It does not matter to him if he only gets two yards beyond the bunker--just far enough to enable him to take his stance and swing properly for the next shot. Distance is positively no object whatever, and in this way he insures himself against further loss, and goes the right way to make up for his misfortune. Now, what does the other man do in like circumstances? Unreasonably and foolishly he refuses to accept the inevitable, and declines to give up the idea of getting to a point a hundred yards or more in front with his next shot, which he would have reached if he had not been in the bunker. He seems to think that the men who made the bunkers did not know their business. Having been bunkered, he says to himself that it is his duty to himself and to the game to make up for the stroke which was lost by supremely brilliant recovery under the most disheartening circumstances. He insists that the recovery must be made here in the bunker, and thereafter he will progress as usual. It never occurs to him that it would be wiser and safer to content himself with just getting out the hazard, and then, playing under comparatively easy and comfortable conditions, to make his grand attempt at recovering the lost stroke. He would be much more likely to succeed. A stroke lost or gained is of equal value at any point on the route from the tee to the hole, and it is a simple fact, too often never realised, that a long putt makes up for a short drive, and a mashie shot laid dead for a previous stroke from which the ball was trapped in the bunker. But the unphilosophic gentleman, who is ignorant of, or tries to resist, these truths, feels that his bunkered stroke must be compensated for by the next one or never. What is the result? Recklessly, unscientifically, even ludicrously, he fires away at the ball in the bunker with a cleek or an iron or a mashie, striving his utmost to get length, when, with the frowning cliff of the bunker high in front of him and possibly even overhanging him, no length is possible. At the first attempt he fails to get out. His second stroke in the hazard shares the same fate. With a third or a fourth his ball by some extraordinary and lucky chance may just creep over the top of the ridge. How it came to do so when played in this manner nobody knows. The fact can only be explained by the argument that if you keep on doing the same thing something is sure to happen in the end, and it is a sufficient warning to these bunkered golfers that the gods of golf have so large a sense of justice and of right and wrong that by this time the hole has for a certainty been lost. The slashing player who wants to drive his long ball out of the bunker very rarely indeed gets even this little creep over the crest until he has played two or three more, and is in a desperate state of lost temper. An alternative result to his efforts comes about when he has played these three or four more, and his ball is, if anything, more hopelessly bunkered than ever. All sense of what is due to the game and to his own dignity is then suddenly lost, and a strange sight is often seen. Five, six, and seven more follow in quick succession, the man's arms working like the piston of a locomotive, and his eyes by this time being quite blinded to the ball, the sand, the bunker, and everything else. As an interesting feature of what we might call golfing physiology, I seriously suggest that players of these habits and temperament, when they begin to work like a steam-engine in the bunker, do not see the ball at all for the last few strokes. The next time they indulge in their peculiar performance, let them ask themselves immediately afterwards whether they did see it or not, and in the majority of cases they will have to answer in the negative. When it is over, a few impious words are uttered, the ball is picked up, and there is a slow and gloomy march to the next tee, from which it is unlikely that a good drive will be made. The nervous system of the misguided golfer has been so completely upset by the recent occurrences, that he may not recover his equanimity until several more strokes have been played, or perhaps until the round is over and the distressing incidents have at last passed from his mind. This has been a long story about a thing that happens on most links every day, but the moral of it could hardly have been emphasised properly or adequately if it had been told in fewer words, or if the naked truth had been wrapped up in any more agreeable terms. The moral obviously is, that the golfer on being bunkered must concentrate his whole mind, capabilities, and energies on getting out in one stroke, and must resolutely refrain from attempting length at the same time, for, in nine cases out of ten, length is impossible. There are indeed occasions when so light a sentence has been passed by the bunker on the erring ball that a long shot is practicable, but they are very rare, and come in an entirely different category from the average bunkered ball, and we will consider them in due course. On the other hand, there are times when it is manifestly impossible even to get to the other side of the bunker in a single stroke, as when the ball is tucked up at the foot of a steep and perhaps overhanging cliff. Still the man must keep before himself the fact that his main object is to get out in the fewest strokes possible, and in a case of this sort he may be wise to play back, particularly if it is a medal round that he is engaged upon. If he plays back he is still in the running for his prize if his golf has been satisfactory up to this point, for an addition of two strokes to his score through such an accident, though a serious handicap, is seldom a hopeless one. If he does not play back his chance of victory may disappear entirely at this bunker. His instinct tells him that it probably will do so. Which then is the wiser and better course to take? Now, then, let us consider the ways and means of getting out of bunkers, and take in our hands the most unpopular club that our bags contain. We never look upon the niblick with any of that lingering affection which is constantly bestowed on all the other instruments that we possess, as we reflect upon the splendid deeds that they have performed for us on many memorable occasions. The niblick revives only unpleasant memories, but less than justice is done to this unfortunate club, for, given fair treatment, it will accomplish most excellent and remunerative work in rescuing its owner from the predicaments in which his carelessness or bad luck in handling the others has placed him. There is little variety in niblicks, and therefore no necessity to discourse upon their points, for no professional is ever likely to stock a niblick for sale that is unequal to the performance of its peculiar duties. It has rougher and heavier work to do than any other club, and more brute force is requisitioned in employing it than at any other time. Therefore the shaft should be as strong as it is possible for it to be, and it should be so stiff that it will not bend under the most severe pressure. The head should be rather small and round, with plenty of loft upon it, and very heavy. A light niblick is useless. [Illustration: _PLATE LIII._ THE NIBLICK IN A BUNKER. TOP OF AN ORDINARY STROKE WHEN IT IS INTENDED TO TAKE MUCH SAND] [Illustration: _PLATE LIV._ "WELL OUT!" FINISH OF AN ORDINARY STROKE IN A BUNKER WHEN MUCH SAND IS TAKEN. THE BALL MAY BE SEEN RISING ABOVE THE BUNKER] [Illustration: _PLATE LV._ ANOTHER BUNKER STROKE. TOP OF THE SWING WHEN INTENDING TO TAKE THE BALL CLEANLY AND WITH A LITTLE CUT] [Illustration: _PLATE LVI._ FINISH AFTER TAKING THE BALL CLEANLY FROM A BUNKER] It is difficult to advise as to the stance that should be taken for a niblick shot in a bunker, inasmuch as it so frequently happens that this is governed by circumstances which are quite beyond the golfer's control. He must learn to adapt himself in the best possible manner to the conditions in which he finds himself, and it will often happen that he is cramped for space, he may be unable to get a proper or comfortable place for one or both of his feet, or he may be obliged to stand with one foot--generally the left one--considerably above the other. But when there are none of these difficulties besetting him, it may be said that generally the stance most suited to a stroke with the niblick is similar to that which would be taken for a long shot with an iron, except perhaps that the player should stand a little nearer to the ball, so that he may be well over it while making his swing. The most important respect in which the swing differs from that of the iron is that the club is brought up much straighter. By this I mean that the head of the club should not be allowed to come round quite so much, but throughout its course should be kept as nearly as possible overhanging what we have been calling the A line. The swing, indeed, is much more of what I call an upright character than that of any other stroke in the game, and at the top of it, the blade having passed over the right shoulder and the golfer's head, the shaft should be nearly horizontal and right over the back of the head, an example of which may be seen in Plate LIII., where I have a fairly good lie, but am rather badly bunkered for all that, being only a couple of feet from the base of a high and tolerably steep bank. If there is such a thing as an average bunker shot, this is the one, and I am now describing the method of dealing with cases of this and similar character. There must be no thought of hitting the ball cleanly with the club in a case of this kind, or in any other than the most exceptional situations or emergencies when bunkered. The club must hit the sand, and the sand must move the ball, but the iron blade of the niblick must hardly ever come into contact with the ball. To prevent its doing so, and to ensure the blade getting underneath sufficiently to lift the ball up at the very sharp angle that is necessary if it is to surmount the obstruction in front of it, the sand should be struck at a point fully two inches behind the ball. If the sand is exceedingly light and dry, so that it offers very little resistance to the passage of the club, this distance may be slightly increased, or it may be diminished if the lie in the bunker is very heavy, consisting of gravel or clay. It is on this point, so far behind the ball, that the eye must, of course, be sternly and rigidly fixed, and it is a duty which the beginner frequently finds most difficult to fulfil. In the downward swing the club should be brought on to the spot indicated with all the speed and force of which the golfer is capable. At other times he may have had a yearning to press, which he has with difficulty stifled. He may make up for all these ungratified desires by pressing now with all the strength in his body, and the harder the better so long as he keeps his eye steadily fixed on that point behind the ball and is sure that his muscular efforts will not interfere with his accuracy. After all, the latter need not be quite so fine in this case as in the many others that we have already discussed, for an eighth of an inch one way or the other does not much matter in the case of a niblick shot where there are two inches of sand to plough through. Swing harder than ever on to the sand, with the knowledge that the swing will end there, for a follow-through is not desired and would in many cases be impossible. When the heavy blade goes crash into the sand and blows it, and the ball with it, up into the air as if the electric touch had been given to an explosive mine, the club has finished its work, and when the golfer is at rest again and is surveying the results of his labours--with his eyes, let us hope, directed to the further side of the hazard--the blade will still remain in the cavity that it has made in the floor of the bunker. If any attempt were made to follow through, it is highly probable that sufficient sand would not be taken to make the ball rise up soon enough. However, the more one reflects upon bunkers and niblicks, the more does one feel that the circumstances must govern the method of playing each of these strokes, and there is no finer field for the display of the golfer's judgment and resource than this. The next best accomplishment to the negative one of avoiding bunkers is that of getting out again with the least waste of strokes and distance; and, indeed, I should say that the man who is somewhat addicted to being bunkered but invariably makes a good recovery, is at least on level terms with another who is in trouble not quite so frequently but who suffers terribly when he is. The golden rule--I say it once again--is to make certain of getting out; but now that I have sufficiently emphasised this point, I am ready to consider those few occasions when it appears a little weak and unsatisfactory. Certainly there are times, as we all know, when the enemy, having had matters his own way at a hole, it will not be of the slightest use merely to scramble out of a bunker in one stroke. The case is so desperate that a stroke that will carry the ball for perhaps 100 or 120 yards is called for. Such a necessity does not affect my rule as to making certain of getting out, for in practical golf one cannot take any serious account of emergencies of this kind. But there are times when every player must either attempt the shot that most frequently baffles his superiors, or forthwith give up the hole, and it is not in human nature to cave in while the faintest spark of hope remains. In thus attempting the impossible, or the only dimly possible, we are sometimes led even to take the brassy in a bunker. In a case of this sort, of course, everything depends on the lie of the ball and its distance from the face of the bunker. When it is a shallow pot bunker, the shot is often practicable, and sometimes when one is bunkered on a seaside course the hazard is so wide that there is time for the ball to rise sufficiently to clear the obstruction. But the average bunker on an inland course, say four feet high with only six feet of sand before it, presents few such loopholes for escape. The difficulty of playing a shot from a bunker when any club other than the niblick, such as the brassy, is chosen with the object of obtaining length by hitting the ball clean, is obviously increased by the rule which prohibits the grounding of the club in addressing. To be on the safe side, the sole of the club is often kept fully an inch and a half above the sand when the address is being made, and this inch and a half has to be corrected down to an eighth in the forward swing, for of all shots that must be taken accurately this one so full of difficulty must be. In making his correction the man is very likely to overdo it and strike the sand before the ball, causing a sclaff, or, on the other hand, not to correct sufficiently when the only possible result would be a topped ball and probably a hopeless position in the hazard. It is indeed a rashly speculative shot, and one of the most difficult imaginable. It comes off sometimes, but it is a pure matter of chance when it does, and the lucky player is hardly entitled to that award of merit which he may fancy he deserves. When the situation of the bunkered ball is unusually hopeful, and there does really seem to be a very fair prospect of making a good long shot, I think it generally pays best to play straight at the hazard, putting just a little cut on the ball to help it to rise, and employing any club that suggests itself for the purpose. I think, in such circumstances, that it pays best to go straight for the hazard, because, if length is urgently demanded, what is the use of playing at an angle? Again, though there is undoubtedly an advantage gained by taking a bunker crossways, and thus giving the ball more time to rise, the advantage is often greatly exaggerated in the golfer's mind. When a ball is bunkered right on the edge of the green, it is sometimes best to try to pick it up not quite but almost cleanly with the niblick or mashie, in the hope that one more stroke afterwards will be sufficient either to win or halve the hole, whereas an ordinary shot with the niblick would not be likely to succeed so well. If, after due contemplation of all the heavy risks, it is decided to make such an attempt, the stroke should be played very much after the fashion of the mashie approach with cut. I need hardly say that such a shot is one of the most difficult the golfer will ever have occasion to attempt. The ordinary cut mashie stroke is hard to accomplish, but the cut niblick is harder still. I have already given directions for the playing of such shots, and the rest must be left to the golfer's daring and his judgment. CHAPTER XIII SIMPLE PUTTING A game within another game--Putting is not to be taught--The advantage of experience--Vexation of missing short putts--Some anecdotes--Individuality in putting--The golfer's natural system--How to find it--And when found make a note of it--The quality of instinct--All sorts of putters--How I once putted for a Championship--The part that the right hand plays--The manner of hitting the ball--On always being up and "giving the hole a chance"--Easier to putt back after overrunning than when short--The trouble of Tom Morris. Putting in golf is a game within another game. While I am not prepared to endorse the opinion that is commonly expressed, that a golfer is born and not made, I am convinced that no amount of teaching will make a golfer hole out long putts with any frequency, nor will it even make him at all certain of getting the short ones down. But it will certainly put him in the right way of hitting the ball, which after all will be a considerable gain. Experience counts for very much, and it will convert a man who was originally a bad putter into one who will generally hold his own on the greens, or even be superior to the majority of his fellows. Even experience, however, counts for less in putting than in any other department of the game, and there are many days in every player's life when he realises only too sadly that it seems to count for nothing at all. Do we not from time to time see beginners who have been on the links but a single month, or even less than that, laying their long putts as dead as anybody could wish almost every time, and getting an amazing percentage of them into the tin itself? Often enough they seem to do these things simply because, as we should say, they know nothing at all about putting, which is perhaps another way of saying that their minds are never embarrassed by an oppressive knowledge of all the difficulties which the ball will meet with in its passage from the club to the hole, and of the necessity of taking steps to counteract them all. They are not afraid of the hole. The fact is that putting is to a far greater extent than most of us suspect purely a matter of confidence. When a man feels that he can putt he putts, and when he has a doubt about it he almost invariably makes a poor show upon the greens. Do I not know to my cost what it is to feel that I cannot putt, and on those occasions to miss the most absurdly little ones that ever wait to be popped into the hole without a moment's thought or hesitation? It is surely the strangest of the many strange things in golf, that the old player, hero of many senior medal days, victor in matches over a hundred links, will at times, when the fortunes of an important game depend upon his action, miss a little putt that his ten-year-old daughter would get down nine times out of ten. She, dear little thing, does not yet know the terrors of the short putt. Sometimes it is the most nerve-breaking thing to be found on the hundred acres of a golf course. The heart that does not quail when a yawning bunker lies far ahead of the tee just at the distance of a good drive, beats in trouble when there are but thirty inches of smooth even turf to be run over before the play of the hole is ended. I am reminded of a story of Andrew Kirkaldy, who in his young days once carried for a young student of divinity who was most painfully nervous on the putting greens, and repeatedly lost holes in consequence. When Andrew could stand this reckless waste of opportunities no longer, he exclaimed to his employer, "Man, this is awfu' wark. Ye're dreivin' like a roarin' lion and puttin' like a puir kittlin'." But the men whose occupations are of the philosophical and peaceful kind are not the only ones who may be fairly likened to Andrew's "puir kittlin'" when there are short putts to be holed. Is there not the famous case of the Anglo-Indian sportsman, one of the mightiest of hunters, who feared nothing like the hole when it lay so near to him that his tears of agony might almost have fallen into it? It was this man who declared, "I have encountered all the manifold perils of the jungle, I have tracked the huge elephant to his destruction, and I have stood eye to eye with the man-eating tiger. And never once have I trembled until I came to a short putt." Yet with such facts as these before us, some people still wonder wherein lies the fascination of golf. How often does it happen that an inch on the putting green is worth more than a hundred yards in the drive, and that the best of players are confounded by this circumstance? It is very nearly true, as Willie Park has so often said, that the man who can putt need fear nobody. Certainly a player can never be really great until he is nearly always certain to hole out in two putts on the green, and to get down a few in one. The approach stroke has been well played when the ball comes to rest within four or five feet of the pin, but what is the use of that unless the ball is to be putted out more often than not in one more stroke? For the proper playing of the other strokes in golf, I have told my readers to the best of my ability how they should stand and where they should put their feet. But except for the playing of particular strokes, which come within the category of those called "fancy," I have no similar instruction to offer in the matter of putting. There is no rule, and there is no best way. Sometimes you see a player bend down and hold the putter right out in front of him with both wrists behind the shaft. This is an eccentricity, but if the player in question believes that he can putt better in this way than in any other, he is quite justified in adopting it, and I would be the last to tell him that he is wrong. The fact is that there is more individuality in putting than in any other department of golf, and it is absolutely imperative that this individuality should be allowed to have its way. I believe seriously that every man has had a particular kind of putting method awarded to him by Nature, and when he putts exactly in this way he will do well, and when he departs from his natural system he will miss the long ones and the short ones too. First of all, he has to find out this particular method which Nature has assigned for his use. There ought not to be much difficulty about this, for it will come unconsciously to his aid when he is not thinking of anybody's advice or of anything that he has ever read in any book on golf. That day the hole will seem as big as the mouth of a coal mine, and putting the easiest thing in the world. When he stands to his ball and makes his little swing, he feels as easy and comfortable and confident as any man can ever do. Yet it is probable that, so far as he knows, he is not doing anything special. It may happen that the very next day, when he thinks he is standing and holding his club and hitting the ball in exactly the same way, he nevertheless feels distinctly uncomfortable and full of nervous hesitation as he makes his stroke, and then the long putts are all either too short, or too long, or wide, and the little ones are missed. I don't think that the liver or a passing variation in temperament is altogether the cause of this. I believe it is because the man has departed even by a trifle from his own natural stance. A change of the position of the feet by even a couple of inches one way or the other may alter the stance altogether, and knock the player clean off his putting. In this new position he will wriggle about and feel uncomfortable. Everything is wrong. His coat is in the way, his pockets seem too full of old balls, the feel of his stockings on his legs irritates him, and he is conscious that there is a nail coming up on the inside of the sole of his boot. It is all because he is just that inch or two removed from the stance which Nature allotted to him for putting purposes, but he does not know that, and consequently everything in the world except the true cause is blamed for the extraordinary things he does. A fair sample of many others was the clergyman who, having missed a short putt when playing in a match over a Glasgow links, espied in the distance on an eminence fully a quarter of a mile away from the green, an innocent tourist, who was apparently doing nothing more injurious to golf than serenely admiring the view. But the clerical golfer, being a man of quick temper, poured forth a torrent of abuse, exclaiming, "How could I hole the ball with that blockhead over there working his umbrella as if it were the pendulum of an eight-day clock!" When this is the kind of thing that is happening, I advise the golfer to try variations in his stance for putting, effecting the least possible amount of change at a time. There is a chance that at last he will drop into his natural stance, or something very near it, and even if he does not there is some likelihood that he will gain a trifle in confidence by the change, and that will count for much. And anyhow there is ample justification for any amount of manoeuvring of the body and the feet when one is off one's putting, for at the best, to make use of something like an Irishism, the state of things is then hopelessly bad, and every future tendency must be in the way of improvement. There is one other suggestion to make to those golfers who believe what I say about the natural stance, and by this time it will have become more or less obvious to them. It is that when they are fairly on their putting, and are apparently doing all that Nature intended them to do, and are feeling contented in body and mind accordingly, they should take a sly but very careful look at their feet and body and everything else just after they have made a successful long putt, having felt certain all the time that they would make it. This examination ought not to be premeditated, because that would probably spoil the whole thing; and it usually happens that when one of these long ones has been successfully negotiated, the golfer is too much carried away by his emotions of delight to bring himself immediately to a sober and acute analysis of how it was done. But sometime he may remember to look into the matter, and then he should note the position of everything down to the smallest detail and the fraction of an inch, and make a most careful note of them for future reference. It will be invaluable. So, as I hold that putting is a matter of Nature and instinct, I make an exception this time to my rule in the matter of illustrations, and offer to my readers no diagram with stance measurements. From the two photographs of myself putting in what I had every reason to believe at the time was my own perfectly natural stance, they may take any hints that they may discover. [Illustration: _PLATE LVII._ PUTTING] [Illustration: _PLATE LVIII._ PUTTING] In the matter of putters, of which there is an infinite variety and a new one invented almost every month, I believe in a man playing with just that kind that he has most confidence in and which he fancies suits him best. Whether it is a plain gun-metal instrument, a crooked-necked affair, a putting cleek, an ordinary aluminium, a wooden putter, or the latest American invention, it is all the same; and if it suits the man who uses it, then it is the best putter in the world for him, and the one with which he will hole out most frequently. In no other sense is there such a thing as a best putter. The only semblance of a suggestion that I will presume to offer in this connection is, that for very long putts there is something to be said in favour of the wooden and aluminium putters, which seem to require less exertion than others, and to enable the player to regulate the strength of the stroke more exactly. For the shorter ones, I like the putting cleek best. But even these are matters of fancy, and what a great deal even the vaguest, most unreasoning belief in a putter has to do with the success with which it is manipulated I have as good a reason as anyone to understand, since I owe my first Championship largely to the help of a putter which I had never used before, and which was really not a putter at all, but, as I have explained elsewhere, simply a little cleek which I picked up accidentally in a professional's shop on the eve of the struggle, and in which I had a new shaft fixed to my own liking. On that occasion I putted with this instrument as the winner of a championship ought to putt, but I have never been able to do any good with it since, and in these days it is resting idly in my shop, useless but quite unpurchasable for any money. I do believe that it is a good thing to be the possessor of two putters, with both of which you have at one time or another done well, and in which you have unlimited confidence. Don't carry them both in the bag at the same time, but keep one safe in the locker, and when the day comes, as it surely will, when you are off your putting, take it out on to the links for the next round and see what you can do with it. Your weakness on the green may no more have been the fault of the other putter than the tourist was the cause of the clergyman missing the little one at Glasgow, but very much will be gained if you can persuade yourself that it was. It is to a certain extent possible to be definite in remarking upon the grip. Some good golfers clasp their putters tightly with both hands; others keep the left hand loose and the right hand firm; and a third selection do the reverse, each method being justified on its day. But in this part of the game it is quite clear that the right hand has more work to do than the left. It is the right hand that makes the stroke, and therefore I consider that it should be allowed plenty of play, and that the left wrist should be held more loosely than the right. For my part I use the same overlapping grip in putting as in all the other strokes, making just this one small variation, that instead of allowing the right thumb to fall over the shaft, as when driving or playing through the green, I place it on the top of the shaft and pointing down it. This seems to me to make for accuracy. In playing what we may call an ordinary putt, that is to say, one presenting no difficulties in the way of stymies, slopes of the green, or anything of that kind, I think it pays best in the long run to make a point of always hitting the ball with the middle of the face of the club, although, I believe, Willie Park, one of the greatest of putters, always hits the ball off the toe of the club and comes in to the hole from the right-hand side of it. Other players consistently and by design half top the ball when they are putting. There should be no sharp hit and no jerk in the swing, which should have the even gentle motion of a pendulum. In the backward swing, the length of which, as in all other strokes in golf, is regulated by the distance it is desired to make the ball travel, the head of the putter should be kept exactly in the line of the putt. Accuracy will be impossible if it is brought round at all. There should be a short follow-through after impact, varying, of course, according to the length of the putt. In the case of a long one, the club will go through much further, and then the arms would naturally be more extended. In the follow-through the putter should be kept well down, the bottom edge scraping the top of the grass for some inches. It is easy to understand how much more this course of procedure will tend towards the accuracy and delicacy of the stroke than the reverse method, in which the blade of the putter would be cocked up as soon as the ball had left it. Before I close my remarks on the simple putt, I feel that it is a duty to repeat once more those wise maxims relating to putting that have been uttered some tens of thousands of times already. "Never up, never in." There is nothing so true, and the number of matches and medals that have been lost through the reckless and foolish disregard of this rule must be enormous. The hole will never come to you; therefore make up your mind that you will always go to the hole, and let it be an invariable practice to play for the back of the tin so that you will always have just a little in hand. The most deadly accuracy and the nicest calculations are all wasted if the ball is just half a turn short of the opening, and there is nothing in the whole of the play between one tee and the next more exasperating than the long putt which hesitates and stops on the very lip of the hole. There is another very good reason for always playing very well up to the hole, which may not have occurred to all golfers who read these lines. Suppose that in the exercise of this rule about always being up at any cost, too much has been put into the ball, and, refusing to die when it ought to do, it skips over the hole and comes to a standstill several inches beyond. "That's the result of being up!" exclaims the irritated golfer. But he feels at any rate that he has given the hole the chance for which it asked, and has a far greater sense of satisfaction and of duty done than if the ball had stopped a foot or more short of the place that was made for it. This may be the reason why an eighteen-inch or two-feet putt back to the hole from the far side always seems easier and is less frequently missed than a putt of the same distance from the original side, which is merely making up for the shortage in the first putt. Whether that is the reason or not, there is the fact, and though they may not have considered the matter hitherto, I feel confident that on reflection, or when they take note of future experiences, most of my readers will admit that this is so. It is a final argument for playing to the back of the hole and never being short. One of the greatest worries of the glorious life of old Tom Morris was that for a long time when in the middle of his career he was nearly always short with his long putts, and his son, young Tom, used wickedly to say that his father would be a great putter if the hole were always a yard nearer. Tom, I believe, was always conscious of his failing, and made the most strenuous efforts to correct it, and this only shows what a terrible and incurable habit this one of being short can become, and what necessity there is for the golfer to exercise his strength of mind to get rid of it in his early days, and establish the practice of being up every time. Often enough he will run over, but sometimes the kind hole will gobble the ball, and on the average he will gain substantially over the nervous, hesitating player who is always short. CHAPTER XIV COMPLICATED PUTTS Problems on undulating greens--The value of practice--Difficulties of calculation--The cut stroke with the putter--How to make it--When it is useful--Putting against a sideways slope--A straighter line for the hole--Putting down a hill--Applying drag to the ball--The use of the mashie on the putting green--Stymies--When they are negotiable and when not--The wisdom of playing for a half--Lofting over the stymie--Running through the stymie--How to play the stroke, and its advantages--Fast greens for fancy strokes--On gauging the speed of a green. Now we will consider those putts in which it is not all plain sailing from the place where the ball lies to the hole. The line of the putt may be uphill or it may be downhill, or the green may slope all the way from one side to the other, or first from one and then the other. There is no end to the tricks and difficulties of a good sporting green, and the more of them the merrier. The golfer's powers of calculation are now in great demand. Take, to begin with, one of the most difficult of all putts--that in which there is a more or less pronounced slope from one side or the other, or a mixture of the two. In this case it would obviously be fatal to putt straight at the hole. Allowances must be made on one side or the other, and sometimes they are very great allowances too. I have found that most beginners err in being afraid of allowing sufficiently for the slope. They may convince themselves that in order to get near the hole their ball should be a yard or so off the straight line when it is half-way along its course, and yet, at the last instant, when they make the stroke their nerve and resolution seem to fail them, and they point the ball but a few inches up the slope, with the result that before it reaches the hole it goes running away on the other side and comes to a standstill anything but dead. Putting practice on undulating greens is very valuable, not so much because it teaches the golfer exactly what allowance he should make in various cases, but because it helps by experience to give him the courage of his convictions. It is impossible to give any directions as to the precise allowance that should be made, for the simple reason that this varies in every case. The length of the putt, the degree of slope, and the speed of the green, are all controlling factors. The amount of borrow, as we term it, that must be taken from the side of any particular slope is entirely a matter of mathematical calculation, and the problem will be solved to satisfaction most frequently by the man who trains himself to make an accurate and speedy analysis of the controlling factors in the limited amount of time available for the purpose. The putt is difficult enough when there is a pronounced slope all the way from one particular side, but the question is much more puzzling when it is first one and then the other and then perhaps a repetition of one or both. To begin with, there may be a slope of fifteen degrees from the right, so the ball must go away to the right. But a couple of yards further on this slope may be transformed into one of thirty degrees the other way, and after a short piece of level running the original slope, but now at twenty degrees, is reverted to. What in the name of golf is the line that must be taken in a tantalising case of this kind? It is plain that the second slope if it lasts as long as the first one more than neutralises it, being steeper, so that instead of borrowing from the first one we must start running down it in order to tackle the second one in good time. But the third slope again, to some extent, though not entirely, neutralises the second, and this entirely upsets the calculation which only included the first two. It is evident that the first and third hold the advantage between them, and that in such a case as this we should send the ball on its journey with a slight borrow from the first incline with which it had to contend. As I have just said, in these complicated cases it is a question of reckoning pure and simple, and then putting the ball in a straightforward manner along the line which you have decided is the correct one. But there are times when a little artifice may be resorted to, particularly in the matter of applying a little cut to the ball. There is a good deal of billiards in putting, and the cut stroke on the green is essentially one which the billiard player will delight to practise. But I warn all those who are not already expert at cutting with the putter, to make themselves masters of the stroke in private practice before they attempt it in a match, because it is by no means easy to acquire. The chief difficulty that the golf student will encounter in attempting it will be to put the cut on as he desires, and at the same time to play the ball with the proper strength and keep on the proper line. It is easy enough to cut the ball, but it is most difficult, at first at all events, to cut it and putt it properly at the same time. For the application of cut, turn the toe of the putter slightly outwards and away from the hole, and see that the face of the club is kept to this angle all the way through the stroke. Swing just a trifle away from the straight line outwards, and the moment you come back on to the ball draw the club sharply across it. It is evident that this movement, when properly executed, will give to the ball a rotary motion, which on a perfectly level green would tend to make it run slightly off to the right of the straight line along which it was aimed. Here, then, the golfer may arm himself with an accomplishment which may frequently prove of valuable service. He may dodge a stymie or circumvent an inconvenient piece of the green over which, without the cut, the ball would have to travel. But most frequently will the accomplished putter find the cut of use to him when there is a pronounced slope of the green from the right-hand side of the line of the putt. In applying cut to the ball in a case of this kind, we are complicating the problem by the introduction of a fourth factor to the other three I have named, but at the same time we are diminishing the weight of these others, since we shall enable ourselves to putt more directly at the hole. Suppose it is a steep but even slope all the way from the ball to the hole. Now, if we are going to putt this ball in the ordinary manner without any spin on it, we must borrow a lot from the hill, and, as we shall at once convince ourselves, the ball must be at its highest point when it is just half-way to the hole. But we may borrow from the slope in another way than by running straight up it and straight down again. If we put cut on the ball, it will of itself be fighting against the hill the whole way, and though if the angle is at all pronounced it may not be able to contend against it without any extra borrow, much less will be required than in the case of the simple putt up the hill and down again. Now it must be borne in mind that it is a purely artificial force, as it were, that keeps the ball from running down the slope, and as soon as the run on the ball is being exhausted and the spin at the same time, the tendency will be not for the ball to run gradually down the slope--as it did in the case of the simple putt without cut--but to surrender to it completely and run almost straight down. Our plan of campaign is now indicated. Instead of going a long way up the hill out of our straight line, and having but a very vague idea of what is going to be the end of it all, we will neutralise the effect of the slope as far as possible by using the cut and aim to a point much lower down the hill--how much lower can only be determined with knowledge of the particular circumstances, and after the golfer has thoroughly practised the stroke and knows what he can do with it. And instead of settling upon a point half-way along the line of the putt as the highest that the ball shall reach, this summit of the ascent will now be very much nearer to the hole, quite close to it in fact. We putt up to this point with all the spin we can get on the ball, and when it reaches it the forward motion and the rotation die away at the same time, and the ball drops away down the hill, and, as we hope, into the hole that is waiting for it close by. Now, after all this explanation, it may really seem that by using the cut in a case of this kind we are going about the job in the most difficult manner, but when once the golfer has made himself master of this cut stroke, and has practised this manner of attacking slopes, he will speedily convince himself that it is the easier and more reliable method--certainly more reliable. It seems to be a great advantage to be able to keep closer to the straight line, and the strength can be more accurately gauged. The diagram which I have drawn on this page shows relatively the courses taken by balls played in the two different styles, and will help to explain my meaning. The slope is supposed to be coming from the top of the page, as it were, and the plain curved line is the course taken by the ball which has had no cut given to it, while that which is dotted is the line of the cut ball. I am giving them both credit for having been played with the utmost precision, so that they would find their way to the tin. I submit all these remarks as an idea, to be followed up and elaborated in much practice, rather than as a definite piece of instruction, for the variety of circumstances is so bewildering that a fixed rule is impossible. [Illustration: PUTTING WITH CUT ON A SLOPING GREEN.] One of the putting problems which strike most fear into the heart of the golfer is when his line from the ball to the hole runs straight down a steep slope, and there is some considerable distance for the ball to travel along a fast green. The difficulty in such a case is to preserve any control over the ball after it has left the club, and to make it stop anywhere near the hole if the green is really so fast and steep as almost to impart motion of itself. In a case of this sort I think it generally pays best to hit the ball very nearly upon the toe of the putter, at the same time making a short quick twitch or draw of the club across the ball towards the feet. Little forward motion will be imparted in this manner, but there will be a tendency to half lift the ball from the green at the beginning of its journey, and it will continue its way to the hole with a lot of drag upon it. It is obvious that this stroke, to be played properly, will need much practice in the first place and judgment afterwards, and I can do little more than state the principle upon which it should be made. But oftentimes, when the slope of the green is really considerable, and one experiences a sense of great risk and danger in using the putter at all, I strongly advise the use of the iron or mashie; indeed, I think most golfers chain themselves down too much to the idea that the putter, being the proper thing to putt with, no other club should be used on the green. There is no law to enforce the use of the putter, but even when the idea sometimes occurs to a player that it would be best to use his mashie on the green in particular circumstances, he usually rejects it as improper. On a steep incline it pays very well to use a mashie, for length in these circumstances can often be judged very accurately, and, the ball having been given its little pitch to begin with, does not then begin to roll along nearly so quickly as if the putter had been acting upon it. There are times, even when the hole is only a yard away, when it might pay best to ask for the mashie instead of the instrument which the caddie will offer. Upon the very difficult and annoying question of stymies there are few hints that I can offer which will not suggest themselves to the player of a very little experience. The fact which must be driven home is that some stymies are negotiable and others are not--not by any player or by any method. When the ball that stymies you dead is lying on the lip of the hole and half covering it, and your own is some distance away, the case is, to all intents and purposes, hopeless, but if you have only got this one stroke left for the half, you feel that an effort of some kind must be made, however hopeless it may be. The one chance--and even that is not always given--is to pass the other ball so very closely that yours will touch the rim of the hole and then, perhaps, if it is travelling slowly enough, be influenced sufficiently to tumble in. Luck must necessarily have a lot to do with the success of a stroke of this kind, and the one consolation is that, if it fails, or if you knock the other ball in--which is quite likely--things will be no worse than they appeared before you took the stroke. If, in the case of a dead and hopeless stymie of this kind, you had two strokes for the half and one for the hole, I should strongly advise you to give up all thoughts of holing out, and make quite certain of being dead the first time and getting the half. Many golfers are so carried away by their desire to snatch the hole from a desperate position of this sort, that they throw all prudence to the winds, attempt the impossible, and probably lose the hole at the finish instead of halving it. They may leave themselves another stymie, they may knock the other ball in, or they may be anything but dead after their first stroke,--indeed, it is when defying their fate in this manner that everything is likely to happen for the worst. The common method of playing a stymie is by pitching your ball over that of your opponent, but this is not always possible. All depends on how near the other ball is to the hole, and how far the balls are apart. If the ball that stymies you is on the lip and your own is three yards away, it is obvious that you cannot pitch over it. From such a distance your own ball could not be made to clear the other one and drop again in time to fall into the tin. But, when an examination of the situation makes it clear that there is really space enough to pitch over and get into the hole, take the most lofted club in your bag--either a highly lofted mashie or even a niblick--and when making the little pitch shot that is demanded, apply cut to the ball in the way I have already directed, and aim to the left-hand side of the tin. The stroke should be very short and quick, the blade of the club not passing through a space of more than nine inches or a foot. The cut will make the ball lift quickly, and, with the spin upon it, it is evident that the left-hand side of the hole is the proper one to play to. Everything depends upon the measurements of the situation as to whether you ought to pitch right into the hole or to pitch short and run in, but in any case you should pitch close up, and in a general way four or five inches would be a fair distance to ask the ball to run. When your own ball is many yards away from the hole, and the one that makes the stymie is also far from it as well as far from yours, a pitch shot seems very often to be either inadequate or impossible. Usually it will be better to aim at going very near to the stymie with the object of getting up dead, making quite certain at the same time that you do not bungle the whole thing by hitting the other ball, or else to play to the left with much cut, so that with a little luck you may circle into the hole. Evidently the latter would be a somewhat hazardous stroke to make. There is one other way of attacking a stymie, and that is by the application of the run-through method, when the ball in front of you is on the edge of the hole and your own is very close to it--only just outside the six inches limit that makes the stymie. If the balls are much more than a foot apart, the "follow-through method" of playing stymies is almost certain to fail. This system is nothing more than the follow-through shot at billiards, and the principles upon which the strokes in the two games are made are much the same. Hit your own ball very high up,--that is to say, put all the top and run on it that you can, and strike the other ball fairly in the centre and fairly hard. The object is to knock the stymie right away over the hole, and to follow through with your own and drop in. If you don't hit hard enough you will only succeed in holing your opponent's ball and earning his sarcastic thanks. And if you don't get top enough on your own ball you will not follow through, however hard you bang up against the other. This is a very useful stroke to practise, for the particular kind of stymie to which it applies occurs very frequently, and is one of the most exasperating of all. Most of these fancy putting strokes stand a very poor chance of success on a very slow green. Cut and top and all these other niceties will not work on a dull one. It is the sharp, fiery green that comes to the rescue of the resourceful golfer in circumstances such as we have been discussing. It seems to me that golfers in considering their putts very often take too little pains to come to an accurate determination of the speed of the greens. There are a score of changing circumstances which affect that speed, but it frequently happens that only a casual glance is given to the state of the turf, and the rest of the time is spent in considering the distance and the inclines that have to be contended against. The golfer should accustom himself to making a minute survey of the condition of things. Thus, to how many players does it occur that the direction in which the mowing machine has been passed over it makes an enormous difference to the speed of the particular piece of the green that has to be putted over? All the blades of grass are bent down in the direction that the machine has taken, and their points all face that way. Therefore the ball that is being putted in the opposite direction encounters all the resistance of these points, and in the aggregate this resistance is very considerable. On the other hand, the ball that has to be putted in the same direction that the machine went has an unusually smooth and slippery surface to glide over. It is very easy to see which way the machine has gone. On a newly-cut green there are stripes of different shades of green. The points of the grass give the deeper tints, and therefore the machine has been coming towards you on the dark stripes, and along them you must putt harder than on the others. The variety of the circumstances to be taken into consideration render putting on undulating greens very attractive to the man who makes a proper and careful study of this part of the game, as every player ought to do. CHAPTER XV SOME GENERAL HINTS Too much golf--Analysis of good strokes--One's attitude towards one's opponent--Inaccurate counting of strokes--Tactics in match play--Slow couples on the course--Asking for halves--On not holing out when the half is given--Golfing attire--Braces better than belts--Shoes better than boots--How the soles should be nailed--On counting your strokes--Insisting on the rules--Play in frosty weather--Chalked faces for wet days--Against gloves--Concerning clubs--When confidence in a club is lost--Make up your mind about your shot--The golfer's lunch--Keeping the eye on the ball--The life of a rubber-core--A clean ball--The caddie's advice--Forebodings of failure--Experiments at the wrong time--One kind of golf at a time--Bogey beaten, but how?--Tips for tee shots--As to pressing--The short approach and the wayward eye--Swinging too much--For those with defective sight--Your opponent's caddie--Making holes in the bunkers--The golfer's first duty--Swinging on the putting greens--Practise difficult shots and not easy ones, etc. The following are detached suggestions, each of which, I think, is of value and importance. In most cases they are such as I have not had an opportunity of making in any other chapter; but in a few others they are repetitions of former injunctions, for the sake of further emphasis:-- * * * * * Don't play too much golf if you want to get on in the game. Three rounds a day are too much for any man, and if he makes a practice of playing them whenever he has the opportunity, his game is sure to suffer. He often says that his third round is the best of the day. But what about the first next morning? Two rounds a day are enough, and these two rounds on three days of the week are as much golf as is good for any player who does not want to become careless and stale. * * * * * Remember that the player who first settles down to the serious business of a hard match has the advantage. In a majority of cases concentrated purpose is the secret of victory. * * * * * You must be thoughtful if you want to get on in golf. Most players when they make an exceptionally good stroke gaze delightedly at the result, and then begin to talk about it to their opponent and the caddie. They rarely give a thought as to exactly how they did it, though it must be obvious that for that good result to have been obtained the stroke must have been played in a particularly correct and able manner. Unless by pure accident, no good ever comes of a bad stroke. When you have made a really wonderfully good shot--for you--bring yourself up sharply to find out exactly how you did it. Notice your stance, your grip, and try to remember the exact character of the swing that you made and precisely how you followed through. Then you will be able to do the same thing next time with great confidence. Usually when a player makes a really bad stroke you see him trying the swing over again--without the ball--wondering what went wrong. It would pay him much better to do the good strokes over again in the same way every time he makes them, so as to impress the method of execution firmly upon his mind. * * * * * Don't praise your own good shots. Leave that function to your partner, who, if a good sort, will not be slow in performing it. His praise will be more discriminating and worth more than yours. And don't say spiteful and unkind things about his good shots, or be continually talking about his luck. If you do he will hate you before the game is over. * * * * * When a hole is being keenly contested, and you look as though you are having the worst of it, try not to appear pleased when your opponent makes a bad stroke or gets into serious trouble, however relieved or even delighted you may feel. It is human nature to feel the better for your opponent's mistake in a crisis of this kind, but it is not good manners to show that you feel it. And, however well you may know your friend, it is not half so funny as you think it is to laugh at such a time or shout out that you rejoice. It is simply bad taste, for your opponent at that time is suffering from a sense of keen disappointment, and is temporarily quite unable to appreciate jokes of this kind. He is inclined to think he has been mistaken in you all along, and that you are much less of a gentleman and a sportsman than he had imagined. * * * * * If he is playing several more in a vain endeavour to extricate himself from a bunker, do not stand near him and audibly count his strokes. It would be justifiable homicide if he wound up his pitiable exhibition by applying his niblick to your head. It is better to pretend that you do not notice these things. On the other hand, do not go out of your way to say that you are sorry when these misfortunes happen. Such expressions imply a kind of patronage for which your opponent will not thank you, and he knows all the time that you do not really mean it, and therefore infers that you are a hypocrite. The best golf is that which is played in comparative silence. * * * * * At the beginning of a match do not worry yourself with the idea that the result is likely to be against you. By reflecting thus upon the possibilities of defeat one often becomes too anxious and loses one's freedom of style. * * * * * Take more risks when you are down to your opponent than when you are up on him. If you play a difficult shot successfully, the circumstance will probably have some effect upon the other man. * * * * * It is a mistake continually to exercise extreme caution. One's play is severely cramped by an excess of care. * * * * * Try, whenever possible, to make matches with opponents who are at least as good, if not better than yourself. This will do your game more good than playing with an inferior player against whom you will always be liable to play in a careless manner. * * * * * Always make an effort to improve your game, and do not content yourself with the idea that you go out on the links for the exercise only. It is no more difficult or less pleasant trying to play better than it is to go on continually in the same old way. * * * * * When making a match, do not try to get a greater allowance of strokes than that to which you are entitled on your handicap, alleging to your opponent that the said handicap is an unfair one. Your opponent may think you are a little too "keen"; and if he grants your improper request, and you should then win the match, he may think some other things besides. * * * * * Remember that more matches are lost through carelessness at the beginning than through any other cause. Always make a point of trying to play the first hole as well as you have ever played a hole in your life. The favourite saying of some players, "I never try to win the first hole," is the most foolish thing ever said in connection with the game of golf. Win as many holes as you can in the early part of the game. They may be useful for you to fall back upon later on. * * * * * Try to avoid an unnecessary expenditure of nerve force by treating your adversary--with all due respect to him--as a nonentity. Whatever brilliant achievements he may accomplish, go on quietly playing your own game. There is always the probability that sooner or later he will make enough mistakes to bring him back to you. It is the steadier player who plays his own game from the first tee to the last green, and who never allows himself to be upset by anything that happens, who wins the match. * * * * * Never hurry when playing a match or a medal round, or indeed any kind of golf. Haste will affect your nerves and spoil your play. The record for playing a round in the shortest possible space of time is not worth the holding. Take time enough, but don't be unnecessarily slow. * * * * * If from any cause whatever you are playing a very slow game, don't miss an opportunity of inviting the couple behind you to pass. It will please them, and will be far more comfortable for you. But if your match is behind a slow one, do not be offensive in pressing upon the match in front by making rude remarks and occasionally playing when they are within range. You do not know what troubles they are enduring. Remember the story of the old player, who, on a ball being driven past him by the couple behind, sent his caddie with his card to the offender, and with it the message, "Mr. Blank presents his compliments, and begs to say that though he may be playing slowly he can play a devil of a lot more slowly if he likes!" * * * * * Be careful that you always stand on the proper side of the tee when your opponent is preparing to drive. At this most anxious moment for your friend do not be practising your own swing or move about or talk. You would be intensely annoyed with him if he did these things when you were driving. If he lost the match through a foozled drive, he would be justified in saying that you did not play the game. * * * * * In playing through the green, avoid as far as possible getting in your opponent's line of sight when he is making his stroke. Also do not stand so near to him that he can see you through the corner of his eye when he is taking his swing. * * * * * Do not get into the habit of asking for a half on the putting green when in your own opinion you are lying dead and have one stroke left for the half. You may not be as dead as you think, and your opponent may not consider you are dead at all. He naturally wonders why you ask for the half when it would be so easy to putt the ball. It would be excusable if he were to offer to make you a present of the ball you have on the match. These propositions about the giving of halves should invariably come from the other side. Besides, when you have asked for a half and your opponent says "No; putt it out," you not only look foolish, but you are so irritated that you may very likely miss the putt. Then you will look more foolish than ever, and the next thing you will lose is the match. * * * * * But when your opponent of his own free will says, "I will give you that," meaning the little putt for the half, show your appreciation of his confidence in your putting by picking up the ball and saying no more about it. Don't insist on putting the ball into the hole either with one hand or in any other way. You are sure to be playing carelessly; and suppose you fail to hole? Your opponent said he gave you the half, and yet you failed afterwards to get it when you insisted on playing. Of course you have a right to the half that he gave you, but you will have an uneasy conscience, and your friend will be sorry that he was so generous. Also, when you have carelessly missed a six inch putt for the half, do not remark to your opponent, as some players do, "Of course, if you insist upon it, I will give you the hole." It is no question of insistence; it is the rule of the game. I say, stick to the rules of the game. * * * * * Never use long headed clubs. The shorter headed clubs are easier to play with and are more accurate. * * * * * Do not wear too tightly fitting clothes. Particularly be careful to see that there is plenty of spare cloth under the arms. Tightness here, where there should be the utmost freedom, means the wholesale ruination of what would otherwise have been good strokes. * * * * * Always use braces in preference to a belt round the waist. I never play with a belt. Braces seem to hold the shoulders together just as they ought to be. When a man plays in a belt he has an unaccustomed sense of looseness, and his shoulders are too much beyond control. It is a mistake to imagine you can swing better with a belt than with braces. For the same reason I do not advise a golfer to play without his coat, even on the warmest day, if he wants to play his best game. * * * * * Whenever possible, use shoes for golfing instead of boots. They allow more freedom to the ankles, and make it much easier to pivot on the toes. Keep the leather of your boots and shoes soft and pliable. Apply dubbin to them in the winter. * * * * * Take care that there are plenty of nails on the soles of your boots and shoes, and that they are in good condition and the heads not worn away. Nails in this state are almost useless, and create a great tendency towards slipping. Aluminium nails, though very light, wear away too quickly, and have a tendency to drop out. I do not like big nails of any description, nor do I favour small ones arranged in clusters. Those that I prefer have round heads about the size of a small pea, and are fluted down the sides. I have the soles and heels of my boots freely studded with these, and always according to the same system. There are twenty-five nails on the sole of each boot and fourteen on each heel, and they are arranged as in the accompanying diagram. It will be observed that there are plenty of nails in the fore part of the sole on which the pivoting is done, and where there is the greatest tendency to slip. [Illustration: NAILS IN GOLFING BOOTS AND SHOES.] * * * * * Do not get into the habit of counting your strokes from the beginning of the round in every match that you play, in the hope that each time you may be able to beat your own record for the course. If you do so, and play one or two bad holes to begin with, you will suffer from a sense of disappointment which may have a bad effect upon your play for the remainder of the game. * * * * * Obtain a thorough knowledge of the rules of the game, always play strictly according to them, and adhere rigidly to the etiquette of golf. When you insist upon the rules being applied to yourself, even to your own disadvantage, you are in a stronger position for demanding that your opponent shall also have the same respect for them. When play is always according to the rules, with no favour shown on either side, the players know exactly where they are. When the rules are occasionally overthrown, difficulties and dissatisfaction constantly ensue. * * * * * When playing in frosty weather, do not take it for granted that because the greens are hard they are also fast. Unless the greens were exceedingly smooth when the frost began, they will be covered with an abundance of little frozen knobs and pimples which greatly retard the progress of the ball. * * * * * In wet weather it is a good thing to carry a piece of chalk in your pocket, and to rub the face of the driver and brassy with it each time before making a stroke. It prevents the ball from skidding. * * * * * Unless you have a very good and special reason for doing so, do not play in gloves. The grip is seldom so secure and exact as when it is effected with the bare hands. * * * * * Always use the club that takes the least out of you. Play with an iron instead of forcing your shot with a mashie. Never say, "Oh, I think I can reach it with such and such a club." There ought never to be any question of your reaching it, so use the next more powerful club in order that you will have a little in hand. It will be easier, and the result will be much better, or at least it ought to be. * * * * * Never use thick handle grips. They place weight at the wrong end of the club. I like the thinnest I can get. I do not advise playing with rubber grips if they can be avoided. On a wet day they might be the cause of a lost match. * * * * * Always use spliced in preference to socketed clubs. They are better in every way. * * * * * Do not be tempted to invest in a sample of each new golfing invention as soon as it makes its appearance. If you do you will only complicate and spoil your game and encumber your locker with much useless rubbish. Of course some new inventions are good, but it is usually best to wait a little while to see whether any considerable section of the golfing public approves of them before rushing to a shop to order one. * * * * * If you have completely lost confidence for the time being in any particular club, even though it may be one with which you have performed brilliantly in days gone by, leave it out of your bag altogether for a short season and try to forget all about it. The day will come before very long when you will feel that it is once more the very club you are wanting to make your game perfect, and you will rejoice to renew its acquaintance when you take it out of your locker. We can see too much of even our best friends. * * * * * Always make up your mind definitely and finally before taking up your stance what club you are going to use and exactly the kind of shot that you want to play with it. When you have taken up your position but still ponder in a state of uncertainty, it is very probable that your mind will be affected by your hesitation, and then your swing and the result thereof will be bad. * * * * * There are fewer certainties in golf than in any other game, and dogged pluck is rarely so well rewarded as on the links. * * * * * If you are playing golf in the afternoon, do not lunch any more heavily that you feel to be necessary. A heavy lunch tends to take the keenness out of a golfer, and at the same time it has--what very few people suspect--a very serious effect upon the eye and its capacity for work. The golfer's eyes often give way to the strain that is put upon them long before his limbs. * * * * * When we talk about keeping the eye on the ball, we do not mean the top of the ball. Your object is not to hit the top of the ball with the bottom of your club. For an ordinary stroke keep your attention fixed on the grass immediately behind the ball. This should result in the sole of your club sweeping evenly along the turf and taking the ball just as it ought to be taken. But there are special occasions, as when a low shot against the wind is wanted (fully explained in previous chapters), when it is desirable to hit the ball rather higher up. The eye should then be fixed on the edge of the ball just half-way up from the bottom to the top. The accompanying diagram shows exactly the points to be looked at when playing the different strokes. You may get in good strokes when looking at the top of the ball, but it is only because you have accustomed yourself by long experience to make a small allowance for so doing. The practice is theoretically bad, and it is mainly the reason why beginners top their balls so frequently. Of course when you look down the side of it in the manner indicated, you have the ball always in view. [Illustration: POINTS TO LOOK AT WHEN ADDRESSING THE BALL--(I.) FOR AN ORDINARY STROKE; (II.) FOR A PUSH SHOT.] * * * * * The life of a rubber-cored ball does not always last as long as its shell, and its best driving capacity has often disappeared when there is scarcely a scratch upon it. Therefore, if you are playing in an important match with a ball that has already been used at a large number of holes, it may be advisable to put down a new one when long work with the driver and brassy is a vital necessity. A close watch for loss of shape should also be kept on these rubber-cored balls. They vary very much in this respect, and not only is it impossible to putt well with a ball that is not perfectly round, but it never flies so well as one which is quite true. * * * * * Always use a clean ball, and carry a sponge to keep it clean with. It detracts from the pleasure of a game more than you may imagine if your ball is always dirty and cannot be seen from a distance. Besides, the eye is less strained when a clean white ball is played with, and there is less likelihood of foozled strokes. Moreover, your dirty ball is a constant irritation to your opponent. * * * * * Don't act upon the advice of your caddie when you are convinced in your own mind that he is wrong. If you do so, you will very likely play the stroke hesitatingly and without confidence, and the result in these circumstances is seldom satisfactory. It is not impossible that the caddie knows less about the game than yourself, and, on the other hand, his views as to the best thing to do in a particular situation are often regulated by what he has seen the scratch men do at such times. You may not be a scratch man. * * * * * When playing in a foursome, never forget that you have a partner. If you are the inferior player, make a rule, when in any doubt, of asking him what he would prefer you to do. * * * * * When you are addressing the ball, and a conviction forces itself on your mind just before making the stroke that your stance or something else is radically wrong, do not be persuaded that it is best to get the stroke done with notwithstanding. In such circumstances it is almost certain to be a failure, and you will wish then that you had taken a fresh stance, as you knew you ought to have done, and made a proper job of it, even at the risk of annoying your partner by fiddling about on the tee. * * * * * At a crisis in a match, some golfers, fighting desperately for victory or a half, give themselves up when on the tee to hideous thoughts of all the worst ways in which they have ever made that particular drive and of the terrible consequences that ensued. This is fatal. A golfer must never be morbid. If he cannot school himself to think that he is going to make the best drive of his life, just when it is most wanted, he should try not to think of anything at all. * * * * * Don't try experimental shots on a new system when your opponent is dormy. It may be quite true that those you make on the old system are very bad, but you had better stick to them until the end of this match at any rate. * * * * * Do not attempt to play two kinds of golf at the same time; that is to say, if you are playing for a medal, do not keep up a hole-to-hole match with your partner. You will become confused, with no clear idea of what you are trying to do, and you will probably win neither the medal nor the match. If you feel that you must match yourself in some manner with the man who is going round with you, back your net return against his. * * * * * Because you do a hole in bogey, or even sometimes in one stroke less, do not always take it for granted that you have therefore played perfect golf. Some bogeys are very easy, and some shots are very fluky. A man may miss his drive, run a bunker, and hole out with his mashie, beating bogey by a stroke. But he would be well advised not to say anything about it afterwards, lest he should be asked for details. Not the smallest credit attaches to him for this remarkable performance. * * * * * Always play from a low tee, except when the wind is behind you. * * * * * See that your head remains rigid, from the moment when you have finally taken up your position and are ready for your swing, until you have struck the ball. * * * * * In addressing, always oppose to the ball that part of the face of the club with which you want to hit it. * * * * * Go slowly back, but be quick on the ball. But do not swing back too slowly or you will lose control over your club. Gain speed gradually. * * * * * At the finish of the swing for a full shot, the right heel should be well up and the toe pointed downwards. The chest should then be facing the hole. But these and all similar movements should be quite natural. If they are forced they are useless and dangerous, and only indicate that your methods and your swing are altogether wrong. In such a dilemma study the photographs in this volume, particularly those that show you how you ought _not_ to do the various strokes. If these do not provide you with a cure, consult the professional at your club. * * * * * Don't press, but note the definition of pressing in Chapter VI. You can hit hard without pressing, which really means jumping at the ball. When your swing is working to perfection and you are full of confidence, you may let yourself go as much as you please. It is not true, as some golfers say, that a gently hit ball will travel as far as one which has been hit with much more force, but otherwise in precisely the same manner. * * * * * You must be particularly on your guard against pressing--real pressing--when you are two or three holes down, and are becoming anxious about the match. Perfect confidence and a calm mind are necessary for the success of every stroke. * * * * * Keep your eye on the side of the ball, particularly when you are near the hole and perhaps playing a little chip shot on to the green. There is a tendency at such a time, so great is the anxiety of the golfer to know whether he is laying himself dead or not, to take the eye from the ball and direct its attention to the pin before the downward swing is complete and the stroke has been made. But I do not approve of keeping the eye fixed upon the place where the ball lay, so that the grass is seen after the ball has departed. Keep your eye on the ball until you have hit it, but no longer. You cannot follow through properly with a long shot if your eye remains fastened on the ground. Hit the ball, and then let your eye pick it up in its flight as quickly as possible. Of course this needs skilful timing and management, but precision will soon become habitual. * * * * * When you hit the small of your back with the head of your club in the upward swing, it is not so much a sign that you are swinging too far back as that your wrists are enjoying too much play, that you are not holding your club with sufficient firmness, and that your arms are thrown too much upwards. Try a tighter grip. Remember that the grip with _both_ hands should be firm. That with the right hand should not be slack, as one is so often told. * * * * * If your eyesight is not good and you are obliged to resort to artificial aids when playing the game, wear spectacles rather than eye-glasses, and specially made sporting spectacles in preference to any others. It is of the utmost importance that the glasses should not only be perfectly steady at all times, but that the rims should not be so near to the centre of vision as to interfere with it under any circumstances. The sporting spectacles which I recommend are similar to those used for billiards and shooting. The rims and the glasses are circular and not oval in shape, and they are unusually large--about 1-1/2 inches in diameter. By the use of them the player is afforded a field of vision as wide as with the naked eye, so that practically he is not conscious that he is wearing glasses at all. The eye is a factor of such immense importance in the proper playing of golf, that this is a matter to be strongly insisted upon. My own eyesight is perfect, and I have never had occasion to resort to artificial assistance of it, but I adopt these suggestions from players of experience who have worn these glasses and upon whose judgment I can rely. * * * * * If you have no caddie, do not order your opponent's caddie about as if you were paying for his services. Any assistance that he may give you is an act of courtesy extended to you by your opponent. * * * * * Always fill in afterwards every hole that you make in a bunker. If all players do that, both you and the others will benefit constantly. * * * * * Make a point of seeing that your caddie always replaces your divots, or replace them yourself if you have no caddie. This, as we all know, is a golfer's first duty. If your ball at any time came to rest in a hole where a divot had not been replaced, you would be extremely annoyed, would say hard things about the other players on the links, and would declare that the course was badly kept. * * * * * Never practise swinging on the putting green. It is not good for the green, and the greenkeeper who takes a pride in the results of his work is not usually in the best of tempers when he sees you at this little game. * * * * * When carrying your own clubs, do not throw the bag down on the greens. If you do so the toes of the iron clubs are certain to make marks, which neither improve the greens nor the game of the players who follow you. * * * * * Never try your shots over again when there are other players behind you. It makes your partner uncomfortable, and he feels that he ought to apologise on your behalf to those who are kept waiting. * * * * * When practising, use the club that gives you the most trouble, and do not waste your time in knocking a ball about with the tool that gives you the most satisfaction and with which you rarely make a bad stroke. CHAPTER XVI COMPETITION PLAY Its difficulties--Nerves are fatal--The philosophic spirit--Experience and steadiness--The torn card--Too much hurry to give up--A story and a moral--Indifference to your opponent's brilliance--Never slacken when up--The best test of golf--If golf were always easy--Cautious play in medal rounds--Risks to be taken--The bold game in match play--Studying the course--Risks that are foolishly taken--New clubs in competitions--On giving them a trial--No training necessary--As to the pipe and glass--How to be at one's best and keenest--On playing in the morning--In case of a late draw--Watch your opponents. It is the same game whether it is match or medal play, and the same whether you are merely engaged in friendly rivalry with an old friend, with half a crown or nothing at all but the good game itself at stake, or testing your skill and giving rein to your ambition in a club or open tournament with gold medals and much distinction for the final victors. But, same game as it is, how convinced have we all been at times that it is a very hard thing to play it always in the same way. How regularly does an evil fate seem to pursue us on those days when we are most desirous of doing ourselves full justice. Five times in a week will a golfer go round the course and beat bogey, reckoning after each performance that he has only to repeat it on Saturday to win the prize which he covets, with several strokes to spare. Then Saturday comes, and a sad falling off is there. By the time the sixth or seventh hole is reached, the all-important card has perhaps been torn up into little pieces and flung contemptuously into a convenient ditch. Of course much of this sort of thing is due to nervousness, and there is no game in which full control of the nerves and extreme coolness are more necessary than in golf. Let the player be as keen as he likes--the keener the better--but if he is apt to become too anxious at the critical stage of a round or match, he is not the man who will ever win prizes in great competitions. He who is the most composed when in difficulties and when the game is going against him, and who treats each fresh trouble as it comes along as a part of the ordinary day's work to be surmounted in the best manner possible, is the player who will most frequently come out the conqueror. In many cases the tendency to fall into a highly nervous state at the smallest provocation will disappear with time and lengthening experience. Each year of golf should bring increasing steadiness, and the steadier a golfer becomes the more frequently will he do his best scores when they are most wanted. And so I must leave it to time and practice and the proper cultivation of the best methods to bring the ambitious beginner along into the front rank of his contemporaries. But still there are some useful hints which I may offer him and which may facilitate his progress towards the acquisition of medals and cups. To begin with, there is a little sermon to be preached on that torn card. "Nil desperandum" should always be the motto of the competition player, and it is a motto that will probably pay better in golf than in any other game. I think it is very likely that some scores of monthly medals have been lost through a too precipitate destruction of the scoring card when everything seemed to be going the wrong way. Every player should remember that it is indeed a perfect card that is without a blemish, and that on the other hand there are few rounds played by a man who knows anything about the game that are bad all through. But some men, because they have the misfortune to be debited with a couple of 8's in the first four or five holes, forthwith give up the ghost and rend their cards into small pieces with many and varied expressions of disgust. Thereafter they play well, and at the conclusion of the match are inclined to think that they were rather in too much of a hurry to be out of the competition in its early stages. If they had made a fine card for fourteen or fifteen holes from the beginning, they might have taken two 8's towards the end much less seriously to heart. They would have said to themselves that at all events there were many very fine holes, and the misfortunes which came later were not sufficient to spoil their chances of success. Well, then, when these annoyances happen near the beginning, why not take a philosophical view of them and say that as they had to come it was best that they should come quickly and be done with, and then go on playing hole after hole coolly and properly until at the end it is found that the early misfortunes have been amply retrieved? I am aware that this is very simple advice, and that it appears like a string of platitudes, but it is extremely sound and yet it is ignored on every medal day. Never, never tear up your card, for golf is indeed a funny game, and no man knows what is going to happen when it is being played. There are numberless historic instances to support this counsel, but I will quote only one which came under my personal observation recently, and which to my mind is one of the most remarkable of all. It occurred at a London club. Six players were left in the final round for a cup competition, and the conditions of playing in this final were that a medal round should be played on two different Saturdays. On the first Saturday three of the players tore up their cards, and so only three remained to fight out the issue on the second Saturday. On this occasion one of the remaining three tore up his card very early, and soon afterwards a second did so, each being unaware of the other's action, the third player being likewise ignorant of the fact that his rivals had disappeared from the contest, and that now, being the only man left in, he could make any return he liked and become the possessor of the cup. Presently he also fell into grievous difficulties, and was on the point of tearing up his card like the others, when the player who was marking for him stayed his hand. He had some idea of what had happened, and, bad score as his man's was, he insisted on its being completed, with the result of course that he was hailed as the winner of the tournament. He at all events would for the rest of his golfing days respect the moral which I have here endeavoured to convey; and what must have been the reflections of the other competitors who threw up the sponge, when they discovered afterwards that if they had kept plodding along they would still have had an excellent chance! Similarly in match-play competitions, do not get into the way of thinking that your chance is hopeless just because your opponent becomes two or three up on you, or even more than that, early in the game; and, above all, do not alter your style of play in consequence. Nothing pays like your own best and steadiest game and a stolid indifference to all the brilliant things that your opponent is doing. It is unlikely that he will keep on doing them all through the game, and when the reaction comes you will speedily make up the leeway. There are many ups and downs in a game of golf; and when the players are at all evenly matched, and neither has lost his head, early differences have a way of regulating themselves before the game is very far advanced. No doubt it is disconcerting to be three down after only three have been played; but are there not fifteen still to come? But it often appears that an even greater danger awaits the inexperienced golfer than that of funk when things are going against him, in that he is too frequently apt to become careless when he has obtained a trifling advantage. Never slacken your efforts when you are two or three holes up, but continue to play with all your might and with an extreme of cautiousness until at last you are one more up than there are holes still to play, for not until then are you sure of victory. When a man has once held a good lead, but by playing carelessly has allowed his opponent to get on level terms with him again, the moral effect upon him is usually extremely bad. When this has happened he is inclined to regard himself not as still on equal terms with his opponent, but as having suffered a great loss and being in grave danger of defeat. And this feeling is the prelude to actual defeat and the bitter self-accusations that must inevitably follow. I may have seemed to labour these simple points, but every old golfer will bear me out in saying that a proper regard for the essence of this advice is the first necessity for the man who covets honours in the golfing world. I say that all golf is the same, and no matter whether it is match or medal play, the simple object is to hole out each time in the fewest number of strokes; but the fact that a single bad hole counts far more heavily against you in a medal round, where all the strokes are added together at the finish, than in match play, where the bad hole is simply one of eighteen, and in which there is only one man to be beaten, of whose performances you are a spectator, instead of an invisible field--this difference generally calls for a change in tactics, particularly on the part of the player who knows to a nicety his own capabilities and limitations. Score play is not, of course, so generally interesting as match play, and for this reason will never be so popular; but from my point of view it is the best golf and the best test of golf; indeed, in these respects I think there is really no comparison between the two systems. Score play tests the qualities of both the golfer and the sportsman. If he makes a bad hole and drops two or three to bogey, he must not lose his temper, which proceeding is both useless and fatal, but must screw up his determination, and realise that if he can snatch a stroke from bogey at the next two or three holes, all will be just as well as ever. He must always be hopeful. If we never made a bad hole, were never set any difficult task, always did just what we tried to do--well, what then would be the use of playing golf? We should very soon ask ourselves this question, and as there would be no satisfactory answer to it, we should cease to play. The difficulties and the annoyances of golf are after all the things that make the game so attractive and render it so subtly fascinating. But all the same, when you are playing a medal round in a competition, give due consideration beforehand to this overwhelming fact, that bad holes do tell more heavily against you than in match play, and that when they are made they are not over and done with, but are on permanent record as faults to be atoned for before the round is completed. When the score player sends his ball into a bunker, takes two to escape, and holes out in eight strokes instead of in five, his punishment is not completed at this stage, as in match play. The case is held over in view of what his future conduct may be. He is, in fact, ordered to come up for judgment if called upon. Now, to avoid the pain and anxiety of all this, I suggest to the player who takes out a card in a score competition, that he should make up his mind at the beginning of the round that from the first hole to the finish he will be more than usually cautious. By this I do not mean to say that he should always play the strict safety game, for the man who invariably plays for safety and nothing else will soon find his card running up very high. Certain risks must be taken; but do not accept the very doubtful risks. In match play, I say always play the bold game. Go for everything that you can. If there is a bunker somewhere about the limit of your best possible carry, go for it. If you have a long putt for the hole, give the hole a chance, and either be in or beyond. But I do not suggest that these things should also be done in score-play competitions. If the hole is guarded by a bunker, and you have reason to fear that you cannot carry that bunker, it is in these circumstances a thousand times better to play short than to take the risk of putting your ball into it and making a serious blot upon your card. Similarly, when on the putting green, and there is a long distance between your ball and the hole, bring your mind to realise that it is really of less importance that you should hole out in one stroke than that you should do so in not more than two, and therefore concentrate your whole energies on placing yourself dead for the second putt. Therefore I say, accept a risk now and then when there is a fairly good prospect of success, and when the reward for it will be commensurate with the danger that was incurred. The last-named is an important clause. The course should be studied hole by hole for medal play, and the competitor should come to an exact understanding with himself as to the things that must be done and what things need not be done. Thus it frequently happens that a player, seeing a bunker some distance in front of him but yet not quite out of his range, goes for it as a matter of course. Obviously he must incur a certain amount of risk, and it may happen that even if he carries it in safety he may not be better off at all than if he were ten or fifteen yards on the playing side. In either case it may be an easy shot to the green, and it may even happen that of the two the longer one would be the easier for this particular golfer. But it is quite likely that he never took any account of that when taking the risk of the bunker. Now this man is to be remonstrated with, for, with the best intentions, he has displayed not courage but folly. He must realise that all bunkers are not of necessity to be carried with long shots. If all golfers played the same game, and always their best game, and, moreover, if all bunkers were placed in the proper places for bunkers, then it would be their duty to go for them every time. But either through the very good or the very bad shots that have gone before, we find that these carries vary very much, and, besides, the bunkers on all courses are certainly not placed exactly where they ought to be, and so for reckoning up the proper mode of play in order that the hole may be captured in the fewest possible number of strokes, they can sometimes for all practical purposes be disregarded. A golfer is often in an anxious state of mind when the day of a competition in which he wishes to do well arrives, and he is painfully conscious that he is completely off his play with one or other of his clubs, and has an abiding fear that it will bring him to grief. When he feels like this about the club, it will probably do so. Now the question is, whether at this crisis he shall take out a new one with which he is entirely unfamiliar and trust to luck with it, or put his faith once more in the instrument which of late has repeatedly spoilt his game. He is usually advised that in such circumstances he should not indulge in any risky experiments, and that it is madness to take a new and untried club out with him when it is more or less imperative that he should play one of his best rounds. But I am not by any means sure that this advice is well founded. No golfer plays well with a club in which he has completely lost confidence. It may not be the fault of the club at all; but there is the fact. On the other hand, the player is always possessed of a certain amount of hope when he takes a new implement in his hands. He has convinced himself beforehand, or at least ought to have done, that its points are just what he most admires, and that he is likely to do well with it. And so he probably will, even if it is only for a round or two. It is the confidence trick again. What I suggest, therefore, is that when this grave uncertainty exists about the kind of performance that will probably be made with one of the articles in the bag, and there is a new and good substitute ready at hand, the latter should not be disregarded because of a kind of instinct that in a big fight it is best to stick to the old weapons. Take the new one out with you, but do not call it into service for the first hole or two. During this preliminary stage give the old but disappointing favourite another chance to show that it will not desert you in the hour of need; but if it fails to rise to the occasion and you blunder with it during the play at the first and second holes, pass sentence upon it forthwith and relegate it finally to your bag. Then at the third hole let the new one have its trial. Over and over again have I found this method succeed most wonderfully, and I am a particular believer in it in connection with putters. A golfer may have been putting badly for a long time, but directly he takes a new putter in his hand he feels that a great change for the better has been effected, and forthwith he begins to astonish himself by holing out from almost anywhere, or at least always getting his ball dead the first time. There is no accounting for these things. They seem very absurd. But there they are, and no doubt it will be agreed that a medal or a cup is worth a new putter any time. I do not believe in any sort of training for important golf matches. It is not necessary, and it generally upsets the man and throws him off his game. If he is a smoker let him smoke all the time, and if he likes an occasional glass of wine let him take it as usual. A sudden stoppage of these luxuries causes a feeling of irritation, and that is not good for golf. The game does not seem the same to you as it was before. For my part I am neither a non-smoker nor an abstainer, and I never feel so much at ease on the links and so fully capable of doing justice to myself as when smoking. But at the same time I believe in the most complete moderation. Only by the constant exercise of such moderation can that sureness of hand and eye be guaranteed which are absolutely necessary to the playing of good golf. On one occasion when I had a championship in view I stopped the tobacco for a short period beforehand, and I am bound to confess that the results seemed excellent, and perhaps some day I may repeat the experiment. But there was nothing sudden about the abstinence in this case, and by the time the big days came round I had become thoroughly accustomed to the new order of things, and the irritation had passed away. However, these are matters which every man may be left to decide for himself according to his own good common sense, and the only object I had in introducing them was to counsel the avoidance of sudden whims and freaks, which are never good for golf. Another question is how much or how little golf should be played beforehand when a man desires to give himself the best chance of playing his best game on a certain specified day. That depends largely upon how much golf he is in the habit of playing in the ordinary course. If he is a man who plays regularly, almost every day when it is fine, I think he will generally do far better for himself by abstaining altogether for a day or two before the competition. Then, when he goes out to play in it, he will experience a zest and keenness which will be very much in his favour. There is no danger that in this brief period of rest he will have forgotten anything that he knew before, but, on the other hand, he will have a greatly improved capacity for taking pains, and every stroke will be easy to him. His confidence will be refreshed. If he continues to play his round or two rounds every day right up to the date of the competition, he will undoubtedly be "over-golfed," will have a great tendency to fall into errors, and will be generally careless. But if the would-be prize-winner is a man who has usually to content himself with week-end golf, it would be all in his favour if he could put in a day or two of practice before taking part in the big event. There will be no possibility of his becoming stale by so doing. When a competitor has the choice of playing his round either in the morning or the afternoon, I strongly advise him to select the former and get the thing over as soon as possible. I am positive that his chances of success are usually greater when he does so, especially if, in case of his electing to play in the afternoon, he has nothing particularly to occupy his mind and attention in the interval except his prospects in the forthcoming contest. Golfers are freshest and keenest in the morning, their bodies and limbs are most vigorous and anxious for work, and--a very important consideration--their eyes are most to be depended upon. And it is not an unimportant consideration that there is no indigestible lunch to interfere with the perfect ease of mind and body which are necessary to the making of a good card. But often, particularly in the case of important open competitions, the times of starting are decided by lot, and the competitor, on arriving at the course, finds that he has to accept the disadvantages of a late draw, and must endure a period of waiting for his turn to tee up. It is best to dispose of these wearisome periods not in hanging about the tee or in the vicinity of the club-house, but by going out with one of the early couples, watching their methods, and making note of the exact manner in which their best holes are played. If the course is a strange one, the information which the watcher thus derives will be invaluable to him when he comes to play his own round, for he will now be possessed of the most excellent hints as to difficulties which demand special efforts to avoid, and of particular strokes which it is in the highest degree necessary to play well. Not until he has watched the play of others in this manner will the enormous significance of the position of a particular bunker be made clear to him; he will discover the great danger of being short with certain strokes, and of overrunning the green at various holes. By thus watching other competitors' play he will probably learn more about the nature and peculiarities of the course and the way it is playing on this particular occasion, than if he were doing a round with his own clubs. Therefore, if there is time to be killed, this is most decidedly the way in which to kill it, and I may add that it is the method which I myself adopt on every possible occasion. I know that in championships and tournaments I have reaped great advantage in watching closely the play of my fellow-competitors, their triumphs and their failures, while waiting for my own turn to begin. CHAPTER XVII ON FOURSOMES The four-ball foursome--Its inferiority to the old-fashioned game--The case of the long-handicap man--Confusion on the greens--The man who drives last--The old-fashioned two-ball foursome--Against too many foursomes--Partners and each other--Fitting in their different games--The man to oblige--The policy of the long-handicap partner--How he drove and missed in the good old days--On laying your partner a stymie--A preliminary consideration of the round--Handicapping in foursomes--A too delicate reckoning of strokes given and received--A good foursome and the excitement thereof--A caddie killed and a hole lost--A compliment to a golfer. I think it is to be regretted that the old-fashioned foursome, in which the respective partners play together with the same ball, has so completely lost favour of late, and that it has been superseded to a large extent by the four-ball foursome. To my mind the old foursome provided a much more interesting and enjoyable game than its successor, and tended much more to the cultivation of good qualities in a golfer. It seems to me that this new four-ball game is a kind of mongrel mixture. It is played, I presume, because men feel that they would like to have a game of partners and yet are unwilling to sacrifice half the strokes of a round, as they do in the old game, and also because the man who is on his game desires all his power and brilliancy to count, and that they may not be interfered with by the possibly erratic procedure of his partner. But this is a selfish spirit, and quite opposed to that which should properly animate the men who play in combination. When a golfer is thus anxious for the display of his skill, surely an ordinary single-ball match is the proper thing for him. The four-ball foursome, I admit, has much to recommend it when the partners are equally matched, when both are really good players--more likely to do a hole in bogey than not--and when the course is clear and there is no prospect of their protracted game interfering with other players who may be coming up behind. When a short-handicap man is mated with a long one, the place of the latter in a foursome of the new kind is to my thinking not worth having. Is it calculated to improve his golf, or to afford him satisfaction of any kind whatever, if he plays his ball round in what is for him very good form, and yet only contributes the halving of a single hole as his share of the victory of the combination? Very likely after such a game he will feel that he must fall back once more on that old excuse of the golfer for a disappointing day, that at all events he has had the fresh air and the exercise. The tasting of the pure atmosphere and the working of limb and muscle are splendid things, enough to justify any day and any game, but no golfer is heard to put them in the forefront of the advantages he has derived from his day's participation in the game unless the golf he has played has been miserably disappointing. This new foursome is also a selfish game, because it is generally played with too little regard for the convenience and feelings of other golfers on the links. It is very slow, and couples coming up behind, who do not always care to ask to be allowed to go through, are often irritated beyond measure as they wait while four balls are played through the green in front of them, and eight putts are taken on the putting green. The constant waiting puts them off their game and spoils their day. Another objection that I urge against this kind of game is, that even when there is nobody pressing behind and there is no particular reason for hurry, there is a natural tendency on the part of each player to make haste so that he shall not delay the other three. This is the case all the way through the green, and particularly when the hole is reached and the putters are taken out. Then everybody's ball seems to be in the way of the others, there is continual lifting and replacing, more hurrying, and then, to make matters worse, there is a doubt as to what a man should do in order to help his side--whether he should hole out in one or two, or whether there is any use in holing out at all. Consequently his mind is in a confused state of reckoning and doubt when he makes his putt, and poor putt it is likely to be in such circumstances. Frequently, when a blind hole is being played, it needs a few minutes' close examination to decide which ball is which after the drive, unless each has been carefully marked to distinguish it from the others. As a final indictment against this species of golf, I would say that even when the partners are equally matched and both good players, there is still a tendency for their individual play to be spoiled, inasmuch as there is the feeling constantly present in the mind of each, that even if he does happen to do a bad hole it will not matter very much after all, as the other man is sure to come to the rescue. When it happens that just the same thought enters the brain of that other man, a lost hole is likely to be the result. Decidedly this is not the sort of game to improve the golfer's play. The four-ball foursome is so very like two single matches that there is little special advice to offer concerning the playing of it. One of the few special points to be observed by the player who is taking part in such a match is that, without being unduly selfish and grasping, he should as frequently as possible avoid being the last man of the four to make his drive from the tee. The man who drives last is at a very obvious disadvantage. In the first place, if he has seen the other three make really good drives, he is too much tempted to try to beat them all, and the usual result of such temptation is a bad stroke. On the other hand, if he has seen two or three foozles, it is quite possible that he will follow the bad example that has been set him. Thus, whatever has happened before, the last man has no real encouragement offered to him. In addition to these objections, when three men have driven from the tee they are somewhat impatient to be moving on and playing their second shots, and in this mood they have little care for what happens to the last drive. They have already had quite enough of driving. The fourth man is quite conscious of this impatience on their part, even though it may not be openly expressed by the smallest sign. So he is in a hurry to oblige, and his effort is then disappointing. I seldom hit my best ball when I am driving fourth in a four-ball foursome. Of course somebody must drive last, but not necessarily the same man every time. All that I wish to suggest is, that a player should not be too self-sacrificing, and should not, with too much modesty about his own prowess on the tee, always volunteer to drive after his partner. The old-fashioned or two-ball foursome makes a really fine and enjoyable game. It brings golfers together on even more intimate and friendly relations than usual. Partners in a foursome see very deep down into the human nature of each other. They are overwhelmingly conscious of each other's faults and weaknesses. They are enormously dependent upon each other. At the same time I do not think that even this kind of foursome is the best thing in the world for the improvement of a man's game, and I advise the young player to resist the temptation to take part in too many foursomes, to the neglect of ordinary match play in singles. For one thing, the partners, of course, only get half as much golf as they would if they were playing a round in a single match, and for another, they are too constantly anxious to play their best game. The sense of responsibility is frequently a little too much for their nerves, and you often see a man, a most dogged and persistent player in an ordinary match, who is a consistent failure in foursomes, and who in this style of game ought to be rated at six strokes higher handicap than his allowance for ordinary purposes. One feels in a foursome that one must be so very careful, and take so much extra pains, and when that feeling is uppermost in the mind while the stroke is being made, the result is often disastrous. It is unwise to interfere unduly with a partner's system of play while a match is in progress. He may be missing his drive because his stance is wrong or his swing is faulty, but the state of affairs would probably be worse than ever if an attempt were made to put him right while the game is going on. The hint will be more useful when the match is over. And if he has a particular fancy for playing his brassy, when experience tells you that an iron club should be taken, it will not generally pay to make the suggestion at the time. The man naturally takes the club with which he has most confidence and with which he believes he can make the shot that is wanted. It is fatal to interfere with confidence of this kind, and to substitute for it the hesitation and doubt which inevitably take possession of the man when he takes in his hands a weapon with which he rarely does well, and which, whatever you may tell him, he is convinced is utterly inadequate for the purposes of the situation. Let each man play the various strokes that have to be made in a foursome in his own way without interference, for nothing but chaos and a lost match can follow upon the enforcement upon each other of individual ideas and methods. This, of course, is not saying that each man should not play his game so that it may fit as well as possible into that of his partner. He may play with the club he particularly fancies, and play it in his own way, but there should be some sort of a general understanding about what he is going to do and the exact effect which his performance is likely to have upon the way the hole is played if everything happens according to programme. This makes it very desirable that the partners in a foursome match to which any importance is attached, should have more than a passing knowledge of each other's play, and of individual weaknesses and excellences. One partner may be particularly good at making a fairly full iron shot, but shaky indeed when it comes to a little pitch with the mashie over the bunker that guards the green. It is clear, on reflection, that the chief part in this playing up to each other's game should be taken by the man who has the longer handicap, and is therefore the weaker all-round player. The scratch man, being a wise and experienced golfer, will naturally place his nervous 18-handicap friend in as few difficulties as he can, and will constantly exert himself to leave him a comparatively simple shot which he may be depended upon with some certainty to accomplish in a workmanlike fashion. But the junior player must remember that it behoves him to be the most careful and considerate in matters of this kind, for in an emergency it is generally the senior who must be depended upon to win the hole or pull the match out of the fire. Let him, therefore, impose upon himself a considerable measure of self-sacrifice, playing up to his partner for all he is worth, contented in the knowledge that he is doing the proper thing, and that, though he is sinking his own individuality and doing much of what can only be described as donkey work, he is being considerably honoured by being invited to play in such superior company. It is not always the place of the junior partner to take risks; that is the prerogative of the senior. There may be a particular carry on the course which the young player is always doubtful about, but which when playing alone he constantly makes an attempt to accomplish, and very properly so. But if his effort is as often as not a failure--with the result that he is badly bunkered and the hole is lost--it would be madness for him to attempt the carry when he is playing in a foursome with a far better man than himself as his partner. He must depart from his usual custom, and play short for safety. It will be a great relief to his partner. Not lately, but in the early years of my experience, I have seen this principle carried to a curious excess. When there was a difficult carry from the tee, and an inferior player and short driver had the turn to make the stroke, I have seen his partner instruct him to miss the ball altogether--not tap it off the tee, but miss it. Thus the other man, presumably a good driver, had the ball left teed for him. These men reckoned between them that on an average it would prove of more advantage to be well over the far hazard in two strokes, than to take the risk of being short with the tee shot and possibly not getting over with the second or even the third. However, there is no doubt that performances of this kind were a violation of the spirit of golf. It is the game to hit the ball, and it is unsportsmanlike to try to miss it. Nowadays the golfing world quite realises that this is the case. In the same way, in playing through the green and in putting, it must be the constant object of the junior to play the safety game and to feed his skilful partner with as many as possible of those strokes at which he is best. Do not let him try for a desperately long second, emulating the example which his partner set him on the tee, in the hope that he may land the ball on the green. He is not expected to do anything of the kind. If he should happen to be successful, his partner would know that it was not his usual custom, that he had played beyond himself, and that therefore there was something of the fluke in the stroke after all. He would be much more likely to fail and foozle, and then what a miserable golfer would he be! His obvious duty is to play a simple, easy stroke which will be practically certain of placing the ball in such a position that his partner will have no difficulty in getting on the green with his third. And on the putting green, when anything over ten feet distance intervenes between the ball and the hole, while always giving the latter a chance, he should remember that his first duty is to lay the ball dead. If he holes out, well and good, but his partner insists first of all that the ball should be laid dead. At this crisis, also, he should be particularly careful that he never commits the unpardonable sin of laying himself, or rather his partner, a stymie. Of all the stymies in the world, that which has been laid you by your own partner in a foursome is the most exasperating. Of course, for the proper blending of each partner's game with that of the other, it is advisable, or rather necessary, that before the first stroke in the match is taken there should be some kind of general understanding about the policy that is to be pursued. First consideration is given to the turn in which the tee shots are to be taken, and the drives are so arranged that the better player takes them at a majority of the tees where good drives are most wanted. But it seems to me that very often an arrangement of this sort is arrived at without sufficient consideration. For example, it frequently happens that a long-handicap man is a very good driver indeed, better in fact than the man who is his partner and has a handicap of many strokes less. And in the same way it commonly occurs that a short-handicap man may be decidedly weak with his short approaches. On the average of the play from the tee to the hole the senior player may be fully so much better than the other as the difference in their handicaps suggests, but it by no means follows that in particular features of the game there is the same difference. Therefore the wise partners will adapt themselves to each other, so that they will get all the good out of themselves and leave untouched that which is bad. And when this compact is completed and honourably adhered to, there are at hand the makings of a victory. When four players have decided among themselves to play a foursome, and there are wide differences in their respective handicaps, there is often considerable difficulty in arranging the best partnerships. It is good to be guided by mutual preferences, for preference means confidence, and that is everything in foursome play. But at the same time it is always advisable to sort out the players in such a manner that there is as little as possible of giving and receiving strokes. For example, where there is a scratch man, two 9's (or a 6 and a 10), and an 18, the best and most enjoyable match is always likely to result from a combination of the scratch man with the 18 against the two players of medium handicaps, although the scratch man, if a selfish player, may not be disposed to saddle himself with the unreliable person at the other end of the scale. It is a point to be borne in mind that the 18 man, if, despite his handicap, he is a real and conscientious golfer, is more likely to play above his handicap than the scratch man. It is much easier for an 18-handicap player to perform like a 12 than it is for a scratch man to play like a plus 3. In my opinion the arranging of strokes to be given and received in foursome play is far too delicate and complicated. In ordinary single-match play handicapping does not always work out very well, and it is often made to look foolish in a foursome. Far better is it than adding up and dividing by clumsy fractions, and then finding that one party gets five strokes or eight, that the players should take a broad view of their respective merits, and then decide that they will either play on level terms or that a third or a half shall be given and received. The best foursome of all is one played on level terms, and an effort should always be made, and even a point strained here and there, to effect such partnerships as will make this arrangement feasible. A really good foursome, when the partners play harmoniously and the holes are well fought out, is a splendid diversion from the ordinary game of golf. The interest and excitement of each member of the party often seems to affect the others, and to lead up to an intense mutual keenness which is often superior even to that experienced in single play. There is a wholesome satisfaction in the community of interests. The winning of a hole is coveted as it was never coveted before. Have you heard what should be a classical story about the foursome? The match was all square on the sixteenth green, and one excited Scot stood by while his partner made a drive upon which the fortunes of a hard-fought game might rest. The caddies had been sent forward. The tee shot was pulled, and the ball went twisting round in the direction of the driver's boy. It struck him and he fell flat upon the ground. The driving partner dropped his club, and, with his face turned pale, muttered hoarsely to his friend, "Tonalt, I've kilt the caddie!" But Donald's mind was fixed upon other matters than the mere question of life and death, and with many excited gestures and a shriek of despair he exclaimed, "Then, tamn it all, we've lost the hole," as under Rule 25 they had. At the end of this chapter I will make the simple remark, that you can pay a golfer no higher compliment than to say that he is a good foursome player, for such a one must not only be a good golfer and a steady one, but a man of the serenest and even most delightful temperament. You must always feel that you could not play in the company of such a man too often, either with him or against him. CHAPTER XVIII GOLF FOR LADIES As to its being a ladies' game--A sport of freedom--The lady on the links--The American lady golfer--English ladies are improving--Where they fail, and why--Good pupils--The same game as the man's--No short swings for ladies--Clubs of too light weight--Their disadvantages--A common fault with the sex--Bad backward swings--The lady who will find out for herself--Foundations of a bad style--The way to success. Some people say that golf is not a ladies' game, and from time to time one hears of something in the nature of dissensions within the family circle when there are wives and sisters anxious to take up the sport which palpably affords their male relatives one of the greatest enjoyments of life, and when there are husbands and brothers who, it is said, advance arguments which for number and ingenuity would do credit to a King's Counsel, designed to show the absurdity and the futility of the desire expressed. It is a question upon which it would be out of place for me here to take any side, though it seems to me that there is something to be said for the complete separation of the men's golf from the ladies' golf, particularly in the case of large clubs and crowded courses. Golf is essentially a sport of freedom. Restraint of even the most trivial and conventional character in regard to manners and customs is irksome when there are holes to be played and tight matches to be pulled out of the fire. I like to see a lady go out on the golf links in whatever costume she thinks fit to wear for her own comfort and good play, and generally to do as she likes, as if there were nothing but Nature and a little white ball and the hole with the flag in it in all the world. I have a great admiration for the American lady golfer, whom I have several times had the opportunity of studying on her native tees, and the other day I read the perfectly true story of an American clergyman making a scathing attack from the pulpit one Sunday upon lady golfers, of whom he numbered many in his congregation. The reverend gentleman exclaimed that some of the lady members of his congregation attended divine service in the customary manner on the Sabbath, and then "swore like troopers" on the golf links on the Monday. The conduct of these ladies was no doubt exaggerated; but it appears as if it may have been reprehensible. However, it shows the keenness and the enthusiasm of the American lady golfer; and I am not at all sure that the answer of the English lady player, when she was asked if those bad words were ever uttered in this country, that the Englishwoman made fewer bad shots and had no occasion for an extended vocabulary, was entirely convincing. One hears that the ladies have coined new words for the expression of their disgust at the results of their strokes, and, on the other hand, that the limits of expletive which they permit themselves when bunkered consist of the chiding utterance, "Oh, you naughty, naughty little ball!" However this may be, I know not, and I would only remark, without presumption, to the ladies, as I have done in another place to their husbands and brothers, that golf is a game for thought and silence. Now, I am glad to see so many ladies taking up the game year by year, and thus giving the best possible answer to the question whether it is a real ladies' game or not. And furthermore, I am pleased to bear witness that the standard of ladies' golf in this country is improving every season, so that now it needs a fine man golfer to give a third to the best of the gentler sex. These good lady players, or some of them, are attiring themselves in these days as I like to see lady golfers attired, that is to say, there is evidence that they think a trifle less of fashion and dainty appearance than they do of security, comfort, and freedom of limb and muscle. But the majority of lady players do not attach the proper amount of importance to these considerations, and that is why one is sometimes a little doubtful as to the prospects of ladies' golf generally in this country in comparison with those of American ladies' golf. The American girls are adopting the game more whole-heartedly and thoroughly than their English sisters, and their devotion to it will tell. The lady of the States who is a golfer dresses for golf and for golf only. Very seldom do you see in America a lady golfer wearing a hat, or head covering of any description. When she has one, it is almost invariably a light tam o'shanter, or something very small and soft, which clings closely to the hair and does not get in the way of the swing of the club. She tucks up her sleeves like a man, and in the soles of her shoes she has plenty of goodly sized nails. And she does not look a tittle the worse for any of these things; indeed, the picture of the determined, strenuous, and yet charming lady golfer was one of the most attractive that I saw when in America. The average English girl does not appear willing to make so many sacrifices for golf as the American. She seems too often to say to herself that it is only a little game after all, and there is an end of it; and yet she is always desirous of getting on and reducing her handicap. I need hardly say that this is not the proper spirit in which to achieve success at golf. We see too many ladies on our links with big hats and no nails in their shoes. I have no faith whatever in their future as golfers. It is impossible to play good golf if one is not fitted out properly for the game, whether the player be lady or man. Few players of our sex would dream of going on to the links in a tightly fitting coat and smooth-soled shoes. But the ladies are more venturesome. After this brief lecture on attire, let me at once declare that there are many points about our English lady golfer that I greatly admire. It has been my privilege to teach the first principles of the game to many of them, and I am bound to say that for the most part I have found them excellent pupils--better generally than the men learners. They seem to take closer and deeper notice of the hints you give them, and to retain the points of the lesson longer in their memories. They are painstaking; and if she begins to play early enough in her life, adopts sensible methods, and is possessed of an average amount of athleticism, I can see no reason why any lady should not become a very fair golfer. Many somewhat spoil their prospects by concluding too hastily that they must play an altogether different game from that of their men friends, that they must have special clubs, special methods, and so forth. This is not the case. No doubt it is well for ladies to admit at once that they cannot drive as far as the men. But otherwise the man's game and the lady's game are the same in principle and in practice. As for the manner in which to play, I have not a single special piece of instruction to offer, and can only refer the lady neophyte to the previous pages, in which I have set forth as well as I am able the precise method in which each of the many strokes in golf should be played. I have merely to insist that they shall not deviate from these methods in one or two special matters in which they are advised or inclined to do. Ladies are frequently advised that they ought never to take a full swing. Of course in the foregoing pages I have frequently insisted that a golfer should avoid the absolutely full swing with all iron clubs, believing that he gets for the most part at least as good results with a good three-quarter swing. But those people who warn the ladies against the full swing, not only with their irons but with their wooden clubs also, advise the half swing because they say it is better for them for physical reasons, and that their results will be practically as good as if they had taken the three-quarter or the full. Now I am convinced that this is altogether wrong, and, without encouraging any of my lady readers to the development of a big swing and a slashing style, I do say that they will do well for themselves and for their golf if they will train themselves to the making of at least a full three-quarter. I believe that the half swing entails a severer strain upon the body when made under these circumstances than the full three-quarter, and that the body does altogether more work than is good for it, while the delusion is entertained by those who recommend the short swing that the opposite is the case. In this half swing the body seems to get too much in front of the club and to labour heavily, while in the three-quarter the arms do most of the work, as they ought to do, and the body comes in at the proper time for the remainder. Though in previous chapters I have strongly advised golfers to play a half shot with one club in preference to a full shot with one more powerful, I only do so obviously when the distance is fixed and the half shot will reach it. In playing from the tee it is an altogether different matter. In this case the distance is not fixed. The object is usually to drive as far as possible, so no half shots are wanted here. As a general rule, ladies make use of clubs that are far too light for them. Frequently they do so by advice, and then their own instinct suggests to them that they should employ weapons less weighty than those of their male relations. This would be very sensible and proper if the clubs which men make use of were the heaviest that they could swing with effect. But a man only uses a club of a certain weight, because experience has proved that it is the best and most effectual for its purpose, and usually he has a very great reserve of strength which could be employed with heavier clubs if necessary. There is no reason at all why ladies should not employ clubs of good average weight instead of featherweights. By so doing they would spare themselves a great amount of exertion, and they would certainly get better results, for it is always much more difficult to get good results with a light club than with one of medium weight. With the featherweight the swing is very liable to get out of gear. It is cut short, and is apt to wander out of its proper direction. There is, in fact, no such control over the club as there is when one can feel the weight of the head at the end of the shaft. A lady may require clubs a trifle shorter in the shaft, but this is the only difference which need exist, and it is not of itself sufficient to make any perceptible difference in the weight. So far as I have discovered, ladies have no special faults or weaknesses of their own, as distinct from other players, but I have found them more than usually addicted to inaccuracy in the backward swing, causing the toe of the club to be pointing upwards instead of downwards at the turning-point. This is the result of wrong action and loss of control over the wrists, and a study of my remarks on driving, where this matter is specially dealt with, should do much to obviate it. It is possible, however, that the lady's inferior strength of wrist, as compared with a man's, may have much to do with the fault, but even in that case it only needs caution and care to bring about a cure. I should say that fully three ladies out of every five whose play I have watched make this mistake, and it is a fault which has very serious consequences. I should advise all of them to make a periodical examination of the position of the club head at the top of the swing, as I indicated when discussing the drive, and if they find the toe is upwards they must make up their minds to get rid of this bad habit at any cost. If it has already become a part of the player's system, it will not be abolished without considerable difficulty. To begin with, she would try swinging back more slowly, as a too rapid backward swing has often much to do with it. Finally, I would suggest that any lady who aspires to be a really good golfer should take numerous lessons from those players superior to herself who are qualified to give them. I have already said that I have found ladies exceedingly good pupils, and when they set about learning the game in the right way, they often make really astonishing progress. But it must be confessed that in too many cases they do not treat the difficulties of the game with sufficient seriousness, and are inclined to think that they can get on best in their own way and by the adoption of their own methods. When once a lady has been given a couple of lessons in the swing for the drive, she often insists on finding out the rest for herself, and then a bad result is inevitable. All the practice and patience in the world will not make a good lady golfer if she does not learn the game in the right way. The simple fact is that, when a man sets about the game he admits its difficulties from the beginning, and goes about surmounting them in the right manner if he is really ambitious and covetous of a short handicap. But it often seems that ladies will not admit these difficulties, and persist in their attempt to make golfers of themselves unaided. Perhaps that is one reason why ladies do not always continue with the game with that increasing eagerness and enthusiasm which is an almost invariable characteristic of the man golfer. Learn properly, and practise much; and--well, yes, do the rest like a man, and not as if there were a special woman's way. That is the essence of my counsel to the lady aspirant on the links. CHAPTER XIX THE CONSTRUCTION OF COURSES Necessity for thought and ingenuity--The long-handicap man's course--The scratch player's--How good courses are made--The necessary land--A long nine-hole course better than a short eighteen--The preliminary survey--A patient study of possibilities--Stakes at the holes--Removal of natural disadvantages--"Penny wise and pound foolish"--The selection of teeing grounds--A few trial drives--The arrangement of long and short holes--The best two-shot and three-shot holes--Bunkers and where to place them--The class of player to cater for--The shots to be punished--Bunkers down the sides--The best putting greens--Two tees to each hole--Seaside courses. Many as are the golf courses with which the coast, the country, and the suburbs of the towns and cities of Great Britain are studded, they will no doubt be still more numerous as time goes on, and it is earnestly to be desired that in the laying out of links in the future, more thought and ingenuity may be exercised than has been the case in far too many instances during the past few years, when clubs have been formed and links have been made in a hurry. Certainly some are excellent, and I cast not the least disparagement upon them. I enjoy them. Frequently the hand of the master architect of golf is visible where one observes how shrewdly and exactly the hazards have been placed, and the peculiarities of the conformation of the country turned to the utmost account when useful, or cunningly dodged when it has been considered that they could be no good to the golfer. Without a doubt, generally speaking, those courses are the best which have been designed by good players, because none know better than they what makes the best golf. A man whose handicap is some distance removed from scratch, but who has played golf for many years, and thinks with good reason that he knows a fine course when he sees one, would nevertheless, in designing a new one, be led unconsciously to make holes which would be more or less suited to his own style of play. He might, indeed, in a most heroic spirit, place a bunker at a point which he knew would be more than usually dangerous for him, and he would feel a better and a braver man for this act; but a hundred of its kind would not prevent the course from being the ideal of the long-handicap man and not the ideal of the fine player. If plans were prepared for a new links over a particular piece of territory by a 12-handicap man and a scratch player, it is highly probable that in the most material matters they would differ greatly, and it is fairly certain that a committee of the oldest and most experienced golfers would unanimously pick out the scratch player's plans from all the others as being the best and soundest, and that without knowing who had prepared them. Time and the aggregate of pleasure given to golfers of all degrees would justify the selection. Therefore, when a new club is established and a new course is to be laid out, I suggest that it is the wiser and the better plan to take time over it and to secure the best advice. A good links is not made in a day or a week. Perhaps the cleverest and most ingenious constructor could not in a whole year make one which was in all respects the best that the land could give. Almost every time that the course was played over during the first hundred rounds, a new thought for its improvement in some small detail would occur. The moving of a tee twenty yards to the right, the addition of a couple of yards to the end of one of the bunkers, the placing of a shallow pot bunker some eight or ten yards across at some particular point--all these and many other matters of equal significance will constantly suggest themselves. My experience tells me that the perfection of a good course is slowly attained. Like wine, it takes time for the richness of its qualities to mature. Therefore, when the committee of a new club in the country sits in conference with a plan of its newly-acquired land laid on the table, and decides unanimously that a tee shall be placed at a point marked A, a bunker along the line B, another bunker at C, and the hole at D, and so forth, I protest that they are doing poor justice either to themselves or to the game. But on many links made during the past few years--made in a hurry--the results of such mechanical methods are only too apparent. I hope that the few hints that I offer in this chapter may be of service to old clubs with improvable courses and new ones with none as yet, and to those fortunate individuals who contemplate laying out a course in their private grounds for the use of themselves and their friends. Private courses are increasing in number; and for my part, though I must obviously be guilty of prejudice, I can conceive of no more enjoyable acquisition to a country house than a nine-hole course, and assuredly the possessor of it will be envied and his invitations to week-ends much coveted. The question of the amount of land that shall be called into service for the fulfilment of a scheme for a new links is one that is usually outside the control of those who project it. They have to cut according to their cloth. I need only say here, therefore, that in a general way some thirty or forty acres of land are necessary to make such a nine-hole course as shall possess a satisfactory amount of variety, and not less than seventy acres for a full-sized eighteen-hole course, this as a matter of fact being the acreage of the South Herts Club's course at Totteridge, with which I am at present associated. By great economy of space and the exercise of unlimited ingenuity, courses might be made from a trifle less land, but they are better when they are made from more. Two or three hundred acres are sometimes utilised for a good links. Where land is very scarce, and there is no possibility of obtaining more of it, I earnestly advise private owners and committees to content themselves with a nine-hole course which will have plenty of length and good sporting quality about it, rather than sacrifice the good golf that is thus within their reach in a desire to possess a regulation eighteen-hole links that could only give complete satisfaction to ladies and children. Too many courses, with scarcely a brassy shot upon them, have been ruined by this greed for holes. When the land has been allotted to the purpose, a very thorough and careful survey should be made of all its features. This is not to be done in one morning. The land, no doubt, is very rough, and at the first glance it looks ill-adapted to the golfer's purpose. Many times I have had the task of making a course from materials which at first seemed so unpromising as to be hopeless. There should be no hurry at this time. Let those who are designing the links walk slowly and meditatively over nearly every square yard of the land at least two or three times before coming to any final decision as to where to place a single tee, bunker, or hole. An open mind is the best to begin with. After one or two of these preliminary surveys, some general idea of the possible formation of the links will begin to shape itself in the mind, and this having been done, it will be practically impossible for an intelligent person to make additional journeys over the land without being struck with an idea for a great improvement at one or other of the holes which he has fashioned in his mind. If it is possible, take two or three weeks over this slow process of creation of the links. They may be altered afterwards to some extent, but for good or ill their main features will probably remain as at the beginning, and may endure for centuries. Having secured to the mind this general and somewhat vague idea of the plan of the links, it is a good thing to plant a stake at each spot where it is proposed to make a hole; and when the land is all staked out in this manner, there is, as it were, a solid foundation upon which to build up the links. The location of the stakes can be inspected from a distance and from different points of view, and it will constantly happen on these occasions that for the improvement of one or other of the holes its removal to a different place will be suggested. Continue your walks, examining the stakes from north, south, east, and west, and moving them here and there until you begin to feel a trifle weary of the business, and confident that you have planned the best possible holes out of the country that you have to deal with. Then you may proceed with perhaps the more interesting but certainly the harder part of your task. It is useless to think about fashioning the links from the plan which will now have been formed, until those natural disadvantages of the land, which cannot be allowed to remain, have been removed. Gorse and rocks may have to be cleared, and it is essential that at this stage an effort should be made to rid the course of rabbits and other undesirable vermin if any should infest it. Rabbits help to keep the grass nice and short; but they make too many holes in the course, and there is no alternative but to regard them as the enemies of golf, and to make out the death warrants of them all accordingly. The quickest and surest way of getting rid of them is to search for every hole, apply the ferrets, stop up the holes afterwards, and to keep a watch for any that return. If only one or two are left here and there, they will play much havoc with the course in the future. From this point the way in which the work is proceeded with will naturally depend to a large extent on the length of the schemers' purse, and on their optimism or otherwise as to their future prospects; but I am sure that it is best to employ as many men as can be afforded at the outset, and so grapple with the execution of the plans in a thorough and determined manner. In the making of a golf course it is very easy to be "penny wise and pound foolish." The situation of the greens having been decided upon, the question as to the length of the holes, as to which some general impression will already have been formed, comes up for decision. A proposed teeing ground should be selected for each hole, the lengths of the holes then examined and compared, and the tees moved nearer or further back as seems desirable for the improvement of individual holes or the increase of variety. If at this stage there is any chance of finding a ball afterwards, it is a good thing to drive a few from each tee and play them with the brassy, cleek, irons, or mashie up to the green. If you drive half a dozen from each tee and play them through the green to the place where the holes will be, there will surely be one or two that have turned out excellently if you are a player of any skill whatever, and a study of the strokes which have been applied to these one or two, the point of pitching, and the final lie, will reveal the entire character of the hole you are making, and tell you plainly how it must be bunkered. In a nine-hole course I think there should be seven medium or long holes, and two short ones to break the monotony and test the golfer at all points. The situation of these short holes in the round will naturally be decided to a large extent by the land and other circumstances, but when the power of selection is left to the designer, I incline to the belief that Nos. 3 and 7 are the best for these dainties. I like a short hole to come early in the round, as at No. 3, because then a golfer who has made a bad start is given a chance of recovering before he is hopelessly out of the hunt. He has a better prospect of making such a recovery (or thinks he has, which is much the same thing) at a short hole than at a long one, and, being put in a good temper again, he will very likely go on very well for the next two or three, when he will be favoured with another short one. The plight of the player who has discovered at the beginning of a medal round that he is off his drive and brassy, and that six or seven holes have to be played before a little one is reached, is certainly not pleasant. I call a good short hole one that can be reached by good play at any time with an iron club, because it fails to be a short hole when it is necessary to take wood upon the tee in order to get to the green. In an eighteen-hole course you might have three or four short holes--I think three are sufficient--and it would be well to vary their length so as to test the capacity of the golfer with different clubs, and to bring out all his qualities of resource. For a fourth hole on the short side plenty of sporting chance would constantly be afforded by one of 200 yards length. This could not be called a short hole, because under ordinary circumstances and on most days it would be too far for even a good driver to reach from the tee, but he would often be tempted to nerve himself to a superior effort, and an occasional strain of this kind is advantageous in the long run. Besides, when the wind was at his back he would frequently be successful, and on such occasions he would experience more pleasure and satisfaction from this particular tee shot than from any other of the whole round. The remainder of the course should be made up of a variety of two-shot and three-shot holes. The lengths should be varied as much as possible, and with limits of 370 yards, and, say, 530 to work between, it should surely not be so difficult as it appears to have been in so many cases of inland links to get fourteen or fifteen quite different holes. Those of from 230 to 330 yards, with which so many courses abound, are not good holes in my opinion, because they give an almost equal chance to the man who has driven well and the man who has driven badly. Take a common sort of hole, 280 yards in length. A player misses his drive, and his ball travels only for, say, 100 or 120 yards. He may still reach the green with his brassy, and should be able to do so. Now the man who drove well at this hole would need to make a second stroke with an iron club to reach the green, and would thus gain nothing from his better play. This is unfair, and what is unfair is bad. The good two-shot hole is one of the nicest and best holes on a course when it is really good. Its length is about 370 to 380 yards. Thus it will be perceived that a first-class drive from the tee must be followed up by a fine second, as straight as it is long, if the green is to be reached. The good player who has done all that he ought is thus rewarded by the clear gain of a stroke and the capture of a hole in 4, whilst the man who is a trifle weak with either his drive or his second, or has faltered to the slightest extent at either stroke, has for a certainty to use his mashie before he can call for the putter. When a two-shot hole is to be adjusted to this nicety of perfection, there is plainly not much margin for the variation of its length; but it is not necessary, nor is it even desirable, to demand continually such unerring skill from the golfer. My idea of a good three-shot hole is one that stretches for 500 to 530 yards, three fine shots being wanted. For holes of much greater length than this I have no fancy. Perhaps no serious objection can be laid against an occasional hole of 550 yards length, but what is really gained by such long journeys? Certainly the true skill of the golfer is not being more severely tested. When we come to such monstrosities as holes of 600 yards in length, it is time to call out "Enough!" for by this time we have descended to slogging pure and simple, and the hard field work at which an agricultural labourer would have the right to grumble. So I repeat that the best hole for golfing is that good two-shotter which takes the ball from the tee to the green in two well-played strokes without any actual pressing. As for total length, it should be borne in mind that a links over 6000 yards long is considered a long one, and that there are championship greens, Prestwick and Muirfield, which are (or were until quite recently; there is a tendency to stretch everywhere since the rubber-cored ball became predominant) shorter than 6000 yards. In making the plan of the course, a point of interest and importance to decide upon is the direction in which the holes shall be played. Some golfers prefer that the first and succeeding holes shall lie to the right of the starting-point, while others like best to go out on the left-hand side, that is, to play round the course in the same direction as that pursued by the hands of a clock. It is largely a matter of fancy, but personally my choice is for going out to the left because I think in this case the holes are generally more difficult, and the boundary usually being near to the left, constant precautions must be taken against pulling. Another matter particularly to be remembered is that the first tee and the last green should be close together, and neither of them more distant from the club-house than is necessary. A wide separation of these points always seems to be contrary to the proper order of things. And now we come to the perplexing problem of bunkers and where to place them, and in this connection I would remark that it would be well not to regard the lengths of the holes, as so far arranged, as final and irrevocable, and not to establish permanent teeing grounds accordingly, for it must necessarily happen, as the bunkers come to be formed on the course, and more trial rounds are played, that one's ideas will undergo considerable change, and it is easier to lengthen a hole at this stage of the proceedings, by simply placing the tee further back, than it will be afterwards. It has been a great question with some committees of newly-established clubs or of older ones in search of new courses, as to whether, in laying out their greens and settling upon the location of all their nice new bunkers, they should keep more particularly in mind the excellences of the scratch player or the trials and troubles of the 12 to 18 handicap men. On the one hand, the scratch player is the experienced golfer, the man who plays the true game as it should be played, and who finds no real enjoyment in so-called golf wherein he is never called upon to do more than tap the ball over an obstacle ninety or a hundred yards in front. Such links never put up a fight against him, and he finishes his listless round with something as near to the sense of weariness as it is possible for the golfer ever to experience. But these scratch players, in common with the men with all handicaps up to 5 or 6, are in a very heavy and hopeless minority in most clubs to-day. The bulk of the membership is made up of players of from 6 to 24, with a concentration of forces between 12 and 18. These men say, or at all events think, that as they run the club they have a right to be considered, and in their hearts the committee believe that they are justified. These men with long handicaps--some of whom have not even a desire to reduce them to any considerable extent, deriving the utmost pleasure in playing the game in their own way--can find no fun in being always and inevitably in the same bunkers, and regard driving from a tee, when they are either obliged to play short deliberately with an iron or be bunkered for a certainty with their driver, as the most dismal occupation with which a Saturday or Sunday sportsman could ever be afflicted. Therefore they cry loudly for shorter carries. They say the others are not fair, and from their particular point of view the remark is possibly justified. Even the young golfer who is determined to be a scratch man some day, though he is eighteen strokes from that pinnacle of excellence as yet, becomes rather tired in the long run of finding constant punishment waiting upon his valiant attempts to drive his longest ball, and thinks the committee should be reminded that there are others in the world besides the immediately coming champions. Amidst these conflicting desires, committees and course designers appear frequently to have attempted a compromise with no particular satisfaction to anybody. It is impossible to lay out a course to suit all the different players in a club, and my own most decided opinion is that the bunkers and other hazards should always be placed to test the game of the scratch player, and not that of the handicap man. A course that is laid out for the latter very often inflicts severe punishment on the scratch player, and it is surely hard that the man who has spent many years in the most patient and painstaking practice should be deliberately treated in this manner when the comparative novice is allowed to go scot free. Moreover, when a bunker is so placed that a long carry is needed from the tee, the handicap man will find his game much improved by playing on the course. At first he finds he cannot carry the hazard, and for a little while contents himself with playing short. But he soon tires of this timidity, takes more pains with his strokes, braces himself up to bigger efforts, and at last the day comes when his ball goes sailing over the obstruction. Afterwards the performance is repeated quite easily, and the views of one man as to the unfairness of that particular carry have undergone a radical change. It is better for the beginner that he should have a hard course to play over than an easy one, and, much as he may grumble at the beginning, he will in the end be thankful to those who imposed a severe experience upon him in his early days as a golfer. Therefore, if it is decided that there must be a bunker in the centre of the course in the line of the drive, I suggest that it should be placed at a distance of about 130 to 145 yards from the tee. The second bunker, if there is to be another stretching across the course with a view to imposing difficulties on second shots or guarding the green, should be rather less than this distance from the first, so that the man who has topped his drive and is short of the first hazard should still have a chance of clearing the next one with his second shot. Recovery ought never to be impossible. But really I am no believer at all in bunkers placed across the course. Certainly let there be one in front of the tee to catch the bad drive, and another to guard the green; but, generally speaking, the merely short ball carries its own punishment with it in the distance that has been lost and has to be made good again. The straight driver is not the man to be punished. It is the player who slices and pulls and has obviously little command over his club and the ball, and who has taken no pains to master the intricate technique of the drive, for whose careless shots traps should be laid. As often as not the bunker in the centre of the course lets off the ball with a bad slice or pull on it. So I say that bunkers should be placed down both sides of the course, and they may be as numerous and as difficult as the controlling authority likes to make them. But hazards of any description should be amongst the last features to be added to a newly-made golf links. Not until the course has been played over many times under different conditions, and particularly in different winds, can anyone properly determine which is the true place for a hazard to be made. At the beginning it may have been placed elsewhere in a hurry, and it may have seemed on a few trials to answer its purpose admirably, but another day under different conditions it may be made clear that it is in the very place where it will catch a thoroughly good shot and allow only a bad one to escape. I would not have insisted so much on this need for deliberation and patience, if it did not so often happen that as the result of placing the hazards on a new course in too much haste, they are found afterwards to be altogether wrong and have to be moved, with the waste of much time and money. There is little to the point that I can say about the making of the putting greens, as so much depends upon the natural conditions and opportunities. Sometimes there is nothing to do but to cut the grass short and pass the roller over it a few times and the green is made, and a first-class green too. At other times there is need for much digging, and the turf with which the carpet is to be relaid may have to be carried to the spot from a considerable distance. Particularly when so much trouble is being taken over the laying of the greens, do I beg the makers of courses to see that they are not made dead level and as much like a billiard table as possible, which often seems to be the chief desire. To say that a putting green is like a billiard table is one of the worst compliments that you can pay to it. By all means let it be true in the sense of being smooth and even, and presenting no lumps or inequalities of surface that are not plainly visible to the eye, and the effect of which cannot be accurately gauged by the golfer who has taught himself how to make allowances. But on far too many greens the man with the putter has nothing to do but gauge the strength of his stroke and aim dead straight at the hole. He derives infinitely less satisfaction from getting down a fifteen-yards putt of this sort than does the man who has holed out at ten feet, and has estimated the rise and fall and the sideway slope of an intervening hillock to begin with and a winding valley to follow, his ball first of all running far away to the right, then trickling across to the left, and finally wheeling round again and rolling into the tin. Only when there is so much calculation to be done and it is so precisely accomplished does the golfer practise the real art of putting, and taste the delights of this delicate part of the game. The other is dull and insipid in comparison. There is the less excuse for making the flat and level greens, inasmuch as even the beginners can appreciate the sporting quality of the others and enjoy practice upon them from the first day of their play. Let there be plenty of undulations, and then with the changing positions of the hole a player can practically never come to any particular green upon which he may have putted hundreds of times without having a problem set him entirely different from any that he has had to work out before. Greens, of course, are of all sizes, from fifteen to fifty yards square, and I beg leave to remark that large size is a fault in them, inasmuch as the bigger they are the less is the skill required in the approach shot. It is perhaps unnecessary for me to point out as a final word, that when tees have to be specially prepared and turfed, it is a decided improvement to a course to have two at different points for each hole, one nearer and more to one side than the other. Not only do these alternative tees enable each of them to be given a periodical rest for recovery from wear and tear, but they afford an interesting variation of the play, make it possible to impose a more severe test than usual upon the players when it is felt desirable to do so, as on competition days, and also in some measure to counteract the effects of winds. Of course when tees have not to be specially made there is endless variety open. It is obvious that the greater part of the foregoing remarks applies chiefly to the construction of inland courses. Seaside links laid over the dunes are made by Nature herself, and generally as regards their chief features they must be taken or left as the golfer decides. A new hazard may be thrown up here and there, but usually the part of the constructor of a seaside course is to make proper use of those that are there ready made for him, and which are frequently better than any that could be designed by man. CHAPTER XX LINKS I HAVE PLAYED ON Many first-class links--The best of all--Sandwich--Merits of the Royal St. George's course--Punishments for faults and rewards for skill--Not a short course--The best hole--The Maiden--Other good holes--Prestwick an excellent course--The third and the ninth holes--The finest hole anywhere--Hoylake--Two or three tame holes--A means of improvement--Good hazards and a premium on straight play--St. Andrews--Badly-placed bunkers--A good second hole--The finest one-shot hole to be found anywhere--An unfair hole--The best holes at Muirfield--Troon--North Berwick--Cruden Bay--Dornoch--Machrihanish--A splendid course at Islay--The most difficult hole I know--Gullane--Kilspindie--Luffness--Links in Ireland--Portrush--Portmarnock--Dollymount--Lahinch--Newcastle--Welsh courses--Ashburnham--Harlech--On the south and south-west coasts--The rushes at Westward Ho!--Newquay--Good holes at Deal--Littlestone--Rye--The advantage of Cromer--Brancaster--Hunstanton--Sheringham--Redcar--Seaton Carew--St. Anne's--Formby--Wallasey--Inland courses--Sunningdale--A splendid course--Another at Walton Heath--Huntercombe--London links--Courses in the country--Sheffield--Manchester--Huddersfield--"Inland" courses at the seaside--A warning. Of all the golf courses that have any pretensions to being considered first class, or even good second class, I can call to mind very few over which I have not played a round, and at a time when the reputations of so many of them are being severely overhauled, and their merits and demerits criticised, some expression of my own opinions may prove interesting alike to the golfers who know them well and to others who are looking forward with eagerness to the enjoyment of games upon them at future holiday times. Recent championships and big matches have resulted in such wonderful scores, that some golfers are inclined to ask despairingly whether we have any really first-class course at all; and links which in the past have been considered perfect are spoken of contemptuously as fit only for handicap men who want their golf made easy. If they attach any importance to my opinion, then let them be assured that we still have many links which come near to being perfect, and that, notwithstanding the advent of the rubber-cored ball, there is no reason to complain about them or agitate for great alterations. We have them in England, Scotland, and Ireland--perhaps more in Scotland than elsewhere, but that is chiefly due to accidental circumstances. I am constantly asked, when the discussions to which I have referred are taking place, which in my opinion is the best course in the world. Many considerations enter into such a reckoning; but, after making it carefully, and with full knowledge of the fact that my answer is at variance with many of the best authorities on the game, I say Sandwich. Then let me tell you why I consider the links of the Royal St. George's Club to be the best that are to be found anywhere. There is, in the first place, not a single tee shot in the round where good play must not be shown by the golfer if he wants to achieve success. There is scarcely a hole at which a player who only half hits his ball from the tee does not find himself in grave difficulties, demanding an unusually brilliant recovery and sterling play until he has holed out, if he is to have any chance of getting on level terms with his opponent again, assuming that the latter is playing the proper game. The bunkers are so placed that a good shot has to be made every time to carry them. On the other hand, you are always satisfied that virtue is properly rewarded at Sandwich, and that if your tee shot is hit truly and well you are certain to be nicely situated for your second. Elementary considerations as these may appear to be, there are many courses having the reputation of being first-class where this reward is not always so sure as it is at Sandwich. The greens on that course are in all cases well protected, and they abound in character and variety. Some critics say that the carries over the first bunkers from the tees are too long; but I do not agree with them. Without being a particularly long driver, anybody who hits his ball truly can carry any bunker at Sandwich that ought to be carried from the tee. Then at the Championships in 1904 everybody was declaring, with much knowledge that had come after the event, that the course was on the short side, as was proved, they said, by the phenomenal scores that were made in the Open competition. I do not agree. The scores made by two or three players were certainly low, but that was because they played exceptional golf. If I admit that the course is the merest trifle on the short side in going out, I hasten to add that a man must be playing perfect golf to get to the turn with a low score, while, unless his play does come within these narrow limits of perfection, he may find, grand player though he be, that he may easily run up a total for his nine holes that would look foolishly large. Coming in, there is certainly no shortness about the holes, and there is plenty of scope for the man who wants to open out his shoulders with his driver and his brassy, while there are hazards everywhere for the punishment of the balls that are not kept in the fairway. These are the chief considerations which lead me to give an emphatic vote in favour of Sandwich when I am asked which is the best course--that is to say, the best test of golf--that is to be found in the British Isles, or elsewhere so far as I know, and I ask to be given no more favourable opportunity of studying a golfer's points, than to see him play a round or two over the St. George's links. I should say that the third hole at Sandwich, although a short one, is in golfing quality one of the best of the eighteen, because it is so splendidly protected with bunkers and rushes everywhere, so that the player who would get on to the green from the tee does indeed need to be bold, and as accurate as he is bold. No faintness of heart, no doubtful stroke, will ever in the result be flattered by this third hole. The sixth or Maiden, famous everywhere, is very fine indeed, though it is not nearly so difficult as it used to be. The eighth is another beauty, well guarded by bunkers; a trifle on the short side if the wind is following, but a terror in length if the breeze is coming from the green. The ninth is good. The tenth calls for a perfect drive straight down the middle of the course, in default of which the second shot will abound with difficulty; and at the fifteenth another very straight tee shot is wanted. If there is a breath of wind to help the ball from the tee, a plucky player may then come to the conclusion that he has a chance of reaching the green with his second, and a fine shot will take him over the treacherous little bunker that guards it, giving him a 4 of which he may be proud in the best of company. These are the gems of Sandwich. Next to this course, I think that Prestwick with its Himalayas and its Alps is the finest that we have. It is an excellent test to apply to a would-be champion, although there have been complaints that this course also is short. Yet it is longer than it used to be, and it is merely the rubber-filled ball that makes it seem short. The third hole at Prestwick is one that stirs the soul of the dare-devil golfer, for, after he has despatched the ball safely and well from the tee, he finds a big, gaping bunker, the famous "Cardinal," ahead of him for his second--an ugly brute that gives a sickening feeling to the man who is off his game. Defy this bunker, be on the green with your brassy, put a 4 on your card, and you have done something which should make you happy for the morning. The ninth again is an excellent hole at which the straight driver is rewarded all the way, and, if he does his duty, is given a 5. I have no hesitation in giving my judgment that the seventeenth is the finest hole to be found on any links. I say so because it is the best specimen of a really perfect two-shot hole. If there is the slightest flaw in either the drive or the second stroke, all prospect of reaching the green in two vanishes into thin air. Mr. Laidlay once lost a match and an amateur championship because his second shot here was not quite good enough. A good tee shot well into the middle of the course, a second that is as clean as a shot can be and as straight as a bullet from a gun, with the gods of golf smiling approval all the way and particularly when your second is nearing the green--with all these you may ask for your putter for the third stroke. But there is a bunker before the green, a bunker just beyond the green, and rushes to the right and left, so that the second shot has indeed to be a beauty for its maker to be wholly satisfied. This is the sort of hole that all good golfers best like to play, because they know that the good shots are certain of their reward, and that not merely the bad shots but the indifferent ones are met with just penalties every time. It is said that no two golf strokes are ever alike, but there is just enough similarity about them to prevent individual strokes from living very long in history except in a few striking cases. Perhaps the most memorable shot ever played in golf was that made at this hole by the late Mr. Fred Tait when he was engaging with Mr. John Ball, jun., in the final tie of the Amateur Championship in 1899. The Scottish favourite was in the bunker guarding the green with his second, and it so happened that the bunker on this occasion was filled with rain water, in which the ball was floating. Mr. Tait chipped the ball out beautifully on to the green, and saved a hole which seemed a certain loss. It is hard to find many holes that are worthy of being put in the same class as this. Man cannot make such holes. They are there when he seeks out the land for the first time with his golf clubs. Hoylake is a good course. There are one or two holes on it that must be admitted to be very tame. If the land in the middle of the course which is at present out of bounds were taken in and made playable, these holes could be much improved. The hazards are good and plentiful, and a satisfactory premium is put upon straight play. The ninth is a nice hole, a really good drive helping the player considerably. The eleventh is another pretty one, neither long nor short, but just that length which a fine shot from the tee will reach, and accuracy is demanded by the rushes which seem all over the course as you stand to drive. I call St. Andrews a good course generally; but its bunkers are badly placed. They punish the man who is driving well more than the man who is driving badly, for they are generally the length of a good long drive. If this defect could be remedied, and if there were a few more bunkers at the sides to catch the pulled and sliced balls, then St. Andrews would be a fine links indeed. As it is, there are some excellent holes. The second is beautiful--beautiful if the flag is put in the centre of the green--because then a good second shot is rewarded as it ought to be. But it generally happens when big matches are being played there that the hole is placed in a corner, which frequently spoils the prospects of these good second shots. The seventh is good, calling for a most accurate second, and the eleventh is the finest one-shot hole to be found anywhere. The green is on a plateau with bunkers all about it, and if you overpitch it your ball will be in the rushes beyond. Many golfers swear by the seventeenth; but I am not one of them. I declare that it is a very unfair hole, and there is no encouragement here to be plucky. The player must be pawky all the way, for it is fully two to one against there being anything but punishment as the result of bold tactics. The man who tries to place his long shot on the green may try again and again, and he will be convinced that it is next to impossible to stop there when he reaches it. For some reasons I like Muirfield; but it does not enjoy so many advantages as the other championship courses. There are not so many sandhills. It is on the flat side, and at the first glance you might take it to be an inland course; but after a single round you are greatly impressed by the good golf that is to be obtained upon it. The turf is capital, some of the hazards are very fine, and on the whole I think it may fairly be regarded as a very good championship test of golf. The fourth, twelfth, and eighteenth holes all call for first-class seconds if the greens are to be reached. There are so many other good links in the north that a further selection becomes increasingly difficult. Troon, abounding in sandhills, is very fine, and the player needs to be very skilful to get round it in a low score. North Berwick is also good, and it is surprising to see how well the links are preserved considering the enormous amount of play to which they are subjected. There are many good holes at popular Carnoustie, with a fine length about them which calls for good brassy play, and which is calculated to bring out all the good points that a golfer has in him. Cruden Bay and Dornoch are enjoyable; but those who want to get the best golf in Scotland need not always go to those places that revel in reputation and where an inconvenient crowd may at most times be depended upon. Some of the gems of North Britain are hidden away in inaccessible corners, and the golfers who would reach them must make tedious journeys by land and sea. But he who is worthy of the game is in my opinion amply rewarded for these travelling labours, by the quality of the golf that is vouchsafed to him at his journey's end, and he is spared the annoyance of being obliged to book his starting time overnight and of having a couple of hours to wait upon the tee if he is a minute late in the morning. I believe that Machrihanish is one of these very fine but out-of-the-way courses, but it happens to be one over which I have not hitherto played. I can tell of another where the most glorious golf is to be obtained, and which I can strongly recommend to those on the lookout for a place at which to spend a golfing holiday. It is at Islay. There the air is grand, there is excellent accommodation to be obtained at the combined hotel and club-house, and as for the quality of the golf I do not hesitate to say that the course is in every respect fit for the championships to be decided upon it. There is one hole here, the third, which is the most difficult anyone can imagine. If I were asked to select one from all the thousands of holes that I have played in my time, I should pick this one out for difficulty. They call it Mount Zion, and I think it is a good name for it. You must make three very good shots to reach the green, and in the matter of accuracy the third needs to be a gem if any satisfaction whatever is to be got out of the whole business. The green is on a plateau, and it is protected by every contrivance that ingenious Nature has vouchsafed to the makers of courses. If you are short you are in a running stream; if you pull you go out of bounds; and if your ball trickles over the green, away it goes into the sea--tortures the most terrible for the erring ball. Yes, decidedly I think this is the hardest hole I have ever seen. The first time I played it I took 10 to hole out, and yet won it from a very fine professional player who is an ex-champion! I have never done a hole better in my life than when I once halved this with Taylor in 4 in the course of a match which Taylor won at the twenty-fourth hole. The seventh is also a very fine hole with a bunker in front of the tee, which is very similar to the Maiden at Sandwich. An old golfer who lives there told me he can remember the time when it was a rabbit scrape. Like all golfers who know them, I sing the praises of Gullane, Kilspindie, and Luffness. There is a variety of good golf to be obtained in Ireland also. Portrush, Portmarnock, Dollymount, Lahinch, and Newcastle (co. Down)--all these are fine links. For a place to visit for an enjoyable golfing holiday, when health is a governing consideration also, I should select Portrush as one of the very best, while golfers who wish to play at Portmarnock and elect to put up in a Dublin hotel have an experience of pleasant variety which I at all events have found very agreeable, for you have first the train, then the car, and last of all the boat to take in order to reach the course, and not an inch of the journey is wearisome. Of course this proceeding cannot be recommended to those golfers who prefer to sleep in close proximity to the first tee, regardless of all other pleasures that are to be obtained without any sacrifice of the game. The course I like best in Wales is that at Ashburnham, over which the Welsh Championship was last played for. It is one of those excellent natural links which require very little attention. The Royal St. David's course at Harlech is also very good. Coming back to England again, I agree with all others that splendid golf is to be obtained at Westward Ho! although there is one quite unique feature of this course of which some golfers, myself among the number, do not bear the pleasantest recollections. I refer, of course, to the rushes of a peculiar growth which are to be found there in such abundance. I can conceive no nightmare more horrible to a player than one in which during his hours of troubled sleep he is in imagination vainly trying to rescue his unhappy ball from the clutches of these famous rushes. They stand full five feet high, strong and stiff like stout twigs, and they have sharp and dangerous points which seem as if they might be made of tempered steel. A kind of blossom appears on them in the season as if to disguise their evil features. Any player who is unlucky enough to put his ball into them (and there are one or two holes at which even a good shot may find its way there) must always encounter a considerable risk of breaking his club in the endeavour to play out again. I believe that attempts have been made to grow these rushes elsewhere, but the seeds that have been carried away from their native Westward Ho! have never prospered. Perhaps some golfers may reflect that this is just as well, though with all their faults and dangers I certainly do not condemn them as a hazard. They are a novelty, and all things that come from Nature must be admitted without question into the game of golf. On the south coast there are several fine links. Newquay is excellent for a holiday, and the course of the Cinque Ports Club at Deal, now that it is eighteen holes, is very fine. I have not enjoyed recent acquaintance with it, but the short fourth hole which they call the Sandy Parlour struck me when I was last down there as being a very sporting little piece of golf. Both Littlestone and Rye are admirable, and I have pleasant memories of the latter, particularly in connection with a match I once played there with Mr. Fred Tait. Again, on the east coast of England there are courses in number which afford the best opportunities for enjoyable and skilful golf. Cromer is a mixture of inland and seaside. It is one of those seaside courses which don't look what they are, but some parts of it are good, especially those which lie through the sand dunes. The lower part is tame. However, the air is beautiful, and the golfer who makes his headquarters at this place enjoys the material advantage of having three or four other first-class links within easy reach. For example, there is Brancaster, which, though a long distance from any railway station, is worth any amount of trouble that may be expended on the journey. The turf is excellent, the hazards well placed, and the golfer who does not keep straight is penalised as he ought to be. It is a fine course. Then there is Hunstanton, which is also very good, and Sheringham too. Higher up there is golf at Redcar and Seaton Carew which none need despise. On the north-west coast there is more golf to be had that is well worthy of the name. St. Anne's and Formby are both capital, and fine golf is necessary to get round these courses at all well. Wallasey is highly satisfactory. Both my space and my memory are unequal to giving a complete list of all the seaside courses that should be commended, and the absence of any particular one from my little list does not imply that I rank it as inferior, although I have tried to mention all those that I consider the very best. So far I have said nothing about inland links, because the golfer who is going away from his own for a brief period for pleasure and improvement usually elects to play at the seaside, and wisely so, for, apart from the superior hygienic properties of atmosphere, there is no getting rid of the fact, however much we may be attached to some inland courses, that seaside golf, when it is the real thing, is entirely different from any other. It is better in every respect; in fact it is usually ideal. It gives more benefit to the mind and body of the overworked player, it pulls out his game and makes a golfer of him as nothing else can ever do, and it affords such variety of a true sporting character as nothing but Nature can provide. But in thus extolling the seaside game, I do not wish for a moment to be considered as disparaging the golf that is to be had almost everywhere throughout the country in these days. Inland golf is a necessity to all except the leisured people who have no occupation which chains them to cities and towns, and there is now so much of it that it has taken a dominant place in the golfing world. And if the inland turf does not possess those glorious qualities that distinguish the seaside article, and if the bunkers constantly bear evidence of having been carted to the place where they are situated, and if, moreover, the evenness of many green fields becomes somewhat monotonous, nevertheless the golf which is to be obtained at many of these places is thoroughly enjoyable, and at the same time as severe a test of skill as the most conceited player could ever wish for. Take Sunningdale, for instance. This course, in my opinion, is the best of all the inland links with which I am familiar, and it requires the very finest golf to get round it in anything like a decent score. Unless the golfer plays with his head as well as with his club, he will find himself in difficulties all the way. Walton Heath is another good example. Here also a capital player must be on the top of his game to get round in anything like bogey. Those who made this course have mastered the undesirable eccentricities of the rubber-cored ball as few others have done. This ball is too apt to despise the average inland bunker, particularly in the summer-time, and goes skipping over it as if there were no obstruction in sight. But it does not do that at Walton Heath, where they have made the bunkers so deep that the ball inevitably stops in, and there is nothing for it but to ask the caddie for the niblick and resign yourself to losing a stroke. I should like to see the managers of other courses take a leaf out of the Walton Heath book. Bunkers that were once quite deep in the old days of the gutty are in too many cases shallow and useless under the new conditions. I do think that the splendid state of the Walton Heath links is marvellous considering the short time that has elapsed since the club was formed. I have never played at Huntercombe, over which my old friend and opponent, Willie Park, has spent so much care and time and money, but I believe that it is similarly good, and I have heard golfers, for whose opinion I have the highest respect, declare enthusiastically that it is one of the best inland courses to be found anywhere, while the high hill air is splendid. Considering the many disadvantages under which they labour, particularly in the matter of soil, which is mostly of the clay variety, the links round about London may be considered good, and though the metropolitan golfer may not always appreciate the fact, during one period of the year he scores over all others. This is in the summer-time, when the hot sun has at last dried and burnt up the grass on many seaside links and made them slippery and difficult even to walk upon. At such time the grass on the London links is still usually quite fresh and green, and not until some weeks later does it yield to the scorching rays. For the most part, too, the London links are exceedingly well kept. Lees, the greenkeeper at the Mid-Surrey course at Richmond, is the best man for that duty that I know. I cannot attempt to give any adequate information about the hundreds of links that are now dotted about all over the shires. It must suffice to say, in confining myself to large centres, that I have pleasant memories of good golf that I have had on the fine course at Lindrick in the Sheffield district, and at Trafford Park near Manchester. This is indeed a very nice inland course, with gravelly soil and a capacity for keeping dry during the winter. At Timperley there is another good links. The Huddersfield course is a splendid one to play upon, and very tricky too. Its merits are indicated by the quality of golfers that it breeds. It has made several men who have won the Yorkshire championships, and in club matches the Huddersfield team is a very hard one to beat. There is one class of course of which I have not yet made any mention, and which I do not think it is necessary to do more than refer to. It is that mongrel kind which is both seaside and inland, but which is in the full sense neither, situated, that is, at a seaside resort, and may be in the very closest proximity to the sea, but with none of the properties of the real seaside course--no seaside turf, no sand dunes, no wild natural golf. These courses are usually elevated on cliffs. In many cases the golf that is to be obtained upon them is excellent, and I only wish to point out to unpractised golfers who are about to start for a holiday and have taken no advice, that if they are making for a seaside place and want that kind of golf which they have heard is to be had at Deal, Sandwich, Rye, Westward Ho! Littlestone, St. Andrews, North Berwick, and scores of other places, they should make quite certain that they are taking their railway tickets in the proper direction. Otherwise, when they arrive upon the links that they have chosen, they may fail to discover any difference between the course visited and that on which they are in the habit of playing when at home. I only mention the matter because I have known so many cases of severe disappointment arise through mistakes of this kind. CHAPTER XXI GOLF IN AMERICA Good golf in the United States--My tour through the country--Mr. Travis's victory in our Amateur Championship--Not a surprise--The man who played the best golf--British amateurs must wake up--Other good Americans will come--Our casual methods of learning golf--The American system--My matches in the States--A good average--Driving well--Some substantial victories--Some difficult matches--Course records--Enthusiasm of the American crowds--The golf fever--The king of baseball takes to golf--The American Open Championship--A hard fight with J.H. Taylor--A welcome win--Curious experiences in Florida--Greens without grass--The plague of locusts--Some injury to my game--"Mr. Jones"--Fooling the caddies--Camping out on the links--Golf reporting in America--Ingenious and good--Mistakes made by non-golfing writers--Lipping the hole for a hundred dollars. I have a higher opinion of both the present and the future of golf in America than that which seems to be entertained by a large number of eminent players in this country. I think that American golf is very good at the present time--much better than it is given credit for being--and I am convinced that it will be still better in the future. I made a long golfing tour through the United States in 1900, when Englishmen for the most part regarded the game in that country with as much seriousness as they would have bestowed upon golf in Timbuctoo if they had heard that it was being played there. At that time it seemed to be taking a firm grip of our cousins, and I saw enough to convince me that America was coming on quickly, and that before long the old country would have reason to fear her. Everything that has happened since then has strengthened my belief, and the eyes of the British were at last fairly opened when the Championship was played for at Sandwich in June of last year, when, to the chagrin of our own leading amateurs, an American, in the person of Mr. Walter J. Travis, became the victor, and took back with him across the Atlantic the Amateur Championship Cup. So far from surprising me, that event was exactly what I expected. When I was in America I played against Mr. Travis once or twice, and though he was then in the improving stage and evidently not at the top of his career, I felt that he was a man who might very likely do great things in the future. Afterwards I followed his play with some curiosity and interest. I saw that in course of time he beat many good men whose form I understood precisely. I knew that he was one of the steadiest golfers I had ever seen--a man of fine judgment and marvellous exactness, who always played with his head, and was constantly giving the closest possible study to the game. I felt that when he came to play for our Championship he would make a very bold bid for it. When I heard that he was going to Sandwich last year, I made him my "tip" for premier honours, and before the first round was played I said to many friends, "Mark my words; if Travis gets anything like a fairly easy draw to start with he will go right through." And so he did. I saw him play on this memorable occasion, which will never be forgotten as long as any of the events of golfing history are remembered, and, in opposition to the opinions of other British critics expressed in many columns of print during the weeks following, it was and is my absolute conviction that his was the best golf played in that tournament, and that he thoroughly deserved to win. He played with his head the whole way through, and his golf was really excellent. It was only natural that our people should be very downhearted when they saw what had happened, for it seemed nothing else than a great disaster. I do not think that in the long run it will prove to have been so, for the inevitable effect of it was to wake up our British golf, which stood sadly in need of arousing. I think that amateur golf in this country has been steadily depreciating for some time, and at the present moment I think that the standard of merit of our best players is lower than in the days when Mr. Harold Hilton, Mr. John Ball, jun., and the late Mr. Freddy Tait were at their best. And despite the American shock, I cannot profess that the outlook at the present moment is particularly encouraging. There are other good golfers in the States besides Mr. Travis, and, frankly, I think that unless we wake up in this country the Cup will go there again. For the moment our numerical strength in the Championship tournament is in our favour. When there are only half a dozen Americans entered out of a total number of over a hundred, the odds are evidently against them, but an "American invasion" is threatened, and then we shall see what we shall see. The chief reason why it is difficult to feel optimistic about the prospects of amateur golf in this country is because the rising generation, upon whom we must depend for our future champions, do not take sufficient pains to make themselves masters of the game. They are too haphazard in learning it. The beginners on our side are too apt to say to themselves, "I will go and teach myself to hit a ball first, and then I will take a lesson," which is, of course, entirely wrong. Then one of their friends tells them to do a certain stroke in one way, and another tells them the opposite, and thus at the end of six months they have got into such a thoroughly bad style that it is the most difficult task in the world for a professional to set them right. Those who have the future of British golf at heart cannot afford to disregard or wink at these vagaries on the part of beginners, on whom we depend to constitute the national system in coming years. Now the national system of America is altogether different. They are not haphazard there. They seem to take a deeper interest in the game and its science, and they never think of trying to learn it by the chance methods which are so much in favour with us. They take the game with the utmost seriousness from the very beginning, and obtain the very best advice that they can. The professionals never have a minute to spare, and their engagement-books are constantly filled up for three weeks in advance, so that without that length of notice nobody stands a chance of getting a lesson for love or money. That is the way in which the people of America are learning to play golf, and it is the proper way. It is slow but it is very sure; and unless I am very much mistaken, there will in the future be other players coming across the Atlantic to take part in our championships who will be as great as Travis if not greater, and if we on our part do not forthwith begin to take our golf more seriously it may be a sad day for us when they do come. As I have said, American golf was only just budding when I made my tour through the country in 1900; but nevertheless I found that tour extremely interesting and enjoyable, and everywhere I was given the heartiest and most enthusiastic reception. Nobody even begrudged me the American Championship which I brought back with me, and nobody made any unkind criticisms of my play, or suggested that I did not in any way deserve the victory. My tour began in March and did not finish until the end of the year, but was interrupted for a short period at the beginning of the summer, when I made a flying trip home in order to take part in our own Open Championship. As it happened, the best that I could do was to finish second to Taylor, but I may add that this result was better than I expected, considering the sudden change of golf and climate that I experienced. I had to cover several thousands of miles in order to play the matches in which I took part in America. Of these matches I only lost two when playing against a single opponent, and each time it was Bernard Nicholls who beat me, first at Ormonde and then at Brae Burn. There was not a blade of grass on the course on which Nicholls won his first match from me, and I leave my readers to imagine what playing on a links consisting of nothing but loose sand was like. Altogether I suffered only thirteen defeats, but in eleven of them I was playing the best ball of two or more opponents, which was the task that was generally set me. I won over fifty matches and halved two. Some of my victories were somewhat substantial. At Point Comfort I beat Willie Dunn by sixteen up and fifteen to play, and at Scarsdale I got the better of the same opponent to the extent of fifteen and fourteen. Such wide margins naturally suggest opponents of inferior ability; but if I may modestly say so, I do not think that was wholly the case. I consider that at that time I was playing better golf than I had ever played before or have done since. As was the custom there, I used to go out on the links in the very thinnest and airiest costume. In Florida it was too warm to play with either coat or vest, so both were discarded and shirt sleeves rolled up. Generally, like my opponents, I wore no jacket, but a neat waistcoat with sleeves which helped to keep the arms together. In such attire one was afforded a delightful sense of ease and freedom which considerably helped one's golf. Then again, whether it was due to the fine dry atmosphere--as I think it was--or not, the ball certainly seemed to fly through the air with less resistance offered to it than I had ever experienced before. Never have I driven so well as I did with the old gutty in America in that year. Many of the professionals whom I met were men who were taught their golf in this country, and were players who would usually hold their own in the best of professional company. The American papers gave very lengthy reports of all the matches in which I took part, the headlines and what followed them being frequently very flattering. There was "The Golf King," and many such as that, in type nearly an inch deep. Perhaps I may, without offence, be permitted to quote from the account given in a leading daily newspaper of the second match in which I defeated Willie Dunn--at Scarsdale--which I only do for the purpose of showing that the conditions of play were sometimes really trying, and not at all conducive to big victories or record breaking. This paper said: "If it were necessary to dwell upon the extraordinary consistency of the champion's game, one has only to refer to his card for the four rounds (it was a nine-hole course) in yesterday's match, as his worst nine holes totalled forty-one and his best thirty-seven. If the turf could only unearth a thoroughbred as reliable as Vardon, poolrooms in Greater New York would be past history in very short order. Vardon's skill probably never underwent a severer test than in the match yesterday. Everything was against his exhibiting anything approaching championship form. He had not only to contend against a biting north-west wind, which temporarily got mixed up with a flurry of snow, but the course itself, from the character of the land, is about as difficult to score over as any in the country. The ground is one succession of 'kopjes,' while seven of the nine holes are 'on the collar' all the time, and at an angle of from twenty to thirty degrees. The course is only 2677 yards in playing distance. On paper this gives the impression of being nothing out of the ordinary, but confronted with it in actuality, it is about as hard a proposition as any victim of the golf habit could tackle. The only course one can compare with it here is Oakland, and the latter is a billiard table by the side of it. At the finish of the thirty-six holes Vardon said, 'I never felt so fagged out in my life. In fact I could play seventy-two holes on the other side every day for a week and not have been fatigued half so much.'" I do not remember that I ever committed myself to such an extravagant statement as this, but the course was certainly a very trying one that day. Yet on that occasion I lowered the eighteen holes record for the course. Altogether I beat most of the records of the courses during my tour. The first time I ever took my clubs out on American soil, on the course of the Lawrence Harbour Country Club, I reduced the record for the nine holes (held by Willie Dunn) from forty-one to forty. Yet the weather was so bad just then, and the clay greens were in such a state of puddle, that temporary greens had to be made on the fairway. I won my first match by nine up with eight to play. On one or two occasions I was obliged to beat the record in order to win my game. Thus, when playing on the Wheaton links at Chicago, Will Smith was three up on me at one time, but by beating the links record I won at the finish by two up with one to play. This was one of the very toughest struggles I had over there. There was no mistaking the enthusiasm of the American spectators. They came to the matches in great crowds--always a large proportion of ladies--and they seemed bent on learning all that they could from the play. Everybody seemed to be trying to practise my grip. All kinds of theories were invented to account for the manner in which my shots came off. On one occasion, after I had got in a good one with a cleek, an excited spectator jumped the ropes, ran up to a friend of mine and screamed, "Say, which arm did he do that with?" I looked to see if all my arms and legs were intact, or if there was anything that appeared unusual about them. I discovered afterwards that by "arm" he meant "club." Many places of business were closed for the afternoon when I was playing in certain districts, and on one occasion the Stock Exchange did so. A letter to one of the papers, concerning the extraordinary manner in which America was taking the golf fever, contained these sentences:--"I went into a leading business house to-day and found the three partners of the firm in a violent discussion. As I thought they were talking business I concluded that my presence was unnecessary, and started to edge away. Suddenly I noticed the head of the firm rush into his office and rush out again with a cane. As the words were heated I was just about to interfere when I saw a weapon appear on the scene, but the head partner wasn't looking for blood. Instead of hitting anyone he swiped the cane along the ground, and then I heard the words--'This is how Vardon holds it.' I wanted to make an appointment with one of the partners, but he told me that he wouldn't be in. However, I guess I'll meet him, because I'm going out to Dixie myself." The professionals and the golf shops suddenly began to do an enormous trade in sticks, and Bernard Nicholls, the only man who defeated me single-handed, preferred not to play me again for a long time. He said his victory had done an enormous amount of good to his business, and he did not want to spoil it. From numerous quarters I received all kinds of offers to "star" in one way or another, some very big fees being suggested. Would I become a store manager at a huge salary? Would I make an exhibition for so many hours daily of driving golf balls in a padded room in the city? And so on. I actually did accept an offer one day to do exhibition swings in a room in a Boston store. I was to start at 9.30 and continue until 5 each day, doing tee and other shots into a net for half an hour at a time, and then resting for an hour before taking the next turn. There was a fresh "house" of about two hundred people every time, and it was part of the bargain that my manager should stand by and explain everything. But he had had enough of it after one or two turns. Then I found it became terribly monotonous, and to interest myself I kept trying to hit a particular spot on the wall near the ceiling, until the stores manager came forward in a state of great excitement, declaring that only six inches from that spot was the tap of a patent fire extinguishing arrangement, and that if I hit it the room would be flooded by a series of waterspouts in less time than I could imagine! By four o'clock my hands were blistered badly, and at that stage I had had enough and went out. In the meantime I was the constant recipient of numerous presents of all kinds, and the invitations that I received to dinners were far too many for any professional golfer to accept. I do not mention these things with any desire for self-glorification. They are ancient history now, and nobody cares about them. But they serve to show the whole-hearted manner in which America was going in for golf, and the tremendous hold that it took on the people. We talk on this side of the "golfing fever" and of people "going mad" about the game. Believe me, the Britisher is a mere dallier in comparison with his American golfing cousin. An interesting incident happened when the American Championship was played for on the Wheaton course, when, as I was informed, the game of golf achieved the most notable victory that it had ever achieved in the United States. This was the complete surrender to it of the veteran champion and overlord of baseball, the American national game. How that came about I will leave one of the Chicago newspapers to relate:--"Cap. Anson surrendered to golf yesterday. The capitulation of the veteran of America's national game took place on the links at Wheaton during the race between Harry Vardon and J.H. Taylor. 'Cap.' says the game of golf is a go. He has stood out against it and ridiculed it ever since it began to get the people. Anson knows Charles S. Cox, Vardon's manager, and accepted an invitation yesterday morning to look in on the game. On the links he balked at the proposition of walking four miles in one trip around the course, but he lined up with the crowd to see Vardon drive off. The ball went higher than any fly 'Pop' ever saw in his life. It sailed 220 yards. Anson was first to start the applause with a 'Good boy. She's a homer.' Then he led the gallery to the first green. He was puffing when he pulled up at the eighteenth hole, but he felt better than if he had stolen second base. 'I'd like to take a crack at that golf ball,' he said. 'You can put me down for a trial the first chance I get. Wouldn't mind togging up in kilts just to give the Prince of Wales a run for his money.'" For the sake of giving prominence to it, this paragraph was put in a fancy border and let into the middle of the sheet of newspaper, so the Chicago people evidently attached some importance to the capitulation of the worthy captain, and I hope that by this time he has had many thousands of cracks at the golf ball and that his handicap is low. I was intent on making a bold bid for this American Open Championship. Victory in it seemed to be the one thing essential to make my trip the greatest possible success. My friend Taylor, who had just beaten me for the Open Championship at St. Andrews, had himself come over to the States, and was also a candidate for the premier honours of American golf. As it turned out, we had practically the whole contest at Wheaton to ourselves, and a rare good duel it was, at the end of which I was at the top of the list, but only two strokes in front of my English opponent, while he was eight in front of the next man. The system of deciding the championship was the same as on this side, that is to say, four medal rounds were played, two on one day and two on the next. At the end of the first day's play I was just one stroke better than Taylor, my score for the two rounds bring 157 to his 158, and on the second day I did 156 to his 157, so that on the whole event I was 313 to his 315. Taylor waited on the edge of the green while I holed out my last putt, and was the first to grasp my hand in sincere congratulation. Beautiful weather, the biggest golfing crowd ever seen in America up to that time, and a good links, made the tournament a great success. The partner who went round with me during this championship competition was Will Smith, the holder, who finished fifth. I had some curious experiences in the course of my journeyings about the country, and I am not sure that they were all good for my game. During the early months I was down in Florida away from the cold and the snow. I met some good golfers there. It was necessary to play an entirely different game from that to which we are accustomed in this country. There was no grass on the putting "greens." They were simply made of loose sand, sprinkled on the baked ground and watered and rolled. When there was a shortage of water and there was wind about, the fine part of the sand was blown away, and the surface of the "greens" then consisted of nothing but little pebbles. It was not easy to putt over this kind of thing, but I must not convey the impression that these sand "greens" were wholly bad. When properly attended to they are really nice to putt upon after you have become accustomed to them. It was impossible to pitch on to them, and one had to cultivate the habit of running up from a very long distance. Thus I got into the way of playing a kind of stab shot. The tees consisted not of grass but of hard soil, and one had to tee up much higher than usual in order to avoid damaging the sole of the driver. This provoked the habit of cocking the ball up, and as a corrective all the teeing grounds in Florida sloped upwards in front. Locusts were responsible for eating all the grass away from some courses, and I had a unique experience when I played Findlay at Portland. When we were on the putting greens, men had constantly to be beating sticks to keep the locusts off the lines of our putts. If it struck a locust the ball would come to a sudden stop. Acres and acres of land about there were without a single blade of grass. The locusts had eaten it all away. After we left Florida we reached some good courses, and resumed the old kind of play. It has often been suggested that the peculiar conditions of play in America, to which I was subjected for a long period, resulted in a permanent injury to my game as played at home, and in the light of reflection and experience I am persuaded to think that this is so. I have played well since then, have felt equal to doing anything that I ever did before, and have indeed won the Championship, but I think I left a very small fraction of my game in the United States. In the way of other novel experiences I might mention that on one occasion I played as "Mr. Jones." I wanted a quiet day, and did not wish a too attentive public to know where I was. Three friends joined me in a foursome, but when we went into the club-house after our game, another anxious golfer went up to my partner when I was standing by, and inquired of him whether he had heard that Vardon was playing on the links. My friend declared that he knew nothing of such a rumour, and I could hardly refrain from laughter as the anxious one went to pursue his inquiries in other quarters. Another time two other professionals and myself visited a course where we were unknown, and, hiding our identity, pretended that we were novices at the game, and begged of our caddies to advise us as to the best manner of playing each shot, which they did accordingly. We deliberately duffed most of our strokes at several holes, but this course of procedure tired us immensely, and so at last we abandoned it and began to play our natural game. Imagine the consternation and the indignation of those caddies! Each one of them threw down his bag of clubs, and, declining to carry them for another hole, walked sulkily off the course. On one occasion we camped out for the night on the links on which we were playing, and a very pleasant variation from the ordinary routine we found it. The American newspapers, to which I have frequently referred, do their golf reporting very well. Their journalism may be "sensational" or whatever you like to call it, but the golfing section of it was usually interesting, ingenious, and very intelligent and reliable. On the occasion of one match in which I played, a paper gave up nearly the whole of one of its pages to a large panoramic view of the links. The flight of my ball and that of my opponent, and the places where they stopped after every stroke, from the first to the last, were accurately marked. Thus the whole game was illustrated in a single picture in a very effective manner. As was inevitable, I was sometimes victimised by interviewers who wrote "interviews" with me which I had never accorded, containing most amazing particulars about my methods and habits. Occasionally a reporter was turned on to describe a game when he knew nothing about golf, and then the results were sometimes amusing. One of these writers had it that I "carried away the green with my drive." Another said I "dropped dead at the hole." When playing at Washington against two opponents, I happened to beat bogey at the first hole. One of the reporters was told of this achievement, but did not quite understand it. Going to the next hole, we were walking through a bunker when he came up to me and politely inquired if that--the bunker--was the kind of bogey that I had beaten. I was told a very good story of American golf reporting. A match was arranged between two well-known amateurs, one of whom happened to be a very rich banker. One reporter, who admitted that he "knew nothing about the darned game," arrived rather late on the course, and borrowed the "copy" of an experienced golfing journalist for information of what had already happened. When this "copy" was duly returned with thanks, the late-comer remarked to his obliging friend, "Say, you made a bad mistake in one part." "What was it?" the other asked. "Waal, you say that So-and-so 'lipped the hole for a half.'" "Yes, that is right." "Oh, go away; you don't mean to tell me that a rich man like that would be playing for a paltry fifty cents. I've altered it to 'lipped the hole for a hundred dollars.'" And I remember that once when I was playing the best ball of two amateurs, one of the reporters had been instructed by his chief to keep the best ball score. I happened to lose the match on the last green, but on looking through the paper the next morning I was surprised to see it stated that I was beaten by not one but many holes, making this defeat in fact the biggest inflicted on me during my tour. The paper said that it was. I could not make anything out of it for some time, until at last I discovered that the reporter had reckoned my score also in the best ball figures! Obviously I could not beat myself. The best I could do was to get a half, and that was how it came about that I never won a single hole in the "Harry Vardon _v._ Harry Vardon and two others" match. CHAPTER XXII CONCERNING CADDIES Varieties of caddies--Advice to a left-handed player--Cock-shots at Ganton--Unearned increments--An offer to carry for the fun of the thing--The caddie who knows too much--My ideal caddie--His points--The girl caddie--A splendid type--Caddies' caustic humour--Some specimens of it--Mr. Balfour's taste in caddies--When the caddie is too anxious--Good human kindness--"Big Crawford"--"Lookin' aifter Maister Balfour"--An ingenious claim--A salute for the Chief Secretary--A story of a distressed clergyman--Sandy Smith--The clothes he wore--An excess of zeal--The caddies' common-sense--When his lot is not a happy one. The caddie is an indispensable adjunct to the game of golf, and for the most part he fulfils his functions very capably; but there are caddies of every imaginable variety, and their vagaries are such as to cause wonderment on the part of their employers sometimes, amusement at others, and not infrequently exasperation. Some of them know too much about the game, and others far too little, and I hardly know which of these classes is in the long run the worse for the golfers who engage them to carry their clubs. An incident of which I heard that happened to a well-known player on the North Berwick links, must have been very trying to him. On a busy day all the regular caddies had been engaged, and the fishermen were drafted into the club-carrying service. The player, having asked one of these fishermen if he knew anything about the game, and having been informed that he had only a little knowledge of it, resigned himself calmly to the inevitable, and told the man complacently that he would do. This player happened to be left-handed, and took up his stance on the first tee accordingly, whereupon the son of the sea at once adopted the part of tutor, and with some warmth and show of contempt exclaimed loudly, "I dinna ken much aboot the game, but ye dinna ken a wee bit. Mon, ye're standing on the wrong side of the baw! Awa' to the other side!" Golfers at the beginning of a round are proverbially susceptible to small influences, and when a player is accustomed to lean somewhat upon his caddie, as even some of the best occasionally do, I can well imagine that such a trivial matter as this is enough to mar a tee shot. There were some strange specimens of the caddie species at Ganton when I was there. "Make a tee, boy," said a golfer to one of them, evidently a novice, one day. The player had been waiting about for something under a minute, while his servant showed no sign of making the usual preparations for the tee shot. The boy did not seem to understand. "Make a tee, boy," exclaimed the player a second time sharply, but still there was no response, and then the man called for some sand, bent down and made the tee himself. At this the boy attributed the failure of his understanding to the player's limited powers of expression, and somewhat scornfully exclaimed, "Why, if you had told me it was a cock-shot that was wanted, I should have known what you meant!" On competition days at Ganton we had often to secure a number of lads who had never seen the game played before, and very interesting specimens of the youth of Yorkshire they often were. One day, I remember, a competitor pulled his ball very badly, and his caddie, who had gone on a little way in front, received it hard on a very tender part of his head. He was not seriously hurt, but much pained, and forthwith, excusably perhaps, he gave way to tears. To soothe him his employer presented him with half a sovereign. The tears suddenly ceased, the boy's face broke into a happy smile, and a moment later, when the two were trudging away towards the hole, the youngster ingenuously inquired, "Will you be coming out again this week, sir?" There is a kinship between this story and that of the caddie at North Berwick, son of the greenkeeper there, some years ago, when first he began to carry clubs. He was a very precocious little fellow, and the player for whom he had been engaged to carry for the day was a well-known golfer from the south. When the day's play was far advanced, and the time of reckoning was drawing nigh, the boy seized an opportunity of sidling close up to his patron and asking him, "D'ye ken Bob S----?" the said Bob being one of the notabilities of the links. The player answered that he had not the pleasure of Mr. Robert's acquaintance so far, and inquired of the boy why he asked such a question. "Weel," was the answer, "it's a peety ye dinna ken Bob S----. He's a rale fine gentleman, for he aye gies twa shillin' a roond for carryin' till'm; no like some that ca' themsels gentlemen, an' only gie a shillin'." But lest it should be imagined from the recital of these incidents that the caddie is invariably over-greedy, and that he has no soul for anything but the pecuniary reward of his service, let there by way of contrast be told the story of the boy who was willing to carry clubs for nothing--the one solitary instance of such a disposition to self-sacrifice that there is on record. This time the golfer was not a great one. He had his faults, and they were numerous, and for their conquest and suppression he came to the conclusion that it would be better if he went out alone over the links and wrestled with them determinedly. A caddie watched him going out thus solitary, and felt sorry, so he said to him, "I will carry your clubs for a shilling, sir." But the golfer replied, "No, my boy, not to-day, thanks; I will carry them myself." The golfer missed his drive, foozled his second, put his third into a bunker, and endured other agonies. The caddie had been following at a respectful distance, and when the ball had been duly picked up out of the bunker, he made a further appeal. "I will carry for ninepence, sir." "No, I do not want a caddie," was the answer again. "I will carry for sixpence, then." "No, go away." On the next tee the player, overcome by conflicting emotions, missed the ball altogether two or three times, and then was the caddie's opportunity, which he seized without hesitation. "I will carry for the fun of the thing, sir!" This is a digression, but I fear that digressions are inevitable when one enters upon the subject of caddies, and is persuaded to dip into one's recollection of caddie stories. The ignorant caddie is trying, but not less is the one who knows too much about the game, or thinks he does, and insists upon inflicting his superior knowledge upon you during the whole course of the round. Once when I was playing for the Championship, my clubs were carried by a caddie who swore horribly at me all the time, notwithstanding that from the beginning I was going strongly for the first place. That boy got on my nerves. I was approaching well, but my putting was certainly not so sure and confident as it might have been. "What the ---- is the good of shooting at the flag if you can't putt worth a d----!" he exclaimed in great disgust on one occasion when I had the misfortune to miss holing out a somewhat short putt. He has begged to be allowed to carry for me many times since then, but I have steadfastly refused his offer, for I would not be handicapped with him upon any consideration. The caddie I like best of all, and he who I am convinced is the best servant for the average golfer, is he who thoroughly understands the game, has a deep knowledge of the course that is being played over, knows exactly what club to give you upon any and every occasion, and limits his functions to giving you that club without being asked for it. This caddie is a silent caddie, who knows that words of his are out of place, and that they would only tend to upset his master's game. It will generally be found that he, above all others, is the one who takes a deep and sympathetic interest in that game. He never upon any consideration gives advice without being asked for it. On the other hand, he takes care that no act or omission of his shall ever cause his man the most momentary irritation, for he has sufficient knowledge of the golfer's temperament to know that these trifles are a constant source of bad holes. When the player is preparing for his shot, and his eye is wandering anxiously between the ball and the hole, he puts out his hand whilst still continuing his survey of the ground, and as he puts it out he feels it grasp the handle of the exact club that is wanted. There is little need to look at it. The caddie knew and acted. The stance is taken while the player is still in his thoughtful mood, the shot is made while his mind is still concentrated to the utmost extent on the difficult task in hand, and then, after a happy result, the player and this faithful, truly sympathetic caddie go quietly on their way. When you are on the green he never needs to be told to go to the pin. He is always there, standing at the hole as soon as the time has come to putt; and while, if the putt is a poor thing, he has nothing to say (for silence is more than ever welcome at such a time of sorrow and disappointment), he permits himself a few courteous words of congratulation if a great success has been achieved at the last stroke at the hole, and the crown been placed upon an effort that has been truly praiseworthy throughout. This is my ideal caddie, and I am prepared to make some concessions to have him always at my side during the most trying rounds that I have to play. If he always performs the duties I have named, promptly and quietly, I do not care whether he really knows much about the game or not. If a caddie does the round of a course often enough in the company of good golfers, he knows the club to use for every particular stroke, even though he may have no practical knowledge of the game, and I ask nothing more of him than that he should always hand that club to me without keeping me waiting for a single moment. These caddies are a rarer species than the others. I am no advocate of female labour, but I have often, after an experience of the girl caddie, been tempted to wish that there were more of them in the land, for they are uncommonly good. The little girl of humble lot seems, nine times out of ten, to possess all those qualities which go to the making of a good caddie--according to my standard of a good caddie--in a remarkable degree. Unlike some of her elder sisters, she never talks; but she always watches the game very closely and takes a deep interest in it. She is most anxious--if anything too anxious--to do her service properly and well, and to the most complete satisfaction of the gentleman who will reward her for it at the finish. She never keeps you waiting for your bag. The clubs are always there at your hand. If it is obvious to this little girl's simple intelligence that you want your brassy, she has it ready for you. If there is a doubt about the club, she does not make the mistake of offering you one on chance, as it were. She is too timid for that. She holds the bag before you and lets you choose yourself and carry all the responsibility on your own shoulders. The good boy caddie, whom I have referred to as my ideal, does that also. I said he was always waiting with the club ready, but if it is evident to him, as to the player, that it is a difficult question of judgment as to which particular club should be taken in somewhat puzzling circumstances, he allows the golfer to make his choice from the whole collection in the bag, making no suggestion of his own either by word or movement, unless invited to do so. Cannot every golfer recall numberless instances of bad shots and holes lost because in one of these moments of doubt, when his own inclination was leaning to the employment of one particular club, his caddie thrust another before him? Feeling that there must be something good in the caddie's recommendation, he has been tempted in spite of himself to use it. How frequently are the consequences disastrous in such circumstances as these, and how unenviable are the golfer's after reflections upon his own weakness! Yes, decidedly the girl caddie excels. I have seen her on many links up and down the country, and she is always good. In one of my last matches last season--at Luton--I had one to carry for me, and she was as good as any. Perhaps it may be urged by some players that it is not a good thing for girls to do this work. About that I have nothing to say. I only know that they do their duty well. A peculiarly caustic but half-unconscious humour is the characteristic of caddies everywhere, but particularly in the north, and while golfers continue to lack absolute perfection, and their ministering attendants to expect it from them every time, it will probably remain a characteristic. A fair specimen was the remark of his caddie to a player whose handicap was several strokes removed from scratch, and who, having become badly bunkered on one occasion, tried nearly every iron club in his bag in a vain endeavour to get out. The case was heartbreaking, and he turned despairingly to his caddie with the question, "What on earth shall I take now?" There was little encouragement in the answer, "Take the 4.5 train." There is a good story also of a certain Welshman of title who became enthusiastic over the game, though he did not excel at it. He conceived that it would be a good thing to make a tour of the famous Scottish courses with the object of improving his play, and in due season he arrived at a certain famous green, where he employed as his caddie an individual who had a considerable reputation for blunt candour. The turf suffered severely every time this player made use of his irons, and the caddie shook his head gloomily and sadly as he witnessed the destructive work that went on daily. At last there came a day when he could stand it no longer, and when the Welshman had taken a mighty swipe at the ball with a heavy iron and made a deep excavation for several inches behind it, the club carrier moaned painfully, "O lord, man, hae mercy on puir auld Scotland!" It is said that the golfer played no more on those links. It was on this same course that two players went out one morning to play, and found a friend waiting alone on the first tee, who said that he had fixed up a match with a certain Captain Blank, who would be coming along presently. The possibility of a foursome was considered, and a question was asked as to what kind of a player the Captain was, his partner replying, "Oh, he is excellent. He drives a good ball, plays his irons well, and is exceedingly useful at the short game; in fact, he is a first-rate all-round man." Expecting confirmation of this eulogium, he turned to his caddie and said, "You know the Captain's play well enough. Now, what sort of a player would you say he is?" The caddie replied scornfully, "Captain Blank! He canna play a shot worth a d----. He's nae better than yoursel'!" The fact is that no player is great in the eyes of his caddie, for on one occasion when two gentlemen who were very fair hands at the game were doing a round and being closely pressed by a couple behind, who seemed to be driving inordinately long balls, one of them observed that perhaps they had better let them go through as they seemed to be playing both well and quickly. "Na, na, naething o' the kind," interposed one of the caddies. "They're just twa duffers like yersels!" And great eminence in other fields counts for nothing with the caddie if his man cannot golf in good style. There is the story told by Mr. Balfour of the distinguished general, hero of many battles, who, having duly found his way into his twentieth bunker, was startled by a cry of irritation from his caddie, "Come, come, old gentleman, this will never do!" This great statesman-golfer relates another anecdote showing that caddies are much the same the whole world over. An English golfer was playing at Pau and had a French caddie attending upon him. He made one particularly fine approach shot, and, as golfers will at such times, he turned round to the boy with excusable vanity for applause. But the boy's English vocabulary so far comprised only two words which he had heard uttered on several occasions, but the sense of which he did not understand. Feeling sure, however, that they must be appropriate to this occasion, and desiring to be appreciative, he smiled pleasantly into the golfer's face and murmured, "Beastly fluke!" Mr. Balfour, by the way, has a particular and decided taste in caddies, for he has written that he can gladly endure severe or even contemptuous criticism from them; can bear to have it pointed out to him that all his misfortunes are the direct and inevitable result of his own folly; can listen with equanimity when failure is prophesied of some stroke he is attempting, and can note unmoved the self-satisfied smile with which the fulfilment of the prophecy is accentuated; but ignorant and stupid indifference is intolerable to him. The caddie, in the statesman's opinion, is not, and ought not, to be regarded as a machine for carrying clubs at a shilling a round, but rather occupies, or ought to occupy, the position of competent adviser or interested spectator. The caddie ought to be as anxious for the success of his side as if he were one of the players, and should watch each move in the game with benevolent if critical interest, being always ready with the appropriate club, and, if need be, with the appropriate comment. But I don't like to see this anxiety for the success of one's fortunes upon the links carried to excess. It is then a disturbing factor, and its humorous aspect does not always appeal to one as it should. Some golfers might be flattered when they come to know that their caddies have backed them to the extent of half the remuneration they will receive for carrying the clubs for the round. It is a touching expression of the caddie's belief in them. But after all this kind of thing does not help to make a good caddie. Apart from other considerations, it does not make the boy carry any the better because he is over-anxious about the result of the match, and, though some golfers might be inclined to ridicule the suggestion, it nevertheless is a disturbing element in one's game if one knows that even the caddie will be very deeply concerned if every stroke does not come off just as well as it ought to do. The caddie is not above letting you know of his wager; sometimes he will even tell you of it. Two golfers of some Highland celebrity were playing a match one day at Luffness, and after a hard round they came to the eighteenth tee all square and but this one hole to play. At this critical stage of the game the caddie of one of them approached his master and nervously whispered to him, "Please, sir, wad ye do your very best here, for there's money on this match." And the golfer did try to do his very best indeed, but he pressed and he foozled, and he lost the hole and the match. Sympathetically he turned to his caddie to ask him what was the amount of the lost wager that he might pay it for him and soften his disappointment. "It was a penny, sir," said the boy. But despite his constant sarcasm and his utter inability to tolerate anything except the very best in golf, there is after all much good human kindness in your caddie if he is worthy of the name. "Big Crawford" will always be remembered as a fine specimen. On the day when Mr. A.J. Balfour played himself into the captaincy of the Royal and Ancient club, a gentleman who was looking on, and who was well acquainted with the fact that when Mr. Balfour was in Ireland as Chief Secretary he never played a round of any of the Irish links without having plain-clothes detectives walking fore and aft, inquired very audibly, "Is there no one looking after Mr. Balfour now?" "Big Crawford" was carrying for him that day, and he heard the question. He turned with a look of severe pride towards the quarter whence it came, and answered it as loudly, "Aw'm lookin' aifter Maister Balfour." There was nothing more to be said. The chief of the Conservatives has certainly an enormous popularity with the caddies. He so evidently loves his golf so much, and he has great sympathy with them. He bears amiably with their weaknesses. He was one day playing a match with Tom Dunn, who was his tutor, at North Berwick, and by a mixture of skill and luck was enabled to hole out at "Pointgarry out" in two. It happened that he received a stroke from Dunn at this hole, and the caddie ingeniously pointed out to him that he was thus entitled to consider that he had done the hole in one. "How excellent!" he said. But in the same breath the caddie begged leave to remind him that it was customary for all good golfers to celebrate the performance of this particular feat by the bestowal of some special token upon their caddies. Mr. Balfour was amused. He tantalised the boy by observing that rather than that he should have to pay anyone for watching him do these great things, he surely ought to receive remuneration from all spectators for doing them. The boy felt that there was truth in this new view of things, and a sad look was stealing over his face, when the right honourable gentleman handed over to him the customary fee. Another time on the links, two officers, a Colonel and a Major, were playing in front of Mr. Balfour and his partner, when the latter were courteously invited to go through so that their enjoyment of the round would not be interfered with by any waiting. At the moment when Mr. Balfour was passing the others, he was surprised to hear a word of command called out by the Colonel's caddie, who happened to be a Lucknow veteran. "Attention! Eyes front! Shoulder arms! Present arms!" And thereupon each of the caddies took from his bag a driver and with it presented arms in proper soldierly style, Mr. Balfour, who was Chief Secretary at the time, smiling with pleasure at the interesting compliment and acknowledging the salute. He has a remarkable memory for the caddies who have served him, and once, when on the tee, just about to engage in a foursome, he recognised one of his opponents' caddies as a boy who on a former occasion had carried his own clubs, and he nodded to him kindly. Naturally the caddie was immensely pleased, and turning to one of his colleagues he remarked, "Ye see hoo we Conservatives ken ane anither!" Another instance of the deep humanity of "Big Crawford," whom I have just mentioned, occurred on one occasion when he was carrying for an Edinburgh clergyman, who, in going for the Redan, had the misfortune to be badly bunkered, his ball, in addition to the other difficulties of the situation, lying in a deep heel mark. He was palpably in great agony of mind, all the greater in that he never uttered a word. Crawford crept quietly to his side and whispered gently, "What a peety! What a peety! But gin an aith wad relieve ye, sir, dinna mind me, dinna mind me!" and thereupon he discreetly retired for some little distance. Sandy Smith, another famous caddie, was one day carrying for a player who had the good fortune to be no fewer than six holes up on his opponent by the time the eighth hole was reached. At this green, something having gone wrong with the reckoning of the strokes, there was a mild dispute as to whether the hole had been won by Sandy's man or whether it had been halved. Eventually it was agreed that it was halved, but as the players moved away to the next tee, he who was six down being out of earshot in front, his opponent remarked to Sandy, "You know, Sandy, I still think I won that hole after all." Sandy seemed shocked at such a cold-blooded greed for holes, and reprovingly, very seriously, and sharply said to his employer, "Haud yer tongue, sir; haud yer tongue. Wad ye break the man's heart?" Sandy used to remark that "the finest gowffer on the green was Maister Edward Blyth," and it was not until he had expressed this opinion with an almost wearying frequency that his hearers suspected that there was some connection between his choice and the fact, which he admitted one day, that "his auld claes fits me best." Apparently he had the measure of every player on the course. "I'm wantin' a word wi' ye, Mr. Blyth," he said to his favourite one day. "What is it, Sandy?" "It's no' muckle, sir; it's jist this, ye ken. I'm wantin' an auld suit o' claes frae ye; ye're the only man hereaboot that'll fit me." But apparently there were others, for one day when a player for whom he was carrying asked him if he knew the Lord Justice-Clerk, who happened just then to be passing in a foursome, Sandy replied, "That's Lord Kingsbury, ye mean. O ay, he's a great freen' o' mine. Naebody kens his lordship better nor me. Thae's his breeks I've on." Golfers should, I think, sometimes be on their guard lest a too kind-hearted caddie, in an excess of zeal for his employer, should be tempted to transgress the laws of the game, or depart from strict truthfulness in his behalf. Sometimes it is done with a wonderful air of innocence and simplicity. Caddies have been known, when their employers have been in doubt as to exactly how many strokes they have played at certain holes, to give an emphatic, but none the less untruthful declaration, on the side of fewness. They mean well, but mistakenly, and it is better for everybody concerned, but particularly for the caddies, that they should be severely reprimanded when there is reason to doubt their good faith. And who shall say that another, and for our purposes the final characteristic of the average caddie of experience, is not a wonderful amount of solid worldly common-sense of a variety specially adapted to golf? And what golfer is there who has not at one time or another had the advantage of it? But he may at the time have been unconscious of the assistance. There is the historic case of the caddie on the Scottish links who warned a beginner, dallying too much on the tee, that he "maunna address the ba' sae muckle." Forthwith the southern tyro, greatly exasperated at his own failures, burst out, "So far as I know I haven't said a word to the infernal thing, but the irritation of this beastly game is enough, and if I have any more of your confounded tongue you may repent it!" Then the caddie murmured to himself, "I dinna like 'is look. I'll better get 'm roond as pleesant as possible." Could any advice have been more delicately worded than that of the caddie to the stout clergyman who with all his strength made a most mighty swing at his ball on the tee with the usual result--a foozle? "It'll nae do, sir; ye ken ye canna drive as far as that." "Wha--wha--what do you mean by such a remark? As far as what?" gasped the reverend but irate gentleman. "I jist mean, sir, that ye canna drive as far as ye wad like." Perhaps we shall never hear the best caddie stories, for is it not likely that a great abundance of them are made and told in the sheds after the day's play is over, and when the golfer's tools are being wiped and cleaned, and his irons burnished to a beautiful brightness? It is then that the caddie is in his happiest vein, his tongue and disposition untrammelled by the presence of the club members. "What're ye doin' cleanin' them clubs so grand?" asked one caddie of another, who was evidently bestowing unusual pains on the polishing of the set that were in his keeping. The caddie was in a thoughtful mood. He was the regular attendant of an old golfer who had had a most disastrous day. "I'm to clean 'em better than ever," he answered. "And when I've cleaned 'em I've got to break 'em across my knee. And then I've got to chuck 'em in the bloomin' river." Sometimes, we see, if he is a simple-hearted, faithful caddie, his lot is not a happy one. CHAPTER XXIII REFLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS Good golf to come--Giants of the past--The amateurs of to-day--The greatness of "Freddy" Tait--Modern professionals--Good sportsmen and good friends--A misconception--The constant strain--How we always play our best--Difficult tasks--No "close season" in golf--Spectators at big matches--Certain anecdotes--Putting for applause--Shovelling from a bunker--The greatest match I have ever played in--A curious incident--A record in halves--A coincidence--The exasperation of Andrew--The coming of spring--The joyful golfer. I think that every good golfer of experience reflects upon his past history with mingled pleasure and sorrow--pleasure when he calls to mind all the many glorious matches in which he has taken part, and sorrow when the thought arises that all that golf has been played and done with, and can never be played again. But we have all this abiding consolation, that even if we cannot retain our very best form to the end of our days, we can hope still to play a good game to the finish, and there is the heroic example of rare old Tom Morris to stimulate us in this hope. Much is given to golfers,--perhaps more than to the participators in any other sport,--but they are rarely satisfied. The wonderful fascination of golf is indicated in this eternal longing for more. Sometimes when I glance over the records of the history of the game, I feel a twinge of regret that it was not possible for me to play with, or even to see, such giants of the past as Allan Robertson, David Strath, the Dunns, Willie Campbell, Willie Park, senior, or the famous young Tom Morris. Golf is great to-day, but it must have been great in those days also, even if there was less of it than there is now. But I have had the good fortune to play with all the well-known amateurs and professionals of my own time, and it is pleasant to think that they are nearly all still alive, and that therefore I may sometime or another play with them again. There is one great exception--Mr. Fred Tait, who was killed in South Africa. I don't think anyone could ever have the smallest doubt about the reason for his enormous popularity. I had the delight of playing against him two or three times, and I thought that he was not only a very fine golfer indeed, but one of the very finest gentlemen that I could imagine. It is something for me to remember that I played in the last important match in which he figured before he went out to the war--an international foursome, England _v._ Scotland, that was played at Ganton, Willie Park and Mr. Tait representing Scotland, while Mr. John Ball, junior, and I were for England. From all the amateurs with whom I have ever come in contact I have always received the very greatest kindness and encouragement, and I do not know a single one with whom I would not like to play again some day or other. It has always seemed to me that there is something about golf that makes a man a good fellow whether he is amateur or professional. I wish to speak in the same way about my professional brothers as I have done about the amateurs. I have always found them all first-class sportsmen in the strictest and best sense of the word, and some of the best friends I have in the world are among them. There are some very fine players among the professionals of to-day. I have often watched and greatly admired the splendid skill of such friends and constant opponents as J.H. Taylor, James Braid, Alexander Herd, Jack White, and many others whose names would fill a page, not forgetting my own brother Tom. I have from time to time been indebted to many of them for various acts of kindness. There is a fine spirit of freemasonry amongst us professionals. Whenever we play against each other each of us does his level best to win, and gives no quarter with a single stroke, but it has been my invariable experience that when the match is over the loser is always the first to congratulate the winner, and to do it not as a mere matter of form but with the very utmost sincerity. And here I should like to say a few words with the object of removing a misconception which still seems to linger in the minds of followers of the game. "Dear me, Vardon, what a grand time you fellows have, travelling all over the country in this manner, and doing nothing but playing golf on the very best courses," is the kind of remark that often greets me when I have just returned from playing in one match or tournament, and am due to start for another in a day or two. But I am not sure that we have such a grand time as those who say these things seem to think. We enjoy it just because we enjoy everything connected with golf, and particularly the playing of it; but playing these exhibition matches is not quite the same thing as going away for the week-end and having a quiet round or two with a friend, however hard you may try to beat him. Some people entertain a fancy that we do not need to strain ourselves to the utmost in these engagements, and that therefore we take things easily. I can answer for myself, and I am sure for all my brother professionals, that we never take things easily, that we always play the very best golf of which we are capable, and that if a championship rested on each match we could not play any better. It must be remembered that when we are invited by any club to play an exhibition match, that club expects to see some golf, and thus it happens that the fear of a great responsibility is always overhanging us. We dare not play tricks with such reputations as we may have had the good fortune to obtain. We are always well aware that there are very good golfers in the crowd, who are watching and criticising every stroke that we make. Therefore we keep ourselves in the very best of condition, and do our utmost always to play our best. How difficult is our task when sometimes we are not feeling as well as we might wish--as must occasionally happen--I will leave the charitable reader to imagine. Has he ever felt like playing his best game when a little below par in either mind or body? This is where the really hard work of the professional's life comes in. There is no "close season" in golf, as in cricket, football, and other sports. When a cricketer plays indifferently, after two months of the game, his admirers cry out that he is stale and needs a rest. But there are eleven players on each side in a cricket match, and constant rests for all of them, so that to my mind their work is very light in comparison with that of the golfer, who enjoys no "close season," and has all the work of each match on his own shoulders. Surely he also must become stale, but such a state on his part is not tolerated. Again, one often hears that a certain match between professional players has been halved purposely--that is to say, that it was an arranged thing from start to finish. Such things may have happened in other sports, but take it from me that it never, never happens in golf. One man never plays down to another, whatever disparity there may be in their respective degrees of skill. It does not matter how many holes one is up on one's opponent; there is never any slackening until the game has been won. It makes no difference if the man you are playing against is your very best friend or your brother, and one has sometimes to pass through the trying ordeal of straining his every nerve to win a match when in his heart of hearts, for some particular reason, he would like the other man to win. I intrude these affairs of our own in these concluding reflections only for the purpose of indicating that, though we love our game and always enjoy it, professional golf is not quite the same thing as that played by amateurs, and must not be judged from the same standpoint. I think it is because of this continual sense of a great responsibility, and the custom and necessity of always--absolutely always--trying to play our very best game, that the leading professionals are constantly a stroke or two better than the most skilful amateurs, even though the latter practise the game quite as much, and have apparently just as much opportunity, or even more, of making themselves perfect. I have mentioned the spectators. I have generally found the crowds who follow a big professional match round the links both highly intelligent and exceedingly considerate. But sometimes we overhear some strange things said. Taylor and I were once fulfilling an important engagement together, and when my opponent had a particularly difficult shot to play, two ladies came up quite close to him and persisted in talking in a loud tone of voice. Taylor waited for a little while in the hope that their chatter would cease, but it did not. Then, in a feeling of desperation, he attempted to address his ball; but the task was hopeless. The conversation went on more loudly than ever, and he was doomed to certain failure if he attempted his stroke in these circumstances. So he stood up again, and looked round in the direction whence the voices came. "Oh," said one of the ladies then, "you can go on now. We've quite finished." We must be thankful for small mercies. James Braid and I were once playing down at Beckenham. At one of the putting greens we were both a long way from the hole. My ball was a trifle the more distant of the two, and so I played the odd, and managed to get down a wonderfully fine putt. Then Braid played the like and holed out also. These were two rather creditable achievements with our putters. When his ball had trickled safely into the hole, and the spectators were moving towards the next tee, Braid and I were amused, but not flattered, by the words of a man who was speaking to a friend in such a loud voice that we could all hear. "Oh," he exclaimed deprecatingly, "those fellows only do that sort of thing for the sake of the applause!" How happy we should be if we could always make certain of those long putts without any applause at all! It was with Braid also that I was playing in a match at Luton towards the close of last year, when I overheard a singular remark. I happened to be bunkered at the fourteenth, and took my niblick to get out, but lost the hole. We walked on together to the next tee, and Braid was taking his stance when we heard two gentlemen eagerly discussing and explaining the recent bunker incident. Evidently one of them was supposed to know something of golf and the other nothing at all. "You see," said the former to his friend, "there is really no rule in the matter at all. Vardon or any other player could have used a shovel in that bunker and have simply shovelled the ball over on to the other side." I was surprised that Braid got his next tee shot in so well as he did. And how very often have I heard the question asked in the crowd, "Why do those fellows chalk the faces of their clubs?" and how invariably has the answer been, "So that they can see afterwards where they hit the ball!" When I write my recollection of these things, I do not wish it to be imagined that I am making any sort of accusation against golf crowds generally. They are excellent from all points of view; but it must inevitably happen that there are some people among them who know little of the game, and others who do not appreciate what a trying ordeal a hard-fought match usually is. Such questions are often put to me as, "Vardon, what was the greatest match in which you ever played?" or, "What was the most extraordinary occurrence you have ever seen on the links?" and so forth. They are questions which it is difficult to answer, for is not nearly every match that we play brimful of incident and interest, and at the time do we not regard many of the incidents as most extraordinary? It would, then, be too serious a task to attempt a selection from such a huge mass. But, looking back over the last few years, it seems that my £100 match with Willie Park is that which remains uppermost in my mind, and the one that I am least likely to forget. There was more talking and writing about it than about any other match in which I have played. The "gallery" that followed this match was the greatest I have ever seen or heard of. And as I am questioned also about the curious and the singular in golf, I may say that there was a coincidence in this game that struck me at the time as being quite unusual. In a closely-fought match it is often interesting to notice how nearly each player's ball often follows the other. Frequently they are side by side within one or two clubs' length after the drives from the tee. But in the first stage of this match against Park, after he had driven a long ball from the tee at the eleventh hole, I drove and my ball pitched exactly on the top of his! The Messrs. Hunter were kindly serving in the capacity of forecaddies, and they were both positive upon this incident. My ball after striking his rebounded slightly, and then stopped dead about two feet behind. Its position rather affected my follow-through, so that I duffed my stroke and lost the hole. This record--if it was a record--was also the means of eclipsing what I believe was another record in first-class golf. The first ten holes in this match were halved, and it was the incident of which I have just been speaking and the duffed stroke that followed it that led to the breaking of the sequence. "Now, Vardon, how often have you holed out in one?" they ask me also, regardless of the fact that this event demands not only a perfect shot but a perfect fluke, and that the professional player is no more likely to accomplish it than anyone else. Well, I have only been guilty of this fluke on one occasion--and that was not so very long ago--and when it happened it was at a hole a little over two hundred yards in length. On one occasion, also, I have enjoyed the coincidence of holing out with my mashie approach at the same hole twice in one day. That was in the course of a tournament at Elie, in which I had the good fortune to finish first. As it happened, Andrew Kirkaldy, who hoped to end high up in the list, was my partner for the first round, and it came about also that he was watching me play when the holing-out process was accomplished for the second time. Then he lifted up his hands in horror and delivered himself of his famous remark, "Ye're enough to break the heart of an iron ox!" During the last round of this same tournament Andrew, who was playing some holes behind me, and was then himself in the running for the first place, was kept posted up by a friend as to my score for each hole. He did not seem to derive much encouragement from the reports, for when the last one was carried to him he asked the friend who brought it if he thought that there was nobody who could play golf besides Vardon, and intimated at the same time that if anyone else brought him any more of those tales he would strike him with his niblick! Of course we all know what a really fine fellow is Andrew Kirkaldy, and how much poorer the golf world would be without his presence and his constant humour. And now I think I have holed out on the last green and this long match is finished. After all it is better to play golf than to write or read about it. What anticipation is more gloriously joyful than that of the man who handles his driver on the first tee on a bright morning of the spring-time! He has all the round, and all the day, and all the spring and summer and autumn before him. And at this moment another spring is breaking brightly, and the golf that is before each of us promises to be as momentous and soul-satisfying as any that has gone before. APPENDIX THE RULES OF GOLF _Authorised by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, revised by the Club to September 27, 1904, and in force at the date of publication of this work._ 1. DEFINITIONS.--(_a_) The Game of Golf is played by two sides, each playing its own ball. A side consists either of one or of two players. If one player play against another the match is called a "single." If two play against two, it is called a "foursome." One player may play against two playing one ball between them, when the match is called a "threesome." Matches constituted as above shall have precedence of and be entitled to pass any other kind of match. (_b_) The game consists in each side playing a ball from a teeing-ground into a hole by successive strokes, and the hole is won by the side which holes its ball in fewer strokes than the opposite side, except as otherwise provided for in the Rules. If the sides hole out in the same number of strokes, the hole is halved. (_c_) The "teeing-ground" is the starting-point for a hole, and shall be indicated by two marks placed in a line as nearly as possible at right angles to the course. The hole shall be 4-1/4 inches in diameter, and at least 4 inches deep. (_d_) The "putting-green" is all ground within 20 yards of the hole, except hazards. (_e_) A "hazard" is any bunker, water (except casual water), sand, path, road, railway, whin, bush, rushes, rabbit scrape, fence, or ditch. Sand blown on to the grass, or sprinkled on the course for its preservation, bare patches, sheep tracks, snow, and ice are not hazards. Permanent grass within a hazard is not part of the hazard. (_f_) "Through the green" is any part of the course except hazards and the putting-green which is being played to. (_g_) "Out of bounds" is any place outside the defined or recognised boundaries of the course. (_h_) "Casual water" is any temporary accumulation of water (whether caused by rainfall or otherwise) which is not one of the ordinary and recognised hazards of the course. (_i_) A ball is "in play" as soon as the player has made a stroke at the teeing-ground in each hole, and remains in play until holed out, except when lifted in accordance with the Rules. (_j_) A ball has "moved" only if it leave its original position in the least degree, and stop in another; but if it merely oscillate, without finally leaving its original position, it has not "moved." (_k_) A ball is "lost" if it be not found within five minutes after the search for it is begun. (_l_) A "match" consists of one round of the links, unless it be otherwise agreed. A match is won by the side which is leading by a number of holes greater than the number of holes remaining to be played. If each side win the same number of holes, the match is halved. (_m_) A "stroke" is any movement of the ball caused by the player, except as provided for in Rule 3, or any downward movement of the club made with the intention of striking the ball. (_n_) A "penalty stroke" is a stroke added to the score of a side under certain rules, and does not affect the rotation of play. (_o_) The "honour" is the privilege of playing first from a teeing-ground. (_p_) A player has "addressed the ball" when he has taken up his position and grounded his club, or if in a hazard, when he has taken up his position preparatory to striking the ball. (_q_) The reckoning of strokes is kept by the terms--"the odd," "two more," "three more," etc., and "one off three," "one off two," "the like." The reckoning of holes is kept by the terms--so many "holes up," or "all even," and so many "to play." 2. A match begins by each side playing a ball from the first teeing-ground. The player who shall play first on each side shall be named by his own side. The option of taking the honour at the first teeing-ground shall be decided, if necessary, by lot. A ball played from in front of, or outside of, or more than two club lengths behind the marks indicating the teeing-ground, or played by a player when his opponent should have had the honour, may be at once recalled by the opposite side, and may be re-teed without penalty. The side which wins a hole shall have the honour at the next teeing-ground. If a hole has been halved, the side which had the honour at the previous teeing-ground shall retain the honour. On beginning a new match, the winner of the long match in the previous round shall have the honour, or if the previous match was halved the side which last won a hole shall have the honour. 3. If the ball fall or be knocked off the tee in addressing it, no penalty shall be incurred, and it may be replaced, and if struck when moving no penalty shall be incurred. 4. In a threesome or foursome the partners shall strike off alternately from the teeing-grounds, and shall strike alternately during the play of the hole. If a player play when his partner should have done so, his side shall lose the hole. 5. When the balls are in play, the ball further from the hole which the players are approaching shall be played first, except as otherwise provided for in the Rules. If a player play when his opponent should have done so, the opponent may at once recall the stroke. A ball so recalled shall be dropped, in the manner prescribed in Rule 15, as near as possible to the place where it lay, without penalty. 6. The ball must be fairly struck at, not pushed, scraped, nor spooned, under penalty of the loss of the hole. 7. A ball must be played wherever it lies or the hole be given up, except as otherwise provided for in the Rules. 8. Unless with the opponent's consent, a ball in play shall not be moved nor touched before the hole is played out, under penalty of one stroke, except as otherwise provided for in the Rules. But the player may touch his ball with his club in the act of addressing it, provided he does not move it, without penalty. If the player's ball move the opponent's ball through the green, the opponent, if he choose, may drop a ball (without penalty) as near as possible to the place where it lay, but this must be done before another stroke is played. 9. In playing through the green, any loose impediment (not being in or touching a hazard) which is within a club length of the ball may be removed. If the player's ball move after any such loose impediment has been touched by the player, his partner, or either of their caddies, the penalty shall be one stroke. If any loose impediment (not being on the putting-green) which is more than a club length from the ball be removed, the penalty shall be the loss of the hole. 10. Any vessel, wheel-barrow, tool, roller, grass cutter, box or similar obstruction may be removed. If a ball be moved in so doing, it may be replaced without penalty. A ball lying on or touching such obstruction, or on clothes, nets, or ground under repair or covered up or opened for the purpose of the upkeep of the links, may be lifted and dropped without penalty as near as possible to the place where it lay, but not nearer the hole. A ball lifted in a hazard, under such circumstances, shall be dropped in the hazard. A ball lying in a golf hole or flag hole, or in a hole made by the greenkeeper, may be lifted and dropped without penalty as near as possible to the place where it lay, but not nearer the hole. 11. Before striking at a ball in play, the player shall not move, bend, nor break anything fixed or growing near the ball, except in the act of placing his feet on the ground for the purpose of addressing the ball, in soling his club to address the ball, and in his upward or downward swing, under penalty of the loss of the hole, except as otherwise provided for in the Rules. 12. When a ball lies in or touches a hazard, nothing shall be done to improve its lie; the club shall not touch the ground, nor shall anything be touched or moved before the player strikes at the ball, subject to the following exceptions:--(1) The player may place his feet firmly on the ground for the purpose of addressing the ball; (2) in addressing the ball, or in the upward or downward swing, any grass, bent, whin, or other growing substance, or the side of a bunker, wall, paling, or other immovable obstacle, may be touched; (3) steps or planks placed in a hazard by the Green Committee for access to or egress from such hazard may be removed, and if a ball be moved in so doing, it may be replaced without penalty; (4) any loose impediments may be removed from the putting-green; (5) the player shall be entitled to find his ball as provided for by Rule 31. The penalty for a breach of this Rule shall be the loss of the hole. 13. A player or caddie shall not press down nor remove any irregularities of surface near a ball in play. Dung, worm-casts, or mole-hills may be removed (but not pressed down) without penalty. The penalty for a breach of this Rule shall be the loss of the hole. 14. (1) If a ball lie or be lost in water or in casual water in a hazard, a ball may be dropped in or as far behind the hazard as the player may please, under penalty of one stroke; but if it be impossible from want of space in which to play, or from any other cause, to drop the ball behind the hazard, the player may drop a ball at the side of the hazard as near as possible to where the ball lay, but not nearer to the hole, under penalty of one stroke. (2) If a ball lie or be lost in casual water through the green, or if casual water through the green interferes with the player's stance, the player may drop a ball, without penalty, within two club lengths from the margin directly behind the place where the ball lay, or from the margin nearest to the place where the ball lay, but not nearer to the hole. If the ball when dropped roll into the water, or rest so that the water interferes with the player's stance, it may be re-dropped, without penalty, as near to the margin as the nature of the ground permits, but not nearer to the hole. (3) In dropping a ball behind the spot from which the ball was lifted, the player shall keep that spot, or, in the case of water, the spot at which the ball entered, in a line between himself and the hole. Wherever it is impossible to drop a ball as prescribed in sections (1) and (2), it shall be dropped as near as possible to the place where it lay, but not nearer to the hole. (4) If a ball lie in casual water on a putting-green, a ball may be placed by hand behind the water without penalty. The penalty for a breach of this Rule shall be the loss of the hole. 15. A ball shall be dropped in the following manner:--The player himself shall drop it. He shall face the hole, stand erect and drop the ball behind him from his head. If the ball when dropped touch the player he shall incur no penalty, and if it roll into a hazard it may be re-dropped without penalty. The penalty for a breach of this Rule shall be the loss of the hole. 16. When the balls lie within six inches of each other on the putting-green, or within a club length of each other through the green or in a hazard (the distance to be measured from their nearest points), the ball nearer the hole may, at the option of either the player or the opponent, be lifted until the other is played, and shall then be replaced as near as possible to the place where it lay. If the ball further from the hole be moved in so doing, or in measuring the distance, it shall be replaced without penalty. If the lie of the lifted ball be altered by the player in playing, the ball may be placed in a lie as nearly as possible similar to that from which it was lifted, but not nearer the hole. 17. Any loose impediments may be removed from the putting-green, irrespective of the position of the player's ball. The opponent's ball may not be moved except as provided for by the immediately preceding Rule. If the player's ball move after any loose impediment lying within six inches of it has been touched by the player, his partner, or either of their caddies, the penalty shall be one stroke. 18. When the ball is on the putting-green, the player or his caddie may remove (but not press down) sand, earth, dung, worm-casts, mole-hills, snow, or ice lying around the hole or in the line of his putt. This shall be done by brushing lightly with the hand only across the putt and not along it. Dung may be removed by a club, but the club must not be laid with more than its own weight upon the ground. The line of the putt must not be touched, except with the club immediately in front of the ball, in the act of addressing it, or as above authorised. The penalty for a breach of this Rule is the loss of the hole. 19. When the ball is on the putting-green, no mark shall be placed, nor line drawn as a guide. The line of the putt may be pointed out by the player's caddie, his partner, or his partner's caddie, but the person doing so must not touch the ground. The player's caddie, his partner, or his partner's caddie, may stand at the hole, but no player nor caddie shall endeavour, by moving or otherwise, to influence the action of the wind upon the ball. The penalty for a breach of this Rule is the loss of the hole. 20. When on the putting-green, a player shall not play until his opponent's ball is at rest, under penalty of one stroke. 21. Either side is entitled to have the flag-stick removed when approaching the hole, but if a player's ball strike the flag-stick which has been so removed by himself, or his partner, or either of their caddies, his side shall lose the hole. If the ball rest against the flag-stick when in the hole, the player shall be entitled to remove the stick, and if the ball fall in, it shall be deemed as having been holed out at the last stroke. If the player's ball knock in the opponent's ball, the latter shall be deemed as having been holed out at the last stroke. If the player's ball move the opponent's ball, the opponent, if he choose, may replace it, but this must be done before another stroke is played. If the player's ball stop on the spot formerly occupied by the opponent's ball, and the opponent declare his intention to replace, the player shall first play another stroke, after which the opponent shall replace and play his ball. If the opponent's ball lie on the edge of the hole, the player, after holing out, may knock it away, claiming the hole if holing at the like, and the half if holing at the odd, provided that the player's ball does not strike the opponent's ball and set it in motion. If after the player's ball is in the hole, the player neglect to knock away the opponent's ball, and it fall in also, the opponent shall be deemed to have holed out at his last stroke. 22. If a ball _in motion_ be stopped or deflected by any agency outside the match, or by the forecaddie, the ball must be played from where it lies, and the occurrence submitted to as a "rub of the green." If a ball lodge in anything moving, a ball shall be dropped as near as possible to the place where the object was when the ball lodged in it, without penalty. If a ball _at rest_ be displaced by any agency outside the match, excepting wind, the player shall drop a ball as near as possible to the place where it lay, without penalty. On the putting-green the ball shall be replaced by hand, without penalty. 23. If the player's ball strike, or be moved by an opponent or an opponent's caddie or clubs, the opponent shall lose the hole. 24. When a player has holed out and his opponent has been left with a putt for the half, nothing that the player can do shall deprive him of the half which he has already gained. 25. If a player's ball strike, or be stopped by himself or his partner, or either of their caddies or clubs, his side shall lose the hole. 26. If the player, when not intending to make a stroke, or his partner, or either of their caddies, move his or their ball, or by touching anything cause it to move when it is in play, the penalty shall be one stroke. If a ball in play move, after the player has grounded his club in the act of addressing it, or, when in a hazard, if he has taken up his stand to play it, he shall be deemed to have caused it to move, and the movement shall be counted as his stroke. 27. Except from the tee a player shall not play while his ball is moving, under penalty of the loss of the hole. If the ball only begin to move while the player is making his upward or downward swing, he shall incur no penalty for playing while it is moving, but is not exempted from the penalty stroke which he may have incurred under Rules 9, 17, or 26, and in a foursome a stroke lost under Rule 26 shall not, in these circumstances, be counted as the stroke of the player so as to render him liable for having played when his partner should have done so. 28. If the player when making a stroke strike the ball twice, the penalty shall be one stroke, and he shall incur no further penalty by reason of his having played while his ball was moving. 29. If a player play the opponent's ball, his side shall lose the hole, unless (1) the opponent then play the player's ball, whereby the penalty is cancelled, and the hole must be played out with the balls thus exchanged, or (2) the mistake occur through wrong information given by the opponent or his caddie, in which case there shall be no penalty, but the mistake, if discovered before the opponent has played, must be rectified by placing a ball as near as possible to the place where the opponent's ball lay. If a player play a stroke with the ball of a party not engaged in the match, and the mistake be discovered and intimated to his opponent before his opponent has played his next stroke, there shall be no penalty; but if the mistake be not discovered and so intimated until after the opponent has played his next stroke, the player's side shall lose the hole. 30. If a ball be lost, except as otherwise provided for in the Rules, the player's side shall lose the hole; but if both balls be lost, the hole shall be considered halved. 31. If a ball lie in fog, bent, whins, long grass, or the like, only so much thereof shall be touched as will enable the player to find his ball; but if a ball lie in sand, the sand shall not be touched. The penalty for a breach of this Rule shall be the loss of the hole. 32. If a ball be played out of bounds, a ball shall be dropped at the spot from which the stroke was played, under penalty of loss of the distance. A ball played out of bounds need not be found. If it be doubtful whether a ball has been played out of bounds, another may be dropped and played; but if it be discovered that the first ball is not out of bounds, it shall continue in play without penalty. A player may stand out of bounds to play a ball lying within bounds. 33. A player shall not ask for advice from anyone except his own caddie, his partner, or his partner's caddie, nor shall he willingly be otherwise advised in any way whatever, under penalty of the loss of the hole. 34. If a ball split into separate pieces, another ball may be put down where the largest portion lies; or if two pieces are apparently of equal size it may be put where either piece lies, at the option of the player. If a ball crack or become unfit for play, the player may change it on intimating to his opponent his intention to do so. Mud adhering to a ball shall not be considered as making it unfit for play. 35. When no penalty for the breach of a rule is stated, the penalty shall be the loss of the hole. 36. If a dispute arise on any point, the players have the right of determining the party or parties to whom it shall be referred, but should they not agree, either side may refer it to the Rules of Golf Committee, whose decision shall be final. If the point in dispute be not covered by the Rules of Golf, the arbiters must decide it by equity. 37. An umpire or referee, when appointed, shall take cognisance of any breach of rule that he may observe, whether he be appealed to on the point or not. SPECIAL RULES FOR STROKE COMPETITIONS. 1. In Stroke Competitions, the competitor who holes the stipulated course in fewest strokes shall be the winner. 2. If the lowest scores be made by two or more competitors, the tie or ties shall be decided by another round to be played on the same day. But if the Green Committee determine that to be inexpedient or impossible, they shall then appoint the following or some subsequent day whereon the tie or ties shall be decided. 3. New holes shall be made for Stroke Competitions, and thereafter before starting no competitor shall play on any of the putting-greens, nor shall he intentionally play at any of the holes nor on to any of the putting-greens, under penalty of disqualification. 4. The scores for each hole shall be kept by a special marker, or by the competitors noting each other's scores. The scores marked ought to be called out after each hole, and on completion of the round the cards shall be signed by the marker, under penalty of disqualification, and handed in. Competitors must satisfy themselves before the cards are handed in that their scores for each hole are correctly marked, as no alteration can be made on any card after it has been returned. If it be found that a score returned is below that actually played, the competitor shall be disqualified. For the addition of the scores marked the Secretary or his deputy shall be responsible. 5. If a competitor play from outside the limits of the teeing-ground, the penalty shall be disqualification. 6. If a ball be lost (except as otherwise provided for in the Rules of Golf), the competitor shall return as near as possible to the spot from which the lost ball was struck, tee a ball, and lose a penalty stroke. The lost ball shall continue in play, if it be found before the player has struck another ball. The penalty for a breach of this Rule shall be disqualification. 7. If a competitor's ball strike himself, his clubs or caddie, the penalty shall be one stroke. 8. If a competitor's ball strike another competitor, or his clubs or caddie, it is a "rub of the green," and the ball shall be played from where it lies. If a competitor's ball which is at rest be moved by another competitor or his caddie, or his club or his ball, or by any outside agency excepting wind, it shall be replaced as near as possible to the place, where it lay without penalty. 9. A competitor shall hole out with his own ball at every hole, under penalty of disqualification. But if it be discovered, before he has struck off from the next teeing-ground, or if the mistake occur at the last hole, before he has handed in his card, that he has not holed out with his own ball, he shall be at liberty to return and hole out with his own ball, without penalty. 10. A ball may be lifted from any place under penalty of two strokes. A ball so lifted shall be teed if possible behind the place where it lay. If it be impossible to tee the ball behind the place where it lay, it shall be teed as near as possible thereto, but not nearer the hole. The penalty for a breach of this Rule shall be disqualification. 11. All balls shall be holed out under penalty of disqualification. When a competitor's ball is within 20 yards of the hole, the competitor shall not play until the flag has been removed, under penalty of one stroke. When both balls are on the putting-green, if the player's ball strike the opponent's ball the player shall lose a stroke. The ball nearer the hole shall, on request of the player, be either lifted or holed out at the option of the owner, under penalty of his disqualification. Through the green a competitor may have any other competitor's ball lifted, if he find that it interferes with his stroke. 12. A competitor, unless specially authorised by the Green Committee, shall not play with a professional, and he may not willingly receive advice from any one but his caddie, in any way whatever, under penalty of disqualification. A forecaddie may be employed. 13. Competitors shall not discontinue play or delay to start on account of bad weather, nor for any other reason whatever, except such as is satisfactory to the Committee of the Club in charge of the competition. The penalty for a breach of this Rule is disqualification. 14. Where in the Rules of Golf the penalty for the breach of any Rule is the loss of the hole, in Stroke Competitions the penalty shall be the loss of two strokes, except where otherwise provided for in these Special Rules. 15. Any dispute regarding the play shall be determined by the Rules of Golf Committee. 16. The Rules of Golf, so far as they are not at variance with these Special Rules, shall apply to Stroke Competitions. RULES FOR THREE-BALL MATCHES. In matches in which three players play against each other, each playing his own ball (hereinafter referred to as "a three-ball match"), or in which one player plays his own ball against the best ball of two players (hereinafter referred to as "a best ball match"), the Rules of Golf shall apply, subject to the following modifications:-- 1. Where, in a three-ball match, at any teeing-ground no player is entitled to claim the honour from both opponents, the same order of striking shall be followed as at the previous teeing-ground. 2. Except as hereinafter provided, the side whose ball is furthest from the hole shall play first, but a ball lying nearer the hole and belonging to one of that side may, at their option, be played before the ball lying furthest from the hole. If a player play when his opponent should have done so he shall incur no penalty. 3. If a player consider that an opponent's ball on the putting-green might interfere with his stroke, he may require the opponent either to lift or to hole out his ball at the opponent's discretion. 4. If an opponent consider that the ball of another opponent might be of assistance to the player, he may require that it be either lifted or holed out at the other opponent's discretion. 5. If an opponent consider that his own ball might be of assistance to the player, he is entitled to lift it or hole out at his discretion. 6. If an opponent consider that the player's partner's ball might be of assistance to the player, he may require that it be either lifted or holed out at the player's partner's discretion. 7. In a three-ball match, a ball on the putting-green, which is moved by another ball, must be replaced as nearly as possible where it lay. 8. In a best ball match, if a player's ball move his partner's ball or an opponent's ball, the opponent shall in either case decide whether the moved ball shall be replaced or not. 9. If in a three-ball match a player's ball strike or be moved by an opponent or an opponent's caddie or clubs, that opponent shall lose the hole to the player. As regards the other opponent, the occurrence is "a rub of the green." 10. In a best ball match, if a player's ball strike or be moved by an opponent or an opponent's caddie or clubs, the opponent's side shall lose the hole. 11. In a best ball match, if a player's ball (the player being one of a side) strike or be stopped by himself or his partner or either of their caddies or clubs, that player only shall be disqualified for that hole. 12. In all other cases where a player would by the Rules of Golf incur the loss of the hole, he shall be disqualified for that hole, but the disqualification shall not apply to his partner. ETIQUETTE OF GOLF. 1. A single player has no standing, and must always give way to a properly constituted match. 2. No player, caddie, or onlooker should move or talk during a stroke. 3. No player should play from the tee until the party in front have played their second strokes and are out of range, nor play up to the putting-green till the party in front have holed out and moved away. 4. The player who has the honour from the tee should be allowed to play before his opponent tees his ball. 5. Players who have holed out should not try their putts over again when other players are following them. 6. Players looking for a lost ball must allow other matches coming up to pass them. 7. On request being made, a three-ball match must allow a single, threesome, or foursome to pass. Any match playing a whole round may claim the right to pass a match playing a shorter round. 8. If a match fail to keep its place on the green, and lose in distance more than one clear hole on those in front, it may be passed, on request being made. 9. Turf cut or displaced by a stroke should be at once replaced. 10. A player should carefully fill up all holes made by himself in a bunker. 11. It is the duty of an umpire or referee to take cognisance of any breach of rule that he may observe, whether he be appealed to on this point or not. INDEX Addressing the ball, 62, 81, 171, 173. Alps at Prestwick, 222. Amateur Championship. _See_ Championship. Amateur golf in Great Britain, 233, 234. America, golf in, 232, 234; tour in, 235; spectators in, 238; novel experiences in, 242, 243, 244. American Championship, 23, 235, 241. Anson, American baseball player, and golf, 240. Approach play. _See_ Mashie, play with the. Arms, action of the, in driving, 67, 69, 72. Ashburnham links, 227. Auchterlonie, Willie, 13, 15. Backward swing in the drive, 65, 68, 173, 174. Baffy, possibilities of play with, 83; stance for, 83. Balfour, Mr. A.J., how he learned golf, 30; anecdotes by, 252; preference in caddies, 253; and "Big Crawford," 254; interesting compliment, 255. Ball, clean, 170; rubber-cored. _See_ Rubber-cored balls. Ball, Mr. John, jun., 223, 234, 260. Beckenham, incident at, 263. Beginners, advice to, 25. Beginning, Vardon's, at golf, 2, 4; first clubs, 5; first matches, 6; how he learned, 8. Berwick, North, 17, 21, 225, 245, 247, 254. "Big Crawford," 254. Birth, Vardon's, 2. Blyth, Mr. Edward, 256. Body action in following through, 71. Boomer, Mr. (Schoolmaster), 3. Boots and shoes, 167. Braces and belts, 166. Brae Burn, match at, 235. Braid, James, 96, 260, 263, 264. Brancaster links, 228. Brassy, play with in Championship, 23. ---- the, points of, 44, 49, 79. ---- play with the, first attempts, 32; occasion for, 78; stance for, 79, 80; from good lie, 80; from cuppy lie, 80, 81. Brewster, Mr., at Jersey, 4. Broadwood, Mr. C.C., 21. Brown, D., 14. Bunkers and bunker play, 131; mistakes in regard to, 133; swing with niblick in, 136; long balls from, 138; filling holes in, 175. Bury Golf Club, professional to, 12. Butcher, Mr. S.F. (Bury), 12. Caddie, advice of, 171; opponent's, 175; anecdotes of, 245 _et seq._; the ideal, 248; girls as, 249; caustic humour of, 250; human kindness of, 254; excess of zeal of, 257; sorrows of, 258. Campbell, Willie, 259. Care of clubs, 50. Carnoustie, merits of course, 225. Championship, the Amateur, 233, 234. ---- the American, 23. ---- the Open, 3, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 23, 248. Cleek, the, varieties of and characteristics, 46, 49, 99. ---- play with the, first attempts, 33; versatility of, 99; stance, 103; swing, 104; push shot with, 105; shot for low ball against wind, 108; comparison of different shots, 108. Clothes for golf, 166. Clubs, golf (implements), 37; first purchases, 38; limitations, 40; care of, 50; for different strokes, 168; experiments in competitions, 184. Competition play, disappointments in, 177; steadiness in, 178; continuing with card, 179; tactics in, 181; caution in medal play, 182; new clubs, 184; time of play, 186; watching opponents, 187. Counting strokes, 167. Course, studying in competition play, 183; construction of. _See_ Links. Cox, Mr. Charles S., 240. Cricket, 3. Cromer links, 228. Crowds, great golfing, 21. Cruden Bay links, 225. Cupped lies, play from, 81. Cut stroke, the, with the mashie, 127. Deal, tournament at, 15; merits of links at, 228. "Debauchery of long driving," 52. Despair, golfer's, 26. Diagrams, explanation of, 57. Divots, replacing, 175. Dogwood heads, 42. Dollymount links, 226. Dornoch links, 225. Driver, the, points of, 40; scared and socketed clubs, 41; heads of, 42; length and weight, 49, 53; loft on face of, 54. ---- play with, first attempts, 32; long balls with, 35, 36, 52, 75; pleasure of, 53; stance, 55, 56, 57; the grip, 58; the address, 62; backward swing, 64; follow-through, 71; faulty driving, 72; summary of advice, 77; intentional pulling and slicing with, 85. Dunn, Tom, 22, 30, 254, 259. Dunn, Willie, 236, 237. Dwelling at the tarn, 68. Etiquette of golf, 161, 164, 165, 175, 277. Excuses, golfer's, 26. Experiments in golf, 172. Eye on the ball, how and where to keep, 63, 65, 169. Eyesight, defective, 174. Faces, artificial, to wooden clubs, 42. Findlay, American golfer, 242. Finish of swing, 72, 173. Florida, golf in, 236, 241. Follow-through, the, in the drive, 71. Football at Ganton, 3. Formby links, 228. Foursomes, partners in, 171; old style, 188; four-ball, 189; tactics in, 190; sociability of, 191; mutual understanding in, 192; junior partner in, 193; handicapping in, 195; classical story of, 196. Freaks of style, 62. Frosty weather, play in, 167. Ganton, professional at, 15; match with Willie Park at, 22; caddies at, 246; international foursome at, 260. Gloves, 168. Greens, putting, gauging strength of, 158; etiquette and policy on, 165; damaging, 175. Grips, Vardon's overlapping, 59; the two-V, 59; tightness of, 60; thickness of handle, 168. Grouville, 2; golf introduced to, 3. Gullane links, 226. Hands, right and left, grip with, 59, 60, 61; variations of tightness, 61. Harlech, links at, 227. Head still, keeping the, 65, 172. Herd, Alexander, 12, 14, 15, 260. Hilton, Mr. Harold, 234. Himalayas at Prestwick, 222. Hints, general, 160. Hoods for golf-bags, 50. Hoylake, merits of course, 223; best holes at, 224. Huddersfield links, 231. Hunstanton links, 228. Hunter, the brothers, 21, 265. Huntercombe links, merits of, 230. Ilkley, 14. Impact, moment of, 69, 70. Improving one's game, 163. Inland golf, 229. Ireland, links in, 226 _et seq._ Iron, the, points of, 47, 49, 113. ---- play with the, first attempts, 33; time for, 113; stance for, 114; swing, 115; relation of swing to distance, 116. Islay, splendid links at, 225; most difficult hole, 226. Jersey, golf at, 2, 4. Jersey Golf Club, Royal, 4. Jigger, the, use of, 130. Kay, James, 17. Kilmalcolm, tournament at, 13. Kilspindie links, 226. Kingsbury, Lord, 257. Kirkaldy, Andrew, 13, 14, 19, 142, 266. Kirkaldy, Hugh, 13, 14. Ladies, faults of, 71; freedom on links, 198; improvement of ladies' play, 199; keenness of American, 200; good pupils, 201; same game as men's, 201; swing for, 201; clubs for, 202; bad upward swings, 203; need for tuition, 204. Lahinch links, 226. Laidlay, Mr. J.E., 223. Lawrence Harbour (U.S.), match at, 237. Leach, Henry, vi. Learn golf, how to, 25. Leather faces, 42. Length of clubs, 48, 49. Lie of clubs, 45. Lindrick links, 231. Links, on construction of, 205; made in a hurry, 205; long handicap men's links, 206; time and study needed, 206; maturing of, 206; land required for, 207; preliminary survey of, 208; clearing of land, 209; "penny wise and pound foolish," 209; experimental drives, 210; short holes, 210; varieties of holes, 211; too lengthy, 212; direction of course, 213; position of bunkers, 213; class of player to suit, 213; bunkers at the side, 215; undulating greens, 216; double tees, 217; the best links, 219 _et seq._; superiority of Sandwich, 220. Littlestone links, 228. Lloyd, Joseph, 15. London links, 230. Long heads, 43. Lowe, George (St. Anne's-on-Sea), 9, 10. Luffness links, 226, 254. Lunch, golfer's, 169. Luton, incident at, 264. Machrihanish links, 225. Maiden at Sandwich, 222. Manchester links, 231. Mashie, the, points of, 47, 49, 119. ---- play with the, first attempts, 33, value of good, 119; varieties of, 120; stance for ordinary shot, 121; the swing, 122; danger of scooping, 124; taking a divot, 124; the running-up shot, 125; the cut stroke, 127; stance for, 128; points of, 129; chip on the green, 129; the jigger, 130; mashie on the putting green, 155. Mashie, the driving, 49, 100. ---- ---- play with, 100; difficulties of, 101. Master stroke in golf, 85. Match play, 171, 172, 180. Medal play, 178, 181, 182, 183; rules, 274. Middle-aged golfers, 29. Mid-Surrey links, 230. Molesworth, Mr., at Jersey, 7. Money matches, 22. Morris, Old Tom, 22, 23, 149. Morris, Young Tom, 23, 259. Mount Zion at Islay, 226. Muirfield, first Championship at, 16, 19; merits of course and best holes, 224. Nails in boots and shoes, 166. Nervousness, 9, 12. Newcastle (co. Down) links, 226. Newquay links, 228. Niblick, the, points of, 47, 49, 135; swing with, in bunker, 136. Nicholls, Bernard, matches with, 235, 239. North Berwick. _See_ Berwick, North. Novelties, avoidance of, 168. Oakland (U.S.), 237. Oiling clubs, 50. One-armed golfer, 27. Open Championship. _See_ Championship. Opponent, one's attitude towards, 161. Ormonde, match at, 235. Over-golfed, 186. Overlapping grip, 59. Park, Willie, senior, 259. Park, Willie, junior, 20, 21, 148, 230, 260, 264. Pau, visit to, 15. Persimmon heads, 42. Photographs, vi. Pivoting of the body, on the waist, 67. ---- on the toes, 68. Pleasures of golf, 1, 29, 32, 53, 266. Point Comfort, match at, 236. Pointgarry out, Mr. Balfour at, 255. Portland (U.S.), novel experience at, 242. Portmarnock, merits of links, 226. Portrush, tournament at, 13; merits of links, 226. Practice, early system of, 32; amount of, 35. Pressing, 75, 173. Prestwick, 13, 20, 23; best holes at, 222. Professional golfers, money matters, 22; difficulties of, 261. Professional tuition, 30. Pulling, causes of, 67, 71, 73, and Plates X. and XI.; method of intentional, 91; in a cross wind, 92. Purves, Dr., at Jersey, 7. Push shot, the, 105; advantage of, 106. Putter, the, points of, 47, 49, 146. Putting, a curious experience, 18; first attempts, 33; confidence in, 142; no rule for, 143; the natural stance, 144; the grip, 147; hitting the ball, 148; the swing, 148; on being up, 148; on undulating greens, 150; borrowing from slopes, 151; the cut stroke, 152; down steep inclines, 154; use of mashie, 155; playing stymies, 156; running through, 157; gauging strength of greens, 158; etiquette and policy, 165. Redan, the, 256. Redcar links, 228. Regrets, golfer's, 28. Reserve clubs, 45. Ribbed faces to iron clubs, advantages of, 102. Ripon, golf at, 10. Risks, on taking, 162. Robertson, Allan, 22, 259. Rubber-cored balls, life of, 170. Rules of golf, 167, 267. Running-up approaches, 125. Rye links, 228. St. Andrews, 15; merits of course and best holes, 224. ---- style of play, 64. St. Anne's links, 228. St. David's, Royal, links, 227. St. George's Golf Club, Royal, Sandwich, 3. Sandwich, 3, 14, 23; the best course, 220; reasons for selection, 221; best holes at, 221, 222. Sandy Parlour at Deal, 228. Sayers, Ben, 18, 19. Scared clubs, advantage of, over socketed, 41. Scarsdale (U.S.), match at, 236. Scotland, links in, 222 _et seq._ Seaside courses, advantages of, 229. Seaton Carew links, 228. Shafts of clubs, 43. Sheffield links, 231. Sheringham links, 228. Shoes, golfing, 166. Shoulder, right, movement of, 66; dropping, 74. Simpson, Archie, 15. Skidding with iron clubs, 102; with driver, 168. Slicing, cause of, 67, 69, 72; how to find, 73, Plate XII.; method of intentional, 87; distant slice, 88; short slice, 89. "Slow back," 64. Smith, Will, American champion, 238, 241. Smoking, on, 185. Spectators at golf matches, 263. Speed of the club, 69. Spofforth, Major (Jersey), 9. Spoon. _See_ Baffy. Strath, David, 259. Stroke competitions, rules for, 274. Studley Royal Golf Club, Ripon, professional to, 11. Stymies, playing, 156; running through, 157. Successes in competitions, 9. Sunningdale links, merits of, 229. Swaying during stroke, 67. Swinging, first attempts at, 31. Tait, Lieut. Fred, 21, 223, 234, 260. Taylor, J.H., 15, 16, 240, 241, 260, 263. Tee, the, for the ball, 54; disadvantage of high tee, 55; low tee with wind, 172. Teeing grounds, 217. Three-ball matches, 276. Tightness of grip, 61. Tobacco and golf, 185. Trafford Park links, 231. Training, on, 185. Travis, Mr. Walter J., 233. Troon, merits of course, 225. Turf, replacing, 175. Two-V grip, 59, 62. Upward swing. _See_ Backward swing V, two-, grip, 59, 62. Vardon family, the, 2. Vardon, Fred, 3. Vardon, Tom, 3, 4, 9, 10, 15, 17, 23, 260. Waggling the club, 63. Wales, links in, 227. Wallasey links, 228. Walton Heath links, merits of, 229. Washington (U.S.), match at, 244. Weather, wet, care of clubs in, 50, 168. Weight of body, how balanced, 67, 70. Weight of club, 44, 49. Westward Ho! merits of links, 227. Wheaton links at Chicago, 238, 241. Whip of shafts, 43, 44. White, Jack, 260. Wind, play in a, 92; pulling in a cross, 94; driving against, 95; driving with, 96; low tee with, 172. Wrists, action of the, 66, 70. ---- mistaken notions concerning, 70. Yorkshire championships, 231. _Printed by_ MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED _Edinburgh_. 
37136	----	THE HAPPY GOLFER _BEING SOME EXPERIENCES, REFLECTIONS, AND A FEW DEDUCTIONS OF A WANDERING PLAYER_ BY HENRY LEACH AUTHOR OF "THE SPIRIT OF THE LINKS," "LETTERS OF A MODERN GOLFER," ETC. MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1914 COPYRIGHT CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE SEVEN WONDERS OF GOLF, AND THE ABIDING MYSTERY OF THE GAME, WITH A THOUGHT UPON TRADITIONS AND THEIR VALUE 1 CHAPTER II THE UBIQUITY OF THE GAME: WITH AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR THE COMMUNITY OF GOLFERS, AND A NOTE UPON THE EFFECT OF ST. ANDREWS SPIRITS 28 CHAPTER III THE TRAGEDIES OF THE SHORT PUTT, AND A CONTRAST BETWEEN CHILDREN AND CHAMPIONS, WITH THE VARIED COUNSEL OF THE WISEST MEN 56 CHAPTER IV OLD CHAMPIONS AND NEW, AND SOME DIFFERENCES IN ACHIEVEMENT, WITH A SUGGESTION THAT GOLF IS A CRUEL GAME 88 CHAPTER V A FAMOUS CHAMPIONSHIP AT BROOKLINE, U.S.A., AND AN ACCOUNT OF HOW MR. FRANCIS OUIMET WON IT, WITH SOME EXPLANATION OF SEEMING MYSTERIES 110 CHAPTER VI THE BEGINNINGS OF GOLF IN THE UNITED STATES, AND EXPERIENCES IN TRAVELLING THERE, WITH AN EXAMPLE OF AMERICAN CLUB MANAGEMENT 140 CHAPTER VII THE PERFECT COUNTRY CLUB AND THE GOLFERS' POW-WOW AT ONWENTSIA, WITH A GLIMPSE OF THE NATIONAL LINKS 166 CHAPTER VIII THE U.S.G.A. AND THE METHODS OF THE BUSINESS-MAN GOLFER, WITH A REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENT OF MUNICIPAL GOLF 199 CHAPTER IX CANADIAN COURSES, AND A GREAT ACHIEVEMENT AT TORONTO, WITH MATTERS PERTAINING TO MAKING A NEW BEGINNING 226 CHAPTER X GOLF DE PARIS, AND SOME REMARKABLE EVENTS AT VERSAILLES AND CHANTILLY, WITH NEW THEORIES BY HIGH AUTHORITIES 251 CHAPTER XI RIVIERA GOLF, AND WHAT MIGHT BE LEARNED FROM LADIES, WITH A CONSIDERATION OF THE OVERLAPPING GRIP 277 CHAPTER XII ABOUT THE PYRENEES, AND THE CHARMS OF GOLF AT BIARRITZ AND PAU, WITH POSSIBILITIES FOR GREAT ADVENTURE 302 CHAPTER XIII THE GAME IN ITALY, AND THE QUALITY OF THE COURSE AT ROME, WITH A SHORT CONSIDERATION OF THE VALUE OF STYLE 324 CHAPTER XIV THE AWAKENING OF SPAIN, AND SOME MARVELLOUS GOLFING ENTERPRISE IN MADRID, WITH A STATEMENT OF GOLFERS' DISCOVERIES 339 CHAPTER XV THE SUPERIORITY OF BRITISH LINKS, AND A MASTERPIECE OF KENT, WITH SOME SYSTEMS AND MORALS FOR HOLIDAY GOLF 364 CHAPTER XVI THE OLD DIGNITY OF LONDON GOLF, AND ITS NEW IMPORTANCE, WITH A WORD FOR THE CHARM OF INLAND COURSES 392 CHAPTER I THE SEVEN WONDERS OF GOLF, AND THE ABIDING MYSTERY OF THE GAME, WITH A THOUGHT UPON TRADITIONS AND THEIR VALUE. The first of the seven wonders of golf is a mysterious fascination that it sets towards mankind, from which, overwhelming and enduring, no people are immune. The game seizes men of all ages, of every nationality, all occupations, dispositions, temperaments--all of them. The charm acts upon men and women alike. Sometimes we have suspected that males are more whole-hearted golfers; but there are circumstances of quick recurrence to cause a doubt, and even were there none the fancied difference would be capable of explanation. It has nearly become an established rule that they golf the most who golf the last, for there is no man of the links so keen, so simple and humble in his abandonment to the game, as he who but lately held aloof and laughed, with many a gibe upon the madness of the class. Savages have attempted golf and found they liked it, and the finest intellects are constantly exercised upon its difficulties. So this diversion, pastime, game has become a thing of everywhere and everybody as no other sport of any kind has ever done. The number of people who play no golf decreases daily, and events of the last ten years have shown that its supremacy as the chief of games is sure. It is clear, indeed, that, so far as the numbers attached to it are concerned, it is still only at its beginning, in toddling infancy. A few years hence its intimate part in general life will be better realised; even now you do not so frequently ask a man of movement and intelligence whether he plays golf or not as what his handicap may be and what kind of ball he likes the best. No other game or sport exercises anything like such power of fascination upon its people as this. A tennis-player may leave tennis if he must; the cricketer often voluntarily gives up cricket for no compelling reason; a man of the hills and moors may cease to care for shooting; and one who has made an automobile speed like the wind along the roads may sell his car and be motorist nevermore. But the golfer will and must always golf, and never less but more while strength permits. Men who go to the sea in ships take golf clubs with them; I have known golfers carry their materials into deserts, and one of the greatest and noblest explorers the world has known took them with him to one far end of earth. Surely this is a very remarkable thing, a feature of life that is strange as it is strong, and it is not nonsense to suggest that this is no ordinary game and cannot be considered as a game like others. Somewhere in a mysterious way it touches the springs of life, makes emotions shake. It grips; it twitches at the senses. Why? No person has yet answered that question well and with decision, though many have attempted to do so in written words, and ten thousand times and more have players in their talk touched upon the lasting problem, and then, with that natural human avoidance of the impossible, have shuffled off to some topic more amenable. Here, it seemed, was one of the mysteries of life, and these are such as it is better not to meddle with. So through neglect and our timidity the problem has seemed to deepen. It has become the Great Mystery. Wonder and awe are thick about it. Men who were innocent and have turned to golf do not give a reason why; they are silent to the questioner. They say that he too will see in time, and then they golf exceedingly. Surely, then, this Great Mystery of its fascination is the first of the seven wonders of golf; and it is appropriate enough that a game that covers the world and embraces all mankind should have special and well-separated wonders numbering seven like the seven others of the earth at large: the traditions of the game, its amazing ubiquity, St. Andrews, the short putt, the achievements of golfers, and the rubber-cored ball are the other six. Each has its well-established place, and between the seventh of the group and the eighth, being chief of the thousand minor wonders, there is a wide separation. * * * * * It is not for one poor atom in a great and complex golfing world to put forward with any look of dogma a suggested solution to this subtle mystery which the philosophers have probed so long and fruitlessly. He will subscribe with others in a consoling renunciation to the view that it is not for human mortals, who should be happy with delights that are given them, to tear down veils from the faces of hidden gods. But as a theory--shall we say?--he may advance an explanation which is satisfying to one who has wondered as much as any others and inquired as often during many years, while yet it still leaves a place for mystery and a suggestion of eternal doubt. And the chief difference between this theory and others that have preceded it is that this is what might be called Collective while the others have commonly been theories of single ideas. Philosophic research towards the solution of the mystery hitherto has been almost exclusively based upon the supposition of there being one peculiar unknown cause for the amazing fascination, a magnificent _x_, something that in our present imperfect state of knowledge could hardly be imagined, but which has been vaguely conceived to be connected in some ways with the senses--and maybe the spirit. We have known that in some mysterious and it has seemed almost supernatural way the emotions have been stirred, most deeply shaken, by the pursuit of golf, and the case has seemed so inexplicable that the existence of an overwhelming unknown factor for the cause has been suspected. Here investigation has naturally faltered. I myself for long enough was inclined to the possibility of the single-cause theory being correct, and with devotion was attached to that "Hope" suggestion which satisfied most requirements and went far towards an explanation of all the mysteries. That this doctrine, whose merits shall be considered, is largely correct, that it does account for much of the mystery, I am well convinced; but we who have studied in the latest schools of philosophy are now unwilling to believe that it accounts completely for everything, that, in fact, this hope, which the circumstances of the game cause to flame continually in the golfer's mind like the great human passion that it is, is the one and only Force of golf, though it is almost certainly the major force of a group and dominates the others. Our new idea for a solution to the grand mystery is that there is a number of forces or causes of widely different character but associated in complete harmony for the production of strong emotional effects in the mind of the subject--emotions of the simplest and most natural character, but, like others touching at the mainsprings of life, in their action most intense. In a simple, unanalytical, and rather unphilosophical way, the game of golf has often been compared to the game of life, just indeed as other games and pursuits have been pointed for comparisons with the process of human existence. So we have been exhibited as starting in life at the teeing ground, abounding in hope and possibility. The troubles, ills, and worries that have soon afflicted us have been found their counterparts, all the analogies made to suit the careful people who play short of hazards and enjoy a smooth existence, the bold adventurers who brave long carries and like best the romantic road, the deep bunkers of misfortune, the constant menace of the rough for those who hesitate upon the straight and narrow way, the unexpected gifts of Providence when long putts are holed, the erratic inclination of the poor human when the little ones are missed. But now we find that in a far deeper and more consequential way this sympathy between golf and life exists, and that in this gentle play there is a repetition in lighter tones of the throbbing theme of existence. In the strong action upon the emotions which takes place during the practice of the game there are effects which are purely physical and others which are largely mental and spiritual. The physical thrills of golf are above the comprehension of any man or woman who has not played the game. We are certain that in the whole range of sport or human exercise there is nothing that is quite so good as the sublime sensation, the exquisite feeling of physical delight, that is gained in the driving of a golf ball with a wooden club in the manner that it ought to be driven. This last provision is emphasised, for this is a matter of style and action, and the sensuous thrill is gained from the exertion of physical strength in such a mechanically, scientifically, and physically perfect manner as to produce an absolute harmony of graceful movement. It is as the satisfaction and thanks of Nature. Sometimes we hear sportsmen speak of certain sensations derived from particular strokes at cricket, others of an occasional sudden ecstasy in angling, and one may well believe that life runs strong in the blood when a man shoots his first tiger or his first wild elephant. But the feelings of golf are subtler, sweeter, and that we are not stupidly prejudiced or exclusive for the game may be granted if it is suggested that we reach some way to the golf sensations in two other human exercises, the one being in the dancing of the waltz when done thoroughly well and with a fine rhythmical swing, and the other when skating on the ice with full and complete abandon. In each case it is a matter of perfect poise, of the absolute perfection of co-ordination of human movement, of the thousands of little muscular items of the system working as one, and of the truest rhythm and harmony being thus attained. We come near to it also in some forms of athletics; we have it suggested in the figures of the Greek throwing the discus. In golf there is an enormous concentration of this effect in the space of a couple of seconds--not too long to permit of becoming accustomed to it, not too short for proper appreciation. In this brief time, if the driving is properly done as Nature would have it, the emotional sensation is tremendous. Again one insists on the method and manner, for, especially in late years, ways of driving have been cultivated as the result of the agreeability of the rubber-cored ball, in which the physical movements are restricted and changed, and nearly all of the thrills are lost. It is still, even then, a fine thing to drive a good ball; there is peculiar satisfaction and a sense of smooth pleasure felt in doing so; but it is not that great whole-body thing that is enjoyed when there is the long swing and the full finish. That is why, even if style be so difficult to attain and there are ways of playing which are far easier to cultivate and more certain of their good results, it is worth all the pains and study expended in acquiring it, and a hundred times again, for the pleasure that comes afterwards. In the winning of holes or in the making of low scores the driving may be a comparatively unimportant part of the play, as it is said to be, though a certain high standard of efficiency is demanded continually; but it will always be the favourite part of the game because it appeals so much to those physical emotions, stirs them up so violently, rouses the life of the man, and lifts him for a moment to a full appreciation of the perfection of the human system. Some of these emotions are experienced in a minor key when playing the short game, as we call it, particularly in finely-made pitching strokes with iron clubs. Here there are restraint and sweetness; it is as if we listen to the delicacy of Mendelssohn after the strength and stateliness of Beethoven. Undoubtedly there are keen physical sensations enjoyed in this part of the play. When it comes to the last and shortest strokes, to the putting, only a faint trace of action upon the physical emotions remains, and the pleasure and satisfaction--if any--that are gained are purely mental. So in the short space of five minutes, in playing one hole of fair length, we may run along a full gamut of emotions, and herein is a great part of the joy of golf. * * * * * This, however, would be insufficient. The strong, self-controllable man would not, in their absence, crave for these emotions. But other influences are at work to kindle and continue the golfing fever in him. For the highest and deepest pleasure of civilised and cultivated man a combination of the best physical and mental emotions--with a little disappointment and grief--is essential; one without the other is always unsatisfying. Here, foremost among the mental experiences, so powerful as to have a certain physical influence, is our Hope. The major force of all life is hope. It is life itself, for without it the scheme of human existence would collapse. To look forward, to anticipate, to hope for better things, and believe in them--that is the principle of life. It is for that reason that the atheist comes so near to being an impossibility. An incredible he is. He asserts himself not only as an ignorer of gods but as a rejecter of Nature, and his position is untenable, impossible. He endeavours to place himself outside the scheme of creation. Without hope man could not and would not continue. He would give up. Motive would have vanished, and motive is essential to action. We strain analogy to no extravagance when we hold that it is the same in golf. It is pervaded with hope, lives on it, is played with it, depends upon it throughout in its every phase. At the beginning of the day's play a man hopes for great achievement. He does not ignore the possibilities, and rarely, whatever his temperament and disposition, does he wait for events, content in a manner of perfect wisdom to take things as they come. He anticipates, and in the human way he builds castles made of thoughts, and in his calculations overlooks existing facts and past experience. Thus are charm, eagerness, and romance given to life and the game. Never yet was golfer who did not believe that now his great day might come. So on the first teeing ground there is hope in the highest. Should the first stroke be successful the hope is stimulated; if the stroke is bad the hope is intensified. In the one case something more of the human power of man, the strong right arm and the fingers deft, is poured into the physical and temperamental boiler where the forces are being generated. The success has increased probability, the man can a little the more stand by himself, his independence increases, and his hope has a rock of fact beneath it. In the other event, the first drive having been a failure--as, alas! with the wearinesses of waiting and the anxieties they engender, first drives so often are--the hope is intensified by the addition of highly concentrated faith. The element of the practical indefatigable man is slightly reduced, and in its place there is filled the sublimer, grander essence of spirituality that is so far above the merely human. The hope is not the less. Providence is brought into the schemes, and the heart lives well. If the second shot is a good one there is more of the human given to the hope and the spiritual is a little subdued again; if the stroke should fail there is something like another mute appeal subconsciously made to Providence. These are the hopes of strokes. There are the hopes for holes; the hopes for days; the hopes for seasons, each series being units made of collections as years are made of months and days are made of hours. One who loses the first hole hopes to win the second, and is even insincere, for the encouragement of his hope, in saying and trying to believe that to lose the first hole does not matter and is often an advantage. If the second is lost there is a coming equality in the match imagined for the fourth or fifth. Three or four down at the turn, even five, and the man still lives and hopes (he is no golfer if he does not), and there have been magnificent struggles made when players have been six down with seven to play, or have even been dormy five to the bad. He who has only lost the first hole holds his hope in a state that is highly charged with belief in his own human capacity; he who is dormy down when the match is far from home still keeps hope, is buoyed well with it, but he does his best in a half-cheerful, half-nervous way, knowing that the time for supreme human endeavour has passed, and he gives the matter over to kind Providence, submitting that his deserts are good. So one who has played badly in the morning hopes for success in the afternoon; and where is the man who, having made poor shots all the day and lost holes and matches by them, does not fall to sleep at night consoled and peaceful in reflecting upon a discovery that will make full amends upon the morrow? After the failures of a summer season hopes arise for better fare when cool autumn makes the play more pleasant; when there has been one whole bad year there is hope enough that the game will mend in the time that follows. In this way it is hope all through, hope always, in the beginning and the end and in the small things with the great. Hope is the most human, most uplifting of all the emotions. Banish this emotional quality from the human mind and the golf clubs would be disbanded, for the game would cease to be golf for another day. The charm would have gone completely. Only the nature of the hope sometimes varies as we have shown, and the most wonderful feature of this wonder of golf is the sublimely simple way in which the man of a match, when all seems lost, when the cause seems wholly ruined, when by nothing human does it seem that a situation hanging upon a thread so thin can possibly be saved, believes in the future still. Providence still exists for him. Every human reckoning would show that he approaches the impossible, and yet he sees it not, but only the narrow way of escape to success beyond. And there is infinite satisfaction to the soul, much that is splendidly destructive of utter materialism, in realising that often the seeming human impossibility is broken and Providence pulls us through. In golf we often ask for miracles, and sometimes we obtain them. It seems to me that the golfer has one satisfying motto, and only one, and it is _Spero meliora_. What is the use of the "far and sure" that the ancients have bequeathed to us? Nearly meaningless it is. And if those words of hope are emblazoned on his coat of arms, the golfing man should have the Watts picture of "Hope" in his private chamber, courageous Hope straining for the faintest note that comes from the one lone string that remains on the almost dismantled harp. * * * * * Such strong exercises of emotions, physical and soulful, accounting, as we may believe, for much of the fascination of the game, are supported by others, subtler but also of large effect. There are the aggravations of the game. It suggests an object that no man has ever completely achieved and never will do, since none has ever arisen to a state of skill and consistency when he plays perfect golf and plays it always, though such success may nearly be achieved at other pastimes. And it is not given to the player to know why the skill he feels himself possessed of does not bear its fruit. He is left in wonderment and aggravation. The game goads, it taunts, it mocks unmercifully. Old Tom Morris expressed the simplest overwhelming truth when he said it was "aye fechtin' against us." It does so from the first hour, the first minute of the golfer's existence as such, when he misses the ball which it had seemed so easy to strike. Then, his vanity wounded, he attacks, and the lifelong feud begins. What always seems so easy becomes the nearly impossible. There is always something new to learn, always another scrap of explanation of mystery to be gathered, and the player is always groping and being taught. But he moves forward only to fall back again, and the simple consolation he has from this ever-recurring process is that the tide of discovery, when it rolls back, returns a little higher up the beach with the next wave and in the long succession there is a gain. But this process is not so regular as the running of the tide, not so much a matter of calculable natural law, and therein is the disappointment and the aggravation. A man retires to his rest at night feeling himself a good and well-satisfied golfer with rapid advancement certain, and lo! the morning will be little spent when he is shown to himself as one of the poorest and most ineffectual players. The mystery of this reaction is quite insoluble; only the cold fact is clear, convincing. No more tantalising will-o'-the-wisp is there than form at golf. It is a game that lures a man, it coquets with him, trifles with his yearnings and his hopes, and flouts him. So does it excite him, and, hurting his pride, stirs his ambition and his desire to obtain the mastery. The spirit of adventure and conquest is aroused, and the strong man who has failed in no undertaking before declares that he will not fail in this. And so, with his everlasting hope, he perseveres and will not give in. But it is the game that wins. It appeals to the emotions of the primitive man in another way that may often be unsuspected. In essence it is the simplest and the most natural of games. It is indeed a game of Nature, and it is played not on the smoothest surfaces with white lines drawn upon them, but upon plain grass-covered earth, a little smoothed by man but still with abounding natural roughness and simplicity. Here on the links are space and freedom such as are afforded to people, especially those of towns and cities, rarely in present times. The tendency in all life now is to confine itself closely. We live in small spaces, with many walls and low roofs; we move through thronged streets and by underground railways. Things are not the same as when there was the Garden of Eden and the open world outside it. His confinement is a wearing oppression to the modern man, though he may not always suspect it. Because it emancipates and gives us back a little of our lost freedom is the chief reason for the popularity of motoring, and it was to attain more freedom still that man made up his mind to fly and now flies accordingly. We cannot entirely escape from this unnatural confinement which modern conditions of life have forced upon us, but for a little while at intervals, through the medium of this sport, we may experience the sense of space, of freedom, of the something that comes near to infinity. Unconscious of this cause, a golfer on the links is uplifted to a simpler freer self. He has a great open space about him, the wilder the better, and the open sky above. He takes Nature as he finds her, accepting her every mood, and that is why this game is and must be one for all weathers. There is the ball upon the tee. Hit it, golfer, anywhere you please! Hit it far, no limit to the distance! Strike with all your strength! Until in the game the time for wariness comes, as with the hunter upon his prey, see no limitations, accept all consequences. The golfer's freedom has a flavour that other people rarely taste. Emotions serve the human system better than comforts and conveniences, for these emotions are the pulse of life and the conveniences are mere aids to existence. Golf, being complete, has its advantages of convenience as well as its thrilling emotions, and when the players reason to their relatives and their friends upon the good of the game, shaping their excuses for a strange excess, they exhibit with a limited sincerity the real advantages and conveniences. The game may be played anywhere and everywhere. It is the same in principle, the same in rules, the same in actions; but yet again it is like a new thing everywhere, and it is always fresh. There is a golf course wherever a man may go; and there is a new experience for him always. He needs only one man to play with him; or indeed, if there is no such man available, he may play with the game itself as his implacable opponent, fight it in the open and without the medium of a human opponent to break the shocks for him. If variety is the spice of life, then here is spice enough. Then it gives us such companionship as can be gained by few other means, for it brings us to inner intimacy with the man we play, bares his hidden nature to us, strips from him all those trappings of manner and suggestion by which in the ordinary social scheme every person plays a part as on a stage and rarely is well discovered. No man plays a part in golf; his individuality, in all its goodness and weakness, is unfolded in the light. He is known entirely and for his own true self. The game gives us fresh air and the most splendid exercise. These are enormous advantages in golf, and we extol them in defence of our enthusiasm and they are accepted; yet, honest to ourselves, we know that we do not play golf because of fresh air and exercise, and indeed we only think of them as gain when, in the slavery to which we have been subject, our emotions for a day have been shivered and shocked by failure. It has the advantage that we can play it when the period of life for other games has passed, and we can play while life leaves to us but a flick of vigour. Some of the meanest men, who are barely worthy of being in this excellent community where the sense of brotherhood is so good, have been gross enough to say that golf serves their professional and commercial purposes thoroughly well--as indeed it may--by giving them intimacy with valuable and helpful friends. These are men who would buy their idols and sell them for a profit of five per cent. The advantages of golf are there; but they are the accident of circumstances, or not perhaps the accident but simply like the scheme of Nature in supporting what is good with good itself; but they do not and cannot in any measure explain the mystery of the fascination of the game, for that mystery lies in the emotional, the spiritual, the psychological, and not in anything that is just material. Golf is something of a passion, and passions are of the blood and have nothing to do with conveniences and rules of life for health and plain advantage. * * * * * The traditions of golf are the second of its wonders. All things that are old have certain traditional sentiment clinging to them, and it makes a good flavouring to life, for it is suggestive of age and time and continuity and eternity. Had golf no traditions now, those emotional effects in its subjects might be produced the same, but yet the sport would not be the same rich colourful thing that we know it to be, but something grosser. And again we could stand for golf and say that no other sport can testify to its past and present worth and greatness with such excellent tradition. Three only can rank in the same class, and those are cricket, hunting, and the turf. Their traditions indeed are rich, they uphold their sports to-day, and they abound in those rare stories which, even if they have lost nothing with time, make fine things for the listening now and have the tendency always to promote a better sporting spirit. But three things are essential to good traditions, the first being acts, the second persons, and the third places, and the last of the three is far from being the least important, because birds do not love their nests more than traditions do the plots of earth where are their homes. They cannot live in space; there they would lapse to a state of film and would fade away. Give them abiding places, real solid ground upon which their delicate ghostly structures may rest, and they have a substance which gives them a fine reality. If a character of the past were invented, given a real name, all his manners and customs, his feats and follies carefully described, even his father and mother most properly identified, and a statement made of the provisions in his will for those who followed after him, that would still be likely to linger on as a character merely, a possibility of the past but a thing of no account, not an influence. He could not be placed. If we give ourselves a licence to roam the earth in search of golf, we like to think of the good men of the old traditions as being comfortably settled, as being at special places where, in our fireside fancies on winter nights when the winds are moaning and the rains are lashing against the window-panes, we can see them and sit down with them. The wandering hero of tradition does not suit. And here is a great virtue of the people of our golfing traditions: we can catch them tight, nail them fast. We have special plots of land--the majestic links of Scotland, the old course of Blackheath, almost every yard of which might, if speechful, tell a story of some old golfer of the past. The old golfers trod those links some time in their earthly days. We know the shots they played, where balls pitched and how they ran, the bunkers where they had disasters, their amazing recoveries and the putts that they holed and missed--for even the golfers of tradition missed their putts at times. We know where those golfers walked, and so the traditions are of the links and the men with the links, and the links are the same now as once. Let us then hope fervently that they may remain the same, though a hundred kinds of new balls, each farther flying than the one before it, should be invented, and such courses should be declared to be weakened and out of date. It is easy enough to invent a character, but it is not so easy to invent a links and then declare that by sea encroachments on the coast it has been swallowed up and has gone. The tale is weak and unconvincing. But invent your character, and then produce your place, and say: "He was here; his feet were on this teeing ground; here he took a divot; it was in this bunker that he was caught," and there is nothing more that is needed for complete conviction. Having seen a little of the way in which certain potential and probable traditions of the future are now being made, I have a suspicion about some of the amazing histories of the past that have been reported to us. Such suspicions are developed in the minds of those who have themselves been parties to some exaggerations of things done on certain links, and have lived to see those exaggerations improved upon by further tellers, and of a rich story, with scarcely a base of fact, being thus established in history and made ready for a monument. Having our plots of land, with their permanent marks and milestones, it is easy to do it so, and all golfers cannot be commended for complete veracity, though their lies are tolerably honest of their kind, being, like their shots, made subconsciously, and the cause, being companionable conduct, is a good one. Listeners believe in them and so make them three-parts truth. Cricket and racing have had their splendid men, and they have had certain sorts of places, but nothing homelike, merely round patches of smooth land with rails and grand stands, to which traditions can never cling like ivy to the crumbling tower. The ghost men of these old traditions were fine creatures; well did they do their work; they fought and won; but they seem lonesome creatures. They lack location, and they have no family histories and traditions of their own. They are mere particles of the past. Nearly all the men of our great traditions are heroes of fine countenance and rich character, brilliant in their individuality, with that proper touch of pride and arrogance blended with the finest old conservatism, which all good traditions should enjoy. Only the ancients of the chase are good company for them. * * * * * It seems to me that our traditions and their associate legends might be separated into five periods. There is the primeval, the prehistoric, the most royal and ancient, the early Scottish, and the late gutty periods. Of the primeval there is no more to be said than there is of primeval man. We know the latter was born, that he did work of sorts, that he ate and slept, that in his way he lived and perhaps he loved, while certainly he died. Of the primeval golfers we are solid in the belief that they had clubs and balls, for they must have had, and they had holes or marks, for they could not have done without them. We suspect them of stymies, for only the weight of tradition has held the stymie to us still, and for its power this tradition must be far extended. Almost certainly they made their first clubs from the branches of trees, but there was nothing grand in that, for Harry Vardon and brother Tom, Edward Ray as well, all three beginning their golf in their native Jersey, did the same, and they played with stone marbles for their balls, played in the moonlight too. There would seem here to have been a tendency towards a throw-back in Jersey golf; but Vardon and his associates have made an ample advance since then. Good Sir Walter Simpson, in his deep researches, leaned to a more exact and defined theory or tradition of the primeval golf, and he gaily marked for it a beginning and a place. It is attractive and it is reasonable, and this, with the theory of the spontaneous and inevitable origin of the game in many places in the early times of man, theories with living detail thickening on them, come near in quality to real tradition. Sir Walter, you may remember, supposed a shepherd minding his sheep, who often chanced upon a round pebble and, having his crook in his hand, he would strike it away. In the ordinary way this led to nothing, but once on a time, "probably," a shepherd feeding his sheep on the links, "which might have been those of St. Andrews," rolled one of these stones into a rabbit scrape, and then he exclaimed, "Marry! I could not do that if I tried!"--a thought, so instinctive is ambition, as Sir Walter says, which nerved him to the attempt. Enter the second shepherd, who watches awhile and says then: "Forsooth, but that is easy!" He takes a crook in his hand, swings violently, and misses. The first shepherd turns away laughing. The two fellows then perceive that this is a serious business, and together they enter the gorse and search for round stones wherewith to play their new game. Sir Walter Simpson was a terrible man, and he must needs work into this excellent romance the declaration that each shepherd, to his surprise, found an old golf ball, every reader knowing that they "are to be found there in considerable quantity even to this day." Then these shepherd-golfers deepened the rabbit scrape so that the balls might not jump out of it, and they set themselves to practising putting. The stronger shepherd happened to be the less skilful, and he found himself getting beaten at this diversion, whereupon he protested that it was a fairer test of skill to play for the hole from a considerable distance. When this was settled it was found that the game was improved. The players, says the theorist, at first called it "putty," because the immediate object was to putt or put the ball into the hole or scrape, but at the longer distance the driving was the chief interest, and therefore the name was changed to "go off" or "golf." In the meantime the sheep, as sheep will do, had strayed, and the shepherds had to go in chase of them. Naturally they found this a very troublesome and annoying interruption, and so they hit upon the great idea of making a circular course of holes which enabled them to play and herd at the same time. By this arrangement there were many holes and they were far apart, and it became necessary to mark their whereabouts, which was easily done by means of a tag of wool from a sheep, fastened to a stick, which, as is remarked, is a sort of flag still used on many Scottish courses in much the same simplicity as by those early shepherds. And Sir Walter wrote with reason that since those early days the essentials of the game have altered but little. After the time of these first shepherds there were doubtless more shepherds, and the bucolics in general would be given to the game. Yet it should never be understood that even in its origins this game was one that was practised chiefly by persons of low intellectual strength. Indeed it was not. In the ancient classics there are references to ball games that bear close resemblance to primitive golf, and then when games began to appear in Holland and France that had golf in them, even though they were not golf, it was not the common people always who were most attracted. And in passing, it must be said, that while golf as we have it now is British--Scottish, if you like--and there is enough authority and substance in the claim for the satisfaction of any pride seeing that the laws of St. Andrews have been for ages back the laws of the world at large, it is too much to believe that a game so simple in its essentials, so obvious and so necessary and so desirable, should have had an exclusive origin in any one country, to be copied by the others. The elements of golf must have come up spontaneously in many different parts of the world, although they were without rule, organisation, and might not have been known as a game or anything like that by those who employed them. But it was there, as eating and kissing were; and it fell to the lot of those canny and most discerning Scots to regularise it, as it were, to declare it a game and give it definiteness, and in due time to set up laws and a government, all of which were just what they should be and the best conceivable. It might not have been such a good game as it is now had it not been nurtured at St. Andrews, Leith, and Musselburgh, and in those other early cradles of the pastime; but I cannot believe that if there had been no land north of Newcastle there would have been no golf, and we should be moaning now in vague discontent for a mysterious something lost to life. * * * * * I may adduce some circumstances from most ancient history and tradition which have not been applied to this question hitherto, but should have been, for they seem to be apposite and remarkable. In these days Ireland, with a fine spirit, is struggling for better golfing recognition, and should have it. When a game is for the world, what is the Irish Channel? The country has some very splendid links, and has produced some players--if few of them--of the finest quality; but a people who exhibit frequently a fine appreciation of the spirit of the golfing brotherhood, and to the wandering player extend a hospitality of which it can only be said that it is Irish, are treated coldly in championship dignity being withheld from their courses and their not being admitted to the higher councils of the game. I remember with gratitude a very early acquaintance with the golf of Newcastle in County Down, that glorious course in the shadow of the Mourne Mountains, and with Portrush in the north, while about Dublin there are links that fear no comparison with the best of other lands. The ordinary records may indicate that there was no golf in Ireland until 1881, when what is now the Royal Belfast Club was formed; but listen to a story which is brought to me in some spirit of triumph by a friend, Mr. Victor Collins, a golfer, who practises his game, for the most part, not on any mainland but out on the Arran Isles, west of the Irish coast, out on little Inneshmor, where he lives when he is not in London, and where he has a small course of just a few sporting holes for his own delight, one which would have been as agreeable to the golfers of the prehistoric period as it is now to a modern gentleman who occasionally becomes a little tired of over-civilisation and likes to retreat to simplicity and Nature. It is a considerable change from Stoke Poges to Inneshmor, but only a poor soul would not like it for a period. In London one evening we talked of golf and Inneshmor, and he told me a legendary story, the documentary narrative of which he has since produced in the form of an extract from "O'Looney's unpublished MS. translation of the 'Tain bo' Cuailgne' in the Irish Royal Academy, Dublin." Knowing little of these matters, I quote Mr. Collins direct in saying that this is the most famous of Irish epics, and describes the war Queen Maeve of Connacht, assisted by her vassal kings of the rest of Ireland, waged against Ulster to obtain a bull which was reputed to be a finer animal than the one she herself possessed. The central hero of Ulster was the famous Cuchullain, the greatest of all Irish heroes, in truth an Irish Achilles. Fergus, ex-king of Ulster, who had taken refuge with Maeve, tells her who are the champions against whom her armies will have to contend, and these lines occur in the course of his terrifying account of Cuchullain, whose age at the time of this expedition was between six and seven: "The boy set out then and he took his instruments of pleasure with him; he took his hurly of creduma and his silver ball, and he took his massive Clettini, and he took his playing Bunsach, with its fire-burned top, and he began to shorten his way with them. He would give the ball a stroke of his hurly and drive it a great distance before him; he would cast (? swing) his hurly at it, and would give it a second stroke that would drive it not a shorter distance than the first blow. He would cast his Clettini, and he would hurl his Bunsach, and he would make a wild race after them. He would then take up his hurly, and his ball, and his Clettini, and his Bunsach, and he would cast his Bunsach up in the air on before him, and the end of the Bunsach would not have reached the ground before he would have caught it by the top while still flying, and in this way he went on till he reached the Forad of the plain of Emain where the youths were." This young Cuchullain does appear to have been appreciably better than scratch. Apparently he was going to attend something in the nature of a club gathering, and his way of getting there was much in the nature of cross-country golf with a touch of trick in it; for there are professionals to-day who make a show in their idle moments of pitching up a ball and catching it with their hands. My informer tells me that Cuchullain was not confining his attention to golf alone, but doing feats of jugglery as well in order to while away the journey. "The description of driving the ball before him," he remarks, "evidently contains the germ of golf. Some years ago I saw in an illustrated paper a reproduction of a picture of a tombstone from some place in Ulster dating to the twelfth century. It was the tombstone of a Norseman. On it were a double-headed sword, the sign of his profession, and below it the perfect representation of a cleek and a golf ball, his favourite amusement. It would be interesting to make a serious search in old Irish records for further information on the game. 'Clettini' is from an Irish word for 'feather.' It was evidently a feathered javelin he hurled. 'Creduma' means 'red metal,' that is brass. Hurly of creduma therefore comes curiously near the quite modern brassey. Bunsach is a very obscure word. In middle Irish there was such a word, but it meant a kind of dagger." This discovery opens up an excellent speculation. * * * * * The periods of the traditions of course impinge upon each other and softly blend, so that the game some way or other seems to go back continuously from now to the beginning. We have in the most royal and ancient period the Stuart kings playing their golf, and Charles the First hearing of mighty troubles to his throne perpending while he was golfing on the links of Leith; of James the Second with his court playing the golf at Blackheath and sowing seeds that were to bear amazing fruit in the south at a far-off date; of Mary Queen of Scots golfing with her favourite Chastelard at St. Andrews. There was Archbishop Hamilton, who signed the authority that was given to the Provost and magistrates of St. Andrews to put rabbits on the links, which authority recognised the rights of the community to the links, more especially for the purpose of playing at "golff, futball, schuteing at all gamis, with all other manner of pastyme." This was a kind of ratification of a Magna Charta of Golf. There was Duncan Forbes, of Culloden, first captain of the Gentlemen Golfers, now known as the Honourable Company, in 1744. A marvellous man was Duncan Forbes, Lord President of the Council, and we know that he played for the Silver Club in 1745--for the last time, probably, because just then the rising of the clans obliged him to set out for the north, where he exerted himself to the utmost to prevent them from joining the cause of the Young Pretender. And here in passing let it be written that there is good cause to think that Bonnie Prince Charlie himself was the first to play real or Scottish golf on the continent of Europe, for he is believed to have had a course made for himself when in Italy, and was once found playing in the Borghese gardens, so Mr. Andrew Lang once told us. There was the wonderful William St. Clair, of Roslin, so much skilled at golf and archery that the common people believed he had a private arrangement with the devil. Sir George Chalmers painted a picture of him, which is possessed by the Honourable Company, and Sir Walter Scott wrote that he was "a man considerably above six feet, with dark grey locks, a form upright, but gracefully so, thin-flanked and broad-shouldered, built, it would seem, for the business of war or the chase, a noble eye, of chastened pride and undoubted authority, and features handsome and striking in their general effect. As schoolboys we crowded to see him perform feats of strength and skill in the old Scottish games of golf and archery." And from there the tale passes on with life and colour to the beginnings of the Royal and Ancient Club; to the activities of the early members like Major Murray Belshes, and the interest of William the Fourth, whose gift medal is played for at St. Andrews to this day; to such fine gentlemen of the old school as the late Lord Moncrieff and the Earl of Wemyss; to the professionals also like the Morrises and Allan Robertson, and old Willie Park. So on along from the ages past to such as Frederick Guthrie Tait, who gave to the modern history of golf something that glows as well as the best of the old traditions. Now it may be said that these traditions and all the others, like them and unlike, make the game no better, and that they add nothing in yards to our driving from the tee. After a consideration I will not agree either that they make the game no better or that they add nothing to the driving. The spirits of a romantic history are a continual influence. They give a dignity to the game which is felt right through it. Only the golfer knows how true this is. Men who look upon it lightly as a pastime before they know anything of it, learn upon their initiation, and not only learn but feel, that there is all that is mysterious, wonderful, and awe-inspiring in the game and its past, a new and deep respect is created, and there is no more beginner's lightness and nonsense. Age and solemnity, and many ceremonies great and small, have given to golf some of the attributes of a religion, and with membership of it there comes responsibility. When a new Nonconformist chapel has the same exalting influence upon the mind and sentiment of a person of intelligence and sympathies as an ancient cathedral with all its tombs and relics, and the dim pillars among which echoes seem to float and mingle with spirits of the past and the great eternity, or when the dining-room of a flat in Knightsbridge inspires and dignifies its company like the banqueting hall of some ancient castle, I will perhaps agree that the traditions of golf are of no practical effect beyond that of merely preserving the game from vandalism and giving it a place above the others. Often when reflecting thus one feels that in duty to the game one's policy in matters should be "St. Andrews, right or wrong." But yet one could wish that these mighty traditions were not at times invoked for improper purposes. There is too much free and unintelligible talk about them in these modern times. They are wantonly applied to base uses; a man will urge the traditions in his favour and against his opponent when he attempts some vile procedure. When a crafty person is beaten in argument, he cries, "The traditions!" and people who speciously, and with insincerity, condemn what we may call the modern advancements of the game will murmur that the rubber-cored ball and clubs with steel faces are not according to "the traditions." Truly they are not, and those old traditions had nothing to do with gutties either; but Duncan Forbes would have rejoiced in the possession of a modern driver and mashie niblick. It is too often and absurdly assumed that the ancients used the tools they had because they were the best conceivable and most appropriate, just right in practical quality and proper sentiment. They were merely the best that had been discovered up to then. The Stuart kings might have had a happier time had they possessed some rubber Haskells to coax and lead them on. CHAPTER II THE UBIQUITY OF THE GAME; WITH AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR THE COMMUNITY OF GOLFERS, AND A NOTE UPON THE EFFECT OF ST. ANDREWS SPIRITS. The ubiquity of this game--being the third of the seven wonders--is remarkable, for it is played everywhere by everybody. No other sport has ever achieved such universal favour, and we may be sure that none will ever do so, because, apart from the fascination it exercises upon the people of different countries and different races, it is so strong in its simplicity--the stick, the ball, the mark, and, with them being given, the object plainly suggested. It has already been suggested that, in its essentials golf being obvious, it must have been practised from the earliest times. Everywhere the simpler emotions of man are the same, and so everywhere the game must make the same appeal when it is understood. So here, strange as it is still, we have a nearly satisfying explanation. What is yet wonderful beyond it is the fact that the regulated game with the rules and restrictions that have been agreed upon and codified by the high authorities at St. Andrews are everywhere accepted, and even in such embellishments it is the same game everywhere. Nothing can approach it in this universality. Yet that also is nearly explicable. By a process of continuous thought and deduction from observation the people of St. Andrews, past and present, have gained a code of regulations which seems most completely to satisfy the requirements of the case. It has often been urged against the numerous and lengthy laws we have that they suffer from too many niceties and too many complications, and that they represent a remarkable evolution of man-made intricacy from the one simple governing principle that the ball shall be struck by the stick, and that if the object be not achieved by the first blow it shall be struck again from the place where it then lies. In that simple principle there is all golf, and by it the game must surely have been played at the beginning. But it is the disposition of man to depart from the most absolute simplicity in the direction of what he regards as improvement upon it, and therefore bare principles get covered up with fancy wrappings, while again there is in the human species an immovable distrust of each other and a tendency towards the setting up of safeguards and protections--laws. When this is done in different places, and by different peoples, the results also are almost certain to be widely different; and with the assistance of time and further development two peoples might at length produce two games which, originating in the same basic principle, might be in appearance, materials, and actions quite dissimilar. Nearly all ball games, indeed, must have had much the same original principle. Golf, as we know it, has had its integrity preserved, and has established its amazing universality because, despite the numerous and lengthy laws, the spirit of the game has been so completely preserved in them. Between absolute simplicity, the one natural law of golf, as we might call it, as just enunciated, and a lengthy, confusing, and sometimes even contradictory code there can be little compromise, and perfection and completeness in golfing law are impossible, because no two courses are alike, no two shots are quite the same, and there can be no end to new situations until there is an end of the world and man. It sometimes seems that St. Andrews, indefatigable, pursues an impossible finality, and thereby makes difficulties for itself. That through ages and generations it has produced a code of laws, and defined the principles of a game that is accepted all over the world, and causes the same game to be played wherever the sun may shine, is not merely an achievement in intelligence and discernment, but something that suggests a grand inspiration. These are times of change, when old systems of the world are being abandoned and new ones being set in their places. It may happen, though it is as unlikely as it is undesirable, that St. Andrews itself as a governing body will fall; but nothing that ever happens to the game in the future can equal the marvel of its foundation and establishment by this authority and its associates. * * * * * It is not without good reason that they call golf the world game now. It has alighted upon every country, and wherever it has touched it has seized. The yellow man likes it; the black man in some places has to be kept away from it, because it is found that he grows too fond of it. One day when I was golfing at the Country Club, near Boston, they showed me a most primitive kind of club that was kept with some other relics in a glass case. It had been fashioned from the branch of a tree, and with this crude implement a nigger boy in one of the southern states had not long previously driven a ball over two hundred yards. Other games are for their own countries, like the country's foods, and they would neither be suitable nor adaptable elsewhere; but in its nature golf will do for all, and it has the same subtle attraction for everybody, so that what was once thought to be the "golf craze" of the British people only became the craze of the Americans too, then of the French, now of the Germans and others, and of really everybody. Its qualities and conveniences make it the only possible world game. At present in some countries it is confined to a few people of unusual distinction or circumstances, but it has been found in old and recent history that, following a beginning of this kind, the game in a new land has never languished, but that presently it has extended from the pioneers, who were probably from abroad, to the native people, and from the upper classes to the middle, and then to the lower. In France at the present time we see the game being started among the general French, and I have news that the statesmen have begun to play; yet a little while since the golf of Gaul was carried on by British only. Recently some of us were looking over the map of the world for odd countries that might be golfless, and it appeared then that there were but four: one being the Balkan States, considering them in the piece, another was Afghanistan, a third was Persia, and, scattering the attention over the islands of the earth, one reflected that no golf in Iceland had been heard of. But shortly afterwards this brief list of lone golfless places was reduced to one. To a little gathering of friends one night an adventurous gentleman was describing the excitements of a day's rough golf that he had had one time when near to Reykiavik, and, if the course was to some extent made for the occasion, little enough did that matter then. There were some real holes, and the pioneer declared one of them to be the longest and most sporting he had ever played; and we knew he had played some good ones. So Iceland came into the fold. It was discovered during the recent wars that there was golf here and there in those worrying Balkans. Then lo! the land of the Afghans was also delivered to the game, and it was the Ameer himself who was chiefly responsible, thus emulating the rulers of many other lands. He had heard of golf, had seen it, realised it, and had been fascinated. Thereupon he had a short course prepared for him in the neighbourhood of Kabul, and began to practise with royal assiduity at his driving, pitching, and putting. Humble, doubtful, and yet loyal subjects observed this done from a respectful distance, and they wondered. After a little while they perceived that it was a game, and that the chief of Afghans invariably sought with his little ball the holes that were placed upon the course. Being practical people, they conceived that they might turn the game and their royal master's fondness for it to their advantage, and thereupon began to deposit in the holes at night such petitions as they had difficulty in getting placed before the royal eyes by any other means. They believed that by their new system the Ameer was sure to see and read what was intended for him. Yet it proved that he was somewhat angered by this manner of approach, and gave orders that all petitions found in his golfing holes should be burned unread. The petitioning parties had not understood how seriously the game he played was taken, nor the deep effect it had upon the mind and the disposition of the player, else they would surely have moved craftily and warily with their prayers, and then they might have gained imperial favour. Had they seen their ruler miss his drive, foozle his second, put his third into the pond, slice among the trees with his fifth--even Ameers being penalised a stroke for lifting from the water--and eventually reach the putting green in nine, three more strokes then being needed, they would have been stupid Afghans had they not at a convenient moment taken their petitions from the holes, or withheld them if they had not placed them there. But when an Ameer hits a good one from the tee, when his ball flies fast and straight from his royal brassey (and rulers also laugh when a topped ball runs a bunker!), when by enormous luck he lays an approach quite close to the hole, and afterwards the putt is truly played--why, many an Afghan might pray for the release of a brother from prison in Kabul, and the brother, pardoned, might be raised to office in the palace, perhaps to be an executioner. Now, if the petition had been submitted when the sovereign had done his hole in twelve, the brother might have died as arranged, perhaps the petitioner also, and who knows but that the neglectful greenkeeper, for not having seen that all holes for the day were free of pleas, would not have joined the departures for another world. Wandering players may look forward now to some future golf in Afghanistan. Have we not heard of the Shah at the game? If it cannot be proved, Persia must be left in an Asiatic golfless solitude, with the gibe against her that even celestial China has her courses, and that they are everywhere save in the Persia where Omar was, and in fine worldly philosophy bade us take good pleasures while we may. Golf's vast ubiquity is illustrated in another case recalled by this reference to kings who play. Miss Decima Moore of the theatres has a love for roving far which has led her to many raw places of the earth for hunting and shooting and adventurous exploration when she has tired of the footlights and has longed for Nature with no mask at all. Then, being golfer too, she has wandered with her bag of clubs into many distant lands, and one morning in London, just back from Central Africa, she told me of some strange experiences of a golfing woman. She has played the game up in Uganda, and explained the quality of the play of King Daudi Chwa, who is a ruler of those parts. Even once before, a colonial bishop had informed me of the golf of this dusky king. He had had some holes laid out for himself, so I was instructed, and when not engaged in duties of his kingly office, which were seemingly not onerous, he devoted himself earnestly to the reduction of his handicap and to lowering his record for his private course--upon which strangers in those parts are always welcome to a game. The bishop said that his Majesty drove an excellent ball, played his irons well, and putted with a good instinct for line and length, and the actress backed the bishop's story. In the region of the Victoria Nyanza there are no Sunningdales to be found, but the royal course of nine holes is considered a creditable thing. The king, who was lately in England and played a little here, will be glad to see any golfers who may go that way, and it may be his pleasure to call one of his holes by a name of theirs as, with a good African grace, he called one "Decima" when our English lady played it. * * * * * These wandering golfers do bring home great stories, and others send them. A friend, poor Tom Browne, who is dead, the clever artist in black and white, sat with me once at lunch in the Adelphi, and we talked of golf in distant lands and many things concerning it, for in the morning he was going eastwards to China and Japan. He said he should play as much as possible, and he did. While at the table he drew a sketch on a piece of paper and passed it to me with a smile. It was a picture of himself leaving on a golfing holiday to those very foreign parts, with numerous bags of clubs, cases of spare clubs guaranteed for all climates, and innumerable large boxes piled up all round him, each one labelled "One gross of best balls." Poor Tom always did take his clubs with him to foreign lands, and on this occasion he made good, as one might say, on that little sketch he drew at lunch by the places he played at afterwards, and queer drawings he sent to me of the courses and the people at them. He wrote from Tien-Tsin that the one they had there was just outside the town and was a flat plain covered with Chinese graves, the course being really nothing but one huge graveyard. "The Chinamen," he said in his letter, "plant their graves anywhere that suits them, and they consist of raised-up mounds which enclose the coffins. Off the graves the ball will bounce at all kinds of angles. Sometimes after heavy rains the mounds fall to pieces and expose the coffins. The golf club can remove any of these graves by buying them at four taels a coffin, and when a grave is bought in this way the native takes the coffin away, buries it somewhere else, and the grave is then flattened down. Fore-caddies are employed on this course. The 'greens' consist of baked mud, as is usual in these eastern parts, and are generally circular in shape. Chinese caddies do not understand the game and think that the foreign devils who play it are surely mad. They continually ask the players, 'When will you finish hitting and following that ball about?' And they have a local rule at Tien-Tsin that 'a ball lying in an open grave may be picked out and dropped without penalty.'" This graveyard golf, as I know, is not at all peculiar to Tien-Tsin, for not long ago I had a letter from a British official at Chiankiang on the Yangtse River, in which he told me that they had just begun to play the game out there on a course covered with crater-like excrescences, these Chinese graves again, and he declared that they made the most excellent hazards. It should be added for their credit's sake, golfers being considerate people and mindful of others' feelings, that they carefully ascertained in this case that no Chinese sentiment was injured by play in these cemeteries, if they are to be called by such a name. Again, I recall that a little while since the golfers who have a course in the Malay peninsula went down to it one morning and found a Chinaman digging up the remains of a deceased relative from one of the putting greens, intending to remove them to China; because it is a common thing, as I am told, when a Chinaman dies abroad, for his people to inter him temporarily if they can and give him another burial in his native land when opportunity chances. There has been a great move in things in this country lately. The Government has changed; the people, according to some trade returns that I have seen, are taking extensively to smoking English cigarettes and wearing unlovely English clothes. So it is inevitable that in their vast multitudes they will one day come into golf, for a little advancement towards modern ways often leads to strikes and golf. One fears to think that when China has a championship her people may compete in such a costume as is favoured by some of the oldest and best Scottish professionals (and if asked for a name we shall mention good Sandy Herd as a captain of the class), who always wear dark trousers and a light-grey jacket to their golf. There must be some virtue in this unconventional arrangement of tints; for so many of the great are attached to it. In other parts of Asia there is golf that is peculiar, especially in India where it flourishes to the extent of forty or fifty clubs, including those of Calcutta and Bombay, which are not merely the oldest in India but rank high in seniority among the golf clubs of the world. Both were well established before 1860, at which time there were only two or three in England, and the game was all but unknown in America. Despite the fact that it was born in 1842 and was really an Indian offshoot of the famous Royal Blackheath Club, the Royal Bombay remains a little primitive in the matter of its course. It is a golf course for one part of the day and something else for the remainder, and it is perhaps the only course in the world which is dismantled daily. The fact is that it is situated on what is called the "maidan," an open space near to the European business quarter, and the golfers, having no exclusive possession of it, are not allowed to play after half past ten in the morning and are required, when they have done, to remove their hazards. This obviously necessitates unconventional obstacles, and the club has had to resort to movable screens, varying from four to ten feet high, which are put up when play begins and taken away again when it is finished. Having become accustomed to this sort of thing it ceases to annoy, and in Bombay the course is considered good and sporting, and the greens are well attended. Then up on the hills at Darjeeling there is the highest golf course in the world, for it is situated at an elevation of more than eight thousand feet above the level of the sea on the abandoned cantonment of Seneshal. Scenery often does not count for very much with golfers, and the better the golfer the keener he is on the game and the less does he care at times about the surroundings of the course. Yet, as I am told, it would be a dull poor soul that was not moved by the views from the Darjeeling course, with Mounts Everest and Kinchinjunga, both nearly thirty thousand feet high, in one direction and the plains of Bengal in another. But perhaps the most curious of the Indian courses is that of the Royal Western India Club, upon which is an idgah, or kind of temple, some thirty feet in height and fifty long, with bastions at either end and minarets in the middle. This idgah serves the double duty of club-house and a hazard also, for it has to be driven over from the tee on the way to the eleventh hole, and many are the marks on its walls that were made by balls that were hit too low. The course has another peculiarity in that it possesses seventeen holes only, no amount of ingenuity being enough to scheme out an eighteenth on the land available, so one of them has to be played twice over to make up the usual eighteen. This club has its course at Nasik, and mention of the idgah reminds one that the Royal Bangkok Club of Siam used to have an old and very imposing Siamese temple for a club-house. A little while since, when travelling northwards from Marseilles through France, I met, in the restaurant car of my P.L.M. train, an officer just going home on leave from India, and he assured me that he had found no place in the country where there was no golf, and he gave me some good examples of the ingenuity and enthusiasm of the golfers there. Thus at Multam, for the betterment of their sanded putting "browns" they keep them oiled all over, so that the ball runs evenly along them, and at a reasonable pace. There is an attendant to each green, who smooths over the track that is made by every ball when putted. And my companion told me also that in the season at Gulmurg in Kashmir, where they have two courses, there is such a crowd of golfers that it is difficult to arrange starting times for all of them. As one would expect, the game is played in Japan, and there is a highly flourishing club at Kobe, whose course is on the top of a high mountain at Rokkosan. It is a splendidly interesting course when reached, with views that can only be second in magnificence to those of Darjeeling; but for the occasional visitor the chief pleasure would seem to lie in the reaching, rather, perhaps, than in golfing on it afterwards, for the players have to go by rickshaw to the foot of the Cascade Valley and are then carried up the mountain slope by coolies for an hour and a half, when at last the tees and bunkers come to view. Thus it is indicated what great work must have been done by the pioneers of golf. They have been fine adventurers and explorers. In their strength of purpose, their resourcefulness, their enterprise and daring, and in their joy of doing beginnings, they have had some of the burning zeal and the quick inspirations of the voyagers of Elizabethan time. They too were discovering a world anew. When a golfer reaches a place afar where there is no course, his first and most natural impulse is to make one. Sir Edgar Vincent, keen player, told me once how he and that most distinguished amateur and ex-champion Mr. J. E. Laidlay, had a considerable hand in the starting of golf in Egypt, where it is now as well established as the Pyramids and Sphinx. Sir Edgar went to Cairo, and with him took his clubs, but on arrival found there was no course whereon to play, and there was Laidlay disappointed in the same way. So they twain obtained shovels and other implements of labour, enlisted the service of native helpers, and went out into the desert, making there the first golf course of Egypt. But theirs was not the distinction of hitting the first golf ball in that ancient land. Long before then a Scottish golfing minister did it. There is no better enthusiast than these ministers, about whom the best stories are told, as of the worthy who was left muttering the Athanasian creed in the lowest depths of hell, being the bunker of that name on the old course at St. Andrews, and the other who felt he would have to give it up because he played so ill and was so much provoked--not give up the game but alas! his ministry. And so the Rev. J. H. Tait, of Aberlady, went for a golfing holiday to Egypt long before the two gallants who did the spade work there, lumbered himself up to the top of the great Pyramid, and then, feeling in his pocket, curiously enough discovered an old golf ball there. To tee it up, to address it with the handle end of his umbrella, and to despatch it earthwards to Egyptian sand with the thwack of an honest east-coast swing, was the labour of no more time than would be needed to recite a verse of Psalms. A whole book having been written on Australian golf we may leave it unconsidered here. Hardly an island but there is a links upon it. The other day, when I had myself but just come back from foreign golfing parts, I was mated for the game on a London course to one who told me he had only then returned from Fiji, where his last game was at Suva and was a foursome in which the local bishop, the attorney-general, the chief trader, and himself were engaged. He explained the part that was played by _mimosa pudica_, being the "sensitive plant," in the golf of the Fiji islanders. When this herb is touched by anything, its leaves droop and close upon the object, and, _mimosa pudica_ being all over the fairway of the course, balls would be too often hidden and lost but for the agile caddies who are sent in front to watch for them. In these days one is hearing frequently of travellers' tales like this. Spain having been captured by the game, as I shall relate in time, there is little need to dwell upon the other conquests of golf in Europe. In Germany it is fast advancing, and the German Golf Association, which publishes a German Golf Year-Book, is an enterprising body. The Kaiser has encouraged the game, and has given land for it. At Baden Baden they have given the most valuable prizes to professionals; at Oberhof, in the Thuringen Forest, there has been made under the guidance of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg one of the nicest courses a German need wish to play upon, and the girl caddies in pretty uniform are the most picturesque alive. In Norway and Sweden, in Denmark, and nearly everywhere there is golf, and much of it. It flourishes in Italy, as is to be shown in a later chapter. Even in Russia you may golf. Both St. Petersburg and Moscow have their clubs and courses, and the Mourino Club, belonging to the former, has its place near a small village some dozen miles from the capital. The golf is good for Russia, but one does not quickly forget the roughness of the road in reaching it. And down at the bottom of that side of the map there is golf at Constantinople too! The game is done on the _yok maidan_ just outside the city, _yok_ being Persian for "arrow," and _maidan_ the word for "plain," the fact being that it was on this land that the sultans and their suites in days gone by were accustomed to practise archery, and there are still on the plain many stone pillars erected to the memory of great shots that were made. The English-speaking colony had some difficulty to gain permission to golf on this ground, and, having no exclusive rights in the matter, are harassed by many worries. It is used largely for drilling soldiers, and is described as being "a favourite resort for Jews on Saturdays, for Greeks on Sundays, and for Turks on Fridays." The golfer may need to delay his stroke while a long string of camels passes through the fairway, and again he may have difficulty in persuading a party of Turkish ladies, closely veiled, taking the sun on one of the putting greens, to retire therefrom for a little while. Yet the game is much enjoyed by the officials of foreign Governments in Constantinople, and the turf on the _yok maidan_ is good. In the rich remembrances of the game there is little that is mournful; but one sad moment comes when I read a letter reminding me that golf was once played "farthest south," where man does not abide save briefly for exploration and adventure, where there is eternal ice and snow. Captain Robert Scott, the glorious British hero of the Southern Pole, whose friendship I enjoyed, was a golfer too. One of many letters of a personal kind I had from him, just before he set out on his last magnificent but fatal expedition, was addressed from the Littlestone Golf Club. He asked me to send to the ship a certain piece of golfing literature, believing that "members of the expedition would read it with interest and, I hope, with benefit to their handicaps!" He had taken some clubs and balls up there into the Antarctic on his previous expedition, when farthest south was reached. On one of the last days he spent in London I had some talk with him on different matters, and we joked about ways of playing Antarctic shots. We were in his office in Victoria Street then. "Good-bye!" he said in parting, "And you must come to meet me on my return!" And if none met him coming back, yet we know the game he played. * * * * * The fact that there is golf nearly everywhere on earth will make it appear to some minds, reasonably too, that here is a convenient diversion for those travellers who like this sort of thing, something with which they can fill up time when held up for a while in a distant country and being impatient or weary. True, golf is good for that; but the unsophisticated who imagine that this is the full relation between travel and the game, and that this is the function of the courses everywhere, suffer from a poor delusion, which is expensive. It is a modern necessity to the traveller. In these days we are a people of wanderers; railways offer cheap journeys, steamships carry us over seas at little cost, hotels are good and comfortable; and why should those who like and have the hours not be always roaming and seeing the open world? But travelling sometimes has its inconveniences and its tedious days. Some wanderers unconsciously exert themselves towards loneliness, and they do not love it when they have it. The joy of meeting with a friend when one is half a globe away from home! With all the travelling that is done in these days there has come a great increase of loneliness. Golf has been set to destroy it. There are still people who travel and do not golf, but they are fewer daily, and as each new travel-golfer is established he wonders how he lived and moved and was moderately well contented and satisfied before. His travelling was a plain occupation then; now it makes more emotion and thrill, and, positively, it is more educative. There was a time, when I was very young, when I did not golf as I travelled abroad, partly because there were few courses to play upon and no golfers to play with, for it is only in recent times that the game has been established in every country in the world; and as I look back upon those days it is hard to realise that they were in this present life. They should have belonged to some other existence, which in the course of time and nature was given up, a reincarnation having followed ages after. The traveller who is golfless has often no friends at the places that he visits. Some men and women have good capacity for making them at each hotel they stay in; others have not. In any case these acquaintanceships are exceedingly thin; the people do not really know each other; oftentimes they say not what they think, and they have no common interest. This kind of friendship with all its making of artificial conversation is poor stuff at times. The golfless wanderer in his travelling does one of two things; either he does hardly anything at all or he goes to see the sights; and one suspects that much of the peering through the gloom of dark cathedrals and the lounging in picture galleries is done merely for the killing of time, and for the formal recording of places that have been visited and sights that have been seen. Some travellers are happiest when they have done their business with the churches and the local castles and may leave by the next train--one day nearer home and still working well! The case of the golfing traveller is very different. He has friends in every big town in every country, and all await his coming to make pleasure and happiness for him. He needs to scheme nothing in advance; they are prepared for him always. The automatic management of this real society of friends is most marvellously perfect. The wanderer, let us say, is advancing towards a new place--one that he knows nothing of. From the people about him now he may make inquiry as to which is the golf hotel at his destination, for often there is one to which golfers most resort, and, with his golf directory containing the names of all the golf clubs in the world, and with some particulars and the secretaries' addresses, away he goes complete and well prepared. His corny hands and his bag of clubs are his passport to every links. By the perfect system that we have, every man who is a golfer and a member of a golf club is _ipso facto_ a travelling member of nearly every other golf club in the world, and is admitted to full playing and other privileges without delay on paying the trifling fees of temporary membership, sometimes with even less than that. And one golf club seems very much like another--just a branch of it; the atmosphere is the same, and the men are the same. The stranger reaches his new destination, in England or in India, in France or in America; he registers at his hotel; and as soon as may be he seeks direction from the manager or the hall porter as to the whereabouts of the golf club. There he goes. At once, then, he is admitted to the local community of players, and they make much of him. They arrange games for him, surround him with the most hospitable companions, discover that he and they have many mutual friendships in different parts of the world, and linger upon other common ground in their memories of the third hole at one and the seventeenth at some other place. How the talk goes on! This golfer arrived among the unknown at ten in the morning, and at four in the afternoon he is tied to as many good friends as man could need. They invite him here and there; they take him to their homes; they make much of him. Stranger indeed! A thin voice of a petulant cynic may be heard again. "Yes," says he, "but in travelling one does not wish to spend all one's time in playing games and lounging about golf clubs!" True; and the golfing traveller, though he likes to visit courses in other countries, and finds it well to have an object always and something good with which to fill the daylight hours and keep his health in a well-balanced state, uses the game and its people to greater advantage than even that. The golf community of a place is always the most active and the most useful. There are the local dignitaries, the people of influence and consequence, men who know everything about the town, and can do most things. They can open doors that are locked, and take you to the most secret places. And so the golfing traveller, the first desire for the best of games being satisfied, always finds that his new friends wish to help him. Perhaps the ambassador is here, and ambassadors are serviceable men. All wise people golf a little at the present time. They give their guest letters of introduction; they tell him how to go about. They do much more than that, for they get out their cars and take him. Places which seem unfriendly to others are always friendly to the golfer. There is no particular community, no society, no association, no brotherhood in the world that is so real in its effectiveness, so thoroughly practical as this of golf. A quarter of a million British golfers know that this is true, and they know the reason why. * * * * * From the consideration of this busy world of golf in general it is an easy move in thought to the one wee spot of it from which it has to a large extent developed, upon which the great scheme continually hangs, being the fourth of our seven wonders of golf--ancient St. Andrews. In a measure I developed this idea at the beginning of the consideration of golf as the world game; but now for a moment regard the capital of golf, not as the parliament place where the high statesmen do ponderously deliberate and with stern visage that befits their lofty authority most solemnly severally and jointly promulgate various laws and ordinances, but as the wonder city of the golfing world where one gathers emotions from a ghostly past, a city where golf is everything and nothing else is anything, where golf is life. This is the aspect of St. Andrews, and the only one, in which it is really great. We have much respect for our rulers. They are wise men, and we believe that they maintain the spirit of the game better than any other body of men could or would. They are well born and trained in golf, and the atmosphere of St. Andrews keeps them straight in the true golfing way. One who lived in an inland manufacturing town or spent his days in the office of a colliery would lose his golfing perspective early in middle age. But these excellents of Fifeshire play a little, read a little, talk much and deliberate, and the social and intellectual atmosphere keeps them strong in their golfing sense always. The government of St. Andrews is really one to respect and have faith in, but it is not the existing wonder of St. Andrews. When you visit the place, such of these rulers as live there do not impress you for anything save their good golf, their excellent and pleasant manners, their keen wit, their fine sense in matters of intellect, their tolerable aestheticism, their shrewd judgment in political affairs, their sound advice on financial questions, their fine epicurean taste, their kingly cellars, their magnificent hospitality, and their charming women. In nothing else that I can think of do they excel, and as minor deities, or as a college of cardinals with a captain for pope, endowed with powers transmitted from a golfers' heaven, they are failures. They are merely human, very good, and excellently conservative. No sort of people make St. Andrews. Only in two circumstances are the living humans of the place specially interesting. One is on the occasion of the autumn meeting of the Royal and Ancient Club, when the cannon on the hill is fired, when the new captain plays himself in with ceremony, and when all the ancient rites are properly observed until far on in the night. The other is in the attitude of the people generally towards this game as a thing of life, their seeming feeling that it is nearly the beginning and end of all things in this world. This may not be a proper view, and it is for something of the kind, but yet long distant from it, that the golfers of the south are chided and ridiculed for their enthusiasm. That, again, is why the real golfer, heart and soul for the game, who, if he would confess it, does let it take a larger part of his life sometimes than is very good for him (but who knows what this fellow would be doing if not golfing?), feels happy when at St. Andrews, feels that at last he has come to his real home. For here the people look upon him just as merely right and normal because he is a golfer and nothing but a golfer--and a man with a little money to spare. His chief peculiarity is not that he stammers or is deaf or is a total abstainer, that he is a peer of the realm or mayor of his town or a professor of Greek, but that he addresses his ball with the heel of his club or pulls a little always. The place is attuned to his feeling of life; it is in sympathy with him. It is either a fine day for the game--as most days are--or it is no day at all. If we lose our match it does not matter what the papers say of politics or Germany; if we win it, the papers matter less. The caddies know that you are a golfer and what is your handicap; and if you are the real thing that is enough for them. Be not a golfer at heart or a namby-pamby person hanging to the game, and their contempt is rarely hidden. In the hotels they know what golf means to people; the chambermaid on calling you in the morning may tell you the direction the wind is blowing, knowing that it matters more than any hot water. The men in the club-makers' shops are sorely concerned in your domestic difficulties about the length of the shaft of your driver and your quarrel with an iron. They know what it is; they are kindly, worldly-wise doctors, who are the constant recipients of the confidences of poor sufferers. They will try to put you right. All the advertisements on the walls are of golf; the notices in the shop windows are of golf matches and competitions. The streets are called after golf, the taverns have golf names. Yes! golf is in all the air and all the earth and all the people of this ancient city with its far-seen spires. But yet even these things do not give to St. Andrews its ineffable charm; if they are all that the wanderer notices he is not the real man of the game after all, nor is the splendid quality of the holes on the old course and on the new enough either, great as is that quality. The wanderer missed St. Andrews if these things were all that were discovered. He should understand that here we feel that the Swilcan Burn is greater than the Dardanelles; Asia is a trifle when we survey the vast extent of the fifth putting green, and little enough do we worry of hell when with a fine long shot with the brassey we can carry "the devil's kitchen" on the way to the fourteenth green. Here the game is in the air; we breathe it, feel it. And the reason why is because the spirits are in the air, the spirits of the ancients who at St. Andrews laid the foundations of this game, served for its traditions, set it up and shaped it to the good service of men, and gave their stamp to every inch of this great old course. Do not misunderstand. These men, I do believe, were often very ordinary simple human beings; they may have been no better than we are. There is a possibility that they were worse. They may not have been worthy to be canonised as they have been; but let us not inquire upon these matters, for we should not peer too closely at the gods. What matters is that in the first place undoubtedly they were in at the game before we were, in at it the first of all, were evidently uncommonly shrewd people, and for their discovery of golf and their presentation of it to us their perpetual dignity was well won. It matters also that we have many volumes of good stories about them, and none that is in any serious sense against them. On legend and anecdote they win well. And, third, whatever they were, we believe them to have been these great men, we set them up in our imagination as such, we recreate them to our fancies and desires, and they seem somehow to respond. So we imagine, believe, and are well satisfied, and therefore the spirits of golf take advantage and seem always to hover in the air of the old grey city, brooding upon the links, contented that things are moving as well as they are, and that what they began prospers so finely, though they wail a little, one would imagine, about what the rubber-cored ball has done, and the wraith of old Allan Robertson turns round to the ghost of the elder Morris, murmuring, "D'ye mind, Tammas, the awfu' trouble that we bodies had wi' ane anither when the gutty ba' kem hither to St. Andrews, and I caught ye, ma servin' man, ye ken, playin' gowff, as ye wad say, wi' Campbell of Saddell and wi' the gutty, and me a maker o' the featheries tae!" "Aye, I ken weel eno'," croons the shade of Old Tom, "and I'm telling ye, Allan, man, that I was fower up on Mr. Campbell at the eleventh hole, and I was playin' ma very best, and wi' ma second shot at the fourteenth, eh mon alive----" "Na, na, Tammas, nane o' yer rantin' aboot the shots as ye played at St. Andrews, when ye spent the best pairt o' yer time ower theer at Prestwick, and ye never could mak' up a scoor from a' yer ither scoors as wad come to 56 like mine. Ye ken that, Tom! And dinna forget, ma laddie, as I was goin' to tell ye, that when I saw ye wi' that awfu' new ba' as wad ruin every bit body o' us I tell't ye straight, ma man, as ye must go, and never a bit o' wark did ye do in ma shop again." And then Tom, good-natured old ghost as he is, and loving his Allan still, just answers, "Puir Allan, ye always were a cunnin' body o' a man, and a guid man tae, and fun aboot ye a' the time!" And all this about ghosts and the times they have in the air over St. Andrews old links may look like nonsense, but those who do not believe it, or do not feel that they believe it by mental adoption, have not been to St. Andrews properly, and do not understand her. * * * * * The most utterly non-golfing and sceptical person may be convinced in another way, by matters not of ghosts and fancies but of laws and prisons, that St. Andrews is all golf and is not as other places are. There are laws of the town approved by Act of Parliament, by which it is made illegal to practise putting on the eighteenth green or to play on the course with iron clubs only, the penalty for offences in these matters being a fine or imprisonment. Where else is there a place where a golfer may get fourteen days for depending for all his long shots on his driving iron or his cleek? Clearly, the law is made for the good of the precious turf and the teeing grounds of the old course, and that it is not law made to be looked and laughed at is proved by the fact that a Prime Minister himself was once warned for infringing it. One time when at St. Andrews I made an examination of the complete bye-laws in which these prohibitions are included. They are embraced in the St. Andrews Links Act, which was passed in 1894, and in the Burgh Police Act of Scotland, which was made law two years earlier. The regulations for the use of the old and new golf courses make up these bye-laws, and they are twenty-one in number. Following them are four "general regulations for the whole links as defined by Schedule I. of the Links Act," and at the finish there is a clause about penalties, wherein it is said that "any person who shall contravene any of the foregoing bye-laws shall be liable, on conviction, in a penalty not exceeding one pound for each offence, and, failing payment, to imprisonment for any period not exceeding fourteen days." There it is, the law, and it is that last clause with its sting that gives the point to the whole story. Now let us look at these bye-laws and see how careful we must be when we go to the great city of golf, and for what we may be fined a pound or lodged in a Fifeshire gaol for a full fortnight, during which our game might go to rack and ruin. In the first place it is set down that "no person shall play cricket, football, or any game other than golf upon the golf courses." Surely nobody who ever went to St. Andrews would wish to play any other game, but here we have it plainly set forth that the golf of St. Andrews will bear no rivals, and it must be remembered that the great putting green, on which the fifth and thirteenth holes are made, is big enough for several cricket pitches, and also that the large flat space along which a fairway for the first and eighteenth is situated might be made into various football grounds. But what sacrilege! It is well that men may be sent to prison if they ever committed it. Then you may be punished by law if you do not begin your match at the first teeing ground, but no doubt some thousands of people in their time have risked chastisement for this offence. "No player shall, in teeing his ball, raise the turf of the teeing ground." There is sand there for him who wants it, and he must not make his tee in the prehistoric way. After this there are some points of etiquette which are made matters of law. Elsewhere, if we disregard the etiquette of the game as set forth at the end of the rules, we are merely told about it by other people and regarded as very badly-mannered golfers, but at St. Andrews the sovereign or fourteen days needs to be considered. Thus "no player shall play from the tee until the party in front have played their second strokes and are out of range, nor play to the putting green till the party in front have holed out and moved away." And again, "players looking for a lost ball must allow any other match coming up to pass them," and "every caddie, and every player unaccompanied by a caddie, shall replace any turf that may be accidentally removed by the player's club, and shall press it firmly with the foot." Then we may be fined or sent to prison if, when practising, we drive a ball off a putting green, that is, within twenty yards of a hole, and the eighth clause is that which is known to all men--"To prevent destruction of the turf of the golf courses, play or practice with iron clubs alone is prohibited." Also, "no practice is allowed over the first and eighteenth holes of the Old Course, nor shall any practice be allowed over any part of the golf courses so as to obstruct or delay players." Upon all this, it is enacted that when playing with three or more balls we must allow those who are only playing two, as in an ordinary single match, to pass us on being requested to do so, that we must let a match through if we do not play the whole round but cut in somewhere, that we must not pierce the ground with any golf club support nor with the flags from the holes, nor must we drive towards any person without calling out "Fore!" and waiting until he gets out of range. No man when at St. Andrews is allowed "to play the short game at the regular golf holes, except when engaged in a regular game of golf," and, as said, "no practising is allowed on the eighteenth putting green." There are five other bye-laws, mostly long, but the only other one which is specially interesting is that which is designed to preserve the integrity of the Swilcan Burn, which has played its part so thoroughly and drastically at times of great competitions. No other golf stream is protected by an Act of Parliament in the way that this one is, and its high dignity is unimpeachable. We are warned, under the usual penalty of a fine or imprisonment, that "no one shall wade in the Swilcan Burn, so far as it flows through the Old Course, nor shall any one, except players or caddies in search of their ball, do anything to cause its waters to become discoloured or muddy." There are surely times when we feel that we could not do anything to make the Swilcan Burn appear uglier than it does at those times. Why a distinction should be made between the "bye-laws" and the "general regulations," four in number, is not quite clear, but it would appear that the penalties of fine and imprisonment may be inflicted if the latter are disobeyed as well as the former. If that is so, we begin to wonder when we see the warning that "no one shall use profane language upon the links to the annoyance of the lieges." Let us then hope, for the sake of the law and our respect for it, that the lieges are not habitually in the neighbourhood of the putting green when putts are being missed that should not be. But it is good to see that there is a kind of general warning that "no one shall annoy or interfere with any one exercising a legitimate use of the links," which means, of course, playing golf. We golfers, according to these bye-laws and the Act of Parliament which supports them, may be sent to prison for doing so many things that it is excellent to know the common people may be cast there also if they meddle with us when we play the game in our own good way, and manage by thought and attention to avoid infringement of the many cautions which the fathers of St. Andrews have prescribed for our welfare and that of their dear old course. The Sheriff of Fife has set it down that he "allows and confirms" these bye-laws, the Secretary of Scotland has officially approved of them, and the staff employed by the Green Committee are authorised to see that they are obeyed, especially those about replacing turf, playing with irons only, and practising at the first and eighteenth holes. Contemplating these enactments, we conclude that St. Andrews is the best and proper place for the upbringing of the golfer's son. CHAPTER III THE TRAGEDIES OF THE SHORT PUTT, AND A CONTRAST BETWEEN CHILDREN AND CHAMPIONS, WITH THE VARIED COUNSEL OF THE WISEST MEN. The case of an earth so well explored by golfing travellers having been considered as the third of the wonders of the sphere, and the peculiarity of St. Andrews as the fourth, there is a clear suggestion as to which is the next or fifth wonder of the series. Inevitably one recalls the tearful situation of the mighty hunter in a story which is passed in company as fact. He declared he had encountered all the manifold perils of the jungle, had tracked the huge elephant to its retreat, and had stood eye to eye with the man-eating tiger. It is believed that he had done all these things. Then he added, "And never once have I trembled until I came to a short putt." For me one of the most remarkable things I have seen in golf was at an Open Championship meeting at St. Andrews when, watching and musing by the side of the eighteenth green, I saw four of the greatest players of this or any other time come up to it in the competition one by one and have putts of less than eighteen inches at that hole. Three of the four missed! In the old days, at all events, when the greens were not quite as they are now, but became very glassy and slippery with much wind and constant play upon them, I believe there were more short putts missed on the old course at St. Andrews than on any other two courses in the world, and the task of holing the little stupids on that home green was a most tormenting ordeal. So, with the broken-hearted explorer, and the tragedy of St. Andrews, there is pointed to us for the next wonder of the game the missing of the short putt. And I do believe, and so must others, that the missing of such a short putt as it seems humanly impossible for any man, having the control of his limbs and being _compos mentis_, to miss is one of the most remarkable features of any game, and one that would be completely and absolutely inexplicable did it not in itself offer a most splendid illustration of the full effect of strain of mind on physical action, of the pressure of great responsibility on an over-anxious man. It embraces nearly the whole psychology of golf. The short putt largely explains the game, and it is testimony to the soundness of this view, and the rightful selection of this as a permanent wonder, that the general public would never believe the truth as we know it, that it is possible for the greatest players with what is to them, for the time being, almost as much as their lives depending on it, to miss putts so little that no walking baby properly fed would miss. The general public, with its vast stores of common sense, would not believe the fact; it would ridicule it and treat the whole suggestion with contempt, and it might in a sense be right; but then the general public has not been fighting its way round a golf course against another and very truculent general public, driving, playing seconds and thirds, getting bunkered and recovering, and encountering all manner of difficulties and dangers, and then had its fate for the day depending on a short putt at the eighteenth green! By psychology of the game, as just mentioned, we mean, of course, the way in which the mind and the emotions act and react upon the physical system and its capacity, how doubts and fears are engendered, and things from not seeming what they are become really different, so far as the attitude of the player to them is concerned. Thus, as has been well said, a putt of ten inches on the first green is, as one might feel, a putt of thirty inches--though still in fact of the same length--when that green is not the first but the thirty-seventh, and that on which a long-drawn-out match is being finished. One summer's day, on a course in France, a little party of us were discussing the slow and sure methods of certain Americans then in Europe--if, really, they were quite so sure as they were slow. Indeed they hustled not. The point was put forward by one of us that there is a moment in waiting when inspiration and confidence come together, or at least come then as well as ever they can or will, and that if the hesitation is prolonged beyond that moment, the result is inevitably loss of faith, increasing doubt and timidity, and a distorted view of the situation arising from fear of fate. Half the difficulties of golf are due to the fact that the player has an abundance of time to think about what he is engaged to do and how it should be done. In that time hopes and fears and many emotions race through his mind, and tasks which were originally simple become every moment harder. In no other game has the player such ample leisure in which to think, to be careful, to be exact, and to decide upon the proper action, and thus responsibility is heaped upon him for what he does as it is in no other sport or recreation. He is oppressed with a mighty burden. That which he does he is entirely responsible for, and it can never be undone. It follows that this game has an extensive and peculiar psychology such as is possessed by no other. I shall proceed to tell a little story, dramatic in its circumstances, abounding in significance. It embraces the meanings and mysteries of golf. * * * * * The strange case of Sir Archibald Strand is one that caused much excited attention among the members of the golf community in general some months ago, and it is still discussed in the club-houses. Sir Archibald Strand, Bart., is a fair example of the thorough, enthusiastic, middle-aged player, who treats golf as something rather more than a game, which is as it should be. He is one of tolerably equable temperament, a good sportsman, and a man of strong character and physique, who did a long term of military service in India. Nowadays he spends an appreciable portion of his time in golfing, and a fair part of the remainder in contemplating the enduring mysteries and problems of the links. The game worries him exceedingly, occasionally it leads him to unhappiness, but, on the whole, he feels he likes it. He is a member of several London clubs, including Sunningdale, Walton Heath, Mid-Surrey, Coombe Hill, and Woking, and of his seaside clubs those he most frequents are the Royal St. George's at Sandwich, and Rye. His handicap is 5, and generally he is what we consider and call a good reliable 5. He and his opponent, to whom, as a matter of discretion and confidence, we must refer as Mr. A., had just ended their match at Mid-Surrey one pleasant day, and Sir Archibald was trying his last putt over again as golfers often do. It was a putt of two feet. He had missed it before; but now, of course, he rolled the ball in every time. A question arose about circumstances altering cases, as they so commonly do in golf, and of responsibility weighing heavily on the mind that hesitates; and Sir Archibald declared that nobody in good health could be such a fool as to miss a two-feet putt like that, if he really examined the line thoroughly, and took the proper pains. Just then the open champion of the period was passing by the green, and they called him up and asked his views upon the missing of two-feet putts. Taylor denied that a man was a fool for missing them. He mentioned the psychology of the business, and very forcibly argued that a two-feet putt was a very difficult thing, that the more important it was the more difficult it became, and that the longer one thought about it the more impossible did it seem to hole it. "Ah!" said he, with the solemn countenance he assumes when discussing the terrors of this game, and the deep emphasis he makes when he admits the difficulties it creates for him, "Ah!" he murmured, "if I had never missed any putts of one foot, let alone the putts of two! I tell you, sir, the two-feet putt, when it has to be done--mind you when it has got to be done--is one of the most difficult things in the world to do, and never mind the fact that your babies can do it all the time! Take that from me, sir!" This was a touch of the real Taylor, the true philosopher, one who knows the game. Mr. A., who is sometimes aggressive in manner, brought the matter in discussion to a pretty point at once. "Look here, Strand," said he, "I will tell you what I will do. I will place this ball here, so, exactly two feet from the hole, and I will give you a fortnight, but not less than a fortnight, to hole that putt. You are not to practise it here at this hole on this green in the meantime; but you may place the ball in position if you like, and look at it. And a fortnight to-day, at ten o'clock in the morning, you must make the putt, and I will bet you fourteen guineas, being a guinea a day for waiting, that you do not hole it. We will have the position of the hole properly marked, so that a fortnight hence it shall be in the same place." The champion said he would tell Lees, the greenkeeper, and that should be done. Strand, with a laugh, accepted the wager, and the matter was settled. The events that followed were curious. In the club-house there was then little disposition to attend to the accounts of the proceedings that were furnished by both parties. The men who had finished rounds were too much occupied with their own troubles or joys. At his club in town that evening, Sir Archibald, over dinner, related the circumstances of the wager to a few friends, with an appearance of considerable satisfaction with himself, and seemed a little surprised that the other members of the party did not at once approve of his proceeding as sound and businesslike. "Of course, you know, Strand, my good man," said Mr. Ezekiel Martin, a successful stockbroker, "these putts are missed sometimes, and I don't suppose it makes it any easier for you by waiting a fortnight. It's like carrying over in the House till one is a very tired bull." "Nonsense!" exclaimed Sir Archibald, "I could go out now and hole that putt nineteen times out of twenty in the dark!" "I believe you could," answered Martin, "but doing it in the dark, when you cannot see the hole and realise all the imaginary difficulties, is very different from doing it in broad daylight; and putting now, on the spur of the moment, as it were, is very different from putting when you have a whole fortnight to think about what you are going to do." "I don't see it," replied Sir Archibald, yet he began to feel a little uneasy. On returning home that night, instead of going to bed at once he went into his study, laid a tumbler on its side on the carpet, and putted from a measured two feet for about half an hour. He holed most of them, and tumbled into bed feeling that Martin had been "pulling his leg," as people say. In the morning he engaged a gardener to smooth down a piece of his lawn, planting in a little putting-green turf, and he had a hole made in it, and a circle with two feet radius drawn round the hole, so that he could putt from every point. When this work was done, he spent an hour in practising there, and succeeded well. He only missed about one in ten. He tried seven different putters, with approximately equal results. In the afternoon he went down to Mid-Surrey, played a match, and lost it by missing a short putt at the home hole. After tea, he went out on to the eighteenth green, found the spot where the hole was the day before, examined it carefully, and saw that there were slight differences in the texture of the grass round about, and that there was a little depression to the left side. He had not noticed this before. However, said he to himself, it would be easy to make allowances for these things, but he began now to doubt whether thirteen days ahead he would use his wry-necked putting cleek or bolt the putt with an aluminium putter. Where there are troubles of that kind it is often better to make short work of the putt by the bolting way, and have an end of it. At home that evening he did more putting practice on the carpet, and did not hole them quite so well. Lady Strand, who understands her husband thoroughly, and is the sweetest, gentlest sympathiser, coaxed him to telling her the trouble, for she saw that one existed. With perfect wisdom she suggested that he should wipe the fourteen guineas from the current account as already lost, and face the task as one who had all to gain and nothing to lose. Of course, her husband said, it was not the money, but the frightful jackass he would look if he missed the putt. He went to his club in town the next day instead of going to golf, and took with him a book containing a chapter on putting, by Willie Park. He stretched himself out on a Chesterfield in a corner of the library, and gazed at two spots on the carpet which he had measured as being two feet from each other. Eventually, he decided that that was not good for him, since equal distances in furnished rooms, as is well known, look longer than they look outside. He lunched with a few friends, and brought up the subject again. "Give him the money and have done with it, Strand. You are sure to lose!" said the brutish Martin. "I wish I had not to wait for a fortnight," murmured Strand. "Ah! He knew! The other man knew!" rejoined Martin. "He knows the game of golf! What I cannot understand is why he did not give you a year and make it 365 guineas. You would have sold out in six weeks at £200!" Sir Archibald wrote a letter to Mr. A. that evening, intimating that he would probably have to leave town the week after the next. He hinted that it might be convenient if they got their wager out of the way beforehand, and if he putted a week from then. Mr. A. replied that he was sorry it would not be convenient for him to attend then, and that the signed terms of the contract had better be abided by. Sir Archibald bought two new putters on the following day, and in the afternoon he had Taylor out for an hour, and they went practising on the putting lawn just outside the garden gate. Sir Archibald was putting very well then; but he insisted that it would be a good thing to change the ball he was using, which was rather lively. After he had done with Taylor, he went to look at the place on the eighteenth green where he would have to putt, and it seemed that the coarse grass had fattened up considerably with the rain that had fallen, and that the sand below it was distinctly gritty. It began to seem that he would have to run the ball in at the right side of the hole. He asked Lees some questions about the grasses on that green, and was sorry he could not take a little Mid-Surrey turf home with him. He was feeling a little tired when he reached his home that night, and as it was Thursday he suggested to Lady Strand that they should go to Folkestone for the week-end, and not bother at all about golf, which they did accordingly. He found it delightful to linger on the leas and not be worried with the game. This kind of thing continued and became worse and worse again during the days that followed. There was practice, thought, and purchase continually, and unfortunately the proportion of missed putts at two feet, both on the carpet, on the practice lawn, and on the greens at Mid-Surrey, Coombe Hill, and Woking, began to increase. At putts of three feet, four, and five, Sir Archibald was marvellous, and, of course, he never missed the very little ones; but the two-feet putts bothered him all the time. He attributed it to his liver; and he was certainly looking worn. Matters were not improved by such inconsiderate remarks as were made by Martin, Evans, and others, whenever he had a two-feet putt to do, such as "Now, Strand, that's just your distance!" It was only a joke; but in the circumstances it was not perhaps in good taste. On the evening of the twelfth day Strand, after deliberation, wrote a letter to A. in which he said he feared he would not be able to go down to the course at the appointed time, and intimated that, according to the terms of the wager, he would hand over the fourteen guineas to him when next they met. Before posting this letter he went and did a little practice in the dusk on the lawn outside the house. He seemed to get them down with some confidence on this occasion, and Lady S., watching him, called out cheerily, "Silly boy! as if you could really miss! Now what shall I buy with the fourteen guineas?" So Strand tore up the letter and went to bed for rest. On the night before the appointed day he slept badly. He was putting in his mind until three o'clock in the morning. Then he rose, went in his pyjamas into the study, made a line on the top of his aluminium putter indicating the striking point, and went back to bed, but did not sleep. For some time he tried an imaginary humming of the "Jewel Song" from _Faust_, and repeated a few lines from Scott's "Lady of the Lake"--old dodges of his for assisting distraction and sleep--but they did not serve, nor did a fixed vision of millions of balls falling in an endless stream from the mouth of a pump and disappearing instantly through a golf hole in the ground. At five-thirty he rose again and took his bath. He hesitated as to what golfing suit he should wear. Finally, for the sake of complete ease, and that there should be nothing to attract his eye from the ball, he put on some dark-blue flannels. He looked at his breakfast, pecked at a sole, and at nine-fifteen, feeling distinctly unwell, he took a taxi for the course. He had one great consolation upholding him. At five minutes past ten it would all be over. He felt that he knew how glad a condemned criminal must be that at five minutes past eight on a certain morning--or a minute or two earlier with a little luck--a black flag would be hoisted on the prison pole. At seven minutes to ten he drank a large brandy and soda and went out to the eighteenth green. Mr. A. and a few others were there to see the business properly carried out. Taylor placed the ball exactly two feet from the hole, which was cut in the proper place. He had his watch in his hand. Sir Archibald bent down and examined the putt with great care. He essayed to pick up what seemed to be a "loose impediment" on his line, but saw that it was not loose. The putt seemed very difficult now, and he wished he had brought his plain putting cleek out with him, but it was too late. At ten o'clock exactly, Taylor said, "Now, Sir Archibald, will you kindly putt?" Sir Archibald Strand looked like a man who had been hunted down. He made one swift glance around him, but saw no escape, so he pulled himself together, smiled a little sadly, and said to himself, "Don't be a fool, Archie!" Then he faced the putter to the ball; the club was trembling slightly. He swung it back much too far, checked it in the return swing, and came on to the ball in a nervous, stupid sort of way, doing little more than touch it. The ball took a line to the right of the hole, and did not run more than fourteen inches. You may have thought that Sir Archibald used unfortunate words and was dismayed. He did not. A look of established happiness and placid contentment spread upon his countenance, as a streak of sunlight might flash across a plain. "Ha!" he sighed in relief. He took from his pocket a cheque for fourteen guineas already made out, and handed it to Mr. A., and then joyfully exclaimed: "Thank heaven, it is finished! Now, my friends, we will honour this unusual occasion in a suitable manner at your convenience, and this afternoon I leave for Sandwich for a week of golf. And no letters are being forwarded." * * * * * Let us now enter consideration of this matter in a proper frame of mind, seriously and not looking contemptuously upon the problem of holing even the very shortest of putts as no problem at all after the affected manner of the inexperienced and uninformed general public. Let us approach it cautiously and in an analytical spirit. We should take the evidence of expert witnesses upon happenings in their careers, in our endeavour to discover the real truth. We have already remarked upon the case of the hunter who shot tigers and cringed at putts, and of the great champions who all missed them on the eighteenth green at St. Andrews, when they were playing for nothing less than the championship. We have also contemplated the circumstances of the distressed baronet who was given a fortnight in which to hole a two-feet putt, suffered intolerable agonies during the period, and was only restored to happiness when he had failed at the stroke. Now let us pay regard to the experience of a little child only six years old, who was completely successful at many putts in succession, at distances of from one to six feet, all the most perilous situations. This remarkable demonstration was witnessed by the proud parents, by a great professional, and by myself. The child is a boy, and not, as has been stated, a winsome little girl. There is, if I may say it without offence, nothing remarkable about his parents. They are excellent kindly-mannered people, of tolerable middle-class education, simple in their manner of life, and of no pronounced tastes in any direction. The father is in a large timber business in the Midlands, and has probably an income of about six hundred pounds a year. His handicap is 14. He is not a very keen golfer, and seems to spend a fair amount of his time in his garden. A total abstainer, he smokes little, and has no strong tastes in art and literature; but he once told me that in addition to much Scott and a sufficiency of Dickens he had read one of my books on golf. That is the father. As to the mother, she is just one who might be called in the north a nice little body. She is a thoroughly good housewife, domesticated, affectionate, and if she does not play golf she sympathises with it. These are people who are tolerably satisfied with their state. They live in a pleasant house, employ two maidservants, and have no motor-car. Here, surely, is nothing to suggest the creation of genius. Yet they are the parents of this remarkable child who did, with no hesitation, with confidence, certainty, and frequency, what the mighty hunter, the champions, the bold but misguided baronet, and you and I have failed to accomplish. There is a man of wit and wisdom, Andrew Kirkaldy, who, when you inquire of him what is the most difficult thing in golf, responds with no hesitation that it is to hole "a wee bit divvle of a putt that long!" and so saying he will hold his hands four feet apart. Occasionally he may vary the phraseology, not to its advantage, but the meaning and effect remain the same. Andrew is solid on four feet. But authorities differ a little in this matter of measurement. Some will reduce the distance to thirty inches; others have it that the yard putt is the most trying; I have heard eighteen inches put forward. But it all amounts to much the same thing, that what looks ridiculously easy is very, very difficult. Now this tender little child, who knew nothing of the fears and dangers of this awful game, placed the ball at a distance of two feet from the hole on a curly and slippery green, and with a sublime aplomb hit it straight to the middle of the hole--the first putt of his life and a good one. Then he putted from a yard and holed it again, then from Kirkaldy's distance and played the stroke just as surely and successfully, and then repeated them many times, never faltering, never failing. We who watched were a trifle sad, and perhaps ashamed. We knew that with all our thought and skill and golfing learning, all our strength and manhood, we could not do the same when at our games, and that, the more we needed to do it by the importance of the golf that was being played, the more difficult it was. Our selfish consolation was that in time the little child would grow up and then he would not be able to hole those putts, for then he would know that it was a difficult thing to do, and would be embarrassed and defeated accordingly. For it is the golfer's consciousness of imaginary difficulties that makes him such a strange coward when this putting business is being done. He knows that really the putting is easy, but he knows also that he must not miss, that an inch lost here is as much of a loss as two hundred yards in the driving--and he fears his fate. It is consciousness of the stupidity of missing, nerves, fears, imagination, that make this missing of short putts by the cleverest players, champions as much as any others, the most remarkable thing that happens constantly in any game. There is nothing like it. If it were not so easy, if there were good excuse for failure, those putts would not be missed so frequently. In putting, said Sir Walter Simpson, there is much to think about and much more not to be thought of. "When a putter," he reflected, "is waiting his turn to hole out a putt of one or two feet in length, on which the match hangs at the last hole, it is of vital importance that he think of nothing. At this supreme moment he ought studiously to fill his mind with vacancy. He must not even allow himself the consolations of religion. He must not prepare himself to accept the gloomy face of his partner and the derisive delight of his adversaries with Christian resignation should he miss. He must not think that it is a putt he would not dream of missing at the beginning of the match, or, worse still, that he missed one like it in the middle. He ought to wait, calm and stupid, till it is his turn to play, wave back the inevitable boy who is sure to be standing behind his arm, and putt as I have told him how--neither with undue haste nor with exaggerated care. When the ball is down, and the putter handed to the caddy, it is not well to say, 'I couldn't have missed it.' Silence is best. The pallid cheek and trembling lip belie such braggadocio." * * * * * The truth is that the man who golfs will unceasingly think of the things he should not think of, and that is what makes this easy putting so difficult, and it explains why the innocent child, unthinking, finds the business as simple and pleasant as swinging under the boughs of a tree on a sunny day in June. While there is one quite easy way of doing nearly every putt, there are perhaps a dozen more or less difficult ways of missing it, and it is these that are uppermost in the golfer's mind when the time of his trial comes, and so once more is vice triumphant while angels are depressed. There is the hole, a pit that is deep and wide, four and a quarter inches in diameter, and there is the little ball, only an inch and a half through the middle, and the intervening space between the two is smooth and even. It would seem to be the easiest thing in theory and practice to knock the ball into the large hole; but how very small does the hole then appear to be and how much too big for it is the ball! But the golfer knows that he should hole that putt, and that if he fails he will never, never have the chance again. Should he putt and miss the act is irrevocable; the stroke and the hole, or the half of it, are lost, and nothing that can happen afterwards can remove that loss. Should he at the beginning of the play to a hole make a faulty drive, or should his approach play be very inaccurate, he knows that he may atone for these mistakes by special cleverness displayed in subsequent strokes, and with the buoyant hope that constantly characterises him he thinks he will. But the hope seems often to desert him at the end; confidence lapses. The short putt is the very last stroke in the play to that hole, and if it is missed there is no further opportunity for recovery. In this way it does seem sometimes that there is a little of the awful, the eternal, the infinite about that putt. The player is stricken with fear and awe. He knows it is an easy thing to do in the one proper way of doing it, but raging through his mind are hideous pictures of a dozen ways of missing. Once upon a time I put the question to a number of the greatest players of the age as to what were their thoughts, if any, when they came to making one of these little putts on which championships or other great affairs almost entirely depended, and almost invariably their answer was that at the last supreme moment a thought came into their minds and was expressed to themselves in these words: "What a fool I shall look if I miss this putt!" Those words exactly did Willie Park, the younger, say quietly to himself just as he was about to make the last short putt of a round at Musselburgh, which would or would not give him a tie for the championship with Andrew Kirkaldy. He did not say that if he missed the putt he would lose the championship. He said he would look a fool. The other day in a quiet corner of London, away from the game but, as it happened, not from the thought of it, I had Harry Vardon with me engaged in some serious talk in a broad and general way upon golfing men and things. Ten years ago, when we were doing some kind of collaboration in the production of a new book, he said to me very impressively and as one who wonders exceedingly, "It is a funny game; let us impress that upon them all, it is a very funny game," and now, having played perhaps five thousand more rounds and won another Open Championship, he went forward to the admission, "It is an awful game." He meant it, and one reason why we like our Harry Vardon is because he too has always been awe-stricken by this so-called game, and because there is no other man in golf who sympathises better with the trials and tortures of the moderate player. On this morning of spring he was telling me of another new and great discovery he had made in putting methods, and in giving to me an account of his pains, his sufferings in missing all the short putts he had failed at in recent times--how dearly have they cost him!--he said it was the two-feet putt that frightened him most of all, and declared solemnly and seriously that he would rather have a three-yarder than such a putt, and that he would hole the former oftener than the latter. He said the two-feet putts frighten him, that as soon as he settles himself down to the business of putting in such a case the hole seems to become less and less. "I am overcome," says he, "with the idea that in a moment it will be gone altogether. Then I am in a state of panic, and I snatch at my putter and hit the ball quickly so that with a little luck it may reach the hole before it goes away altogether and there is nothing to putt at. When I have missed I see that the hole is there, and as big as ever or bigger!" Vardon once tried putting left-handed, a doctor having advised him to do so, and he found that the idea worked splendidly, but he did not like the look of it. He believes after all his sorrows that one of the greatest and best secrets of good putting is to keep more absolutely still than do most golfers, who seem to think it matters less in putting when it matters so much more. * * * * * Now the golfer in his wisdom, ingenuity, and resource has tried every way he can think of to solve this problem of nerves and doubts by mechanical and other means. Those who would be successful in competitions have retired to bed at nine o'clock in the evening for a month, and some of them have sipped from bottles of tonics hoping that physic would serve to give them strong nerve, steady hands and courage, but such methods have not availed. For no part of this or any other game have so many different kinds of instruments been invented, though the little child could do the putts with the head of a walking-stick or a common poker. Scarcely a week goes by in the season but some new kind of putter is introduced to the expectant multitude of harassed players, and now and then a thrill runs through the world as they receive a clear assurance that at last some special device has been discovered which will make their putting ever afterwards easy and certain. There is a thrill as if a secret of long life had been found. But the chill of disappointment follows quickly. Golfers have now tried all things known, and more short putts are missed than ever. Hundreds of different kinds of putters have been invented. They have been made with very thin blades, and with thick slabs of metal or other substance instead of mere blades. They have been made like spades, like knives, like hammers, and like croquet mallets. They have even been made like putters. They have been made of wood, iron, aluminium, brass, gun-metal, silver, bone, and glass. Here in my room I have the sad gift of the creator of a forlorn and foolish hope. It is a so-called putter made in the shape of a roller on ball bearings which is meant to be wheeled along the green up to the ball. Like some others it was illegal according to the rules. To such extravagances of fancy the desperate golfers have been led in their desire to succeed in this putting that the authorities have had to step in for the defence of the dignity of the game to declare a limit to the scope of invention in this matter. And yet I once knew a man who for a long period did some of the best putting that you would ever fear to play against with a little block of wood that had once served to keep the door of his study ajar, to which had been attached a stick that was made from a broom handle. This improvised putter was a freak of his fancy at a time when he thought there might be some virtue in a return to prime simplicity. Then Mr. James Robb, who has won the Amateur Championship once and been in the final on two other occasions, has putted all his life with a cleek that his sister won in a penny raffle when he was a boy and gave to him. Likewise Mr. John Laidlay has also putted uninterruptedly since he was a boy with a cleek that is now so thin with much cleaning that his friends tell him he may soon be able to shave himself with it. But these are the grand exceptions after all. Such fine settlement and constancy are unknown to the average player. It was but the other day that I learned that a friend of mine, one most distinguished in the game and of the very highest skill, had used fifteen different putters on the day of an important competition--three in the morning's play, nine others in noonday practice, and three quite fresh ones in the afternoon game. The same good man carried a choice assortment of his own putters to a recent amateur championship meeting, but at the beginning of the tournament made love to one of mine, borrowed it, and used it until he was beaten--not a long way from the end of the competition. Sometimes it seems that what is rudest in design, almost savage, is now best liked when in our frenzy we have ransacked art, science, and all imagination in search of the putter with which we can putt as we would. There is the spirit of reaction; we would return to the primitive. Putters that look as if they might be for dolls, some of those stumpy little things made of iron on a miniature aluminium-putter model, which some of the great champions have been using, have hardly become popular. The crude and the bizarre, suggestive of inspiration, please well. I shall not forget Jean Gassiat, good golfer of France, coming up to me one championship day at Hoylake, holding forward in his right hand, and with its head in the air, what was evidently meant for a golf club, but which was as much unlike one as anything we had ever seen. On the face of the player was spread the grin of pleasure; wordlessly he suggested that at last he had found it, the strangest, the most wonderful. In principle this new club, as it has to be called for courtesy, is akin to the affair of the door-stopper and the broomstick. It consists of a plain flat rectangular piece of wood about four inches long, two inches wide, and three-quarters of an inch deep, and its two-inch nose is cut quite square, while for a couple of inches at the end of the shaft the grip is thickened to twice its usual size. It is weighted and balanced by large and small lead bullets in the sole. It is possible to frame a good argument in favour of a putter made of anything; nothing is without some advantage. It could be said for a ginger-beer bottle that it would insist on the ball being most truly hit from the middle of the vessel as the ball ought to be hit, and, given notice, one could prepare a statement of claim on behalf of an old boot seeking to be raised to the putterage. So there are good things to be said for this putter from France, and one of the best is that after smiling upon it Jean Gassiat began to wonder, then thought, experimented, and fell in love with this putter completely. Some weeks later I saw him doing those marvels on the green as are only done when man and putter have become thoroughly joined together, and Gassiat has always to be taken seriously in these matters, for, like Massy, he is a Basque, and, like the old champion, he is one of the most beautiful putters, with an instinct for holing. This most remarkable invention, without desiring its extinction in the least, one would say, surely departs a whole world of fancy farther from the traditional idea of what a golf club should be than the poor Schenectady of the Americans which St. Andrews proscribed. It was not the idea of Gassiat, nor of any other than the Marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat, a French sportsman of thoroughness and a very keen golfer. Seeing what Gassiat was doing, James Sherlock obtained one of these barbaric tools, and at this the public came in. * * * * * Every thinkable variety of putting method has been adopted. Bodies, hands, feet have been placed in all positions, and the stroke has been made in every conceivable way. Are there any two players who do it just the same, or have the same advice to give? For a violent contrast take two of the most able amateurs of the time, both of them long since distinguished in the foremost competitions, Mr. John Low and Mr. H. S. Colt. The former favours the wooden putter, and he has one of that kind to which he is keenly attached, but he putts with all sorts of things as the spirit moves him on consideration of special circumstances. He was one of the early members of the thoughtful school of golf which has made such a strong advance in recent times. Nearly always, however, you will find him standing nearly upright when doing his putting, grasping a club with a tolerably long shaft somewhere quite near to the top of the handle. This erect attitude is that which our fore-fathers of the traditions mostly favoured. Those splendid gentlemen, as we have agreed, were fine golfers who conducted their game nobly, but it has always seemed to me that they were an unimaginative lot. It never appears to have occurred to them that because the club has a handle at the top was no reason why they should grasp it up there instead of nearly at the opposite end, as do a large body of the most enterprising and inquiring amateurs these days. Of this advanced party the eminent architect is a shining example, for he holds his putting cleek so far down, so near to the ironwork, that the shaft seems useless, and in addition to this he defies all teaching in putting by planting the heel of the club down on the green and holding the hands so low that the toe of the putter is cocked up, and with this toe he hits the ball, and, as it looks, he tops it. But that putting of his is too much for most of the men who have to play against it. When those who do not understand see men putting in this way, or something like it, they say to themselves, and perhaps to others, that they cannot see why the men do not have the unused part of the shaft cut off so that it may not be in the way. But there they show their deficiencies of knowledge, though one is not sure that all the men who putt with a low grip quite know why they do so. They only know that the method suits them, but the truth is often that in these cases the balancing piece of the shaft above the hands acts as a steadier for the piece below. A few students have carried this idea a point further by having a piece of lead attached to the top of the handle to increase the weight and the balancing influence of that part. Mr. Hammond Chambers is one of them. The amateurs are the most original and peculiar in their putting methods. For the most part the professionals, although adopting widely different stances, hold themselves fairly well up when doing their work on the green, and putt with an easy following-through stroke as is recommended by the old masters. Strange that we should realise that quite the most impressive, stylish, and beautiful putter of the erect school is M'Dermott, the brilliant young American champion, who stands straight up with his legs and heels touching, grips his putter at the very end, and moving nothing but his club and hands, makes the most delightfully smooth swing. The low-grip method is not at all conducive to the gentle swinging, following-through putt, but encourages a sharp little tap. All the old original philosophy and instruction in putting can be summarised in a very few words, but hundreds of thousands would be needed for discussion of the variations, most of which have been used successfully at some time. The majority of advisers make a point of it that the ball must be hit truly, but they would not all be agreed on what that "truly" was except that it was hitting it as they meant to do. What most of them have in mind is that there is on the face of the putter a proper hitting point, from which the ball will run more accurately and with less disposition to slide off the right line than when hit with any other part, that being the point of balance or the sweet spot which every iron club possesses, and this point should be brought to the ball by an even swing from the back, and the swing should be continued after impact by the steady smooth advance of the head of the club along the line that it was making at the moment of striking. Absolute steadiness of the body is quite essential, and lack of it--just the most trifling and almost undiscernible lack--is responsible for more putting failures than almost any other cause. Most of those who tell us what to do in golf advise that we should keep the arms and forearms quite still also, and putt entirely from the wrist. And yet even these canons, as they are considered, are defied by large bodies of players. There are thousands of golfers who putt from the toes of their clubs, and believe in the method. They say they can feel the ball better and direct it more surely. I quote again one of the first preceptors, Sir Walter Simpson, because I think in most matters of feeling and practice he stands so well for the old solid school of golf that has nearly died away. He insists on the wooden putter, to begin with, and maintains that no good thing upon the green can come out of iron, but therein he was mistaken and time has cried him down. And then he writes: "I have just said there are, at most, two or three attitudes in which good putting is possible. We are nowadays inclined to be more dogmatic, and to assert that there is but one. The player must stand open, half facing the hole, the weight on the right leg, the right arm close to the side, the ball nearly opposite the right foot. To putt standing square, the arms reached out, is as difficult as to write without laying a finger on the desk." Had he lived on to these more modern days he would not have been nearly so dogmatic as that. Some of the very best putters do not play with the open stance, but putt entirely from the left leg, that leg thrown forward and in front and bearing all the weight, the right being merely hanging on behind. Then they have the ball right opposite the left toe, and they putt with a sense of strain which they believe in such circumstances is conducive to delicacy. Tens of thousands of others could not putt in this way, but those who can are very successful, and this is just another indication of the danger of dogma in golf. As to the right arm at the side, it may be said that there is now a fast increasing practice on the part of those who bend down somewhat to their putting to rest the right elbow or forearm on the right knee. J. H. Taylor experimented with this idea on the very eve of the 1913 championship at Hoylake, his putting for some time having been bad. He adopted it, won the championship, and gave the new way of putting all the credit. Now see how high and deeply thinking authorities can differ about the ways and means of doing this thing that the little child does so thoroughly and well. "A great secret of steady putting is to make a point of always 'sclaffing' along the ground," said the baronet. "The best putters do this, although it is not evident to an onlooker, the noise of the scrape being inaudible. To be sure of the exact spot on the putter face which is invariably to come in contact with the ball, is, of course, essential to the acquirement of accuracy. If you play to hit clean, your putter must pass above the ground at varying heights, as it is impossible to note how much air there is between it and the turf. In the other way you feel your road. But the greatest gain from treating putting as a sclaffing process is the less delicate manipulation required when short putts are in question. At a foot and a half from the hole the clean putter often fails, from incapacity to graduate inches of weakness, whilst the sclaffer succeeds because he is dealing with coarser weight sensitiveness." Now time and experience have showed us all that we cannot be dogmatic about anything in golf except that the ball must be struck somehow, and least of all may we venture to dogmatise in the matter of putting, and we will only say now that the late Sir Walter has a heavy majority against him on this suggestion that in doing the short putts it is well to let the putter scrape along the grass when going forward to the ball. It seems a small matter (that little man child never thought of it, but I noticed he did not sclaff), yet a whole world of good and ill upon the links is bound up with it. We shall set this happy golfer as he was, and friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, against one of the great champions and one of the finest putters who have ever handled clubs, and that is Willie Park, the younger, who says, "One of the secrets of putting is to hit the ball, and the ball only--a sclaffy style of putting is fatal; and, with the object of making absolutely certain of avoiding it, rather aim to strike the globe just the least thing above the ground. The ball should be smartly tapped with the putter, the stroke being played entirely from the wrists; and it should be neither struck a slow, heavy blow, nor shoved, nor should it be jerked." Most golfers will be with Willie in this matter, and those who have not tried already that way of putting, the sole of the club being kept clear from the turf when the stroke is being made, might do so to their very likely advantage. It is a point that a player of limited experience might never think about, and I know many who have been converted from bad putters to good ones by it. Some of the leading players of the Hoylake school have long been addicted to a slight elaboration or variation of this method. As they bring the club on to the ball they lift it slightly so that at the moment of impact a peculiar running spin is given to the ball, one that is not quite the same thing as is imparted by merely topping it. The way appears to help the hole to gather the ball when it arrives, but it is a method that needs natural aptitude and much practice to make it quite safe in application. And then again, right away to the contrary, I have witnessed in recent weeks a way of putting by one or two of the best players in the country, which is new, and which they declare to be most effective when dealing with the small heavy balls that are now in vogue and which are so difficult to manage, especially on very keen greens. We have all heard of the push shot, generally done with cleeks and the more powerful irons--and many of us have tried to play it as Harry Vardon does, and the things that I have seen done and described as push shots by ordinary amateurs have been very dreadful. But, no matter; the idea of the push shot is to hit the ball a kind of downward glancing blow, the club coming to ground after impact, the result being that the ball starts off quickly and pulls up suddenly. The players to whom I have referred have applied this stroke to their putting, coming on to the ball above the centre and gently pushing the club through it, and in the circumstances I have indicated there can be no doubt they have succeeded. Balls being so tricky now, these matters are worth considering. You would perceive how boldly dogmatic was the writer of the early classic on the question of stance. On that point there is just one more word to say. The tendency seems to be increasing in these days towards holding the feet closely together. It is a stance to which Harry Vardon, after all his putting troubles, has nearly settled down, and many of the best men on the green, Tom Ball for one, are given to it. But there is no law, no recommendation even, only the most timid suggestion to be made to any man in this matter. That way which suits him and gives him confidence is the best, and one may find men putting marvellously well when their stance and attitude seem to be so ungainly and difficult as to cause them pain. * * * * * The method of holding the club has, at least, as much to do with good putting as anything else, and in this matter one may almost dare to dogmatise. The majority of players hold their putters with the two hands close together but detached from each other, in much the same way as they hold their other clubs. All of them have heard of what they call the Vardon grip, or the overlapping grip, by which, when the club is held, the left thumb is brought into the palm of the right hand, and the little finger of that right hand is made generally to ride upon the first of the left hand. Many try this grip for their long shots, but few persist with it, as they become convinced either that their hands and fingers are not strong enough for it, or that before they could master the method they would need to suffer too much in loss of the game that they already possess. Therefore they renounce the overlapping grip entirely. But if they would try it in putting they would experience none of the difficulties with which they are troubled when applying it to their wooden club shots, no sort of force having to be given to the stroke, and almost from the first attempt they would enjoy an advantage. It is a matter of the most vital importance in putting that the two hands should not interfere with each other to the very slightest extent. One of them should have the general management of the putting, and the other, if detached from it, should do little save act in a very subordinate capacity as a steadying influence. Everybody is agreed upon that; it is absolute. But when we have the two hands separate, as with the ordinary grip, there is always a danger of the subordinate asserting itself too much, or at all events varying in the amount of work that it does. It cannot be avoided; it is inevitable. This, we may be sure, is the cause of much bad and uncertain putting. Join the two hands together, as with the overlapping grip, and we have them working as one completely, and the risk of undue interference by the subordinate vanishes. This is the best hint on putting that all our counsellors have to give, and they one and all declare it will do more than anything else to raise a man to the high level of excellence of the innocent child. Sometimes we see men putting one-handed, and one may believe that for medium and short putts this way is more certain than the separate hands. Mr. Hilton once putted that way in the Amateur International match, and I have seen many other good putters do well with it. But it savours of freakishness, and, as a famous professional said to the distinguished player who adopted the method, "God did not give us two hands for one to be kept in a pocket while the putting was being done." The simple truth is that the one-hand way approximates very closely to the two-hand overlapping method. It is nearly the same thing, the same principle--all the work being done from one point. Upon thought, we often come to realise that what appear to be some of the most freakish methods of putting have the same fundamental principle at their base. Thus, take the case of Sherlock, who putts extremely well and consistently. He almost alone, among players of the game, holds his two hands wide apart on the handle of the putter, the left one uppermost, of course. This looks very strange, and at the first consideration it might seem that surely one hand will upset all the good work and reckoning that is done by the other. But the simple fact is that the left is so far away that it cannot interfere, and that is the secret of the quality of this method. When the left is close up to the right we cannot prevent it from meddling; we are unconscious of it when it is doing so; but get it far away and we have it in subjection, and all that it does in Sherlock's case is just to steady things up a little while the right hand does the business of the time. Mr. Walter Travis, the most eminent American, than whose putting in the Amateur Championship he won at Sandwich nothing better has ever been seen since time and the game began, long since adopted a slight variation of this overlapping grip, specially for his putting, which, I think, has something to commend it. Instead of letting the little finger of the right hand rest on the forefinger of the left, he reverses the situation, and puts the forefinger of the left hand on the little one of the right, thus leaving the right hand in full possession of the grip, both thumbs being down the shaft. In the other way it is the left hand that has hold of the club with all its fingers, and it will now be remembered that while the left hand is the chief worker in driving and playing through the green, the right is the one that most frequently does the putting. Having thus mentioned Mr. Travis, one can hardly refrain from quoting some of his instruction in this matter as he once conveyed it to me. "I believe," said he, "that putting should always be done with one hand--with one hand actively at work, that is. The left should be used only for the purpose of swinging the club backwards preparatory to making the stroke. When it has done that its work is ended and the right hand should then be sole master of the situation, the left being merely kept in attachment to it for steadying purposes. When only one hand is thus employed the gain in accuracy is very great. Two hands at work on a short putt or a long one tend to distraction. When the stroke is being made the grip of the right hand should be firm, but not tight, and after the impact the club-head should be allowed to pass clean through with an easy following stroke. The follow-through should indeed be as long as it is possible to make it comfortably, and, with this object in view, at the moment of touching the ball the grip of the fingers of the left hand should be considerably relaxed, so that the right hand may go on doing its work without interruption. Never hit or jerk the ball as so many players do. There is nothing that pays so well as the easy follow-through stroke." Yet we find that there is less than ever of that easy follow-through being done in these days, and putting may be no better for the fact, almost certainly is not. These are days when old maxims are being abandoned and new systems are being proclaimed season by season. Jack White, a splendid putter and a magnificent heretic, lately declared that it is time to get rid of what has been regarded as the most inviolable of maxims, "Never up, never in," asserting that the determination to be past the hole in putting, if not in it, leads with these lively balls we now play with to far too many of them running out of holing distance on the other side. His counsel, therefore, is that the ball should be coaxed gently up to the hole with as much drag applied to it as can be. Then for years past it has been recommended that one of the best ways of managing the putting with these speedy balls is to have much loft on the putter, and so in that way do something to create the drag; but lately a change of opinion began to be made, and I am finding some of the best players using putters that are perfectly straight in the face, believing that by their agency they can putt more delicately and with a surer judgment of strength. It is a little bewildering. Arnaud Massy, the French player who once won the Open Championship, and who is better at the putts of from six to ten or twelve feet than any man I know, says that he has come to believe that Nature has planted deep down in us a sixth sense, and it is that of putting. In the development of that sense lies the way to success. But after all such meditations as this, I go back to the remembrance of that wonderful little child who could never miss, and then from it all there emerges the only real secret of success in putting. The child has a quality which we elders do not enjoy, and never shall have it for any length of time. He knows not the hardness of the world. Having innocence and faith he looks trustingly upon it, and the old world and its four and a quarter inch hole is a little ashamed, perhaps. The child has Confidence. CHAPTER IV OLD CHAMPIONS AND NEW, AND SOME DIFFERENCES IN ACHIEVEMENT, WITH A SUGGESTION THAT GOLF IS A CRUEL GAME. If men who play games are not proud of their champions, of what then shall they be proud? If we advance the proposition--which is done here and now--that no other game or sport that was ever conceived and played has produced such remarkable strength and mastery in its champions as golf has done, the cynics will find that with the resources of the world and history at their disposal this position of ours can be well maintained, even though we have less than sixty years of championships for our support. And let it be said also at the beginning that we of golf declare to win, not with the Morrises or Parks, as might be supposed--good men they were too--but with the moderns, and especially with our Harry Vardon, our Taylor, our Braid, and the amateurs, John Ball, Harold Hilton, and the Frederick Guthrie Tait of immortal and beloved memory. I have long since grown accustomed to the mysterious and the inexplicable in golf, and pass them by on their fresh occurrences in these days as like the commonplace, something for which indeed there may be some explanation and a simple one, but one which the gods, with their humour and their teasing, are hiding from us. We who in this game have fed so long on wonders are now disposed to overlook phenomena. We tire of sensations and the extraordinary, and would revert to a smooth placidity of plain occurrence. It is in such mood that we often contemplate the records of the past, and then we dismiss them quickly with the comfortable judgment that the Morrises were themselves, and, being fixed on a permanent pinnacle, must not be disturbed. They have become a creed. One might imagine little plaster figures of old Tom, his left hand in his trousers pocket, thumb outside, and young Tom in Glengarry bonnet all complete, to have been placed in some over-zealous golfers' homes along with representations of Homer, Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, Gladstone, and Cecil Rhodes, and no questions are to be asked about them. It may be right to place them there, those early champions of the game, but when sometimes steeled to sacrilege and careless of all risk, I set myself to analyse the conditions and circumstances in which they gained their immortal glory, I can give reasons, ordinary worldly reasons, why they gained it; and can thereupon pass them as satisfying every reasonable requirement of human champions of the first degree. But with the others it is not at all like that. Golf being the game it is, the repeated successes of those three great players we call the "triumvirate," Taylor, Vardon, and Braid, at a time when competition is so enormously severe, and when--this point being of towering importance--the luck of the game, always considerable, is, through a variety of circumstances, greater than ever, appear to me, having seen most of them accomplished, and now looking upon the plain printed records of indisputable fact, to have still some elements of impossibility. One has a fear that three or four hundred years from now the golfers of the period may not believe that these things did happen; they may decide that we of this imaginative and progressive age, a little fearful perhaps of greater wonders that might be accomplished in the future, had prepared a little trick for posterity and had set forth false records of what we had done, so absurd that their falsity was self-evident, and so we were to be pitied for our simplicity. In our humble way, and by stating the records of achievement in the coldest way, admitting moreover that even to us of the time they appear incredible, we do our best to gain favour and acceptance with our descendants. Fifteen Open Championships to the triumvirate, and eight Amateur Championships to Mr. John Ball himself. It is indeed impossible; but it is one of those things in golf that are to be described in the terms that Ben Sayers (who might have been given a championship by the fates for services rendered and skill displayed before the era to which he chiefly belonged was closed, as men are made lords when governments give up) applied to the victory over him by Fred Tait on his own course at North Berwick once by something like seven and six--"It's no possible, but it's a fact!" All of us know one man--perhaps more than one, but we do know one for certain--who nearly all the time that Mr. Ball has been winning those championships might have been winning them himself, has been almost good enough to do so. But he has won nothing, and after all it may not be a matter of much surprise if we consider the enormous odds against victory in a championship because of the luck of the game, the fact that it is not like running or rowing, billiards or chess, where strength and stamina, knowledge and skill, work out almost exactly every time, but a game in which skill has this element of luck blended so largely with it. But Mr. Ball, Amateur Champion eight times over, and the triumvirate as well!--when "the truth stands out as gross as black from white," with my eyes I can scarcely see it. These persons have forbidden the caprice of chance that was set to worry them, they have overthrown the laws of averages, they have annihilated the weaknesses of flesh and blood, and they have laughed at fortune and at fate which, defeated, have joined up with them. Then clearly they, with the collection of champions in general for their garnishment, are to be regarded as the sixth wonder of the game. It is now too late--as it always was too late--to make any fair comparison between the great players of our own time and those who were members in the early years of the Open Championship. There is not so much argument now as to whether Harry Vardon is better than young Tom Morris was, though such argument was common only ten or a dozen years ago. How may you compare these men? Young Tommy won four championships in succession, but there was only a handful of competitors each time, and the opposition was feeble almost to nothing in comparison with what it became a very few years later. Vardon, Taylor, and Braid have each won the championship five times, and many of these victories were gained against their own fellow-champions and the strongest opposition conceivable. Yet though such as Vardon produce what are in a sense more astonishing results in the way of scores, we are reminded that they have far smoother courses to play upon and much improved clubs and balls. Also they have better rivals to sharpen their game. From this one might argue that it would be strange indeed if they were not better than young Tommy was, that it is quite inevitable they should be. But our modern champions have done more than fulfil the obligations laid upon them. They have established an amazing supremacy at a period when golfers are reckoned in the hundreds of thousands; young Tom was champion when there were the hundreds without the thousands. His championship, at all events, did not mean so much. The championships gained by our triumvirate are proof beyond all possibility of doubt or question that these men are the most exalted geniuses, that they have such a clear superiority over all other golfers of their time as is, seeing the circumstances of the case and knowing the waywardness of golf, almost incredible. The success of the younger Morris proved, as some will hold, only that he was quite the best golfer of a few eligible to compete for the championship. * * * * * After all, if comparison is fruitless and not properly practicable, this speculation as to the merits of the geniuses of nearly fifty years ago and now becomes enticing. One would like to reach some conclusion upon it, but cannot. It would be fine material for a golfers' debating society. Were I to regard myself as advocate for the moderns I should in an agreeable and inoffensive way suggest that time has done nothing to hurt the fame of young Tommy's skill. When what they call the golf boom began and the great game percolated through the mass of ignorant English, there was babble all at once about St. Andrews, and men of southern towns just discovering that the right hand on the driver should be the lower one whispered of the ancient city in a hypocritical manner of respect and awe as if it were high up above the blue instead of a day's journey up the northern lines from Euston or King's Cross. The name of the place was taken in vain, and to this day there are neophytes who lisp of "the Mecca of golf," as they say it, and its eleventh and seventeenth holes, though they have never been in Fifeshire and maybe never will. At the same time and by the same people there was established the vogue of young Tommy Morris, as one might call it. It was nearly sacrilege in the circumstances, for more people were living then than are living now who had known young Tommy, and fervently believed he was the best golfer who ever played the game. But what we may call the Morrisian traditions were established in this way, and they have laid a shoddy veneer on the really sound reputation of the young champion that it never needed. So the proposition is advanced that through ignorance and affectation and carelessness we posterity are being abundantly generous to young Tom and his father--forgetting Allan Robertson, such is the effect of championships, who was before them, and of whom it was said when he died that they might toll their bells and shut up their shops at St. Andrews, for their greatest was gone. We posterity are of another golfing world completely from that in which those early champions of St. Andrews lived and golfed. I have here in my room a driver with which old Tom played, and I see that the other day some rash fellows, unafraid of ghosts, took out from their receptacles some clubs which had belonged to him and others and played a game with them. But the handling of the old clubs and the looking on the picture of Tom which he once signed for me cannot bring the feeling of his time to ours, and I pass it on as a suggestion to our own posterity that our judgment in this matter, as it has been made, is nearly worthless. It has been coldly stated that lies are told by golfers. That allegation may be dismissed with no consideration, but it is certain that fancy traditions of flimsy origin gather about golfing history and soon establish themselves in the most remarkable manner. I know many incidents of the past ten or fifteen years, things I myself have witnessed, the truth of which has become completely obscured by masses of imagined stuff that has gathered on them. To take a good example, more than half the golfers in the world will tell you that Lieutenant Fred Tait won a championship at Prestwick after wading into water at the Alps to play a shot from there in the final; if they will look at the records they will find that splendid Tait did not win that championship at all, and they should be told that the shot that Mr. Ball made from the wet sand in that same bunker was nearly as difficult and, in the circumstances, more trying. Again, the victory gained by Mr. Travis at Sandwich, so recently as 1904, is now already described in many different ways, but one feature common to all of them is that the American holed a putt of twenty yards on nearly every green, that his driving was childlike in its shortness, and that he was smoking himself to death at the time. Still later, the very next year, there was an Amateur Championship at Prestwick, and I remember that Mr. Robert Maxwell, after a hard struggle against young Barry--who won the championship--had to loft over a stymie on the eighteenth green to keep the match alive, and then at the nineteenth the student was left with a short putt to win that hole and the match. I saw the play in that match and saw the putt, and I believe it was one of about a couple of feet. It was certainly too much to give in the circumstances, far too much, but Mr. Maxwell, great lover of golf as he is, had even by that time begun to tire of the strenuousness and the officialdom and the graspingness of championship tournaments, and he waved his club in token of presentation of the putt to his young opponent and generously shook hands with him. The Scottish spectators did not like it at the time, because "oor Bobbie" was their best and greatest hope, and it seemed like feeding the devil with chocolates to give putts like this to English golfers. By the time that we had returned to the club-house, only three hundred yards away, it was being said that that putt was three feet long, by the morning it had gone up to three feet six, and increasing gradually it even touched the five-feet mark within the next few years. At that point there was a reaction and, from what I can gather, the putt has settled down in history at four feet. It was half as long. So I think that golf posterities are fickle bodies, and even the best of them are not nearly so responsible and accurate in their judgments as is believed by those people who trustingly say that they will await the verdict of posterity. I remember that M. Anatole France urged that posterity was not infallible, because he himself and all human beings are posterity in regard to a long succession of works with which they are imperfectly acquainted, and he quotes the case of Macbeth whose reputation posterity has murdered, though Macbeth himself did no crime at all. Macbeth was really an excellent king. He enriched Scotland by favouring her commerce and industry. The chronicler depicts him as a pacific prince, the king of the towns, the friend of the citizens. The clans hated him because he administered justice well. He assassinated nobody. And as M. France remarks, we know what legend and genius have made of his memory. It is that way reversed with all our golfing traditions, and so we must handle them carefully. It is a principle of this game that no man can be a good golfer and a bad man, that those who are bad at heart have not the human qualities necessary for being golfers at all, cannot associate happily with the rest of the community, and so they get themselves properly out of it betimes. Hence it happens that of no golfer is there anything that is bad to be told. We have no Macbeths in this sport of ours, though it embraces some pensive Hamlets, and a number of the moderns would be golfing Romeos if their swings were finished in the old free style. But if tradition had indeed given us a foul Macbeth who improved his lie we should surely purify the remembrance of him, believing that his immediate posterity had almost certainly judged him wrong. This case which the advocate has set up against young Tom, with all this blame cast on posterity, will seem a weak thing yet to some. If we were counsel for the boy, who made a fine and a lovable figure in his day, should we bandy with words like that, or put evidence direct and plain before the tribunal, the evidence of those who saw? There are still a few of them left, and for myself I should not have far to send to gain a willing witness. I have a good and valued friend, Mr. Charles Chambers of Edinburgh, member of a distinguished golfing family of many generations, and a fine player himself, who was in the semi-final of the first Amateur Championship. He saw young Tommy at the game, and played it with him. And Mr. Chambers, once answering my plea for some of his remembrances, said, "As a youngster at St. Andrews, I was a great friend of young Tom, the champion, and on a summer evening often accompanied him alone, when, with a club and a cleek, he played out as far as the second hole. He was, I believe, the greatest golfer the world has ever seen, those giants of the present day not excepted. His driving, which I remember so well, was of the long, low, wind-cheating style so seldom seen now, with great distance and carry. He never struck a ball anywhere except on the centre of the club, and this was reflected in the faces of his driving-clubs, which had a clear and distinct impression in the centre, the wood above and below being clean and fresh as when last filed. His putting was perhaps even more deadly, and in ordinary matches I recollect he was seldom or never asked to hole out a yard putt. In driving from the tee, his style may be described as an absolutely correct circular sweep, with great accuracy and follow-through, and this applied equally to his iron play. It was his custom to wear a broad Glengarry bonnet, which very frequently left his head on the delivery of the stroke.... Without doubt he succumbed to his private sorrows and a broken heart." That is strong testimony, and the abiding conviction is that young Morris was great indeed, but in the nature of things comparisons cannot well be made between then and now, and are better left undone. * * * * * I am glad that we have thus condemned posterity, for we strengthen the positions of our triumvirate and Mr. Ball at their only point of weakness, which is that their successes have been so marvellous as to be incredible to those heirs of ours who, not being of this period, will not have witnessed them. Posterity may suggest that such persons could not have lived, since none of us will hesitate to say that such posterity will not itself produce a man to win three championships. Even to win one twice is to make a proof of superiority such as in existing circumstances seems nearly impossible. Any man, as one might say, may win a championship; that would prove nothing save that he is as good a golfer as any other, or nearly so; but to win two championships is to prove that he is appreciably better than the others, that he is so much better as to balance with his skill the chances of the game--the putts he missed and the long ones that his opponents holed--that were flung against him. During a period of nearly twenty years the success of Taylor, Vardon, and Braid has been so complete, so overwhelming, so dazzling, that among them they seem almost to have solved the problem of perpetual victory. Each of these men is a genius, a great master of the game; each of them, had he lived in an age apart from the others, would alone have been enough to make a separate era in competitive golf; and it is a strange freak of fate that they should have been pitchforked into the arena at the same time. It is as if three Ormondes had been in the same Derby, or three Graces at the crease, when at their best; indeed, it is more wonderful than those things would have been. They were born within thirteen months of each other; Vardon and Braid within three months. The last-named is the eldest of the group; he was born at Earlsferry, in Fifeshire, on 6th February 1870; Harry Vardon was born in Jersey on 7th May 1870; and Taylor was born at Northam, in Devonshire, within a mile of where Mr. Ball won his eighth championship, on 19th March 1871. They are of different race; for Braid is a pure Scot, Taylor is pure English, and Vardon, while, of course, we are proud to regard him as belonging to us, is really half-French and half-English. They are of different build, different temperament, and of very different style in golf; but there they are. Among them they have won the Open Championship fifteen times, and when one of them has succeeded it has generally happened that the other two have been his most dangerous rivals. There must be a limit to the period of success as there is to human life, and for years people have murmured that these three are not like the little brook that purls down the hill, and they cannot go on for ever. And yet at the beginning of each new championship an instinct settles in the public mind that they cannot be beaten. Considering what the Open Championship is, what a fearful strain it exerts on temperament, mind, body, and muscle, how a single slip may mean failure, and then how many really magnificent golfers are in the lists, some of them old champions themselves, this is a strange state of things. I recall that when a championship was played at Muirfield in 1906 the sceptics were then loud in their prophecies that a "new man" would arise, and that the triumvirate would be cast down. And then? James Braid was first, John Henry Taylor was second, and Harry Vardon was third, though a hundred and eighty other players had done their best to beat them! Taylor, the Englishman, although the youngest of the three, was the first to score success. He and Vardon both made their initial appearances in the Open Championship at Prestwick in 1893, and on that occasion the 75 that Taylor did in his first round stood as the lowest made in the competition, although he did not win. At his second and third attempts in the championship he took first place each time, and on the second of these occasions an Englishman's victory was at last accomplished at St. Andrews, the Scottish headquarters of the game. He won there again in 1900, and is the only Englishman who has ever won the Open Championship on this hallowed piece of golfing ground. A year after the others began, James Braid entered the lists, and very quickly then did these three establish their triple supremacy. An injured hand kept Braid out of the great event in 1895, but since then each of the men has played in every championship, and among them have won fifteen times out of twenty-one. At the "coming of age" of the triumvirate in 1913, when it was twenty-one years after Taylor and Vardon started in the event, Taylor, the first to score in it, won his fifth and became "all square" with his friends. That was a remarkable occurrence. Since 1894, when Taylor won his first championship, there have only been five years when one or other of the triumvirate has not won the cup. In 1897 Mr. Hilton got it; in 1902 Sandy Herd, playing with the rubber-cored ball on its introduction, scored; in 1904 Jack White was the winner, both Braid and Taylor having a putt to tie with him on the last green; in 1907 Massy, the Frenchman, triumphed; and in 1912 the hope of Edward Ray was realised. And in each of these years one of the triumvirate was second. * * * * * But if each of the triumvirate is a phenomenon and collectively they are super-phenomena, in what terms then are we to describe Mr. John Ball, and how shall we account for his eight amazing championships? Mr. Harold Hilton, as all the world understands very well, is a great master of the game, a magnificent golfer who knows it through and through, and a tremendous fighting man. There has hardly been anything in all golf's history so splendid as his coming again and winning two more Amateur Championships when he had seemed almost done for ever, and very nearly winning an Open Championship as well. But if after considering the professionals at their stroke game, we are now to think of the amateurs in their match-play championship, it is John Ball who is the wonder man. The luck of the game that was emphasised in the consideration of score play is surely greater in the match. At all events, the professionals themselves to a man declare that the score play makes the better test, and therefore is the fairer. If that is so, there is, inferentially, more luck to be conquered by a good man in the amateur event, and Mr. Ball has eight times beaten his fields and beaten all the luck against him. Twenty-four years after winning his first Amateur Championship at Prestwick he wins his eighth at Westward Ho! and, for all the great players that the game has yielded, no other man has gained more than half those wins, and only Hilton has done that. Surely it is a mystery very profound as to how he has won so often. And yet it is less of mystery if we accept the proposition that he who plays golf for the sake of golf and fears not to be beaten is the most dangerous of opponents. Mr. Ball's early championships were won by his own skill and his perfect temperament; undoubtedly some of the later ones, which through increasing numbers of opponents have or should have been harder to win, have been gained because he cared little whether he won or not, and because his opponents feared to lose, and feared the more as they felt their impending fate when they had the master of Hoylake laid against them. To a little extent they have beaten themselves, and Mr. Ball has done all the rest. Has there been more than one of his championships in recent times that he has keenly desired to win, that being the one he gained at St. Andrews in 1907, because he wished to be victor at the headquarters where he lost long years before, after a tie with Mr. Balfour Melville? At eight o'clock on the morning after he won his seventh at Hoylake I saw him in the garden at the back of his house giving his chickens their morning meal. It was as if nothing had happened. How many other men would have been feeding chickens so early in the morning after winning an Amateur Championship? Has he finished winning, I wonder? There is a cause to suggest that he has not. He won for his seventh the only championship ever played in Devonshire, and he has won the event on all the regular amateur championship courses on which it is played but one, and that is Muirfield, which has been something of a _bête noire_ among courses so far as he is concerned. Once there he suffered one of the biggest defeats of his career, in the international match, and then in the championship he went down in a surprising way to a youngster of Dornoch. Shall he not add Muirfield to his list? Despite a certain beauty of his style and the ease and elegance with which he plays the game, Mr. Ball's golf is strongly individual to himself. There are many pronounced mannerisms in it, and they are of a kind that if any one tried to copy them, he might find his game being injured rather than improved. They are the ways of the genius who cares nothing for convention. Few can drive a better ball. At the outset of his career he was a long driver. His first big match away from his native Hoylake was one against Douglas Rolland. It was a home-and-home affair in England and Scotland, and Rolland was greatly celebrated in those days for the length he gained with wooden clubs. Yet he outdrove Mr. Ball but little in that engagement. He obtains his length not to a large extent from run, as most men get it now, but by a ball that starts on a beautiful line, makes a very long carry, and leaves it at that, with a little pull to finish with. It has seemed that he has had more control over his wooden club play than almost any amateur except another of fame who was bred in the same great school. An outstanding peculiarity of his method is the way in which he grips his club, which is done not in the fingers and lightly as by other men, but by a good firm grip in the palms of his hands with the fingers facing up. He makes small use of the thumb and the first two fingers of his right hand. His stance is an open one. His play with his iron clubs again is unconventional. Even for his shortest shots he swings his clubs, meaning that he makes less of a jerky hit at the ball than others do, and he resorts less to cutting the stroke than other great men. But what a master of judging of heights and distance he is! To see him just plop the ball over a bunker in the way and then watch it run the necessary distance afterwards is to understand what marvellous properties of control can be invested in such perfect human golfing machinery. Another of his peculiarities is that he carries no niblick in his bag, and I think he never has carried one. He has certainly not had one in any of his recent championships. And among many other of his characteristics is that peculiar gait with the bent knees that, because of their climbing over the hilly links, golf seems to develop in men (Harry Vardon has it), his extreme modesty in manner, and the splendid excellence of his sportsmanship. Some one once set forward a curious theory that children born in the winter-time are likely to become better golfers than others; their temperaments are supposed to be favourably affected by the prevailing rigour of the weather conditions! It is, anyhow, a curious fact that a very large proportion of our best players were born in mid-winter months, and of them all John Ball is the greatest, and he, if you please, was born on a day so far removed from midsummer as Christmas Eve. * * * * * There has been lately a sort of revival of the game of attempting to punch another man so very hard that he can stand up no longer to make the smallest punch in answer. He has to be battered and pounded until he is made practically lifeless for a period of ten seconds, and then the other man is given the money. This is what we call the "noble art of self-defence," but, obviously, it is nine parts of such defence to reduce the other man to such a jellified condition that no more defence is needed. When well played it is a good game. Now golf never has been called a "noble" game at all. It is "royal" and it is "ancient," and it leaves its qualities to speak for themselves, as most eloquently they do. The boast has indeed been made for golf that, while in so many other English sports something flying or running has to be killed or injured, golf never calls for a drop of blood from any living creature. It is then inferred that it is a gentle game, as in some ways it really is. Also it has been demonstrated that it is a game at which elderly men may play and play quite well, as was proved in a recent year when golfers who are becoming older than they like to think of won so many of the trophies. But the result of this boom in the noble art of squashing another man for a prize of a few thousand pounds and the brave words that some of the lovers of this sport sometimes use, telling us that things like this made English hearts so strong, nearly giving us to understand that Sayers and his like had some influence on the fortunes of the British Empire, is that a kind of reflection is cast upon some other sports for their mildness and their timidity. Girls do not fight in rings and nearly kill each other, but girls can play golf and do, and they even play with men. Let us consider the proposition that golf is a game that needs a greater and a stronger heart than any other game. It demands fine manliness, such determination as strong Englishmen are made of, and courage of the best. The strain of a severe golf competition on the men who win, or nearly, is enormous. No weakling has ever won success at golf, and never will. The truth is that it is such a game that if the charge is made that it is a brutal sport we can barely stand for its defence. For there is cruelty in golf, cold hurting cruelty in this game. If now you hesitate, consider. The difference between the effect of boxing and the effect of golf on the human system is that golf hurts more and the pain is more enduring, for it is psychological. That may seem like an attempted escape from the proposition, because it may be suggested that maiden aunts can and do bear such psychological pain at golf, and bear it well. But we discuss real golf of the championship kind, and match play wherein two good and keen players are really playing against each other, parry and thrust as it is in championship golf, with the issue in even balance most of the time, not taking sevens and eights and so being nearly indifferent to what the other may do until the clerking takes place on the putting green and the state of things is calculated. Golf, as we know, is a game for the emotions. We agree that it plays upon them continually, and chiefly through the medium of the supreme emotion, hope. While this hope is the most uplifting of emotions, it is also, with the strain it makes, by far the most exhausting. Now every golfer knows that in the real game if a good stroke is made by one party the gain is not only in the extra nearness to the hole that his own ball obtains, but also by the "moral effect" the shot has on the other man. This other may have been in a good state of hope before; now he receives a sudden shock--and it is indeed a shock sometimes when in a second, as the result of the other's effort, his hope is reduced to fear or complete dejection. Do you think the man who made the shot does not know that? He knows it well. There! he knew! The dejected man has foozled, and the hole has gone. This bout is ended. There is a rest of a few seconds, and then the contestants start again and smash each other on the mind, just as they did the other time. Some may suggest that the effect of these mental hurts is small, that they draw no blood, and that they are not to be compared with a left hook on the jaw which sends a boxer toppling. To that there are replies to make. In the first place it has to be remembered that a match at golf between two good players (we do not now write of habitual foozlers in whom the golfing emotions cannot, in the nature of things, be well developed) is taken very seriously indeed, and therefore the emotional effect is greater than might be supposed by one who does not play. Second, the effect is cumulative, and every golfer knows again how intensely depressing is the continual fight against a relentless opponent who scores with nearly every stroke and never lets one's hope burn bright again. Bang goes every shot of his on the sensitive temperament of his foe, and that is exactly why temperament has all to do with success at golf. It is the man who can stand punishment who wins; no other sort ever has won in greater golf, or ever will. And then again, if it is suggested that mental pain is after all not such a hard thing to bear with courage as pain of body, let us ask which has the longer effect, remembering also that, with full respect to boxing people, the golfer is a man of keener feelings. In championships how often has a man who has had a punishing match in a morning round, one that has gone to the nineteenth hole or after before victory has come to him, won again in the afternoon? Not frequently. If you had merely with a fist blow knocked that man senseless for a little while before his lunch, he might have been readier for his golfer opponent in the afternoon. It is notorious that some of the finest play in championships has been accomplished by men who were enduring much physical suffering at the time. And again, how exactly is the effect of the winning putt on the defeated man like that of the knock-out blow. His last hope is extinguished with the suddenness of vanished consciousness. So this psychological pain is a very discomforting thing. The law recognises it, and herein the law is surely not an ass. We have the legal cruelty of the divorce court. Husband who tells his wife he dislikes her new hat or gown is held to have been cruel as though he had smacked her pretty face, or something worse than that. He could kiss away a red mark from a dimpled cheek, and surely if permitted he would do so, but nothing could change the judgment on the hat. And in golf the mental injury is more real than that. Never was more absurdly untrue suggestion made against this game than that it is not like others where men play directly against each other and foil each other's shots, that it is a game in which each man plays his own ball independent of the other. Each stroke we make has effect on the stroke made by the opponent. That effect may be discounted by the opponent's own strength and resource, but yet it is produced. In no other game does a man play right and hard on to his opponent as in match-play golf, for it is a game in which the whole temperamental strength of one side is hurled against the strength of the other, and the two human natures are pressing bitterly and relentlessly against each other from the first moment of the game to the last. It is the whole man, mind and body. That is the meaning of the temperamental factor in golf, and that is why a great match at golf is great indeed. Yes, it is a cruel game, one in which the primitive instincts of man are given full play, and the difference between golf and fisticuffs is that in the one the pain is of the mind and in the other it is of the body. * * * * * A climax in our wonderment has been reached, and though a volume could be written on the romance of the rubber-cored ball, the seventh of the wonders of the game and the most modern, the story after all is known. Golf would have gained on its old degree of popularity if there had been no such invention and men had continued to play with gutties; but that the golf boom as we know it would have been created, that the game would have risen to be the enormous thing it is, giving pleasure to hundreds of thousands of people all the world over, there is much reason to doubt. One night in the early summer of 1898 Mr. Coburn Haskell sat at dinner with a magnate of the American rubber industry, at the house of the latter in Cleveland, Ohio. They were both golfers, and naturally they talked golf during their meal. They agreed that a kindlier ball than the harsh and severe gutty was needed, and they thought that surely it might come through rubber. Eventually they settled on the idea of rubber thread wound under tension to give the necessary hardness, and an experimental ball was made accordingly. With the very first shot that was made with that first of rubber-cored balls a professional player to whom it had been given to try carried a bunker that had never been carried before! From that moment the great revolution was begun, the most extraordinary that has ever taken place in any game. There were set-backs, it was a little slow in starting, but its success was sure. In 1902, when Sandy Herd won an Open Championship with the new ball, after prejudice had held it back in Britain previously, the gutty was done for, and it quickly disappeared from the links. And oh, the ravings and the riotings of argument there have been about that ball since then! And the hundreds of thousands of pounds that have had to be spent on courses to make them suit it! Never was there such a giant commotion nor such a costly one caused in any sport before. We need not argue any more whether it has improved the game or spoiled it. These discussions are for the schools. It has anyhow made the game in the modern popular sense, and now we are informed that of this little white ball, that was first invented at the dinner-table on those Ohio summer nights, half a million are used on British courses in one week in a busy season, and a million pounds' worth are bought and consumed by golfers in a year. Then you may be sure that more than a million dollars' worth are driven and putted on the courses of the United States. Marvellous little ball! Indeed you are the seventh wonder of your game. CHAPTER V A FAMOUS CHAMPIONSHIP AT BROOKLINE, U.S.A., AND AN ACCOUNT OF HOW MR. FRANCIS OUIMET WON IT, WITH SOME EXPLANATION OF SEEMING MYSTERIES. Abiding wonders of the past, perplexities of the present, the greatness of the game where it is still greatest, have been among recent thoughts; and yet one is conscious all the time that something which sure enough comes near to being the eighth wonder of it all has lately happened, and will for long enough be high in the minds of this community, something that will never cease to be discussed and will always be regarded as a matter for argument and speculation. Only because it is so very new, so utterly modern, so contrary to much of our olden faith, so inharmonious with the smooth story that we have learned and liked, has a witness hesitated to give it a forward place well won. Yet do we not know that a hundred years from now, when so much of golfing history yet unmade will have been piled on to the dusty records that we hold, this new wonder will still be a theme for club-house talk, and if by then matches are played with the people of other planets, will they not wish to know in Mars how this strange break came about? Then there shall be as many readings and explanations of the mystery of Brookline and of Ouimet as there have been of the moods of sad Prince Hamlet. So from the old traditions, the famous players, the ancient links, the scene may move to new America. * * * * * To the Fourth of July there shall now be added the Twentieth of September. In the year of nineteen hundred and thirteen it fell upon a Saturday, and that day at Brookline, near Boston in Massachusetts, was dripping wet. Clouds had run loose for two whole days and nights before, unceasingly, and still sent their torrent down. When, dull and splashing, the morning broke, with expectation in the air, it seemed that this had been planned by fate for a day of wretchedness and misery, one that might with convenience afterwards be blotted out from memory and considered as a _dies non_. But good Americans will now recall no clouds, no rain, no damp, no mud when they remember the Twentieth of September. I too, though my feelings then were more of wonder and real admiration than of joy which my own patriotism could not sanction, shall be glad to remember in time to come that then I was at Brookline and was one of only two or three from Britain who saw the amazing thing that was done that day, the most remarkable victory ever achieved in any golf championship anywhere at any time. It was something to have seen; it is a distinction to have the remembrance. On that day Francis Ouimet, a boy of twenty, bred to the game on the cow pastures of Massachusetts, played Harry Vardon and Edward Ray, great champions of British golf, for the championship of the United States--and won. They three had come through the great ordeal of a full championship and tied for first place together. They played, not against blank possibility as men, knowing not the exact nature of their task, have to do in Open Championships where the test is play by score and each is against all others, having then some fears stilled by sweet hope which is ever the golfer's sustenance, but in sight of each other, together, one with another, man against man, ball against ball, seeing what was being done, knowing what had to be accomplished next. Could there ever again be such a three-ball golf? It is one of the compensations of having been so very wet at Brookline on that awful day that one knows that for the wonder and the drama of the thing it can never happen more, not ever. If such facts could be repeated, the wonder would be missing and the drama gone. An American and two Englishmen. These championships are mainly matters for individuals after all; the "international element," of which we read so much in newspapers, is not generally so deeply felt as we try to think it is. Golf, not being a game of sides as other games are, and, if it comes to that, not generally a game in which national peculiarities exert an influence, hardly lends itself to international treatment. Players who feel internationally before a contest relapse to individualism completely when they are pitching to the green and putting to the hole. Do not tell me that in the throes of a six-feet putt that shall win or lose a day a man thinks of his trusting country and not of his tortured hopeful self. It is not possible in the combination of golf and human nature, and there is no blame to the men. But on the Twentieth of September international feeling in the game of golf did for once rise high, and became a very real thing. What of individualism had been maintained by Vardon and his companion during that week had nearly disappeared on the nineteenth, when the tie was made, and there was hardly a trace of it when the curtain went up on the fifth act of the amazing drama of Brookline, none at all when it was rolled down again. This point is now emphasised because when I write of the wonder of the thing I have to show that not only was this Brookline boy, of no championship whatever save one of Massachusetts, pitted against two of the greatest golfers of the home country of the game, but that, the international feeling being now alive and intense, he for America was opposed to those two of England, and therefore in a very full degree he was playing their better ball. The boy was playing the better ball of Vardon and Ray! He beat them! A long time has now elapsed since the dripping day when I saw him do it, and wonders have a way of softening with age, yet to me now that achievement is as wonderful as it was when new, and so it will remain. The American golfers are justified in their pride and their exultation upon the result of that event, and there is nothing whatever to be said against it. No such feat had ever been performed before, or has been since. I shall describe the circumstances which led up to this amazing triumph, and what ensued. * * * * * Only once before had British players gone across the Atlantic to take part in the Open Championship of the United States, and that was in 1900 when Harry Vardon and J. H. Taylor did so. At that time Taylor was the Open Champion, Vardon having finished second to him in that year's tournament at St. Andrews. American golf was then comparatively a baby, and practically all the opponents of the British pair were players who had been born and bred in the home country and had gone out to America as professionals there. Good as some of them were, they were no match for their visitors, who had the competition comfortably to themselves and finished first and second, Vardon becoming champion. Much happened in the next thirteen years. Most significant was the breeding of an American champion on American soil, a "native born," in J. J. M'Dermott, who tied for first place in 1910, but then lost to Alec Smith on playing off, and tied again the next year when he won, and again in 1912. About the same time two other native players in Tom M'Namara and Michael Brady came to the surface from the raw mass of rough golfing material that was taking shape under the American sun. Both are good men, and from my knowledge of them I like their manner and their style; but M'Dermott, despite some serious faults of which he has been made aware, is undoubtedly a marvellous golfer for his age. I think he has to be considered as the most wonderful prodigy the game has so far known. At twenty years of age, when he came over to Muirfield as American champion to compete for the great Open Championship, he was even then a most accomplished golfer, high in the topmost rank. Not tall in stature but well and lithely built for a golfer, he has a full, easy, and graceful swing. It is round like most of the American swings--but not so round as it used to be--and M'Dermott is often afflicted with what is commonly known as the American hook, being a most persistent tendency to pull the ball. It is remarkable also that he has been in the habit of using wooden clubs of most abnormal length, and it has been a wonder to me how he has controlled them as well as he has done. The history of the Open Championship, marked with so many crosses for tragedies and the blighting of fair hopes, embraces few incidents more pathetic than the driving of three balls into the Archerfield woods by M'Dermott in the event of 1912 at Muirfield, and his failing to qualify in consequence. But he was only twenty then. The first expedition made by a native American to this country in quest of Open Championship honours consequently failed. In the following year we saw him again at Hoylake, and with him his brother natives, M'Namara and Brady, and some of the Scoto-Americans also. M'Dermott did the best of the three, and his play for nine holes one morning was very nearly perfect. His swing was a little more compact than before; it was beautifully timed, and his straight-up style of putting with his heels touching and his grip upon the end of the shaft was most attractive. He found the conditions on the last day too severe for him, as nearly all except Taylor, the champion, did; but he made a fine display and became the first real American player to get into the prize list of the Open Championship, which he did with a score of 315--eight more than Taylor--which made him tie for fifth place. M'Dermott undoubtedly excels in temperament. * * * * * Here was a menace. It was felt that America was making very good in golf. And there came vaguely into the minds of British golfers the idea that a demonstration of their strength should be made in this new country, for satisfaction and for the sake of national pride. Yet, with their conservatism, our British golfing people are slow to move in matters of this kind. They are content with the game, and perhaps wisely so. But there was the feeling that something should be done. With initiative demanded, Lord Northcliffe, who had become a keen lover of the game, made a characteristic movement unobtrusively, as the result of which Harry Vardon and Edward Ray were sent across the Atlantic to test the strength of American golfers in their own Open Championship. Vardon was then five times Open Champion of the world; Ray was the holder of the title. Two other Europeans sailed the seas with the same object in their minds, one of them being Wilfrid Reid, the clever little professional attached to the Banstead Downs club near London, a man who had gained international honours constantly and has much fine golf in him, and the other Louis Tellier, the professional of the Société de Golf de Paris at La Boulie, Versailles. Four good men; two great champions; one the greatest golfer the world has known. They seemed to be enough. Their design was to win the American championship. * * * * * Those who were not at Brookline during the week that followed, and only received a result that was amazing and inexplicable, were ready enough, perhaps not unnaturally, to suggest that this course of the Country Club could not have afforded a proper test, that it was so far different from a good British course, so mysteriously American, that the native players must have been favoured by it, and the superior skill that the British golfers possessed had no opportunity for an outlet. As I say, this was not an unreasonable supposition in the light of the amazing events that occurred; but it was entirely wrong. There are few courses in America that are better than this one, and to this judgment I would add that though there are inland courses in England that are superior there are not many. Judged upon the best standard of inland courses in Britain I would call it thoroughly good. It has seven holes of over four hundred yards each, one of them being five hundred and twenty, and, the total length of the round being 6245 yards, it was good enough in this respect. It has three short holes, well separated, and some of its drive-and-iron-holes are quite excellent. The Brookline course differs from many others in America in the quick and varied undulations of its land--heaving, rolling, twisting everywhere--and thus calling for adaptability of stance, and careful reckoning of running after pitching at every shot. By this feature the play is made as interesting as it should be, but often is not. Only two of the holes on the course are quite flat and plain, and these are novelties. They are the first and eighteenth, which take straight lines parallel to each other through the great polo field alongside the club-house. Polo is a considerable feature of the scheme of the Country Club, and its comparatively small territory is not to be interfered with for the sake of the golfers who have so much more of Massachusetts for their delectation. Yet it is necessary to play through this polo field. Consequently we start the round at one end of it and play a hole of 430 yards right along past the grand stand. Then away we go out into the country, over the hills and along the dales, and through the trees and cuttings where rocks were blasted, and, after many adventures, return to the smooth plain land of the polo field as to the straight run home at the end of a steeplechase, and play along positively the plainest 410-yard hole I have ever seen. The tee is at one end of the polo field, with the grand stand in the middle distance on the left. There is not a bunker along that field, but there is rough grass on the left of the part designated for the fairway, and there is the same with a horse-racing track as well on the right. At the far end of the field, near to the club-house, the race-track, of course, bends round and comes across the line of play. Just on the other side of that track the ground rises up steeply for three or four yards, and then up there sloping upwards and backwards is the putting green. Thus the race-track becomes a hazard to guard the green, and the green is on a high plateau with big trees all round it. The hole is there all complete, with hardly a thing done to it by man, and it is one of the most remarkable examples I have seen of a piece of ready-made golf of the plainest possible description, resulting in something fairly good. It is 410 yards long, and if the tee shot is a little defective the attempt to reach the green with the second is going to be a heartbreaking business. With a good drive that second shot, played with a cleek perhaps, or the brassey may be needed, has to be uncommonly well judged and true. The margin for error is next to nothing. At the first glance at it I thought that this eighteenth hole was very stupid, but it is a hole that grows a little upon you, and the original impression has been withdrawn from my mind. It was the last hope of Vardon and Ray, and it failed them. The fairway at Brookline is far better than on the average American course, and if one says that its putting greens are among the very best in America, the greatest possible compliment is paid to them. There have been many touches of romance in the history of golf at the Country Club, but none more remarkable than that associated with the construction of the comparatively new ninth, tenth, and eleventh holes, two long ones with a short one between them, which are among the nicest holes in all America. For some years after the beginning of this century, when golf at Brookline had become a very big thing, these holes did not exist, their predecessors being embraced in the other parts of the course. But, for the crossing that they involved, those predecessors had become dangerous, and it was determined to take in a new tract of land, and to make three new holes upon it. It was a tremendous undertaking, for "land" was only a kind of courtesy title for the wild mixture of forest, rock, and swamp into which a man might sink up to his neck, but for which about 25,000 dollars had to be paid, while another thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars had to be spent in making it fit for golf and preparing the holes, so that these three cost an average of about thirteen thousand dollars a hole, or roughly £2500 as we may say if we are English. At the ninth as much rock had to be blasted as some one afterwards used to make a wall two hundred yards long, and the best part of a yard in thickness. The tenth hole is a very delightful short one, with the green in a glade far below the tee. They call it "The Redan," because Mr. G. Herbert Windeler (long resident in America, but English in nationality still, despite his past presidency of the U.S.G.A.), who is largely responsible for the golf at Brookline, and designed and superintended the construction of these holes, had the famous piece of golf at North Berwick in his mind when he planned this one, but before the end he departed far from the original conception, and all for the good of the hole. When it was being made the place for the green needed raising from the swamp, and nearly two thousand loads of broken rocks were deposited there; and after soil to a depth of eighteen inches had been laid upon the stone foundation a splendid putting green was made. With all its variety, this is not a course of such intricacy and such mystery as St. Andrews is, to need long weeks of study and practice to understand every shot upon it. You may play St. Andrews from childhood to old age and yet be puzzled and mistaken sometimes, but Brookline is more candid than that, and it is to its credit that with all its variety you may be completely acquainted with it in a very few days. Let me say then that the suggestion that Mr. Ouimet had a distinct advantage in a knowledge of the course obtained in his childhood, and maintained thenceforth by frequent practice on the course near to which he lived, is quite nonsense. He had no advantage whatever. Vardon and Ray had practised there for several days in advance, and if they did not know all about it that there was to know it was their own fault. They did know, and local knowledge, which counts for far less with great golfers than men a little their inferiors, had nothing to do with the issue. * * * * * Now consider the other circumstances, that the proper meaning and significance of the result may be understood, and that neither too much merit shall be awarded, nor too much blame. There were about a hundred and sixty competitors, and I would call the field a strong one, but of course not nearly so strong as the field for our Open Championship. Such men as two of the triumvirate were missing, and a highly respectable company of past champions, while there were no such English amateurs in the list as Mr. Graham, Mr. Lassen, and Mr. Michael Scott to make an occasional disturbance. But there were other amateurs. Compared to a British open championship field it was weak at the top and weak in the middle. Everybody who goes to our open championships knows that there, for three parts of the trial, there are comparative nobodies bobbing up from nowhere and creating all kinds of excitement by breaking the records of the courses, and fixing themselves up elegantly at the top of the list. There they sit like civilians on an imperial dais, but always they topple off before the end. Not one of them has ever remained to the finish, so that if the American entry was weak in this respect, Americans might argue that it did not matter anyhow since this middle part was not the one to count. Yet it always has its effect. But then the Americans may also point out that they too had their middle men who came to the front and created disturbances, only quitting the heights in time to make room for the winner and his attendants. There was young M'Donald Smith, and there were Barnes and Hagin, who had come up out of the wild west--and one of them, saying it respectfully to his splendid golf, looked a cowboy too--and were distinct menaces until the last rounds came to be played. Then in estimating the strength of this American field remember that M'Dermott, who is undoubtedly high class, and was in the prize list at the Open Championship at Hoylake, was not nearly a winner here, and remember also that imported players of the high quality of Tom Vardon and Robert Andrew were not in it either. Altogether it is my judgment that the field was stronger than imagined in England, yet not nearly so strong as ours. Following a favourite American practice of reducing to percentages every estimate, however necessarily indefinite, such as even the comparative charms of wives and sweethearts, I would give the strength of a British field the hundred, and I would give sixty-five to this of America. I knew that I should fall to that percentage system some time, and now I have. For its strong variety, and for its flavour of cosmopolitanism, it was an interesting entry. The professionals all over the States--and the amateurs, too, for that matter--came up to Brookline from north, south, east and west, for what they felt was a great occasion, and over the border from Canada they came as well. Up from Mexico came Willie Smith, the Willie who was teethed in golf at his Carnoustie home, and whom we never shall forget as he who broke the record--and holds it with George Duncan still--for the old course at St. Andrews in the very last round that was played at the beginning of an Open Championship meeting there a few years ago. It was really a wonderful field, and its units presented a wealth of material for study and contemplation in matters of style and method during the first day or two. And yet for all the variety of players I doubt whether there was so much difference in ways as we see in a big championship at home. The American golfing system is a little plainer, I think. Of course it was by far the largest entry that had ever been received for the American open event, and this fact necessitated a departure to some extent from established American custom, and one which we of Britain with unenviable experience of many processes in qualifying competitions could not congratulate the Americans on having to make. However, the numbers were not so large as to cause such trouble, even with a qualifying competition, as we experience in England and Scotland, and consequently a two-days' affair worked it smoothly through, the field being divided into two sections, and each man playing his two rounds off in one day and getting done with it. It was settled that the top thirty players in each section, and those who tied for the thirtieth place, should pass into the competition proper for the championship, which, as here and elsewhere, consists of four rounds of stroke play, two on each of two successive days. The United States Golf Association always manages its championships very well indeed with no more red tape than is necessary, but with an exactness of method which might serve as a fine lesson to some other great golfing countries that I have in mind. In this present case Mr. Robert Watson, President for the year of the U. S. G. A., after all his splendid work as secretary of the Association, was in charge of all the arrangements and as administrator-in-chief was the most energetic man during the whole of the week at Brookline. It was fitting that in his year of presidency, so well deserved, there should be this ever memorable happening to mark the season out from all others. Mr. Herbert Jacques, Mr. G. Herbert Windeler, and Mr. John Reid, the new secretary of the U. S. G. A., were in the nature also of generals of the headquarters staff, and they laboured constantly in an upper room late at night working out the details of business when other persons on whom responsibility was more lightly cast, with cocktails to help, might be pondering over the tense problem as to what was going to happen next. The general idea of the system was much the same as we have it in Britain, as there is hardly much scope for variety in matters of this kind. * * * * * Now--Ouimet. It is easy for the Americans and others to compose anthems about him now, but little enough did they know or think of this Massachusetts boy until they saw that he was really winning, and then the remark that I heard of an ex-American champion to him in the dressing-room shortly after it was all over, "Well done, Francis, and there are lots more in the country like you!" was not only lacking in compliment and taste, but was not true. America is by no means full of Ouimets, and never will be. I had met him at Chicago in 1912, and heard of him next in a letter that I received just before starting for America in the following summer, which gave me particulars of what happened in the match in the closing stages of the Massachusetts State Championship between my old friend, Mr. John G. Anderson, and Mr. Ouimet, in which it was stated that Mr. Ouimet had done the last nine holes in that match as follows--yards first and figures after: 260 yards (4), 497 yards (3), 337 yards (4), 150 yards (2), 394 yards (3), 224 yards (3), 250 yards (3), 320 yards (3), 264 yards (3). So he did the last six holes in 17 strokes, and no wonder that poor John remarked, "I have never played in any match in my life where I did the last six holes in three over 3's and lost four of them, as I did on this occasion!" Of course Mr. Ouimet became State champion, and I determined to have a good look at him as soon as I got on the other side of the Atlantic. On the day after my arrival in New York I was down at the Garden City Club, the Amateur Championship taking place there the following week, and at lunch time Mr. Anderson, who was at another table with Ouimet, called me over. "Well, Mr. Ouimet, I suppose you have a big championship in your bag this season," was just the proper thing to say, and he answered something about doing his best, but feeling he might be better at stroke play. "Then," said I, "there is the Open Championship to take place in your own golfing country," and with that we tackled the chicken. He is a nice, open-hearted, modest, sporting golfer, and was only twenty years old in the May of his great championship year. Tall, lithe and somewhat athletic in figure and movement, he takes excellent care of himself in a semi-training sort of way. He abstains from alcohol entirely, and though he smokes a few cigarettes when "off duty" he rarely does so while playing, having the belief that the use of tobacco has a temporary effect on the eyesight, such as is not conducive to accuracy of play. He agreed entirely with a suggestion I put to him, in conversation, that most golfers make the mistake of playing too much and lose keenness in consequence, and he thinks that the American players in general are by no means at such a disadvantage as is sometimes imagined. The winter rest gives them extra keenness in the spring and summer, and that is everything. He does not play at all from November to April, but keeps himself fit with skating and ice hockey, while during the season he only plays one round three times a week, and two full rounds on Sundays. Business considerations--he is engaged at a Boston athletic store--have something to do with this system, no doubt, but he thinks it sound. I looked at his bag of clubs; there are no freaks in it. It comprises ten items, an ivory-faced driver, a brassey, six irons including a jigger and mashie niblick, and two putters, one being of the ordinary aluminium kind and the other a wry-neck implement, the latter being most used. As to his style of golf, its outstanding characteristics are three: it is plain, like the style of most American golfers, and free from any striking individuality; it is straight; and it is marvellously steady and accurate. A marked feature of most of the American players is that their swing is very round and flat, and that they get a pronounced hook on their ball. Mr. Ouimet's swing is rather more upright than that of most of the others, he keeps an exceedingly straight line and has full length--as much as Vardon. I said he had no peculiarities, but there is just this one, that he grips his club with what is called the interlocking grip. This is a way of grasping the club that some professionals employed during the early period of general transition from the plain grip to the overlapping. Mr. Ouimet's little finger of the right hand just goes between the first and second of the left hand, while the left thumb goes round the shaft instead of into the palm of the right hand. Such a grip may suit a man who uses it, but it can hardly have any advantages. I note as a further peculiarity that the right forefinger is crooked up away from the shaft, so that the tip of the finger only comes to the leather at the side. This has to some considerable extent the effect of throwing that finger out of action, and as a means of reducing the right hand's power for evil is not to be condemned. Many other players have sought some such method of crippling the very dangerous hand. But after all it is not the shots he plays, good as they are, dependable as they always seem to be, as the qualities of temperament with which they are supported. He has a golfing temperament of very peculiar perfection, wanting perhaps in imagination but remarkably serviceable to his game. He seems to have the power to eliminate entirely the mental oppression of the other ball or balls; he can play his own game nearly regardless of what others play against him. From the mere sporting point of view he misses something in the way of emotions perhaps, those rare emotions which some of us derive when we are fighting hard to keep our match alive and at a crisis become hopelessly bunkered; but he gains enormously in strokes and successes. When he settles down to his match or round, he can concentrate more deeply than any other man I know or have heard of. He sees his ball, thinks what he should do with it, and has the course and the hole in his mental or optical vision all the time, just those and nothing else. The other balls do not exist, and the scores that are made against him do not exist either. He has told me that in important golf, and indeed in that most mightily important play-off against Vardon and Ray, he was wholly unaware until it came to the putting what his opponents had done, and generally he had not seen their balls after they had driven them from the tee. Vardon and Ray pounded away as hard as they could, but their shots had no more effect on Ouimet than the patting of an infant's fist would have on the cranium of a nigger. He just went on and did better. Andrew Kirkaldy once said of Harry Vardon at the beginning of his career that he had the heart of an iron ox, and that is like Ouimet's. This championship will always be something of a mystery; but in this statement about the Ouimet temperament there is the nearest thing to a solution of it that can ever be offered. I know that what I say is the simple truth, partly from observation, partly from inquiry, and partly from Mr. Ouimet's statements to me. He said he was unaware of the presence of the crowd on the fourth day when he made the tie until he was in the neighbourhood of the seventeenth green. See how interesting he becomes despite the plainness of his game. When such achievements as his of the 20th of September are made they rarely suffer from any want of added romance. On the day in question Mr. Ouimet, champion as he had become, told me in a talk we had, how he began the game when he was about four years of age. He was a French Canadian by blood, but his parents had come over the border and their little family settled at Brookline close to the sixteenth green of the Country Club. His elder brothers played a kind of golf, and he watched them and began to practise himself on some pasture land near his home. Then he became a caddie at Brookline, played the game more seriously than before, with three clubs that a member of the Country Club gave to him, and at sixteen years of age won, at the second attempt, the championship of his school. They make a feature of school championships in America. This story was attractive enough, but the next day, reading the American papers, one gathered that there was some of the romance of a Joan of Arc about this boy of Brookline. His mother said that when Francis was a little boy of six or seven he would cross the road and sit for hours fascinated by watching the members of the Country Club at the game. Then he wanted to become a caddie, and maternal objections did not avail. He became a caddie. His mother also said that he learned much of the game then, and would always try to get engaged by the strongest players, and he would copy as well as he could their best strokes. He passed from the grammar school to the Brookline High School, but his mind was more on golf than on his books. The mother used to hear noises up in his room at night. Once she was frightened by what she heard, and went to his room at midnight fearing that he was sick. She found him putting on the floor, and he then confessed that he had often done that kind of thing before. On that occasion he had thought while in bed of a new grip and wished to try it. He did not care to wait until the morning. The parents desired their son to get all advantage from education that he could, but after two years at the high school he insisted on leaving and was engaged at a Boston store where golf goods are dealt in. All that and more was said of him. * * * * * In a narrative of this kind circumstances and reasonable deductions are everything, and shots are next to nothing, for there is little enough to be said about a ball in the air or its place of stopping. Only one man knows the truth about a golf stroke as it is played, and that is the man who plays it. Very often even the most expert observers are quite wrong in their inferences and judgments. I have explained most of the circumstances already. On the first of the two qualifying days, Mr. Ouimet came very near to taking first place in the list, for he had a score of 152, and only Harry Vardon beat him, and by one stroke only, as the result of a long putt on the last green of all. The weather was fine and the greens were fiery on that Tuesday. Next day there was more wind and there were indications of a change of weather coming. Autumn gusts were breaking the leaves from the tree-tops. That day Ray headed the qualifying list with 148, Wilfrid Reid was next to him with 149, M'Dermott was 161 and Mr. Travers was 165. This was good business for England, even though it yielded nothing but a little temporary prestige. Then came Thursday, and in the early morning and up to a little while after play began there was much rain, and the greens were considerably slowed down. They were, indeed, reduced to a soaking state in time, and Tom M'Namara told me that once or twice he had actually, instead of putting, to root his ball with a niblick out of the greens, into which they had buried themselves on pitching. But Brookline stood the weather test very well. First rounds are seldom eventful; the value of the play done in them seems to be discounted by the circumstance that there are three more rounds to come. M'Dermott did a 74 in this round, Vardon and Reid 75's, Mr. Ouimet 77, and Ray 79, but even M'Dermott was three strokes behind the leaders. In the afternoon round Ray recovered brilliantly with a 70, Vardon and Reid both did 72's, and Mr. Ouimet 74; and at the end of this first proper day Vardon and Reid were at the head of the list with aggregates of 147, Ray was next with 149, while Mr. Ouimet was seventh with 151. Again the British invaders looked well in their place, and that night they were strong favourites for the championship. "America has a fight on hands," "Little left but hope," and such like, were the headings in newspapers. As I lay in bed at the Country Club that night, I heard the rain pour ceaselessly down. It rained all through the night and alas! all the next day as well, and the great events of that Friday were watched through a heavy downpour. In their third rounds Vardon did 78, Ray 76, and Mr. Ouimet, who was playing nearly a whole round behind the others, and with wonderful steadiness, did a 74: and so it came about that with the competition three parts done, all these three were at the top with aggregates of 225. Now was the time for the Englishmen's efforts if they were to be made. To their own chagrin they could not make them when they needed. Ray took 43 to the turn, in his fourth round, Vardon, whose putting all the week was distinctly moderate, and the chief cause for his inefficiency, took 42, and though both finished better, their two 79's were bad and seemed to have cost them the championship. Vardon certainly thought they had, and took a very gloomy view of things. I spoke to him a little while after he had finished, and he said he was sorry and that they could not win then. His putting had let him down, he said, as he had been afraid it would, though he felt that the rest of his game had never been played better. "There are three or four out there who will beat us," said the melancholy Vardon. It looked like that, but the American hopes one by one failed to materialise. Hagin fell out; Barnes fell out; M'Dermott fell out. Goodness! it was going to be a tie between Vardon and Ray after all, and these two Englishmen would play off here at Boston for the American championship! Hereupon said Englishmen came out to see what was happening, and looked happy again. They smiled. Then men came running and breathless from distant parts with tidings of Ouimet. He had had a worried way to the turn, but had improved afterwards, so rumour said. I went along with our British champions to pick him up at the fourteenth green, and there when he came along, we found that if he did the last four holes in a total of one under par he would tie with the leaders, or, in other words, if he did the miraculous and practically impossible he might be permitted to have a game next day. I shall never forget watching that boy play those last four holes; that was the real fight for the championship. Their respective lengths and par figures are 370 yards (4), 128 yards (3), 360 yards (4), 405 yards (4). They were stiff pars, too, you will see, with nothing given away, especially as the turf was soaking. At one of those holes he had to gain a stroke on par if he were to tie, and the others must be done in par. A slip anywhere would surely be fatal. It seemed that that slip was made with the second shot at the fifteenth, for he was wide of the green on the right and had to pitch from the rough, but he was dead with his third and got the 4 after all. At the sixteenth he holed a three yards' putt for the 3 and still was level with par. The much-wanted stroke was given to him at the next hole, which is a dog-legged thing bending to the left, with rough and bunkers to be avoided. He played it with good judgment always, and this time, on the green with his second, he holed a nine-yards putt for a 3. Thus he was left to get the home hole in 4 to tie, and by holing a five-feet putt with not a second's hesitation, just as if everything in golf had not seemed to depend upon it, he tied. Jupiter! * * * * * According to American golfing law and precedent the tie had to be decided by one extra round, all three playing together. I have no fault to find with this arrangement; perhaps the result would have been the same if two rounds had had to be played. I know, however, that Vardon thought it would have been better and proper if each had played separately, with a marker. Most people thought that as Ouimet was almost playing the better ball of the two Englishmen he could not possibly win. Theoretically he was sure to have slept badly overnight and to be in a terrible state of nerves in the morning. They might see him top his first tee shot and be three strokes to the bad on the first green. Really I had no such ideas, and when I saw him hit his first drive as well, cleanly and straight as any drive ever need be made, I had no doubts about his having slept. Vardon drove the straightest ball and then deliberately played short of the muddy race-track in front of the green, but Mr. Ouimet boldly took his brassey, went for the carry, and just did it. The hole was done in 5 each, and the second in 4 each; but at the third Ray, who had driven too much to the right and had a bad stance below his ball, only just got to the corner of the green, a long way from the pin, with his second, and then took three putts, thus dropping a stroke behind the others. At the fourth and fifth, at the latter of which Mr. Ouimet put a spoon shot out of bounds through his club slipping in his hands, but recovered splendidly with the same club, the score remained the same. Then at the sixth, a drive and pitch up a hill, Vardon approached to within three yards, and the others to within six yards of the pin, Vardon holing his putt and Mr. Ouimet (who decided on consideration to concentrate on his 4) and Ray just missing. So Vardon was then one stroke better than the American, and the latter still one less than Ray who, by a better run up from the edge of the green at the seventh, scored over both his opponents. At the eighth there was a dramatic episode, for Mr. Ouimet laid a low approach stone-dead and holed for a 3, while Ray ran down a twelve yards' putt for another 3, Vardon being beaten here though getting a perfect par 4. All were level and the excitement and suspense intense. Something was expected to happen at the ninth, the longest hole on the course, and a great, romantic piece of golf. It is a long, heaving hole carved through rock, and partly built on a swamp, and away in the far distance is a high plateau green which, seen through the rain and mist, looked like a ghostly thing in the clouds. Here Vardon slashed out for length, but with a hook sent his ball into the woods. Yet he recovered well, and after stress and strain by all three this tortuous hole was done in five each. The parties were all level at the turn with 38 strokes each. Immediately afterwards Mr. Ouimet went to the front, and was never deprived of the lead. The tenth hole is the short one named "The Redan," with a heavily bunkered green low down in a valley below the tee. Each tee shot was right, but Vardon and Ray were poor on the green and took three putts, while the American was down in one less. Vardon looked serious now, and Ray was fidgetty. There were three 4's at the eleventh, and then Mr. Ouimet reached the twelfth green with his second, four yards from the pin, Vardon and Ray being just off on opposite sides. They both took five to hole out. Mr. Ouimet, by boldness, might have gained two strokes here, but he was a trifle short with his putt and was satisfied with a profit of one. This was followed by Vardon holing a three-yard putt and getting a point back, but at the fourteenth there were ominous signs of the British game collapsing, for Vardon went into the woods again, Ray shot off wildly to the right with his second, and they were both well out of it with 5's, like Mr. Ouimet whose brassey shot went too low to clear properly a bank in front. Mr. Ouimet told me that at this stage he felt he was going to win. Not one of the three had been bunkered so far, but at the fifteenth Ray was caught and, needing two strokes for recovery, was virtually done for. The last stage of the struggle lay between Vardon and Mr. Ouimet. Both got 3's at the short sixteenth. Vardon was looking anxious and worried, for most brilliant play on his own part could not save him now, and he could only hope that Mr. Ouimet would come by disaster. Instead of that he himself, trying to cut the corner of the dog-legged seventeenth too finely in an effort to gain distance, was bunkered. Ray, in wild desperation, had hurled himself with terrific force at the ball on the tee in an impossible attempt to carry straight over the bunkers and the rough in a straight line to the green. As to Mr. Ouimet, he just played an easy iron shot to the green dead on the line of the pin and holed a six-yard putt for 3 and a gain of two clear strokes. It was really finished then, and in the circumstances the playing of the last hole was a formality. Mr. Ouimet did it steadily for par 4; Vardon was caught in the race track before the green and took 6, and Ray holed a fruitless putt for 3. Mr. Ouimet was champion, and there was an end of it. Seeing that history was made, let me set down the scores:-- FIRST HALF Ouimet 5 4 4 4 5 4 4 3 5--38 Vardon 5 4 4 4 5 3 4 4 5--38 Ray 5 4 5 4 5 4 3 3 5--38 SECOND HALF Ouimet 3 4 4 4 5 4 3 3 4--34--72 Vardon 4 4 5 3 5 4 3 5 6--39--77 Ray 4 4 5 4 5 6 4 5 3--40--78 Mr. Ouimet's score exactly equalled that of the better ball of Vardon and Ray. * * * * * I shall say no more about what happened immediately afterwards than that the American crowd gave a hearty demonstration of the fact that they were very pleased indeed. A considerable sum of money was raised by a collection for Mr. Ouimet's little caddie, Eddie Lowry, who was a wonder of a mite and inspired the new champion throughout the week with all sorts of advice. He would tell him in the mornings to take time over his putts as it was then only ten o'clock and he had until six at night to play; would remind him again at a suitable moment that America was expecting great things from him, and, above all, whispered gently to him on handing him his club for each shot that he must be careful to keep his eye on the ball! It is declared, moreover, that at the beginning of the tie round he assured his master that a 72 would that time be forthcoming. Little Eddie Lowry had his share of glory. And now what about it all? How is it to be explained? Vardon and Ray generously and properly admitted they were beaten fairly and squarely on their merits. They could not say otherwise. I believe that Vardon came to the conclusion at the end of his American tour that he played worse golf at that championship than anywhere else, but on that final day on which everything depended he did not play so badly as he may have thought, and his putting was better than usual. I would not like to guarantee either Englishman to do much better in the same conditions at any time. On the other hand, Mr. Ouimet was blessed with no special luck, except that negative kind of luck that kept his ball out of trouble always, and made two putts invariably sufficient. His driving was as long as Vardon's, and he was the straightest of all, while he missed some putts by half-inches. He played a bold game too, and the only semblance of timidity was in occasionally being a trifle short with long putts, while Vardon and Ray, desperate, but in proper principle, were giving the hole every chance and often running past it. Mr. Ouimet seemed to general his own game so thoroughly well. Talking to me afterwards, he explained completely his policy at every shot in the match, and showed himself to be a thinker of the finest strain. He was all for running approaches instead of pitched ones that day, because he feared the ball embedding itself in the soft turf, and also felt that when running it would be more likely to shed dirt that it picked up and leave him a clean putt. Everything was considered and well decided, and in his argument one could find no flaw. And he insisted that he just played his own game and never watched the other balls. "Looking back on it all," said he, "I think it was just this way, that Vardon and Ray rather expected me to crack, not having the experience for things like this as they had, and when the time went on and I did not crack but went along with them, I think it had an unfavourable effect on them. That is the way I reason it out, because when you expect a man to crack and he doesn't, you lose a little of your sureness yourself. I began to feel that the championship was coming to me when we were about the fourteenth hole, for Ray then seemed to be going, and he was swinging rather wildly at the ball." I think that Mr. Ouimet's explanation was tolerably near the truth. Some of the secret history of this championship may never be written, but I know that Harry Vardon realised when it was too late that he had been paying insufficient attention to what Mr. Ouimet was doing, and what the possibilities were in that direction. At the beginning he felt that the real contest lay between him and Ray, never dreaming that Mr. Ouimet could hold out against them. Therefore he concentrated on Ray, as it were, and when he had Ray beaten he realised too late that there was some one else. It may have made no difference, but a thousand times have we had demonstrated to us the capacity of our champions for playing "a little bit extra" when it is really needed. Anyhow it was Vardon's own mistake, if it was one, and he is very sorry for it. A consideration of great importance is the way in which this victory was confirmed, as it were, by the other events of the week. It does not generally happen that the men who distinguish themselves in preliminary qualifying competitions go through winners of championships afterwards. Men can rarely play their best for six rounds in succession, and, the law of averages being at work all the time, they would rather perform indifferently in the first test, so long as they qualify, than beat all the others. I do not recall a case where the champion would have been champion if all six rounds had been counted in, instead of the four of the competition proper. But this time at Brookline we had seven rounds played, and the astonishing fact is that, if all seven rounds were counted in, Mr. Ouimet would still be at the top with a score of 528 against Ray's 530 and Vardon's 532. I think that this is a point which has not been much realised, and it is one of importance in dealing with the idea that a fluke victory was achieved. You can hardly have a fluke victory in four stroke rounds; much less can you have one in seven. Now I would suggest that if Vardon and Ray had dropped behind in the scoring, and had occupied other places than they did in the final aggregates, there might have been some good support for the fluke theory. Their defeat by several people would have needed far more explanation, because it would have been clear that, for some reason, they were beaten by golfers inferior to themselves. Conditions and climate would have become considerations of greater importance. But merely the fact that these men finished second and third in such a big field indicates that there was little fluke anywhere, for this was a marvellous vindication of form in competition, in a game where form is so much affected by fortune. And, finally, the fact that Mr. Ouimet beat these men in the play-off when he had them both there in sight, playing stroke against stroke with him, and not an invisible field without any definite menace as in the previous play, was quite enough to stamp him as the most thoroughly deserving champion of that week. British golfing pride will force the suggestion to many minds that such a thing, proper as it was on this occasion, could never happen again; that if the championship were replayed in the same conditions Mr. Ouimet would be beaten. But of how many champions could it be said that if they had to play the event over again a week or a month later, the luck of the game being what it is, they would repeat their triumph? Reflecting once more that this was but a boy of twenty, and the real greatness of our players being what it is, I am more amazed than ever at what has happened. It was an American victory and America takes the credit, but, again, the United States are by no means full of Ouimets. I look upon him as a first-class prodigy, such as the game has never known before, produced in the country where such a golfing prodigy was most likely to make his appearance. He accomplished what had never been done before, and what I feel sure will never be done again, and because it was such an historic happening, and there were so few from England there to see it as I did, I have told the tale in full. Nobody believes that Mr. Ouimet is as great as Harry Vardon and Edward Ray. He could not be. But also I do not think that any one else could do what he did at Brookline on that occasion. I found, a long time after the occurrence, that many wise American golfers, reflecting dispassionately if still proudly upon it, gave a certain satisfaction to their reason by suggesting as a final explanation that a miracle had happened. That is a good way out of our difficulties, and for my own part I accept it, for it is the only explanation that will stand all tests. A miracle happened at Brookline on that Twentieth of September. CHAPTER VI THE BEGINNINGS OF GOLF IN THE UNITED STATES, AND EXPERIENCES IN TRAVELLING THERE, WITH AN EXAMPLE OF AMERICAN CLUB MANAGEMENT. There is little done to solve the mysteries of golf's beginning by pressing into the farthest recesses of American golfing history. Only by such little twinklings in the darkness of the almost prehistoric period of the game do we begin more to suspect that, being such a natural and simple thing, an almost inevitable kind of pastime despite its man-made intricacies and laws, and all its heartenings and maddenings, it came up of itself in different places, when man had reached full intelligence and the desire to play properly other games than such as bowls. Those Indian braves who wandered and hunted and fought over that magnificent land when in its virgin state must have tried to knock something like a ball, or a stone, in the direction of a particular mark, and that would be a game for them. I remember hearing that several years ago a visitor to one of the reservations found several of the red men playing golf of a kind, with real clubs and balls. "Purple Cloud" was the champion of the braves. Then in the autumn of 1903 another white wanderer looked in upon the Indians in the reservation at Montana and reported that he had witnessed a very spirited game. Golf, said he, is much better suited to the Indian of to-day than his old game of lacrosse. He noticed very few subtleties in the game. When the champion, "Spotted Horse," drove off, there was a long stretch of clear prairie, with only here and there a shrub, so that the game resolved itself into a chase of the ball for a couple of miles and a return, the one who did it in the fewest strokes being the winner. He saw some really capital drives, several well over three hundred yards, he thought. The only thing that was very new and characteristic about these red men's golf, so far as he could see, was that the spectators "made a most infernal row all the time that the play was in progress." When a brave took his stance for a tee shot, it was looked upon as the signal for a perfect bedlam of yells and howling, which should have disconcerted the player but did not do so. And with my own eyes have I seen the modern Indians playing for the American championship, and it might be claimed that though laws be made at St. Andrews, and interpretations thereof in the council chamber of the white men at New York, this after all, in essentials, is a game that is native of the soil. Yet the history of such a game down the Indian line must be hazy as the history of the braves themselves, and we must leave it now with this ample recognition. But though in names and other matters there is a Scottish flavour in some of the records of the earliest American golf, and when it became a real and growing thing it was obviously imported, one is sometimes inclined to think that the Simpsonian theory of the spontaneous generation of golf, or what approximated in essentials to golf, must have applied to America as to other countries. A stick, a ball, a mark, and there is the principle of golf fully indicated. In a primitive way also it was played in America in the seventeenth century, and, as in the homeland, some of the earliest references to it that remain take the form of warnings of the punishments accruing to players who departed from such severe restrictions as were imposed. It was not proclaimed what advantages would be yielded men who played, as is done to-day, but what grievous penalties they should suffer if they played it when and where they should not, and alas! the times and places that were forbidden appeared to be many in proportion to those when the game might be enjoyed by those who liked it. Then as now, and in America as in happy England, those who were not of golf were against it, and bitterly. There were jealousies then as ever since. There were those often-quoted Laws and Ordinances of the New Netherlands of 1659 in which, because of a complaint by the burghers of Fort Orange and the village of Berwyck about the damage done to their windows and the danger to which they were exposed of being wounded by persons who played golf along the streets, the golfers were threatened of consequences to come. Then clearly the game was played in South Carolina in 1788, for at that time an advertisement appeared in a local newspaper thus: "Anniversary of the South Carolina Golf Club will be held at Williams's Coffee House on Thursday, 29th instant, when members are requested to attend at 2 o'clock precisely, that the business of the Club may be transacted before dinner." Here there is a clear indication of the close connection maintained between the playing of the game and the social ceremonies about the dinner-table that were held by the golfers on the same day in the way that was practised by the early golfers of the Scottish centres and of Blackheath. For many years afterwards these meetings of the South Carolina Golf Club were held at the club-house on what was known as "Harton's Green," which is now in the heart of Charleston. Perhaps this was the first golf club-house in America, and if that were so it shared the fate of pioneer establishments in many other places where towns have widened and gathered in the outlying lands. There is also preserved in the archives the form of invitation that was sent to Miss Eliza Johnston to attend the ball of the Savannah Golf Club at the Exchange hall in that city in December 1811. And then American golf seems to have lapsed and slept like Van Winkle in the Catskills until the time of the great regeneration came near the end of last century. One does not come now to make a history of American golf, but only to indicate that new and republican America also has something in the way of golf traditions. * * * * * The real beginning of American golf was made, as you may know, out at Yonkers up the Hudson, and Mr. John Reid, the elder, is rightly regarded as the father of American golf. Such recognition being of long standing and his claims being incontestable, he was again publicly and officially proclaimed as such at the silver jubilee celebration that was held in New York on November 19, 1913. That was twenty-five years from the time when the game was really set going in the States. One night I sat over a log fire in a club-house in Massachusetts and heard the story of the foundation by his father from the lips of Mr. John Reid, the younger, secretary of the United States Golf Association. He told me how his father and Robert Lockhart, who went to the same school in Scotland, came to America together; how Lockhart who, as a buyer of goods, had to pay periodical visits to his homeland, talked of the strange game that was played there; how Mr. Reid became interested and asked for clubs and balls to be brought across the water; how he tried the swings and strokes in a field by their house at Yonkers, the son "fielding" for the father; how the captain of a steamer was persuaded to bring another set of clubs over with him, and how irons were thereafter cast in America. Then he told me how other people, few but keen, were attracted to this new pastime that the Reids were trying, and how the first little club was formed here at Yonkers in November 1888, and called the St. Andrews Golf Club. They were as the golfing fathers. I learned how the members came to be known as the Apple Tree Gang because of the tree near to the first hole on which they hung their coats; how six holes were laid out at the beginning on Mr. Reid's land, his house being used as a club-house; how he gave a medal which was the first prize ever put up for competition in America--and it was for an annual thirty-six holes stroke competition--and how it was won for eleven years, three in succession, by Mr. George Sands. Those were days of consequence. From that little beginning the St. Andrews Golf Club of Yonkers, after many changes and enlargements, has risen to a place of importance and honour in American golf. These little histories and traditions of American golf do become attractive as one probes more deeply into them. It was in Massachusetts that the most remarkable thing that has ever taken place in the history of the game on the other side of the Atlantic, or anywhere perhaps--meaning, of course, the Ouimet triumph--happened lately, and I have been much attracted to the story of the beginning of golf in that part of the American world, and not less so when I see that the start was made such a very little while before the birth of the boy who won that great championship at Brookline. American golf and Ouimet have grown up together. One finds that in the summer of 1892 a young lady from Pau went on a visit to Mr. Arthur Hunnewell, at Wellesley, Mass., and took with her a set of golf clubs and balls. They had been playing the game for a long time past at Pau, but it was only just being started in other parts of France. After Yonkers it had been reproduced at Shinnecock and one or two other places, but so far Massachusetts had not known it. The girl showed Mr. Hunnewell how the clubs were used, and some relatives of his, owning adjacent estates and being fond of outdoor pastimes, watched and were won quickly to the game. On the first of June Mr. Hunnewell wrote down in his diary, "F. B. arrived to-day from Europe"; and on the fifteenth of September, "We are getting quite excited about golf." A fortnight later he wrote that "J. B. is here and plays golf all day." I calculate it as a coincidence worth remark that twenty-one years afterwards, to the month and to the week, Mr. Ouimet won the great championship. Many of Mr. Hunnewell's friends were invited to come and attempt the game at his place, which they did accordingly and fell in love with it. He had fashioned a course of seven holes of moderate length over undulating lawns and some park-land. The actual holes consisted of five-inch flower-pots sunk in the turf, and the hazards were avenues, clumps of trees, beds of rhododendrons, an aviary, a greenhouse, and an occasional drawing-room window, as it is facetiously remarked by Mr. Lawrence Curtis, who became the first secretary of the golf committee of the Country Club, and to whose account of these happenings I am indebted for my notes upon them. Mr. Curtis, seeing the fascination that the game exercised upon all who became acquainted with it, wrote a letter to the executive council of the Country Club informing them of it, suggesting that it was a pastime that might very well be brought within the scope of the club, and that the cost of an experimental course need not exceed some fifty dollars. The suggestion was backed by several members and the council agreed, the course being laid out in the spring of the following year. The home hole was placed on a lawn in front of the club-house which was soon discovered to be a very dangerous place for it, so that it had to be removed. Almost immediately the game became a strong attraction at the Country Club, new members came along in droves because of it, and it has flourished ever since. The example of this powerful club was followed at the Essex County Club at Manchester, then just being begun. Mr. Herbert Leeds, now so closely and honourably associated with Myopia, won the Country Club's championship in 1893 with a score for eighteen holes of 109, Mr. Curtis being next with 110; and that summer a Country Club side won a team tournament that was played at Tuxedo against the St. Andrews and Tuxedo Clubs. And afterwards all went very well indeed. And while I write in this way of the grand pioneering work that was done in those days when champions of the present time were being born and trained, I am reminded of a conversation I once had with Mr. Edward Blackwell, in which he told me of his going out to California in 1886 and staying there for six years. His people had bought some land in those western parts, and he and his two brothers went out there to convert it from barley to a vineyard. Mr. Blackwell is a very great golfer to-day, but considering the gutty ball and circumstances in general, he was, relatively to his contemporaries, as great then. Only about a week before he sailed for California a match was arranged between him and Jack Simpson, who had gained the Open Championship the previous year, and Mr. Blackwell won that match at the last of the thirty-six holes that were played. Out in California there was plenty of hard work to do on the land and good sport with the gun, but, of course, there was no golf. Mr. Blackwell's thoughts frequently turned towards it, and he missed it very much. He considered the possibilities and found that they were practically non-existent, for the country round about was too hopelessly rough for laying out any sort of holes. So he never saw a golf club and never hit a ball during those six years, but for all that he won the King William IV. medal at the autumn meeting of the Royal and Ancient Club immediately on his return. Then he went back to California and did not see club or ball for another five years. Some of us could almost wish he had made some sort of course out there in California and become the first golfer of that far west, for he would have been so good to have been a pioneer, and golf has flourished there exceedingly since then. California sends men to championships. It would have given a special piquancy to that fateful amateur championship final at Sandwich in 1904 when Mr. Blackwell was his country's last hope against America's Mr. Walter Travis, and as it happened he was not quite equal to the occasion, for the American captured four holes at the start with his amazing putting, and he won by as many at the end. That was a great day for American golf, a kind of consummation it was, and I shall never forget the queer sensation that filled the atmosphere on the St. George's course, nor the dumb feeling, not exactly of dismay but of incomprehension, there was at the end. As to the first of these sensations I believe that nearly everybody felt--without knowing why exactly, for comparatively few had noticed his play until he got to the fourth or fifth rounds and was appreciated as dangerous--that the American player was nearly sure to win, that nothing could stop him from winning. It was a conviction. Certainly Mr. Travis's wonderful putting had created a very deep impression, but if he had been a British player I think the feeling would have arisen that putting like that, which had been continued for the best part of a week, would be sure to give out before the end. Take the case, for instance, of Mr. Aylmer in the championship of 1910 at Hoylake. He had been putting in the most amazing manner all the time, and holing them from everywhere, but nobody had any confidence in his ability to beat Mr. John Ball in the final, and he collapsed utterly. Of course, Mr. Aylmer then had not the tremendous fighting power and pertinacity of Mr. Travis in match play, qualities of their kind which I have only seen equalled by a successor of his in the American championship roll, Mr. Jerome Travers, and to beat Mr. Ball at Hoylake is a different matter from beating Mr. Blackwell at Sandwich. But then they were saying that Mr. Aylmer could not go much farther even when he was only at about the third round, and as for Mr. Ball at Hoylake there was a considerable feeling among golfers about that time that the old champion could not go on defying the law of averages any longer, and that there could be no more championships for him. I confess that I rather shared this view, held in a superstitious sort of way, but now that Mr. John has clapped another championship on to that Hoylake affair, we have given him up. There is no reason why he should not win another eight! However, when the Scot and the American teed up that fateful morning there was a disposition to be sorry for Mr. Blackwell, and a kind of hope that the end might be painless. In the circumstances Mr. Blackwell's performance in losing nothing more after losing four of the first five holes was as good as it could be. He kept the pump working splendidly. The truth is that he was by no means so gloomy as his friends about his prospects, as he told me afterwards. He said he thought he had a good chance of winning, and did not believe he would get beaten. He wished, however, that the tees had been farther back so that his long driving would have given him a better advantage. Two things about his opponent impressed him very much, one, of course, being his astonishing putting and the other his silence. But then, of course, one does not work one's way into a final of a championship for conversational purposes, or for debating the merits of the sixth sub-section of one of the rules of golf. When the deed was done completely Mr. Blackwell joined the converts who departed from the old prejudice and raided Tom Vardon's shop for Schenectady putters, with which they practised, and marvelled as the sun was setting on the first day that any but a British player had won a British golf championship. With that victory the first era in modern American golf, not counting the prehistoric times of golf in Charleston and the Indians' games, came to an end. America had made good. Now she became a power. The second era lasted nine years and was one in which she gradually came to be taken more seriously. She suffered a set-back of sorts when Mr. Harold Hilton won the American Amateur Championship at Apawamis in 1911, but there were some circumstances attending that victory at the thirty-seventh hole which were rather galling to the Americans, and they behaved well in saying so little about them. Mr. Hilton ran away with the match in the final, as it appeared, and Mr. Fred Herreshoff in the afternoon was offered about the most forlorn hope that golfer ever had to lighten his way for him. He brightened it up and made it thoroughly serviceable, and was distinctly unlucky in being beaten at the extra tie hole when Mr. Hilton's bad second shot cannoned off the famous rock to the right and went kindly to the putting green instead of getting into a hopeless place. It has been said that even if Mr. Hilton's shot was lucky, Mr. Herreshoff played the hole so badly that he hardly deserved to win it even if he was hardly treated by losing. But it is forgotten that it was match play, and that what one man does affects the other's game, and Mr. Herreshoff told me once, long after, that the American crowd, which is supposed erroneously to be many shots to the advantage of an American playing against an Englishman, on that occasion misled and upset him. It cheered for Mr. Hilton at the wrong time and for the wrong thing, and led to Mr. Herreshoff making a hash of a most fateful stroke. This era of American golf came to an end with the amazing victory by Mr. Ouimet at Brookline. The present state of things is very remarkable, and I have found the study of it very interesting during two long golfing expeditions through the United States, when I have visited many of the chief American clubs, met and made friends with men who are at the head of American golf and the most distinguished players, and in every way gained a good practical knowledge of the amazing progress of the game in this country. The Englishman who visits America and is not a golfer suffers a loss that he must regret always afterwards. To strangers in general the Americans in their own country are kindly and hospitable. That touch of carelessness and arrogance which is sometimes noticed in the wandering American when he is "doing Europe" is not in evidence among good Americans when they are at home, always provided that the Englishman has the good sense and manners--which one regrets to say is not always the case--to remember that when in the house of his host it is not good taste to praise his own for its superiority in divers ways. Pay the American now and then, and with proper delicacy, that little compliment that is so very well deserved about the magnificence of his achievement in making a country like that in such a short space of time, and about the excellence of many of his established systems. It is a compliment that can and should be paid with the most absolute sincerity. The American has the right to be proud of his own country, and we should be proud of the American, for that his blood is much the same as ours--trite observations, no doubt, but commonly disregarded. Then with all his fancy hustle and his tarnation smartness, the American is at bottom rather a sentimental man (perhaps it is because he has to be so very businesslike most times that he is liable to a sharp reaction at any good chance) and he is touched with signs of genuine good feeling towards him and an appreciation of what he has done. Thereupon in a softened voice he will tell of his weaknesses, and of his appreciation of the greatness of mother England, and he will play the host in a more thorough and warm-hearted way than any other man on earth will or can. The ordinary non-golfing visitor may find out many of these things, and have his own good time in his simple way, but even in the freest countries there are often social omissions, accidents, and disasters when there is not good common ground for meeting and friends in waiting, and it is very possible to go to America and fail in the way of holiday. The man who visits as a golfer, enters at once into joys of existence and the most friendly companionship. I have visited clubs in many parts of the country, and have made good and abiding friends among countless golfers, and it is but a poor expression of my feelings to say that I am very appreciative and deeply grateful. If, therefore, for anything whatever I should criticise the golf of the country I hope that American golfers will believe that in my comments there is no trace of adverse prejudice. It is difficult to estimate how many players of this game there are in the country at the present time, and whatever figures were fixed upon would soon be made inaccurate through the rapid increase that is going on all the time--more rapid by far than is the case in Britain. I have seen it estimated that there are six or seven hundred clubs in the States at the present time, with a total membership of about a hundred and fifty thousand. The Americans say that they will double their golfing population in the next five years. * * * * * It is impossible for a person who has not crossed the Atlantic to imagine the United States as the country and people really are. I found it easier to imagine Italy and Spain and oriental Morocco before ever I went to those places, than I did to conceive a picture of the country and the life of our own blood relations in this new America. All the fraternising with Americans in London and elsewhere, our reading of their newspapers and their books, printed in the words of our own language, pictures and photographs of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour, of the sky-scrapers in the background and the Fifth Avenue that glitters on a summer's day, all the pictures of Boston and Washington, or of the boulevards and business activities of Chicago, will not help any one to preconceive those places exactly. The atmosphere and the life and the ways of the people are a little beyond the imagination of the untravelled western man. In the same way I do not think that British golfers who have not been to the United States can understand the American's present-day attitude towards the game; certainly those who have not been to America should not judge upon it as they are often inclined to do. It is good, sound, and in its every aspect it is exceedingly interesting. Wandering through the country I have visited many clubs and courses. If we would have much golf in America we must move quickly as the Americans do, and think as little of travelling all night as they think, for it would be too much waste of time to make the long journeys that have to be made by precious daylight. As a rule the golfer at home protests against being asked to play anything like his best game after a night in a railway train. I remember Mr. H. E. Taylor, who is not possessed of the strongest constitution in the world, told me that he had set off from Charing Cross one morning in the winter, arrived at Cannes in the south of France at breakfast time on the next morning, cleaned himself and put on his golfing shoes, and then gone along to the golf course out at La Napoule to win a scratch gold medal. Again I recall that Mr. Hilton once travelled all night from Hoylake to Muirfield and broke the record of the course there on arrival, playing two more rounds the same day. However, men like these are exceptions to most rules. But a golfer may cure himself of more of his weaknesses and susceptibilities than he may think he can--all that are imaginary and not really of the temperament. A man who hates wind and avoids it would learn to play well and bravely in it if he had always to take his golf on an exposed part of the eastern coast. The ability or otherwise to play in wind is largely a matter of temperament. So it is with the journeys. I had either to golf, and golf for me tolerably well, in the intervals of scampering from one part of the country to the other, or I had to spoil the whole expedition. I managed it somehow. Arriving in New York for the first time early on a Sunday morning, I fixed myself up at my appointed quarters, rang up a golfer on the telephone, and then, according to arrangement, proceeded to track a man down at his club on the Fifth Avenue with the object of playing in the afternoon. I walked into Fifth Avenue from a cross street, and my first glimpse of it is one that will not soon be forgotten. It was a glorious morning, the sun shining hot and white, and New York, for the only time in its hustling week, was comparatively quiet. There was no traffic and few people just then in the Fifth Avenue, quite one of the most majestic and wonderful thoroughfares in the world despite its plain simplicity. But it was not the whiteness, not the glittering cleanliness, not the real splendour of this Fifth Avenue with all its newness, that struck the first impression on my mind. Upon the moment that this wandering British player of the most meditative of games emerged from somewhere round about West 36th or 37th, into the big avenue, there whizzed along it, right in front, a motor funeral which was doing a fine fifty miles an hour clip along the smooth and open thoroughfare. There was just the hearse with glass panels, the coffin plainly exhibited inside, and the chauffeur on the seat, with another man beside him who might have been a mourner. Holding life a little more cheaply in America than we do, they grieve a little less for those who lose it, which is not to say that they are heartless or unsympathetic, but more practical. This funeral, done with petrol instead of horses, was positively going north at the rate of fifty miles an hour. It was moving just as fast as I saw any car ever go in the United States, and I could not help reflecting that the spirit of the good American, viewing the last journey of its separated corpus, must feel a certain satisfaction that it was hustlingly done and that no time was wasted. _Finis coronat opus!_ Inspired, I played on two different courses in New York on the same afternoon. * * * * * English people hear much about railroad travelling being far better in the United States than it is in our own country. It is--and it is not. The comfort and conveniences of the cars in the daytime are much in advance of anything we have. The men's smoking cars, the observation cars, the parlour cars, are delightful and enable us thoroughly to enjoy the journeys. Although they standardise so many things in America, they cease their standardisations when considerations of personal comfort and peculiarities have to be considered. It never occurred to me until I travelled my first thousand miles in America that it is a hardship that, no matter what our girth may be, nor the length of our bodies and legs, we must all of us at home, though we pay for our first-class accommodation, sit in standardised seats which are all the same and attached to each other. In the American railroad car running on a long-distance journey there are seats of different sorts, some are high and some are low, and they are detached. This makes much difference. In the dining-cars the tables and chairs are all loose, and one does not have to squeeze into them with the feeling that one is being locked into one's place as we do in England. And the dining arrangements on the American cars are far superior to what they are elsewhere. But if the American system gains by day the British system makes up for much of the lost comfort at night, and that is when the American, golfer and non-golfer, does most of his long-distance travelling. The Pullman day cars are converted into sleepers by the dark-skinned attendants (uncommonly good railroad car servants these niggers make), and by an almost magical transformation the lounging car is made into a sleeper with about two dozen berths, a dozen on each side, half uppers and half lowers, and an alley down the middle. The chief difference between the upper berths and the lower is that the uppers have to be reached by a short stepladder and are not convenient to fat, gouty, or unathletic persons, while those who wake early and like to look upon the prairie, or what once was that, have a window at the bottom as the people in the top have not. The berths are covered in with thick green curtains which button together. We may leave our boots outside for the attendant to brush in the morning, but our other clothes and traps must go along to bed with us, and be stowed away at the bottom of the berth, or in the little netting that hangs alongside. And here I must timidly state in evidence that there are not separate cars for the sexes; in America all go together, and the ladies and the men occupy the same cars. The ladies generally go off to bed earlier than the men. Whether they do or not, we all climb into our respective berths, fasten up the curtains, and undress in the very limited space at our disposal, a process which seems to me must be the same as that by which acrobatic performers wriggle themselves out of chains and ropes with which their limbs and bodies have been tied up fast. After a time we become expert. What is most difficult to become accustomed to is the horrible jolting, and the painfully sudden stopping of the trains in the middle of the night. Their permanent ways are not laid so finely as the magnificent lines along our coasts from London to Scotland. Their rails are not fixed in chairs laid on the sleepers, but are pinned down straight on to the wood. This makes much difference. The cars shake exceedingly. Then the drivers at night have to be wary and stop quickly at times, and no doubt they do right not to reduce their speed gradually for the sake of the men and women who are asleep behind them, but instead to stop with a suddenness that could only be improved upon by a collision. However, I say again, that we find ourselves accustomed to it all in time. I shall not forget my first experience of a thousand-mile golfing journey from the New York Central Station to Chicago. A few golfers were in a party going westward for the championship at Wheaton in Illinois, and we discussed the game from the time of starting in the late afternoon until we had passed Albany, about ten, when we moved into our sleeping quarters. My bag of clubs had to go to bed with me, and they lay alongside all the night; there was no room for them underneath. I had to sleep with one hand on the bag to prevent them from attacking me or going overboard into the avenue, so much did that wretched train rattle and shake as it hurtled its way through the darkness, with the big bell in the front of the engine jangling mournfully all the time. And what a wild, sad note it is that is struck by the bells on these American engines, suggestive of the loneliness of the open country through which they speed, now and then making a big noise with a sort of foghorn. I am much attached to my clubs, and they are the chosen favourites of a vast number that go with their master everywhere, and are carefully watched and tended, but the intimacy that was sprung upon us then was too much, and I invented another arrangement for the next travelling night. James Braid, very wise man indeed, tells me that long, deep nights of placid slumber are the best things in the world for the golfer who would keep steady his hands and nerves and clear his eyes so that he may play the best game of which he is capable. But no British golfer could sleep at the beginning of his American experiences in such circumstances. I was just falling into some sort of a doze in the small hours of the morning when the train pulled up sharply at a station which I discovered to be Schenectady, where the famous putter that disturbed the peace of two nations was born. Next, one realised that we were within a mile or two of the Niagara Falls, and so on with jolting and banging and sudden stopping all the night. By and by daylight came and then we had a long day of travelling through the heart of America to Chicago. Some may suggest that all this about railroad travelling in the country where there is more of it than any other has little to do with golf, but it has all to do with it, for the thorough golfer in America, whether a citizen or British, must needs spend a large part of his time in the train, and if he would have the maximum amount of golf, much sleeping must be done behind the green curtains in the darkened cars. The travelling done by the American golfer, therefore, is a surprising thing, but a few months of it is a fine and valuable experience for the British golfer afterwards. No longer, since I have been across the Atlantic, do I consider it a far way from London to the links of Dornoch. St. Andrews and North Berwick have come pleasingly near to me. All the world has shrunk, and I feel I have my foot on every course--or soon may have. Though it be a thousand miles from New York to Chicago, and these are the two great golfing centres of the east and west, it is a fact, as I know well, that the golfers in the two places visit each other for a weekend's golf almost as frequently and with as little fuss as would be the case with golfers in London who go down to Sandwich. They take the "Twentieth Century Limited" from New York on Friday afternoon, and on Saturday morning they are at Chicago. They flash out on a local train to Onwentsia, Midlothian, Glen View, Wheaton, Exmoor, or one of those places, play all day, start play again at eight o'clock on Sunday, finish their couple of rounds early in the afternoon, catch the fast train back to New York, and are at their office on Monday morning as if they had spent the week-end pottering about the garden. I am not concerned with the question as to whether they are prolonging their lives by these acts; nor are they concerned. In the meantime they appear to be in the best of health, and are certainly in the highest of spirits. * * * * * With this talk of journeys we seem in fancy to be in Chicago now, so let us consider the leading club of the busy district in the heart of America. The course of the Chicago club is at Wheaton, some twenty-five miles out on the North Western line, and this is the foremost club of the Central States, and west in the sense of being west of the east, for all golfing America is divided into two parts, the east and the west, Chicago being the capital of and held chiefly to represent the west, which holds some close rivalry with the east, where New York is headquarters. The west out California way is just the far and other west, and is in another world. The Chicago club is exclusive and dignified. The most solid men in the city support it, and they see that everything is good. It is not an ancient institution, but it has some of the characteristics of solidity and strength of age and sound experience. Chicago is not an old city, but, as the proud citizens like to tell you, about a hundred years ago there was no Chicago at all, but just a few wigwams of Indians and some huts and things round about a creek. Since then the place has been once burnt down, and yet it is now the fourth largest city of the world, while in its tenseness of commercial industry it is the foremost of all. If all the ages past in Chicago only amount to a hundred years, then one-fifth of all time as known to Chicago history, which represents the life of the Chicago Golf Club, is comparatively long indeed. In 1892 a small golf club was started for the first time round about Lake Forest, but the promoters had only about sixteen acres of ground. In the following year, when the World's Fair was held, a number of foreign visitors were in Chicago and asked for golf, as travellers will do, though the great golf boom had not yet then set in. Mr. Charles B. Macdonald came in with the movement, ground was searched for, and the Chicago Golf Club was organised at Belmont, some twenty-two miles out of the city. When the Fair was over in the following spring, only about twenty members were left to the club, and the outlook did not seem splendid. But once begun, in either place or man, golf is a very hard thing to kill. The twenty die-hards asked their friends to come and see the place and try the game. They did so, and those men of Chicago knew at once that they had discovered the real thing. A hundred and thirty members were quickly obtained. The inevitable result followed. They wanted more and better golf, and they wanted it to belong to them and not to be on leased ground, so in 1894 the club met and authorised the purchase of two hundred acres at Wheaton, twenty-four miles out from the city, a fine course was laid out, a splendid club-house was built, and a really great club was established. Here and now we may gain a very fair idea of the difference in cost to the player between American golf and British. No better club could be selected for the purpose of exemplification than this one. It so happened that a few days before I arrived there, its club-house was burnt down, with all its contents and appurtenances, and from the wreck only a single one of the club-books of rules and regulations was rescued. I took possession of it while I made some notes upon the terrace of the only part of the building that was saved. The first paragraph in the book, being Section 1 of Article 1 of the bye-laws, states that "this club is incorporated under the laws of Illinois as Chicago Golf Club, and its corporate seal is a circular disc bearing the words, 'Chicago Golf Club,' the figure of a golf player, and the motto, 'Far and Sure.'" To become a member of the club the applicant must be over eighteen years of age; he must have not more than one adverse vote cast against him by the governing body; and he must pay an entrance fee of not less than a hundred dollars or £20. The resident (or full) membership of the club is limited to 225, and the annual subscription is 75 dollars or £15, half of which is payable at the beginning of the year and half at midsummer. Now this subscription is much higher than that of any golf club in Great Britain, and the fact is only partly attributable to the circumstance that everything in America is more expensive than it is in England. The higher subscription is necessitated because the membership is kept down so low as 225, and that is done in order that there may be no overcrowding of the course. In England such a club, being situated within thirty miles of a great city and having the best course round about, would probably admit at least five or six hundred members, with the result that on the fine and busy week-end days the course would be hopelessly blocked and there would be no pleasure for anybody. This is certainly so in the case of two or three of the most popular clubs in the outer London golfing area, and one may come to a speedy decision that in this matter the American way is by far the better. Ladies who are over sixteen years of age and the immediate relatives of a member are permitted to have the privileges of the course, subject to the rules of the Green Committee, on payment of ten dollars a year. There is another class, "summer members," who are not to exceed fifteen in number, and who pay 150 dollars for one summer season's play. There is practically no play in the winter, the climatic conditions being too severe. The other rules as to membership are much the same as those which obtain in the case of British golf clubs. Among the "house rules," it is stated that the club-house generally will remain open until midnight, and the café, which is the British equivalent of the smoke-room with bar, until one o'clock in the morning, which is a lateness of hour almost unheard of in England, but then it has to be remembered that such club-houses in America are mostly residential. "Juniors" are not allowed in the café. The warning is given that smoking and the lighting of matches in the locker or dressing room are absolutely prohibited, and that a fine of ten dollars will be imposed on any member violating this rule. Fires in club-houses in America being so numerous is the cause of this rule, which is rigorously applied. Then it is perceived that no member makes any payment whatsoever in cash in the club-house. He signs a check or bill, an account of his expenditure is kept, and it is served to him fortnightly. Payment must then be made within ten days, failing which the member is suspended. Some interesting items are to be found among the ground rules. One says that in medal play competitions new holes must be assumed to have been made on the morning of a competition, unless otherwise stated by the Green Committee; and another that a member playing a round, and keeping score other than in club competition must allow parties playing pure match-play to pass. The Americans are not content with merely requesting a player to replace the divots of turf that he cuts up in play. They say: "Divots of turf cut up by players must be carefully replaced and pressed down. A fine of one dollar will be imposed on any member violating this rule. All members are earnestly requested to report any member who violates this rule to the Green Committee." Caddies are paid "from the time of their employment until the time they are discharged, to be determined by an electric clock, at such rate per hour as may be determined by the Green Committee." There is nothing that is inexpensive about a club of this class, and let it be understood that there are few second-class golf clubs in the States where the fees are small. A day's golf at a good club is cheap indeed at five dollars. When one goes to stay there for a night or two one finds that the statutory price for breakfast is a dollar, for lunch 1.25, and for dinner 1.30 upwards. When I returned to England it appeared that golf and all pertaining to it was cheap, almost to the gift point. The course at Wheaton is good, although there are some in America that are better. It is plain, its holes sometimes lack strength, but it is well tended and its putting greens are quite perfect. Its fairway is not perfect, any more than the fairways of other American courses are. The climate will hardly permit of their being so. It bakes them up and makes them hard, and the inevitable result is little knobs and depressions which give cuppy lies, and turf which for all its greenness is not by any means comfortable to the feet in comparison with the yieldingness of our British turf. The Americans cannot help this; if it were practicable to treat every inch of their turf for climatic troubles all through the day and night they would perhaps do it. It is practicable to treat their putting greens thoroughly, and the result is that, taking them all round, they have undoubtedly got the best putting greens in the world. I mean, without reservation, that the average of the best courses in America is higher than the average of the best in our own country, and I say it with some regret that they have a score of courses in the United States with greens far superior to those on the old course at St. Andrews the last time the Amateur Championship was played there, those greens being then not what they used to be. I think much of the credit for the high quality of the greens at Wheaton is due to the splendid work of David Foulis, the professional and greenkeeper there. Need I say that David is a Scot, and a very true Scot too, who still loves his old homeland better than any other, and is glad when the wandering golfer from it gets his way. Chicago may seem a strange place to visit for facts of old golf history, and yet here I added some details to the histories of the people and their golfing ways of fifty years and more agone, for Foulis has his father living with him out in Illinois, and Foulis the elder was at work with old Tom Morris in the great days when the Open Championship was young, and stirring are the stories that he can tell you, as he did to me in David's shop, of old Tom and Allan Robertson, and the other giants of those times, carrying one in mind and spirit far away from the land round about the big lake of Michigan to the old grey city which was old more than a hundred years ago. I took away with me as a memento from David Foulis a club that he has invented, and which for a special purpose I can commend. It is a kind of mashie niblick, David claiming to be the inventor of this type of club, but it is different from others in that it has a perfectly straight, flat sole and a concave face. I, like others, found that by the use of this club I saved some dollars, for it enabled me to pitch the ball from a hard lie on to the hard greens and make it stay close to the hole when nothing else would serve the purpose. The ordinary mashie niblick with curved sole is not perfect for baked and iron-hard courses, as it is not easy to get well hold of the ball when taking it cleanly as must often be done in such circumstances, and the margin for error is painfully small. The flat-soled club is essentially one for taking the ball cleanly, and somehow that hollow face does impart extra backspin to the ball. It lifts it up and drops it dead as no other club that I have handled will of itself ever do. But let me write that the Americans are not given to fancy and freak clubs as some people suppose they are. There is nothing freakish about this article of which I write, and for the most part the implements that the American players employ are the simplest. And just to complete my generalising remarks on American courses, which naturally vary greatly, let me say that commonly they are not so severely bunkered as are the best of ours, particularly from the tee. They do not demand either such long or such straight driving as our best courses do, and I think that the Americans realise now that this is the case and that they need stiffening up. They are doing that already. There are some very good holes at Wheaton, and the short hole at the ninth is about the most tantalising water hole I have encountered. It is all water from the teeing ground to the foot of a high plateau on which the green is situated, and it is about a hundred and ten yards across the pond. CHAPTER VII THE PERFECT COUNTRY CLUB AND THE GOLFERS' POW-WOW AT ONWENTSIA, WITH A GLIMPSE OF THE NATIONAL LINKS. Round Chicago there is now a great belt of golf which is thickening rapidly. More hundreds of acres are being claimed for the game constantly, and one hears in these parts of the most splendidly equipped club-houses being built to replace others at the cost of very many thousands of dollars. Activity in the increase of golf is feverish. But even here maturity has its charm, as it always must have in golf, and the most delightful resorts in Illinois are those which are the oldest. Such as Onwentsia, Exmoor, Midlothian, Glen View are excellent. I am glad I went to Onwentsia. Most British golfers who have never been and will never go across the Atlantic have heard something, even if but the name, of the Onwentsia club. It seems to suggest American golf, and there is a look of some mystery about the name. Onwentsia is by no means like the others, and there are good reasons why. Here on a wall of mine are two feathers of eagles fastened crosswise; below them an Indian's pipe of peace with its silken tassel. They were sent to me across the sea from Onwentsia by some members a while after I had been there, and they are a reminder not only of happy days but of the characteristics of Onwentsia, for the name of the place is an Indian one. Here were the redskins before all others, and then the white men and golfers came, and still it is almost as if the soil were redolent of the Indian trail. The club perpetuates in a manner considered suitable the memory and legend of the braves; my eagles' feathers are such as a "Running Driver" or "Mighty Mashie" might have worn in their fighting days, and they adorned our modern Onwentsians on the day of their Indian feast! Let me explain. Lake Forest, where is Onwentsia, is a very charming suburb of Chicago, at the side of Lake Michigan. Its name suggests its character; it is well wooded, and one of the kind friends that I made there, Mr. Slason Thompson, drove me in his car in the dusk of a balmy evening for miles through the beautiful public grounds. The Onwentsia Club, as it is called, is a close fraternity of the best people of these parts. It is a country club in a large sense. It is a hunt club, it is a polo club with a splendid ground, it is a tennis club, and it is a golf club, and it need hardly be said that the golf is a very strong feature, the predominator of the institutions. Now the Onwentsian golfers, zealous and good, have their own manners and customs, and, particularly they have one custom which has a fame all over America, and it has spread even beyond the seas. If it be not sin to mention them together Onwentsia has one great day of celebration as the Royal and Ancient Club has one. Towards the end of September the Royal and Ancient Club calls its members together for the autumn gathering at St. Andrews, and there on that occasion, as has been related, many ancient and solemn ceremonies of great dignity are performed. The captain "plays himself in," guns are fired, in the evening at the banquet new members kiss the silver club and swear their loyalty, and much more in that splendid and time-honoured way is done. America is true to St. Andrews golf in its law, but Lake Forest, far out toward the west, is not the same as Fifeshire, and the Onwentsia Club at Lake Forest is not like the Royal and Ancient. It is not a question of which is the better; they are different, and when I was in Illinois, at any rate, Onwentsia was to me a very entertaining place. And I do not say this merely because Onwentsia, near to Lake Michigan, is so charmingly situated; because the club is such a delightful place, perfect in equipment, with a luxurious club-house, and inside it a huge swimming pool and many shower-baths, making one sometimes a trifle regretful upon the bareness of our British golfing-houses. It is just because when I first reached there the great golfing gathering at St. Andrews was nearly due and the golfers at Onwentsia were having theirs. When I dined with Mr. Thompson that evening at his charming house overlooking the great lake, and we smoked cigars on the lawn overhanging it, he told me why on everything that concerned the club there was the same sign, the head of an Indian brave with the big feather in it, and why they were just going forward to the great annual pow-wow. If you would do it properly you should pronounce Onwentsia in the soft, crooning Indian way. Murmur it slowly and gently, and mount the cadence high upon the second syllable; then, after a suspicion of a pause, lower the notes gradually to the end. If you said it in the right way an old Iroquois brave would know that you were referring to "a country gathering," for that is the meaning of the term. In days of old the Iroquois trailed over all these parts where now the course is laid. Here were their wigwams; here lingered their squaws with the little papoose, while the red men hunted and fought. That is why the golfers of Onwentsia have their pow-wow once a year. The pow-wow is an invitation golf tournament lasting two days, and it is open only to those members who are of a certain age or over (it was thirty-nine when I was there) and their guests, one guest per member. In order to preserve complete the familiar friendliness of the gathering and to maintain its traditions undisturbed by new influences, the age limit is increased from year to year to keep the new and young men out. The call to the pow-wow, which is written anew for every festival, gives us the key to the nature of the function, and I quote from one of them: On the banks of Skokie water, By the water flecked with golf balls, Stands the wigwam, the Onwentsia, The great wigwam of the Pow-wow. Come ye forth, ye Jol-li-gol-fas, Come ye forth and come ye quickly To Onwentsia, the big wigwam, To Onwentsia, the big Pow-wow, In the Moon of Falling Leaflets, Ere the trees are red with autumn, Come in trains, the Puf-choo-choo-puf; Come in motors, Aw-to-bub-buls; In the 'bus, old Shuh-too-get-thah, To Onwentsia, to the Pow-wow. Here's the bartend, Wil-lin-mix-ah, The head waitress, Goo-too-loo-kat, The great golfer, Hoo-beets-boh-ghee, And the caddy, Skip-an-fetch-it, Waiting all to do you honour. Leave your war club, Tom-ah-haw-kus, Bring the peace sticks, Dri-vah-nib-lix; Leave your toilsome reservations And the dust of smoky cities For the Pow-wow in the wigwam; Bring the peace pipe, Swee-too-suk-kat, Taste the bowl, Hi-baw-laf-tah; Play the game, Roy-al-skoch-wun, All the morning in the sunlight, All the afternoon, till evening Spreads the feast of squab and chicken 'Mid the joy of good companions Gathered in the spreading wigwam Of Onwentsia for the Pow-wow. Lasting for two days, with one great night in between them, it happens that the first session of play is conducted in a state of high anticipation and with much joyful shaking of hands and exhibitions of brotherly attachment, and the second session with a feeling as of a slowly receding past. Only those who attend the feast in the big wigwam are eligible to play in the numerous competitions to which are attached such an abundance of prizes that it is difficult for the golfing brave to go empty-handed back to his gentle squaw. A law indeed has had to be made that he shall not take more than two of the trophies away with him. At eight o'clock on the morning of the first day the play begins. There is a thirty-six holes medal competition for the Sum-go-fah trophy (the "Indian" titles are changed from year to year), and at the end of eighteen holes the numerous competitors are grouped into sections of eight, according to the place in the returns--first eight, second eight, and so on for separate match-play competitions for the Sko-ki-ko-lah prizes. The prize for the first eight is the Mis-sa-sko-kih, for the second the O-ma-go-li, for the third the Hit-ta-sko-kih, for the fourth the Sti-mi-gosh, for the fifth the Bum-put-tah, for the sixth the Went-an-mis-tit, for the seventh the Top-an-sli-sah, for the eighth the Let-mih-tel-you, and for the ninth the Dub-an-duf-fah. Then there is a competition for the Bun-kah-bun-kah prize, which is embraced within the Sum-go-fah, being for the best eclectic score made in the two rounds, or "choice score" as they prefer to call it in the States. Two-thirds handicap is allowed. Likewise there is the Noh-bak-num-bah prize, which is by medal play with an age handicap, the handicap being determined by the years of the contestant above or below forty. By such play, whether it is successful or not, do the braves qualify for the feast, and at half-past seven there is the call to the big and happy wigwam. The great dining-room is indeed made by fitting and decoration to appear as one great wigwam, and there are some of the adjuncts of the life of the old Iroquois. The golfing braves stride eagerly, joyfully, chatteringly in. Reddened are the golfers' faces; wrapped around them are their blankets, from their hair stick big black feathers; long pipes of peace are held before them. Then there are strange but toothsome dishes; they taste the "Hi-baw-laf-ta-tah"; happiness and contentment increase; there are toasts and shouts and whoops. The successors of the Iroquois hold their pow-wow well. At the beginning of the morning, when the moon is riding through the fleecy heavens of Illinois, softly they steal away, and in the distance now and then there may be heard the same lone cry that once resounded through the forest when Iroquois were on the trail. But at nine in the morning more competitions begin, and are most thoroughly attended. There are tournaments for the Bus-tis-tik-sah, the Boo-li-bus-tah, the Strok-a-hol-ah, the Heez-noh-mut-sah, the Ho-pu-get-it, the Get-sa-loo-kin, the He-za-pee-chah, the Wil-lin-loo-sah, the Oh-you-papoose, and other cups. Some of the prizes go to the players doing certain holes in the lowest gross score during the tournament, the Wil-lin-loo-sah is captured by the man who does the four rounds worst of all on the two days, and an Onwentsia medicine pouch, the nature of which may be guessed by golfers with little difficulty, remembering British practice, is awarded to the brave who does a particular hole in one stroke. It is all very remarkable, wonderful, interesting, and thoroughly American, and not the ragged corner of a paper dollar the worse for it either. Happy Onwentsia! * * * * * At the Glen View Country Club they have a special autumn festival also which has a character of its own. The motto of Glen View is "Laigh and lang"--low and long--which is a good variation on the monotonous "far and sure." And about Glen View there is a Scottish flavour; in manners and customs for a very brief season in the golden days of the fall there is wafted from the far distant Highlands a breath of Scotland. Here they call their festival the "Twa Days," and it is carried through with a fine spirit. There are competitions in number and kind to satisfy everybody, and the social side of the affair is excellent. Glen View, again, is not like the others either. I spent some days there as the guest of the club, and nowhere have I had a more pleasurable time. It came after an exceedingly strenuous, rushing period at other places, and towards the end of one of the hottest spells of weather that they had known for many summers in those burning parts. Glen View is a pretty name, but it is not prettier than the golf course there, which is one of the most charming I know. It reminded one in some ways of Sudbrook Park in the early summer, always, as I think, one of the most delightful inland courses in the south of England; but Glen View, with its sleepy streams, is nicer. It may not be up to "championship standard" in its architectural features, but it might be made so. Yet if such a change would remove much of the character of Glen View, I, in my selfishness, knowing that on some future morning I shall again take the 9.35 from Chicago on the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad, and alight at the station which is called "Golf," hope for my high pleasure that there will be none such made. When a club once becomes infatuated with the championship idea its contentment and happiness depart, and Glen View is best as it is. The holes have character. The greens are placed in the most beautiful nooks and corners, great belts of trees surround the course, and a stream winds snake-like through the grounds. At about every third hole there is a large barrel which is filled every morning with fresh spring water, into which a large block of ice is placed. When you play in a shade temperature of nearly a hundred degrees, as I have done at this place, you appreciate these barrels. They have a natty way of naming their holes at Glen View. The first is called "The Elm," the second "High Ball," the third "Sleepy Hollow," and the next in order are "Polo," "Lover's Lane," "Old Hickory," "The Round Up," "Trouble," "Reservoir," "Westward Ho!" "The Grove," "Sunset," "The Bridge," "The Roost," "Spookey," "The Orchard," "Log Cabin," and "Sweet Home." The course is 6279 yards long, and every one of these yards is a pleasure to play along. Visitors do like this place. In one year recently there were 3550 of them who paid a dollar a day for the privilege of playing. The members of the club pay one hundred dollars a year subscription, and nowadays it costs about five hundred dollars for admission. Every member must be the possessor of a hundred-dollar share in the club, and these shares are now at a premium of about five times their par value. At few other places in the golfing world is there such a nicely appointed club-house as there is here. One could put two or three of the largest dining-rooms that our golf clubs possess into the one of Glen View, and the furnishing is finely and tastefully done in a Flemish style. Some of the golfing prints with which we are most familiar hang upon the walls. Other pictures of value keep them company, and there is a large crayon drawing done on the spot by my old friend, the late Tom Browne, who once came here with his bag of clubs. The café at the Glen View club is an interesting institution. The club has one of the cleverest cocktail mixers in America, and the printed list of available liquid refreshments that is laid upon the tables suggests a little consideration. The American golfers, for the most part, do not drink very much, and what they do drink has little effect upon them, thanks to the heat and much perspiration; but they do like novelties and the variety. So on this list--which, mind you, includes no wines, which are quoted on a separate sheet--there are scheduled no fewer than 147 different kinds of refreshments. There are thirteen "soft drinks," eight different lemonade mixtures, eleven sorts of mineral waters, thirteen beers and ales, six rye whiskies, seven Bourbon whiskies, eleven Scotch and Irish whiskies, thirteen varieties of cocktails, two "toddies," three "sours," three "rickies," three "cobblers," six "fizzes," two "flips," seven "punches," three "smashes," and thirty-six "miscellaneous." The last is a most interesting section. It includes the "Prairie Oyster," the "Millionaire," the "Pousse l'Amour," the "Sam Ward," the "Russian Cooler," the "Japanese Cooler," the "Golfer's Delight," the "Angel's Dream," the "Ladies' Puff," and the "Glen View High Ball." Nearly all of these cost twenty or twenty-five cents each. One may be most pleasurably lazy at Glen View. The club-house has some forty bedrooms, with a fine equipment of shower and other baths, and the usual telephone service to all the bedrooms with a complete telephone exchange downstairs. The service and comfort are as good as they can be. I liked the lounges and the shady verandahs, with rocking-chairs to tip one away to a short dream on a hot afternoon of purling brooks on English hills and woods in Wales. Yet when I awake I am satisfied. There is no hurry here. In the mornings one would hear the men rising at six o'clock and splashing themselves about in the bath department, and generally becoming very active all at once. Some time later I would join them at breakfast, and see them depart very early for their businesses at Chicago. When they had gone one could settle down, and there were ladies to chatter with or to play Chopin or something else on the piano. It is necessary to take things a little easily during the early and hot part of the day, because soon in the afternoon the men come back from Chicago, and they are all energy and rush as if they had not spent a howling morning in the "Pit" or one of the other great business centres. One has to fall in with their schemes of activity, which endure until the evening meal, taken in an easy way of _en famille_ in the restaurant of the club, luscious green corn to begin with and the most appetising dishes later, with laughter and gossip always. And later in the evening David Noyes and I might sit in the dark on the verandah, and under those stars of Illinois speak of the differences between English people and the Americans as we respectively saw them. We understood each other and could be frank. "The worst of America," said I, "is that it has no soul, and the Americans have none either." "Well," said he; "but we have big hearts." Agreed. He is a leading broker in the "Pit" at Chicago, the great wheat market of the world, and one morning he took me there and I met many golfers I knew round about those four screeching masses of men who make of this place a babel and such an exhibition of raw fighting human nature as, with all its differences, I can only compare with the same brilliant and yet ugly show that is made in the rooms of the Casino at Monte Carlo. It is raw life on the strain at both places--hot seething life. The reposeful Glen View is needed for the people who barter there. * * * * * Massachusetts is a fine golfing land, and it rose to the heights in 1913. After gaiety in New York, and amazement at Chicago, you should go to Boston. And really they who live there have reason for their pride. There is no other town or city in the United States or Canada that has anything like such an English flavour as this in the New England. There are times when we wander along the great thoroughfare, Washington Street, or turn up one of the side avenues like Boylston, that the American idea for a moment ceases to press closely upon us, and when we pass the old churches, wander through historic chambers Georgian in their style, look into the Faneuil Hall, or into the old-fashioned market, or go down to the shipping in the docks where our Boston man will surely take us, that we may see the place of the "tea party," as they call it now, which had vast consequences to the States and England when taxes were made and were rejected--then in the New England we feel the old one there. And, of course, the wandering Englishman is taken out to Bunker Hill as well. Though with all Americans their spirit of independence is an obsession, and it seems sometimes that they like to think of themselves as a new race of people come up out of nothing or from heaven, owing nothing to any other race, yet at Boston I suspect they are a trifle glad that they and their city are not like the others, but are something more English in their way. There is a difference in the atmosphere. A certain ease is possible, a culture is apparent. Streets and shops do not look as if they had been cut out by machinery at the same time that the streets and shops of a dozen other cities were being cut, and all life is not mathematically arranged and standardised. If an American university is not at all like either Oxford or Cambridge, still Harvard is an influence, and Harvard is at Cambridge, a near suburb of Boston. The result of it all is that we feel something of the old atmosphere of home and are stimulated. Boston grows upon us very rapidly. The father of one of my good American friends, Mr. John G. Anderson, who has gone on golfing expeditions with me in England, Scotland, France and the United States, is a Scot with a great love for his home country, and our rambles round old Boston have been of a peculiarly interesting kind. And when in Boston, and the car of a friend comes along to the Touraine in the morning, we throw the clubs in the back of it, and get up with just that feeling of having a sporting day ahead that one develops in the country at home and hardly anywhere else. There are many courses round about Boston, and there are four of them, all quite different from each other, of which I shall have a clear recollection always. Two have very special places of their own in American golf, one being The Country Club of Brookline already described. Massachusetts itself will not be called a "state" like other states, but is a "commonwealth," and The Country Club is not the Boston Country Club or the Brookline Country Club, but The Country Club, and visitors who would be appreciative and make no _faux pas_ are recommended to keep the point in mind, the reason being that this one, with its charter of incorporation away back in the eighteenth century, was the first of all the country clubs in America, and is dignified accordingly. They do blow the place up in America when they determine to make a golf course. Forest and rock are of no more hindrance to any idea or scheme than a few daisies might be. I was strongly impressed with this view of things when I was out one day at the Essex County Club at Manchester-by-the-Sea, another of the outer-Boston courses. "Come to golf at Essex in the morning; you will see something of the way in which we do our golf in America that you have never seen before." Such was the substance of an invitation from Mr. George F. Willett, one of the most ardent and admirable leaders of the golfing movement in the Eastern States. So in the morning golf at Essex, twenty miles out of Boston, was the programme of the day, and by half-past ten we were on the first tee preparing to drive from an eminence down towards low land in front. The terms of the invitation were amply justified. Towards noon, when we might be somewhere about the thirteenth or fourteenth hole, a great roar and crashing sound came from the other side of the course in the locality of the fifth hole, and looking towards it there was to be seen a rising cloud of smoke, with masses of earth and splintered rocks being hurled high into the air. A moment later and there was another deafening bang and more earth, more rocks, and various stumps of trees were shot up towards the sky. Bang! bang! bang!--ten times in the space of a few seconds was this surprise repeated, and it began to seem that we must be on Olympian links and that Jove himself or Hercules was bunkered. "It's only Ross's men tinkering away at the new fourth," said my man unconcernedly, as he ran down a long putt. A couple of minutes afterwards we rounded a bend of the course, and as we did so some wild yells were heard and a number of the Italian workmen were seen running fast in our direction and then stopping suddenly to hide themselves behind trees. Three more big bangs, more smoke, flying earth, flying rocks and roots, and then as my partner played his brassey he soliloquised that he had added, unintentionally, a touch of slice to the stroke and was in the pot on the right. As to the noises, our part of the course, I was assured, was perfectly safe. The three explosions were made by Ross's Italians at the new fifth. Thirteen of them in five minutes was perhaps a little unusual, but they were all over now, and, as could be seen, the Italians, with sundry calls to each other, were moving back towards the place they had sprinted from. The object of this concentration of noise and disturbance in five minutes, it was explained, was to give the full body of workmen plenty to do as soon as they resumed after their midday meal. The truth is, that golf at Essex, when I was first there, was undergoing a great and most wonderful transformation, regardless of cost, regardless of the magnitude and seeming impossibilities of the task, regardless of everything, but caused by the insatiable desire of the American golfer to have courses that are as good as they can be. To satisfy this desire he is everywhere pulling Nature to pieces and reconstructing her, doing his work deftly and skilfully, and with a good eye for pleasing effect. At the finish you might think that, save for the putting greens and bunkers, it was all the simple work of the mother of earth herself in her gentler moods, smooth swards for rocks, and chaste glades where forests were. This transformation and extension of American golf and the way it is being done is most amazing. All the old courses are being lengthened and greatly improved, and new ones of first-class quality are being made in large numbers. When it is desired to make changes and extensions on a British course the work that has to be done is not generally of a very formidable character. Some tolerably smooth sort of land is frequently available, and alternatives to existing holes may be planned. But even so, the question of expense seems often to be a fearsome thing, and a year or more of thought and yet another year for action are commonly needed. A thousand pounds or two thousand seems to be a mighty sum to spend, but for all that we think that in the south, at all events, we are doing our golf on a very grand scale in these days. And when I think of St. George's Hill and Coombe Hill and others of their kind I know we are doing it on a very fine scale. But the case of America at present is most specially remarkable. In the Eastern States particularly, the courses have had for the most part to be carved out of virgin forests. Tens of thousands of tons of rocks have had to be blasted, and hundreds of acres of swamps drained before the fairways could be laid and sown with grass. Such work is having to be done now for the extensions and improvements, and it is wonderfully done. The committees appear to take about a week to think about it, a day to decide, and then in two or three months, with the help of dynamite, tree-fellers, and hundreds of foreign workmen, the new scheme is carried through. The cost is not considered till afterwards, and then it never worries, but it is enormous. Here at Essex, the chief work that was being done was the addition of a total of 175 yards only to the fourth and fifth holes, which were to be given new numbers, and this little bit of lengthening, with the tree-felling, the splendid draining of a swamp, and the use of 400 lbs. of dynamite on the rocks, was costing 10,000 dollars or £2000. Some other alterations and new constructions were being done, and the course, one of fine undulations, well-planned bunkering, magnificent putting greens, and glorious scenery, was being brought to perfection. The work was being carried out under the direction of Mr. Donald J. Ross, the chief superintendent of the club and course, who was once a Dornoch man. He thinks out his construction schemes in the grand way, and he is going about America blowing hundreds of acres of it up into the air and planting smooth courses upon the levelled remains. Shortly before this, they called him up to a mountainous place at Dixville Notch, in New Hampshire, to plan a new nine-holes course that had to be cut out of solid rock, at a cost of £10,000. No golfer had ever been to that place, and the first had yet to arrive when the promoters wrote hurriedly to Mr. Ross, not long back home, saying: "We are convinced that it will soon be necessary to have a longer course, and are very desirous that you will come at once to lay one out on Panorama Hill." It will cost £20,000, but that does not matter. Golf is demanded everywhere in America, and it must be supplied. A little extra space was required for play by the Rhode Island Country Club at Narragansett, so, with Ross's help they took forty acres from the sea, and are now playing the game where a year previously the waves were rolling. Again, this remarkable golf engineer a little while since finished his work on the very first course that has been laid out in Cuba. I do not know what the future of American golf will be, but its present is a bewildering, astonishing thing. * * * * * "Yes, but wait until you see Myopia!" I was not glad to leave Essex, but I was happy to go from there to the Myopia Hunt Club a few miles distant (and may I never forget that glorious ride in Mr. Willett's big car, along the winding road fringed with silver birches and autumn-tinted foliage, past placid little lakes, through some of the country of chastest charm in New England!), for Myopia is America's golfing pride. Besides, it is one of the few American courses that have a wide international reputation. Remember the astonishment when Andrew Kirkaldy, a St. Andrews golfer, if ever there was one, a man believing in the old course of Fifeshire as a Mussulman believes in Mecca, came back from an American tour and declared to British people that Myopia was the best course in the world! So we approach one American golf course with wonder and a certain awe. There are other reasons for doing so if we only knew them beforehand. Traditions and old dignity are strongly attached to it, and this Myopia is such a club for high feeling and exclusiveness as would do credit to any institution we have at home, golf or otherwise. It is, at the very least, as difficult to become a member of Myopia as of the Royal and Ancient. If I dared I would say it is more so. Myopia, I am told, will use the black ball with joy when there is a candidate at the doors. It might be easier in some circumstances for a man to become the President of the United States than to become a member of the Myopia Hunt Club. The dignity of Myopia exudes from the timbers of its long, quaint club-house. The ceilings are low, while the walls are panelled and are really old, for in quite early days of New England this, or part of it, was a farm-house. The name of the club in this case has nothing to do with golf, nor with the name of a place, for the place is Hamilton. Myopia is a technical term for near-sight. The original members despised the game, and as for letting it influence them in their choice of name of the club, such a thing is inconceivable. Originally, and for long afterwards, and primarily even now, Myopia is a hunt club; it prides itself on being so, and when anybody asks one of the old hunting members if they do not possess a good golf course there, he might say he supposed they did play some game with that name there sometimes. In the early days, I believe that many of the members wore coloured glasses for some reasons connected with their sight, and it was through this that the name of the club was given. Golf was a very late addition, and some of the old hunting-men, whom you will see moving about the club-house in real and unaffected riding costume as hardly anywhere else in America, feel a little sore about it still, and it is even now the fact that the hunting section keep to themselves in one part of the club and the golfers to themselves in their part, with such as Mr. Herbert Leeds and one or two others in both. Mr. Leeds showed me some of the old prints on the walls illustrating the race meetings that had taken place there in almost prehistoric times, and some mementoes of the early days of the golf club, together with the score card of George Duncan's record round on the course. I hope you realise that Myopia is not an ordinary golf club; I did so within a minute of my arrival there. The course is not like others in America. It is almost more of the open heathland sort of course than any other I have tramped over while in the country. It is a little barer, seemingly a little wilder than most of the others, and none the worse for that. Its putting-greens are capital, and at some of the holes, if not all, I have certainly trodden on turf that is better than anything else that my feet have touched on that side of the Atlantic. I remember that I nearly shouted with delight to my partner when I came upon the first stretch of it--green and soft and velvety. But it was not all like that, and in some respects I do think that, splendid as the course is, praise of it has been a little overdone. Yet on the other hand it is certainly a course that grows on the constant player there, and reveals new subtleties to him every time of playing. That after all is the test of a great course. Architecturally many of the holes are splendid. I do not quite like the idea of the man having to drive uphill at the first hole, but the tee-shot has most decidedly to be placed--to the left--or the player has the most fearful approach that he might ever dream of after the most indigestible dinner. The fourth hole is a splendid one of the dog-leg kind, a drive and an iron with the green very well bunkered, and some very low land to the left which is a constant attraction to the weak-minded ball. Then for my own part I liked the tenth very much, for a big drive has to be done over some high ground with a bunker away to the right that draws hard at sliced balls, while the green is one of the nicest and most prettily guarded. I lingered about it for some time in an admiring way. The last hole also has infinitely more in it than appears at the first glance, for here again a big bunker jutting into the edge of the green and to the right is a strong factor, especially when the pin is behind it; and if the hero does not place his tee-shot to the left, and within a very little space there, too, he will be sorry. It is 6335 yards round the course. In the club-house over the tea-cups, on the occasion of my first visit, I pondered upon the marvellous excellence of Duncan's record round, and paid some most sincere compliments to Mr. Leeds for the quality of the golf architecture of Myopia, for it is he, after close study of the best British models, who has been chiefly responsible for it. A day and night at the Brae Burn Country Club at West Newton, near Boston, left a warm glow lingering in my mind. Here if anywhere in America there is country charm and social delight. Nowhere is the idea of the complete and happy social community of the country club better developed. The course is a fine one, and here also, at the time of my first visit, extensive works were being carried out, and some splendid new holes over heaving land were in the process of formation. They have since been completed and the course has now risen to the highest standard. The putting-greens are in the nicest and most beautiful places, belts of trees line the fairway at several of the holes; there are others in open country, and the short ones are uncommonly good. A new one that they were making then, calling for a drive from a height down to a pocket-handkerchief kind of green is one that I hope to be puzzled at in the play within a few weeks of the moment when I write. I had the happiness then to nominate the situation of a new bunker at one of the new holes, and sure I am that a momentary vexation will be the result when I play that hole, for I, too, in America, have found that I develop the American hook, which seems to be in the climate and the soil. It was on this course that Harry Vardon in his all-conquering tour in America in 1900 sustained his only defeat. Our dinner-party in the club-house in the evening is an unforgettable reminiscence. It was a good-fellowship golfing party such as this game only can bring about. Mr. Harry L. Ayer, Mr. E. A. Wilkie, Mr. George Gilbert, Mr. C. I. Travelli, good Anderson and self talked our golf, British and American, to the full extent of a good ability. One of the topics was club captaincy, and the discussion we had may lead to the creation of the office at Brae Burn and elsewhere, for it is a curious thing that the American clubs have never thought of creating captains, and this community was rather pleased with the idea. It is an office that a golf club needs. If the captain is the right man, if he is chosen for his past service, for his present strength, and for his tact and quality as man and golfer, he can do much for a club, and his appointment is a recognition that a club needs for its best and most faithful men. * * * * * The country round about New York abounds in interesting golfing places, and if inclination were followed there should be descriptions given of Nassau, of Apawamis (not forgetting the rock to the right of the first green there which an English ball most usefully struck when the thirty-seventh hole was being played in the final of the American championship, Mr. Fred Herreshoff, finalist, being loser thereby), of Garden City, Baltusrol, and many other good golfing places in these parts. Garden City is a name familiar to golfers in Britain, because it is the place where Mr. Walter J. Travis came from when he won the championship at Sandwich. If it lacks some of the boldness of feature of some of the later American courses, yet this is a fine testing course, thoroughly--and so deeply!--bunkered, and with splendid putting-greens, and all the place round about is very pleasant. And now I am very anxious to see Piping Rock, as I soon expect to do. There are good reasons for making a journey by the Pennsylvania railroad from New York to Washington. One must pay the visitor's homage to the seat of American government and experience the feeling of being at the heart of the States, with its magnificent buildings and its historical remembrances. It is an intensely interesting place. At the White House there is Mr. President Wilson who is a golfer, as ex-President Taft was, and remains one of the keenest in the land. Mr. Taft will write enthusiastically about the game, and make speeches about it when he thinks it proper. "My advice to the middle-aged and older men who have never played golf," he says, "is to take it up. It will be a rest and recreation from business cares, out of which they will get an immense amount of pleasure, and at the same time increase their physical vigour and capacity for work as well as improve their health." And he also says, "Preceding the election campaign in which I was successful, there were many of my sympathisers and supporters who deprecated its becoming known that I was addicted to golf, as an evidence of aristocratic tendencies and a desire to play only a rich man's game. You know, and I know, that there is nothing more democratic than golf, and there is nothing which furnishes a greater test of character and self-restraint, nothing which puts one more on an equality with one's fellows--or, I may say, puts one lower than one's fellows--than the game of golf. If there is any game that will instil in one's heart a more intense feeling of self-abasement and humiliation than the game of golf, I should like to know what it is." One who was in office there told me something of his enthusiasm for the game. I asked him how often Mr. Taft had played when he was there in the golfing season. The answer was that Mr. Taft used to play every day, positively every day, and some of those who played with him indicated to me what a very thorough and determined golfer he was. It might be said of the ex-President that he has spent more time in bunkers than most citizens, because he has generally insisted on playing out, no matter how many strokes have been needed. He has been playing now for sixteen years, and is quite one of the oldest American golfers in point of service to the game. Nothing can take away from him the distinction of having been the first President of the United States to play what they have determined shall be their national game. * * * * * I had a happy experience when one day I left New York, where it was most swelteringly hot, and went up into the Green Mountains of Vermont for golf at the Ekwanok Country Club. A friend, Mr. Henry W. Brown of Philadelphia, who had played with me at my favourite Brancaster in Norfolk once, had heard I was somewhere in America and sent a letter to me directed to a chance address, which, being a golfing kind of address, found me with little delay. "Come," said Brown, "to Manchester-in-the-Mountains in Vermont. You ought to see our quite famous Ekwanok course, and I can promise you some fine mountain air, good golf, and a hearty welcome. If you will tell me what train you will come by, I will meet you with the car at Manchester Station." A moment's hesitation dissolved in firm decision and action, which took the form of a taxi-cab to the New York Central Station, and the north-bound train which left at twenty minutes to one in the afternoon. Then along we went by the Hudson river, up which I had sailed from Albany a year before, past the Palisades, past Poughkeepsie and the Catskill Mountains, through Troy and Albany, and as the daylight waned we were mounting upwards through the hills of sweet Vermont. At a quarter to eight the train reached Manchester, Brown and his car were waiting there, and we sped along the main street to his home. It seemed that the silver moonlight was shining not upon an earthen road but glistening on snow. Little villas like chalets and chateaux of Switzerland lined the way and the people living in them could be heard in their laughter and song, for the dinner time was just gone by and yellow light shone from the windows, making that happy contrast with the coldness of the moonshine, that speaks of home and comfort. We passed the great hotel where five hundred people are constantly gathered together in the summer time from all parts of the States, and indeed from places far beyond the States, for there are Britons in numbers here, and travellers from Africa and the deep southern lands, making such a cosmopolitan gathering of its size for drawing-rooms and bridge parties and the usual orderings of social gatherings as is not easily to be matched. And there is an amazing vivacity among all these people, for two reasons, one being that the American spirit at its best pervades, and the other that it is Ekwanok, the heartening, the vigour-making, the youth-restoring. In New York and Chicago at the end of the day one is a little apt to think of the wear and tear of life and the fading capacity of a good constitution; high up in the mountains of Vermont, in the shadow of the hills of Equinox, one revels in fresh youth again and has no more envy for the lad of twenty. And that again is a reason why Ekwanok is not like the other golfing places of America, and another following upon it is that this is, so far as I have discovered, the only truly golfing holiday resort in all the States, a place to which people go for the pleasure of the happy game and for hardly anything else, a place that lives and thrives on golf. From far and wide the Americans come to it and leave all their work behind, and are happy and leisurely as you rarely see them at other times. In Britain we have a very large number of resorts that are for holiday golf alone, and more are coming all the time, but this is a feature of golf that America in general has yet to know. If it comes to that, Manchester-in-the-Mountains is not so very high (that is a rather curious association of English ideas--Manchester and mountains, dingy streets with the smoke-thickened atmosphere of the Lancashire city and the big bold hills of God), but here is the mountain scent, enlivening, heartening. The house of my host, Breezy Bank as it is called, is set at the foot of one big mountain and looks across the green valley, where the golf course lies, out toward another--a delightful abode. A log fire burned red on the big hearth, a kind hostess gave us welcome, and after a supper that embraced fresh green corn (it is the essence of the enjoyment of green corn that it should be taken quickly from the growing to the kitchen), we talked, over cigars and coffee, golf from one end of the game to the other, and right across it, and handled clubs, until bedtime came. Brown is keen, and he has sound views on the influence of the game on national character. Next morning, with sunlight and breeze, we went along to the course, so near that a ball could have been driven to it from the lawn of Breezy Bank, where the master has been known to practise mashie shots by moonlight, and I was joined in foursome with Mr. Walter Fairbanks of Denver, Colorado, against B. and his son Theodore. What then happened is of no consequence; the tale may be told in Colorado but not in England. But the course--it is splendid, and reflects an infinity of credit upon Mr. James L. Taylor, the first in command, who has for the most part designed it, has constantly improved it, and has made it what it is. All the holes have abundant character. They are up and down, straight and crooked, interesting always, with a good fairway that gives fine lies to the ball, and putting-greens of the smoothest sort. We drove first down a hill with a slanting hazard that made awful menace to a slice, then up again and away out to the far parts, with some very pretty short holes. The gem of the collection of eighteen is the seventh, which has been called, and with some fitness, the King of American Holes. A great, fine, lusty piece of golf it is, 537 yards from the tee to the green, and every shot has to be a thoughtful, strong, and well-directed shot, with no girl's golf in it anywhere. It is a down drive from the high-placed tee, and the land below heaves over in a curious twisted way that demands very exact placing of the ball. Then there is a strong and straight second to be played over a high ridge in front into which big bunkers have been cut. Afterwards there is plain country to a well-protected green. It is a great hole, a romantic one, and is well remembered. Some of the drive-and-iron holes that follow are splendid things, and this course was very well chosen for the Amateur Championship Meeting in 1914. When we were leaving it at the end of that day, the sun had just gone down behind big Equinox Hill, but presently and by surprise he sent a last good-bye. Round the mountain side a golden bar of light was cast, and it spread along the olive-coloured hill across the shadowed valley like a clean-cut shining stripe or a monotinted rainbow. These were the glorious Green Mountains of Vermont! We tarried until the sun went right away, and took with it that parting beam, and, sighing, we passed along. * * * * * I have left to the last of these few remembrances, what is in many respects the greatest of American courses--the National Golf Links at the far end of Long Island. In recent times it has probably been more discussed than any other course on earth. A while since a number of very wealthy, ambitious, and determined golfers put their heads and their money together, and decided on the establishment of something as near perfection as they could reach. In pursuit of this idea they have so far, as I am informed, spent about two hundred thousand dollars, and are in the act of spending many more thousands. They have their reward in a magnificent creation, as great in result as in idea, or nearly. All the people in the golf world have heard by this time of this National Links, and have no doubt wondered upon it, and the extent to which the extraordinary scheme that was developed a few years ago has been realised. It has been referred to as "the amazing experiment," and "the millionaires' dream," and so forth. Undoubtedly in its conception it was the grandest golfing scheme ever attempted. It came about in this way. America, with all its golf and money and enthusiasm, was without any course which might be compared with our first-class seaside links, the chief reason for her deficiency being that nowhere on either of her seaboards could be discovered a piece of land which was of the real British golfing kind. But at last a tract was found nearly at the end of Long Island, about ninety miles from New York, which was believed to be nearly the right thing. It was taken possession of by a golfing syndicate, and they determined there to do their very best. The question of expense was not to be considered in the matter. A member of the syndicate, Mr. Charles B. Macdonald, an old St. Andrews man, and one of wide golfing knowledge and experience, went abroad to study, photograph, and make plans of the best holes in Great Britain and on the continent. The whole world of golf was laid under tribute to assist in the creation of this wonder course. After exhaustive consideration a course was decided upon which was to embrace, in a certain reasonable measure, features of such eminent holes as the third, eleventh, and seventeenth at St. Andrews, the Cardinal and the Alps at Prestwick, the fifth and ninth at Brancaster, the Sahara at Sandwich, the Redan at North Berwick, and some others. The scheme was modified somewhat as the work progressed, but in due course the National Golf Links, a string of pearls as it was intended to be, was opened. Many different reports have been circulated as to the quality of the course, and the extent to which the object has been achieved. It has been described both as a failure and as a magnificent success. I preferred to go there alone and see things for myself without explanations and influences. A certain penalty had, however, to be paid for this enterprise. I shall not soon forget my journey to the Shinnecock Hills out at the end of the Island, nor the journey back again. It was on a glorious Sunday morning in October that I went to the Pennsylvania station and took train there for Shinnecock, which was a three-hours' journey along the line. In getting out at Shinnecock I was nearest to the course, but there were no cars waiting there, and the tramp that had to be made across country for two or three miles was one that might have suited an Indian brave better than it suited me, although I have an instinct and a desire always to find things and ways out for myself rather than be told and led. It was nearly noon; the sun was high, and it was burning fiercely. The so-called path was something of a delusion. It was more of a trail through a virgin bush country with a tendency to swamp here and there, and occasionallv one was led to a cul-de-sac. I could see the National Golf Links a little way ahead all the time. There was a big water cistern standing out against the sky-line, and there were some smoothly laid out holes, but grapes were never more tantalising to any fox than those holes are to the wanderer who tries to get there from Shinnecock along a route over which a crow might fly, and who determines that he will discover the elusive secrets of the National Links, however dearly the expedition may cost him. However, the enterprise succeeded, and the journey back from the course to the Southampton station was also accomplished despite the prevailing difficulties, and, with the sense of something having been attempted and done, we rode home on the Pennsylvania, and were back in New York by the same night--about the hardest day's golf business I have ever done. A certain disappointment is inevitably threatened when one visits a course of this kind about which one has heard so much beforehand. An ideal is established in the mind which cannot possibly be realised, and it is the fault of nobody. We do not know exactly what it is that we hope to see, but it is something beyond the power of man and Nature to achieve. But the National is a great course, a very great course. It is charmingly situated, most excellently appointed, and bears evidence of the most thorough and intelligent treatment by its constructors. Any preliminary disappointment there may have been soon wears away as the real excellence of the course and its difficulties are appreciated. Had we heard nothing of this copying, and did we not make comparisons between new and old in the mind, through which that which is new does not often survive, we should glory in the National at the first inspection of it. And the fact is, that the comparisons we suggest ought never to be made, though I, for one, was not aware of that till afterwards. Absolute copying was never intended; only the governing features of the British holes, the points that gave the character and quality to them, were imitated so far as could be done. That has been done very well, and some of the holes are very fine things. Those the design of which is based on such gems as the sixth at Brancaster and the eleventh at St. Andrews are very well recognisable. I should like to write much more about this course; it is a strong temptation. If I thought less of it and did not realise its greatness as I do, I should yield to the desire, and yielding, might rashly criticise as well as praise. But there is an imperative restraint. Upon a moderate course, or even a very good one, you may sometimes, if sufficiently self-confident, judge in one day's experience. But there are courses which, not because they grow upon you as we say, but because they command a higher respect at once than is given to others, which do not permit of such presumption. I saw the National on one day only, though I hope to see it many times again, and to gain courage for comment upon it. Now, with cap in hand, I can only signify my respect and full appreciation that here is something that is by no means of an ordinary kind, the accomplishment of a magnificent enterprise, and no doubt the achievement of a great ideal. But I shall say, at any rate, that a links more gloriously situated than this one in Peconic Bay, with pretty creeks running into the land here and there, and hill views at the back, could hardly be imagined. The view as I beheld it from different parts on that peaceful sunny Sunday afternoon is one that I never shall forget. It is the ideal situation for a national course. * * * * * To Mr. Macdonald thus belongs the credit for the initiation of what we may call the higher golf in America. In the last few years this movement has made strides as long and rapid in the United States as it has done in England, and above all other countries in the world America, which is so much dependent on her inland golf, having scarcely any other, is the country for this movement to be carried to its ultimate legitimate point. The day for very plain and purely and obviously artificial construction of inland golf courses is gone, the original inland system in all its stupidity and its surrender to difficulties has become archaic. It has come to be realised in this business that man may associate himself with Nature in a magnificent enterprise, and only now is it understood that this golf course construction is, or may be, a really splendid art. Landscape gardening is a fine thing in the way of modelling in earth and with the assistance of trees and plants and flowers and the natural forces, while engineering across rivers and mountains is grander perhaps; but in each of these the man takes his piece of the world from Nature and shovels it and smashes it, and then, according to his own fancy and to suit his own needs, he arranges it all over again. But in the making of a golf course, while we have indeed to see that certain requirements of our own are well suited, knowing how particular and hyper-critical we have become, yet we wish to keep to plain bold Nature too, and we want our best work to be thoroughly in harmony with her originals. I believe that if we could express it properly to ourselves, we wish now to make our golf courses look as if they were fashioned at the tail-end of things on the evening of the sixth day of the creation of the world--just when thoughts had to be turning to the rest and happinesses of the seventh. And so the great architect now takes a hundred acres or more of plain rough land and forest, hills and dales among it, and with magnificent imagination shapes it to his fancy. The work he now does will endure in part, if not in whole, for ages hence, and so it is deeply responsible. It is a splendid art; I do not hesitate to say it is a noble art. Mr. Colt, with his great thoughts and his splendid skill, has done fine work in several parts of the United States. The new courses of the Mayfield Country Club, and of the Country Club of Detroit, are splendid things. But Mr. Macdonald's creations--for more of them now follow upon the original at Southampton--are destined to be leading influences in the new American golf course construction. I have had some interesting talk with him upon these matters, and am glad to find that he is artist and creator enough to have the full strength of his own original opinions in this matter, especially as in some ways his ideals differ from those commonly accepted in Britain. I have been so much interested in his views, and I think that these views are destined to have such an enormous influence upon American golf in the future, that I have asked him for some brief statement of them, an enunciation of his creed as an architect of courses, and he has kindly made it to me in writing, as follows:-- "To begin with, I think the tendency to-day is to overdo matters somewhat, making courses too long, too difficult, and with too much sameness in the construction of two-shot holes. To my mind a course over 6400 yards becomes tiresome. I would not have more than eight two-shot holes, and in constructing them I should not follow the ideas or fancies of any one golf architect, but should endeavour to take the best from each. While it is the fashion now to decry the construction of a hole involving the principles of the Alps or seventeenth at Prestwick, I favour two blind holes of that character--one constructed similar to the Alps, and another of the punch-bowl variety of hole some fifty yards longer than the Alps. It is interesting now to read the 'best hole' discussion that took place in 1901. The leading golfers of that time were almost unanimous in pronouncing the Alps at Prestwick the best two-shot hole in the world. The eleventh at St. Andrews and the Redan at North Berwick were almost unanimously picked as the best one-shot holes. "To my mind there should be four one-shot holes, namely, 130, 160, 190, and 220 yards. These holes should be so constructed that a player can see from the tee where the flag enters the hole. The shorter the hole the smaller should be the green, and the more closely should it be bunkered. The most difficult hole in golf to construct interestingly is a three-shot hole, of which I would place two in the eighteen, one 520 yards and the other 540. The putting greens at these holes should be spacious. "This leaves us four drive-and-pitch holes--280, 300, 320, and 340 yards in length. These should have relatively small greens and be closely bunkered, one or two of them having the putting greens open on one side or corner so as to give a powerful, long, courageous driver, who successfully accomplishes the long carry, the advantage of a short run up to the green. The size and contour of the putting green and the bunkering should depend upon the character and length of the hole. The principle of the dog's hind leg can be made a feature of several holes advantageously. The gradients between the tee and the hole should be made use of in bunkering. Whenever it is possible it is best that the bunkers should be in view. A number of the holes should be built with diagonal bunkers, or bunkers _en echelon_, so constructed that the player who takes the longer carry shall have an advantage over the man who takes the shorter carry. The hazards for the second shot should be so placed and designed as to give a well-placed tee shot every advantage--in other words, should make a man play his first stroke in relation to the second shot. There should be at least three tees for every hole, to take care not only of an adverse or favourable wind, but also of the calibre of the player. It is necessary on a first-class golf course to have short tees for the poorer players, otherwise they are everlastingly in the bunkers. The lengths which I give should be measured from the middle of the middle tee to the middle of the putting green." There is so much knowledge and good suggestion in this statement, and the matter is of such high consequence, that every player of the game should think well upon it. CHAPTER VIII THE U. S. G. A., AND THE METHODS OF THE BUSINESS-MAN GOLFER, WITH A REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENT OF MUNICIPAL GOLF. People in England or Scotland do not quite understand what a splendid thing for American golf is the United States Golf Association. It is so absolutely necessary for the game in America that I am sure there would be little that is like golf there now if there had been no U. S. G. A., with its loyalty and attachment to St. Andrews. There would be few Americans coming to play on the links of the homeland of the game, and there would be no British golfers wandering happily among the American courses. American golf would have become as much like the old game as American college football is like the football that is played at Oxford and Cambridge, which is to say that it is not at all like it. America is not a country small in space like our own happy islands. There it is in its millions of miles, new everywhere, and with little communities of golfers so far apart as New York and San Francisco, Massachusetts and Arizona, and isolated golfers in the loneliest places trying to bring others to their pastime for the matches they would have. What should all these people, away from all the influences of the home of the game, hot with the spirit of freedom, unrestrained by laws and conventionalities, eager to do things better than they have been done before--what should they care for St. Andrews and traditions, and the preservation of the unity of the game? As sure as eagles fly, and stars are bright, they would have made it to suit themselves in every community. Here they would have abolished the stymie, in another place they would have changed the size of the hole, away in Texas they might have permitted the introduction of the "mechanical contrivance," and soon there would have been a hundred golfs in the States, and not a real one among them. Just when this possibility, without being an immediate probability, was arising the U. S. G. A. came into existence. It joined all the golfers of America together in a republic for the preservation of the unity of the game, and for the promotion of its welfare in the spirit that the game had been cultivated in the homeland. And being thus given power, it has ruled with a strong hand. It has kept American golf in order as nothing else could have done, and as a governmental machine, I who have made some close examination of it, regard it as perfect, which is not to say that we need such a thing in Britain. In America I have had the pleasure of the intimate acquaintance of Mr. Robert Watson, Mr. Silas H. Strawn, Mr. G. Herbert Windeler, Mr. William Fellowes Morgan, Mr. Harry L. Ayer, Mr. John Reid, junior, and many others of the leaders of the Union, and better men for the direction of such a game as golf, in whose hands it is quite safe, there could not be. They hold the right spirit of the game, and they are wise men, conservative in their golfing ways. Mr. Windeler indeed is an old British golfer like Mr. Macdonald, who was one of the original gathering that established the U. S. G. A. In the December of 1894 the representatives of five of the leading clubs met and framed the constitution of the U. S. G. A., and Mr. Theodore A. Havemeyer, of the Newport Club, was chosen president. The constitution of the U.S.G.A. is an interesting study. There are two classes of members, active and allied, and the difference is that the active members, who exercise control, are clubs that have been steadied by age and experience, and have acquired dignity. The definition in the constitution is made thus: "Any regularly organised club in the United States, supporting and maintaining a golf course of at least nine holes, and whose reputation and general policy are in accord with the best traditions and the high ideals of the game, shall be eligible to election as an Active Member." Then, as to the Allied Members, it is said that--"Any regularly organised club of good reputation in the United States shall be eligible to election as an Allied Member." There are far more allied members than there are active members, and the former are only admitted to the latter when they have thoroughly proved their worth. Thus the allied clubs have always an ambition before them, and they can only achieve it by conducting their golf on the best and oldest plan. At every meeting of the Association each active club is entitled to be represented by one voting delegate whose appointment has to be certified in advance by his club to the secretary of the Association. Allied clubs have no voting privileges, but all members of active and allied clubs have the right to attend all meetings of the Association, and to participate in the discussion of any question. The active clubs pay thirty dollars a year for subscription, and the allied clubs pay ten. Article IX. of the Constitution gives the Association its power and authority. It says: "The acceptance of membership in the Association shall bind each club to uphold all the provisions of the Constitution, bye-laws, and other rules of the Association; and to accept and enforce all rules and decisions of the Executive Committee acting within its jurisdiction. Any club failing in its obligations as above set forth may be suspended or expelled by a two-thirds vote of the Association, or by a two-thirds vote of all members of the Executive Committee; provided such club shall have been given due notice of the charge or charges preferred against it, and an opportunity to be heard in its own defence. Any club thus suspended or expelled by vote of the Executive Committee may appeal from its decision to the delegates at any annual or special meeting of the Association." * * * * * After this about the machinery of American golf, consider the men. There are three classes of golfers in the United States, corresponding to some extent to similar classes in Britain, but they are rather more sharply defined than with us. There is the class that regards the game as a sport for competition, almost as a form of athletics, being mainly but not exclusively the younger class; there is the business-man class that believes in it as the ideal, and indeed the only recreation satisfying the needs of the times as a relaxation from the strain of life and work, and a means of promoting physical and mental efficiency, such people being as with us the largest section and the mainstay in one sense of the game; and there is the humbler class who play upon the public courses. I do not believe after the closest observation and most impartial consideration that the best American golfers are yet quite so good as ours, but in recent years they have been rapidly lessening the gap that has existed, their thoroughness, determination, and efficiency are most wonderful, and if they had our courses and climate they might become better than we are. They think they will anyhow. As it is they are handicapped by lack of full-blooded seaside courses, and a climate that is by no means ideal for the game; and although by their zeal they have to some extent discounted that handicap, I feel that they can only neutralise it altogether and go beyond it by the production of the occasional genius. The good Americans seem to me mostly to play what we could call a plain, straight game. American courses are for the most part without any sharp undulations; there is nothing in America like our rolling seaside links. Therefore the players are not taught or induced to be making allowances for this and that in all the days of their golf from their youth upwards, and they have not the sea-coast winds to lead them in the same way as we have. So they have good reason to play straight to the hole, and never to depart from doing so without the most obvious and pressing cause. It follows from this that the American players have fewer "scientific" or "fancy" strokes at their disposal, and those who have visited this country have been remarked upon for the plain simplicity of their iron play. They seem to standardise their shots. But assuming that this is their principle or their system, it enables them to concentrate keenly and with fine effect on accuracy. Delicacy of touch, splendid judgment of distance, and perfection of execution are strong characteristics of the American players, who do not need to be reminded that there are no bunkers in the air. It is the straight game of the Americans with all its accuracy that is paying in their matches against us. At the same time I think that the comparative weakness of the Americans in wooden club play is a serious handicap to them, and their courses need to be tightened up to improve it. That "American hook" of theirs is a dangerous thing sometimes, and their round flat swings are looked upon by some of our best British authorities with much suspicion. But there is one most important way in which they are scoring over us. They are beating us in temperament, concentration, and determination, and in the capacity to make the very most of their own game, so that not a shot of it is wasted. This means very much. A man may be plus five, but of such a temperament and such ways that he habitually wastes two or three holes in a match through negligence or slackness. The Americans do not waste holes in this way. They waste nothing. The game of which they are capable is produced nearly every time at full quality and is made as effective as it possibly can be. The utmost pains are taken over every stroke; the man blames himself for nothing after it is made. His concentration is enormous; he is often inclined to race through the green, but his capacity for being slow and meditative, when necessary, is great; and most noticeable again is his persistence, which is another way of making the most of a game that a man possesses. Of course all these remarks are applied to the two classes of players in a very general way. There are many exceptions among the Americans and there are many among our players, but that they do indicate the tendencies in the two countries I am certain. The American game may not be as scientific and complete as ours, but its more serious exponents do make the most of it as ours do not, and probably the high importance that is attached to the numerous first-class tournaments they have over there has something to do with it. They believe in competitions more than we do. * * * * * This matter of consideration and concentration is one to which every player should give closer attention. His success is largely dependent upon it. He may think he concentrates enormously as it is, more than on anything else, but often he deceives himself. Not one man in ten gets as much in effect out of his game as it is capable of. He walks to his ball and plays some kind of a shot, with a more or less hazy idea of what it is that he wishes to do. When he finds his object has not been accomplished he suddenly remembers something, and it is a case of "I should have known," or "If I had only thought," or "What a pity I did not look." With such people a round of golf is a succession of regrets, and it is the simple truth that the majority could do far better with their game if they did not waste so much of it by carelessness, thoughtlessness, and a sort of distraction which allows their minds to wander to other things than the stroke in hand, and sometimes by their conversation too. When a man has played a stroke he has quite sufficient to occupy his mind for the next minute or two in considering how he shall play the next one, and the many features of the case that will be presented to him. It is a remunerative resolution to make at the beginning of the season, to think deeply upon all the points of match play, and then exploit the art of it with some thoroughness. It is not difficult. All who have attended the Amateur Championship meetings and have been close observers of what happens there can remember how even players of the very first class in this most important of tournaments let themselves get beaten by inferior players simply because they do not make the most of their game. They forget things, do not think enough, and play strokes carelessly because at the time of doing so they seem to feel it does not matter. No stroke should ever be played as though it were not the most important of the game--as it might turn out to be. The old maxim that if a thing is worth doing at all it is worth doing well, applies with tremendous force to match-play golf. Many a time when the result of a stroke played exactly as intended, is not what was anticipated, through some of the circumstances not having been taken into consideration, the mistake that was made is obvious then. The man excuses himself by saying that he cannot see and think of everything, but nine times out of ten he should have seen. The most fatal mistake, however, that many players make in the early part of the season when their match-playing qualities have not been properly revived, is in their letting matches slip, in not pressing home advantages that they gain, and, above all, being too indifferent upon the future in the early part of a match, and too careless when they get a lead. All this sounds very simple, very obvious, but it often takes the best part of a season to drive the lessons home into the minds of golfers who are losing matches through their weakness in fighting quality. Now here are one or two samples of points in regard to which the golfer constantly neglects to display his cunning and is the loser thereby. Assuming that in the general way you can get as much length when it is wanted as the other man, always try to make him play the odd to you. You do so naturally with your tee shots and many of the others, but are not really thinking at the time that you are wanting him to play the odd. The man who is playing the odd, even from a very little way behind the other, is at a much greater moral disadvantage than is often suspected, and if the other man always noticed things as much as he should, he is at a greater practical advantage than he realises, for if his opponent fails he can see the cause of it, this remark applying especially to what happens in the short game. How many putts have gone wrong that never need have done had the man who made them watched what happened when his adversary putted first! Then, again, on this point of making the other man play the odd the case is constantly recurring where both men are obliged to play short of some hazard, or to take a particular line to a hole which is not the straight one. The man who goes second will find it very much to his advantage if he tries to squeeze so closely up to the point of danger as to be just nearer to it than the other, the latter then having to play the odd and being then more inclined to press with it and perhaps to miss it. The man who is playing the odd is in a sense taking a shot into the unknown; the other man knows everything. That is just the difference. Another stupid mistake that many men make is to try experimental or fancy shots, perhaps with clubs that are unfamiliar to them, just because the other man has played two more. How many thousands of holes have been lost through that! The experimental shot fails, the other man makes a good one, the experimenter suddenly finds he has to fight for it, and a minute or two later is watching his adversary take the honour from the next tee. Again, what matches could have been won that were lost if the players had only shown half the sense that Mr. Hilton did in the Amateur Championship of 1912 at Prestwick, in picking his places for putting, as it were, always, whenever possible, running up so that he would have to putt uphill instead of down, the former being far the easier kind of putting. Nowadays there are inclines on every green and round about the hole, and a flat putt is a comparative rarity. But the average man never thinks of these inclines until he has to play along them. The time for most thinking about them is when making the stroke before, so that the putt may be along the easiest line to the hole. This is not a question of skill; it is simply one of sense. A man can play short of the hole or past it, or to the right or left, and there will be one point from which the putting will be easier than the other. It may often happen that it would pay better to be four yards past the hole than two short of it, for you will not only have had the chance of holing, but the putt back may be an uphill one. But with it all, the habit must be cultivated of thinking as much as possible in advance--thinking quickly and acting with decision. Questions of the value of practice swings have arisen lately. We have seen rather too much of these practice swings in some quarters. We may believe in the practice swing--just one or at most two. A man may be an experienced golfer, and he may have played a certain stroke nearly a million times before, but golf is essentially a game of fears and doubts, and apart from just setting the right muscles in a state of complete preparation for the task in hand a practice swing gives one a little confidence. The shot is shaped; there is nothing to do but repeat the stroke that has been made; it can be done. To that extent the practice swing may be thoroughly recommended. But some members of the young American School go farther than this, and it is questionable whether they are wise. For one thing the delicate muscles and the nervous system that are concerned with the stroke in hand are easily tired, and if the shot is a long one needing power the odds are against its being done so well after five practice swings as after one. Show me the man who can drive his best and straightest after five practice swings on the tee. Then there is the hesitation and doubt that are induced. I believe that in most cases these players are really waiting for an inspiration. They are not ready for the stroke they have to play. Jack White in once confiding to me some of the secrets of his successful putting, said that when he went about on the green examining the line back and front, he was simply trying to gain time and nothing more. "I want to feel that I want to putt," he said, "and while I am waiting for that feeling coming on I can hardly stand motionless on the green or look up at the sky." It is that way with these Americans; they are waiting for an inspiration. But it does not always seem to be responsive, and they wait too long. A moment must come when they are as ready for the shot as ever they will be in their lives; if they let it pass nothing but doubts and hesitations can follow, and that is the danger to the player of excessive slowness. He begins to fear his fate too much. And also one round of golf played like this makes a fearful mental strain, and how often do we see that men who win their morning matches by such methods look very tired and lose easily in the afternoon. The case of Mr. Ouimet, who has so suddenly become a great power in American golf, has already been considered, and Mr. Walter Travis's high position was established long ago. Apart from these two, the new star and the old one, and the young professional M'Dermott, there are two others who hold a higher place in the opinion of the golfers of their own country and ours than any other players do, and those are Mr. Charles Evans, junior, of Chicago, and Mr. Jerome D. Travers, foremost players of the west and east as they respectively are. In every way Mr. Evans is a very delightful golfer. When we saw him at Prestwick in 1911 he was even then a brilliant player, and one who impressed British golfers as no other had ever done since Mr. Travis had won at Sandwich, and he had then an advantage which the winner of our championship had not--he had his whole golfing life before him. Since that time he has undoubtedly improved. He has become physically stronger, experience has helped him, and he has greater resource and skill. And despite the fact that he has not yet won an American championship, there is this to be said for him, that in the sense of accomplishment, in variety of stroke, perfection of it, in playing the game as it was meant to be played, as we say, he is still, for all his failures, the best amateur golfer in the United States at the present time. But Mr. Evans is a man of very keen and somewhat too sensitive temperament. He is inclined sometimes to fear his fate unduly. Yet whenever we are inclined to judge him a little harshly for his temperament, let it be remembered that fortune has dealt him some cruel hurts, and that it is not a quality of human man to bear himself indifferently to perpetual adversity. When he was the last hope of his country at the championship at Sandwich in 1914, and striving gallantly, his opponent went to the turn in a record score of 31. To be merely sorry for "Chick" in such circumstances is inadequate; along with him we smiled at the absurd extent to which his ill-luck spitefully pursued him then. Even though it had to be counted, it was unreal. He must be a champion some time. One of the greatest tragedies of his life, so far, was that he suffered in the appalling Amateur Championship at Wheaton, Illinois, in 1912--appalling by reason of the terrible heat that players and all others, including my unlucky but still deeply interested self, were called upon to bear. It has come to be nearly a settled understanding in Britain that the championships must be attended by weather quite ridiculously and most uncomfortably unseasonable. Thunderstorms and lightning, gales and floods--these are the accompaniments of the great golf tournaments of the year in the summer months of May and June, and matters seemed to reach a climax in 1913 when the progress of the final match of the Amateur Championship at St. Andrews had to be suspended because of the terrific storm which flooded the putting greens until there were no holes to putt at, and when in the Open Championship at Hoylake shortly afterwards Taylor had to play his way to victory through a gale against which ordinary people could hardly stand up. Almost does it appear that the American climate is disposed to follow the bad British example in times of championships, seeing what happened at Brookline in the same season; but it was very different at Wheaton in the year when Mr. Hilton failed to retain the American Amateur Championship he had won the season before at Apawamis, and when Mr. Travers beat Mr. Evans in the final by seven and six. Mr. Norman Hunter and some others, Americans, were burned out of that championship by a temperature which at times was more than a hundred in the shade, and while some players conducted their game beneath sunshades that they carried, most of them had towels attached to their golf bags for body-wiping purposes. There was no escape from the heat anywhere, night or day, and no consolation in anything, unless it were that in the city of Chicago a few miles distant the people were reported to be even worse off than we were, and deaths were numerous. Well did we call that the blazing championship, and when I am asked, as is often the case, which of all championship experiences I recall most vividly, my remembrances of events in Britain, far more numerous as they are, give way to an American pair, the hot one at Wheaton in 1912, and the wet one of the British debâcle at Brookline a season later. But the sun at its worst could not diminish the enormous interest that there was in that Wheaton final, for the draw and the play had brought about the ideal match, from the spectators' point of view, and even that of the players too, Mr. Travers of the east and Mr. Evans of the west, and finely did the Americans show their appreciation of what had come to pass by wagering incredible numbers of dollars upon it and watching it in thousands. That time it was thought that Mr. Evans would win, and he was three up at the turn in the morning round, but he lost two of the holes before lunch, and I am sure that the reason why he fell such an easy victim to Mr. Travers in the afternoon was that he grieved too much for the loss of those holes, and feared his fate when he need not have done. I know that Mr. Travers in that second round played golf of the most brilliant description that nobody could have lived against; but did Mr. Evans encourage him to do so? This matter of temperament might seem to be a fatal consideration for ever, being one of Nature and seemingly unalterable, were it not that we have had cases of fine golfers with weak temperaments who, perceiving their desperate state, have resolutely and with patience changed those temperaments, or curbed their influence as we should more properly say. The best modern instance of such a change being made is that of George Duncan, and never fear but that "Chick" will soon come to his own as well. Mr. Jerome Travers is undoubtedly one of the strong men of golf to-day, a big piece of golfing individualism. At twenty years of age he won the American Amateur Championship, in 1912 I saw him win it for the third time, and the following year he won it again at Garden City. In his own golfing country he must be one of the hardest men in the world to beat. He plays the game that suits him and disregards criticism. He began to play when he was nine years old. A year later he laid out a three-holes golf course of his own at home--first hole 150 yards, second 180, third apparently about the same, back to the starting-point. There were no real holes--to hit certain trees was to "hole out." For hour after hour this American child would make the circuit of this little course, and day after day he would work hard to lower his record for these three holes. At thirteen he started playing on a proper nine-holes course at Oyster Bay. At fifteen he became attached to the Nassau Country Club, and there, chiefly under the guidance of Alexander Smith, to whose qualities as tutor he pays high tribute, his game improved. His swing was wrong at the beginning. "Shorten your back swing, and take the club back with your wrists. Swing easily and keep your eye on the ball." That was Smith's advice to him, and he says it served him well. He began to place the right hand under instead of over the shaft, and that added more power to his stroke, and then he discovered that taking the club back with his wrists or starting the club-head back with them, increased its speed and gave him greater distance. Then it was practice, practice, practice for an hour at a time at every individual stroke in the game. He would play the same shot fifty times. He putted for two hours at a stretch, placing his ball at varying distances from the hole, trying short putts, long ones, uphill and downhill putts, and putts across a side-hill green where the ball had to follow a crescent-like course if it had to be holed out or laid dead. During the championship at Apawamis, when he was playing Mr. Hilton, he had what everybody declared to be an impossible putt of twenty feet, downhill over a billowy green, and he holed it because he had practised the same sort of putt before. In the next championship at Wheaton he did an "impossible" bunker shot and laid the ball dead from the foot of the face of the hazard because he had practised that shot also. Next to the Schenectady putter belonging to Mr. Travis his driving iron is, or should be, the most famous club in all America. It is a plain, straight-faced iron with a round back, and is heavy, weighing sixteen ounces. It has a long shaft and a very rough leather grip, and was forged at St. Andrews. This and his other irons are kept permanently rusty. He carries very few clubs--five irons, a Schenectady putter, a brassey and a driver, but, as Mr. Fred Herreshoff, who turns caddie for him in the finals of championships, says, the two latter are for the sake of appearances only. He believes in the centre-shafted Schenectady putter, illegal here but allowed in America, as in no other. He calls for a very low tee, one that is only just high enough to give him a perfect lie, "the duplicate of an ideal lie on the turf." He plays his drives off the right foot, which is about three inches in advance of the left, the ball being just a shade to the right of the left heel, because in that position he finds it easier to keep the eye on the ball without effort, and in the strain of a hard match or competition every simplifying process like this is valuable. But the most remarkable thing about his preparation for driving is his grip, which is unique. He does not employ the overlapper. He likes the right hand to be under the shaft; but this is the main point--that the first fingers are almost entirely free of the shaft, with the tips resting on the leather, curled inside the thumbs. Both thumbs are pressed firmly against the sides of the first joints of the second fingers, forming a locking device which prevents any possible turning of the shaft. He is an utter believer in this detaching of the first fingers from the club, and declares he could not play in any other way, his theory being that it permits better freedom of the wrists and enables him to get greater power into the stroke without deflecting the club-head from its proper sweep in the swing to the ball. With his driving iron he is a supreme master, and with it alone he has played a round of a difficult course in America, Montclair, in 77. When I watched him win his third championship I decided that in whatever else he might excel he had a finer temperament for match play than almost any other player I had seen. Silent, imperturbable, not a trace of feeling in his countenance, he seemed to be mercilessly forcing his way to victory all the time. Only once since he became established as a champion kind of golfer have his nerves ever failed him, and that was on an occasion of supreme importance, and yet one when the strain upon nerves was not, or should not have been, unduly severe. I saw him lose his match to Mr. Palmer at Sandwich in 1914, and there was something nearly as mysterious about that occurrence as there was about the victory of Mr. Ouimet at Brookline--far more than there was about the defeat of the latter at Sandwich by Mr. Tubbs, for then Mr. Ouimet simply played a poor but not a timid game. But in the Palmer-Travers match the American for the first time for years was afraid. Half way round, all the watchers were saying so, saying his nerves were catching at his shots. Knowing the man, having seen so much of him in America, I could not believe it then; but before the round was ended the truth was clear. His nerves had failed, and it was responsibility that had caused them to do so. He could not possibly have played so poorly otherwise. It was not the real Travers who played that day. * * * * * The middle-aged business-man golfer is an important individual in the general golfing scheme of things in the United States. He is that elsewhere, but he stands out most in America. Well enough does he know how the game is good for him. The early American golfers (those of from ten to twenty years ago) adopted the game enthusiastically, because it answered exactly to certain requirements they had in mind in regard to creating and preserving physical fitness. The American business man leads a quick life and a hard one and, in recent years particularly, his pursuit of this physical fitness has become something of a craze with him, for the reason that through it he seeks to bring the human machine to the highest point of working efficiency and, at the same time, enable the human man to derive more enjoyment and satisfaction from the pleasures of life. This is not a vague, subconscious idea in the American; it is a clear, definite scheme, adopted by thousands and thousands of those who have devoted themselves to the game. Hence their generous support and excellent enthusiasm. The country swarms with men, two-thirds way through an ordinary lifetime, who have only been playing the game for five or six summers and no winters--for in very few places in the northern parts of the United States is any play possible between the late fall and the spring--and who can play a good six-handicap game, British reckoning, for in America they have a system of handicapping according to which scratch is the lowest, and their six handicap is about equivalent to our two or three. The majority of our middle-aged men seem to resign themselves to the idea that in no circumstances can they ever become really good players, and they pretend they are satisfied to make their way round the links merely for the sake of the health and exercise that they obtain from so doing. Perhaps in a sense they are wise, but still it is certain that more than half of the joys and pleasures of golf are missed by those who never feel any improvement being made, who never rise above a steady mediocrity, and who never feel the thrills of playing above their ordinary form. The business-man golfer is seen at his best at the country clubs near to the great cities. There is nothing elsewhere which for its healthy, honest pleasures and the satisfaction it yields is comparable to the American country club and the life that is pursued there. It gives to the busy man the ideal relaxation he could not obtain in any other way. I spent several days at one of these country clubs, a railroad journey of an hour or so from Chicago, and the experience was illuminating. The American business-man golfer works in the city for part of the day in the summer and spends the rest of his time at the country club, where the predominating features of the life are golf, rest, and sociability. These country clubs are provided with a large number of bedrooms, and are surrounded with cottages, nicely equipped, which generally belong to them and are let for periods to the members. The vitality of the man of whom we are thinking is enormous. He is out of his bed at the club at about six o'clock in the morning, and goes through a process of shower baths, with which the establishment is splendidly appointed. By seven o'clock he is dressed in the thinnest flannels, and sits down to breakfast with thirty or forty other members at 7.15. At this time he is jacketless, and all in white. A large glass of iced water is laid before him to begin with, and then the half of a grape fruit or a cantaloup, with a piece of ice stuck in the middle, is presented as the first course. These things, as we get them in America, are very delicious. At once an argument begins round the table about the qualities of different balls and clubs, and I am closely questioned about the way we do things in England. Next, there is oatmeal porridge laid before us, with tea or coffee, and the men begin to match themselves for the afternoon round. Mr. A says he will play Mr. B for a certain stake, but the latter finds he is already engaged to play Mr. C for a higher one. Eventually, Messrs. A, B, and C agree to play a three-ball match for still more dollars. Such extensive wagering is not the rule, but it is frequent. After the porridge, bacon and eggs, calf's liver and bacon, or something of that kind, is served with a baked potato, a little more iced water may be called for, and there is marmalade with toast and sweet cakes, and, then at a quarter to eight, all get aboard the club motor-omnibuses and are whizzed away to the railroad station, light jackets very likely carried on their arms. Before nine o'clock they are hard at work in the big city. Some early birds were even there by eight o'clock. They work very hard, no dawdling of any kind, and by one or two o'clock they have finished for the day and are off back to the golf club as fast as they can go. Frequently they are back in time to lunch there. Soup, some meat done in American fashion, an American salad, blueberry pie, iced water, and a glass of cold tea with a lump of ice in it and a piece of lemon, finishing up with a large supply of ice cream, and then a big cigar, are what the American golfer goes out to play upon. The caddie whom he takes out to carry his clubs costs him tenpence an hour--always paid by the hour, during which he is in the golfer's service, and not by the round. By this time the player is in thinner and lighter clothes than ever, and he has been cooled down by more shower baths. His round is played very much as it might be done in England. He is very keen on his game. But he takes a little more time on the consideration of his stroke when once he has reached his ball than we do, and he is most deeply painstaking. Towards the end of the match he may develop an idea for playing the enemy for a number of dollars a hole for the remainder of the round, and when it is all over, everybody is quite satisfied with everything. More shower baths, a lounge, and a cigar, and then a long American dinner, with vegetables very fancily done, corn cobs, sweet salads, plenty of iced water, ice creams, "horses' necks"--ginger ale with lemon and ice--and so forth. Long arguments on the verandah upon the respective merits of British and American golf, and at ten o'clock this busy golfer of the United States gets himself off to bed. He never sits up late. He sleeps, of course, with his windows wide open, with a wire netting arrangement to keep out the flies and mosquitoes, and as he falls away to his slumber he feels that golf is the best of games, that America is the chief of countries, and that this is the most agreeable of all possible worlds. Here I have been writing in general terms, but I should add that each and all of my details are taken from the life, from personal experience at one of the best of these country clubs. * * * * * There are some interesting characters in American golf as everywhere, and the very wealthy golfer in the States is often to be considered. Mr. John D. Rockefeller, the "Oil King," is, as all of us know, an extremely rich man. He is also a business man, if ever there was one. And he is extremely fond of golf. His case may have as little to do with the matters just discussed as you may think, but I shall present it as I found it out. A few years gone Mr. Rockefeller, who has a capacity for giving advice of a very shrewd and worldly character, announced his intention of retiring from the presidency of the Oil Trust and of devoting a fair part of the remainder of his life to playing golf. Since then he has discovered that it is easier to make a million dollars than to hole a five-yard putt, for the Rockefeller millions now make themselves and the putts are as unholeable as ever. His methods of playing, and his moralisings on the game, are not like those of any other man. Readers must judge for themselves as to whether they have anything to learn from them; I think they may have something. Take this case for an instance. One day when playing the game he made a very good shot on to the green, and, ever ready to draw a moral from the game of golf which would apply to the greater game of life, turned to his companions and said: "Waste of energy I regard as one of the wanton extravagances of this age. Rational conservation of energy and temperance in all things are what the American nation must learn to appreciate." Mr. Rockefeller is now seventy-five years of age, and he was nearly sixty before he first began to play. He became an enthusiast at once, and, as with most other men, his golf aggravated him, goaded him, tantalised him, and made him ambitious and determined. He began to find things out and to invent new ideas as rapidly as any of us have ever done. He said the game changed his life. Made him happy. Brought back his youth to him. His friends when they played with him declared that he was not a cantankerous old man, but a really charming fellow. Golf was doing him good. It was making a new man of him, as it does of all others. But he did not get on at it as quickly as he thought he ought to do. He found that there were rather more things to remember in a very short space of time when making his shot than he had ever had to remember before, and that for the first time in his life he was liable to forgetfulness on the most important occasions. Then he acted on the business man's principle of getting others to do things for him. He got others to do the remembering. For a time whenever he went to play a match he had three caddies attending on him; even now he generally has two. He employed them for other purposes than carrying clubs. When he was about to make a stroke No. 1 Caddie stepped up to him and said respectfully but firmly: "Slow back, Mr. Rockefeller, slow back!" He might otherwise have forgotten to take his club slowly back from the ball at the start of the swing. This adviser having moved away, Caddie No. 2 went forward and said: "Keep your eye on the ball, Mr. Rockefeller, keep your eye on the ball!" Then, in turn, Caddie No. 3 advanced and spoke warningly: "Do not press, Mr. Rockefeller, do not press!" So, reminded of the common faults, the Oil King made his stroke and did not commit them, but was guilty of several others, and realised a little sadly when the ball did not travel as it should that he needed a hundred caddies for warning, and not three. Still, there is some good sense in this method, and the man who made it a strict rule to say to himself always, just before a stroke, what Mr. Rockefeller hired the boys to say to him would make fewer bad shots than he does. Mr. Rockefeller has a very nice course of his own on undulating land at Forest Hill, on the edge of Cleveland, Ohio, and there he has parties to play with him constantly. He is fond of cycling, and instead of walking after his ball when he has struck it, he takes his cycle on to the course with him, jumps on to it, and wheels himself along to the place from which the next shot must be made. By this means he not only saves much time, and gets more golf in an hour than we do, but considers that he derives more physical benefit from the combination than he would from golf and walking. More than this, he knows exactly how far he has hit the ball every time, for he counts the number of turns of the pedals he has to make in cycling from point to point, and calculates accordingly. He does not lose his temper when he makes a bad shot or a series of such, as some have suggested, but he is quite ecstatic when he makes a good one; and, despite his seventy-five years, has been known to leap high into the air when the result of his efforts has been specially good. He is a most thoughtful player, and takes the utmost care always to note effects and to try to attach causes to them. "Now gentlemen," he has said, "that was really a very good stroke that I made then. You observe that I am learning to make better use of my left arm. It was that Scotchman who told me of the trick, but somehow I have never been able to use it advantageously until now." He has a large number of clubs in his bag, including all the most usual implements, while two or three have been made according to his own special ideas. One of his caddies also carries a large sunshade to hold over him while playing when the weather is uncomfortably warm, and it is the duty of this boy also to give a hand at pushing the bicycle when the line to the hole is uphill and Mr. Rockefeller finds the pedalling too much for him unaided. So you see that there is nothing that is conventional about Mr. John D. Rockefeller and his golf. You would hardly expect it. * * * * * Now for the public or municipal golf in America; it is one of the strong features of the game in the United States that impressed me most. The average player in Britain, where the municipal golf movement is making slow headway, may be surprised to know that there is such a thing across the Atlantic; let him understand, then, that public golf in America is far ahead of public golf in Britain. Some Americans of great golfing experience, not confined to their own country, have not hesitated to say that they will "make America the greatest golfing country in the world." If we disregard such a challenge, there are yet circumstances and forces in operation in America of which serious notice must be taken, and the first of them is this great movement that is progressing in favour of municipal golf. The whole vast country is taking to it. The leaders of the people are appreciating the necessity of it and preaching it. They say that the times are desperately strenuous, that an antidote is needed, an ideal relaxation for body and nerves, a perfect recreation and diversion, and that, having tried everything and thought of other possibilities, they have come firmly and decisively to the conclusion that golf is the only recreation that meets the requirements of the times. Therefore they say that it must be provided for everybody, for the "common people," and given to them absolutely free with every inducement put forward for them to play it. The result is that public golf in America is already advanced to such a state as is almost incredible to those who have not seen it there. I have seen it. In New York, Boston, Chicago, Kansas, Louisville, Milwaukee, Elgin, Toledo, and a host of the smaller places, there are good public courses. In the large cities there are often two or three. Chicago has now three and a fourth was being made when I was there last, a fine long course in the Marquette Park. Two of the existing courses are in the Jackson Park, one being eighteen holes and the other nine. The third is in Garfield Park. The full-sized course in Jackson Park is quite an excellent thing. The turf and the putting greens are well tended, the views are pleasant, and the play is absolutely free to all who obtain the necessary permit from the Parks Commissioners. The regular player may have the use of locker and dressing-rooms in the pavilion, and good meals may be obtained at a reasonable cost. How shall we wonder then that the Americans take kindly to this game and are becoming overwhelmingly enthusiastic at it, or that more than a hundred thousand games are played on one single course at Jackson Park alone in the course of a year? Though for the best part of the winter there is snow on the ground and play is impossible 105,000 games were played on the long course at Jackson Park during 1912 up to the beginning of October, and the news just reaches me that on one day at the very beginning of this season of 1914 nearly 900 tickets were given out! On a fine morning in the summer there will often be a little crowd of players waiting at the first tee for their turn to start at the dawn of day, and as many as two hundred have been counted there at seven o'clock in the morning. Having finished their game on ordinary mornings these people go off to their work, and they "hustle" all the more for the shots that they have played and hope to play again before the falling of the night. It is the same in the Franklin Park at Boston, in Van Cortlandt Park in New York, and everywhere. In this matter these Americans have sense. If public golf in England is ever to be a good and useful thing we must do as the Americans do, and if we do not the people will be the poorer, and we shall be sorry. Corporations must provide free golf, and they must be satisfied with the good done to the people, and not take the narrow view that the balance-sheet must show a direct profit apart from the indirect one that is certain. They must also put their courses in central and convenient places where people will be attracted to them, and which will not take the greater part of the time available to reach them. The game must be played in central parks which will then become more useful than they have ever been so far, and for the first time will be a real joy to the people who pay for them. I may be an enthusiast in golf, but I have gone deeply into this matter and studied it in its every bearing, and I know that I am right. * * * * * And the Americans are gaining in another matter--they are bringing their young boys into the game. I have been to preparatory schools where they have their own little courses and their school championships. The boys like it, the masters encourage it, and the grown-up players admire the youngsters' enthusiasm. This is the way that "prodigies" are produced. In England we do not encourage the boys to play golf. The head-masters of schools say that it is a selfish game and that it is bad for them. I wonder how much these principals have thought of the moral qualities that must exist in the good golfer who knows how to play a losing match and perhaps save it, and how long in real argument before an impartial tribunal the contention would hold that it would be better for the young boy to stand for hours in the deep field at cricket on a hot summer's day than for him to learn to play golf and learn to keep a tight hold of himself when the whole scheme of things might seem to be breaking up. Cricket and football are great games, and they are splendid things for boys, but that golf is inferior to them in what it does for character I deny, and if the comparison is pressed the golfers with me can put forward an invincible case. Anyhow the fact is there that young America is getting golf and young England is not, and that will make a difference some time some way. CHAPTER IX CANADIAN COURSES, AND A GREAT ACHIEVEMENT AT TORONTO, WITH MATTERS PERTAINING TO MAKING A NEW BEGINNING. Towards the end of an afternoon in September, rounds being done, I stood with Mr. George Lyon (who is a kind of John Ball of the Dominion of Canada, having won the championship of his country seven times) on the heights where stands the club-house of the Lambton Golf and Country Club in Ontario, and we looked across the valley along which the course is traced to the woods on the opposite side where there were some fiery crimson spots to be seen as if burning amid the mass of foliage that was olive or tinting down to brown. They were the maple leaves of Canada, the emblem of the new land, of which it is prophesied that it shall be the greatest country of the earth. In early days the Canadians dabbled with the lacrosse which the Indians played, and some of the invaders, too, brought their cricket with them and taught it to others whom they found there. Then the people who are near to the borders of the United States, and are somewhat impressed with the American ways of doing things, have been cultivating an interest in baseball for its spectacular properties. Rounders revised is well enough for those who are within shouting distance of Buffalo and for places like Toronto, but I could never believe that such a game or pastime, whatever its merits--and I know that it has many--could suit such a very serious, contemplative, cold, and earnest people as the Canadians are. I regard the nature of these people, as I have had the opportunity of considering it, as more serious and intense than that of any other, and I know only one recreation beyond those that are the simplest and most essential, as of roaming in the untamed country, fishing, shooting, and hunting, that is agreeable to such a nature. They also know it; they have declared for a national game. There is this to be said at the beginning for Canadian golf and its courses, that the general atmosphere of the game in this great country, rough and often bare and primitive as still it is, seems to be much nearer the atmosphere of golf in Britain than that of any other country different from us. One misses the sea-coast links, courses are long distances apart, fine players are comparatively few, for the men of Canada are still so busy and so earnest that they have not even time to play, but yet there is a fine chain of the game all the way from St. John's to Vancouver. There is more of the peculiarity of British sporting instinct in the Canadian than in any other person out of the British Isles; he likes what we like, and he likes it in the same way and for the same reasons. Except that the coldness, like that of the Scot, is sometimes too much exhibited in him, and that even on suitable occasions he is reluctant to demonstrate his enthusiasms, so serious he is, so deep he looks, I have found him to be a splendid opponent with an agreeable persistency, and a most desirable partner in a foursome. Here in Canada there are trestle tee-boxes, a few--but only a few--of the club-houses are built and equipped in the manner of the Americans, betokening an existing prosperity and a provision for that greater one which is felt to be as sure as the fruit and the corn of the following season; but otherwise golf seems much like what it is at home, and especially do we feel like that when we reach the old places where the game first took root out there. There is a Canadian Golf Association to rule the affairs of the game in the country with a certain subservience to home and St. Andrews as the Dominion holds to Westminster, and such a ruling authority is necessary in a new and wide country like this where so much pioneering is being done, just as it is necessary in the United States and in Australia. The chief function of such an authority is to keep the game together, hold it compact and maintain it in even uniformity with the game elsewhere. There is no blame to the Canadians because they have not associated themselves with the subtle and insoluble mysteries of the British handicapping system, but have followed the American lead in this matter and put their best champions at scratch. Otherwise they are full British still, and even if they have their doubts upon the wisdom of the edict of St. Andrews which banned centre-shafted clubs and the Schenectady putter of American origin, they have remained loyal to the law without dissenting as the Americans did. So in Canada you may not use the Schenectady. You may putt with it on one side of the Niagara Falls but not on the other side. It is fortunate that a ball cannot be played across the Falls, or over those whirling Rapids, or some puzzling international complications might arise. The adventures are called to mind of two great scientists, the late Professor John Milne, who made such a fine study of earthquakes and could feel them in the Isle of Wight when they were taking place in Asia, and Professor Sims Woodhead, the eminent Cambridge pathologist, when they went to the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science when it was held in South Africa. They travelled to the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River, and there they contemplated a mighty carry of a hundred and sixty yards over roaring, foaming water. The keen golfer is always prepared, for the emergencies of the game are constant and attractive, and Mr. Milne produced driver and ball, and, with a fine nerve and eyes that were controlled most marvellously, delivered a golf ball from one side to the other for the first time since the world began. The pathologist admired the achievement and emulated it. He also carried the Falls of the Zambezi. It were better that these greedy men had left it at that and been well satisfied. However, they came to think they might go on with this majestic carry continually, and generous Fortune chided them. Crocodiles took the balls that they drove into the Zambezi. * * * * * Let us take a look at Lambton. From my room in Toronto I rang up Lyon, whom I had met several times in England, and asked him to guess the name of the caller; he gave the name without hesitation, though he had no more reason to know that I was in Canada than in Tasmania. So quite in a matter-of-fact way we met on the following day in a Grand Trunk car starting from the Union station, and inquired of each other as to the ball that each was using. The journey from Toronto is one of only a few minutes, and soon after the stopping of the train the feet may tread on some of the nicest golfing turf that is to be found out of England, and the reason is palpable, for here are the big bunkers of the proper kind made of real yellow sand, which is natural to the place. When they need new sand bunkers at Lambton they cut them open and there they are. So sandy is the place that sometimes they have a difficulty in making the grass grow properly, and one result of these favourable natural conditions is that the course is better bunkered than most others on the American continent. Tee shots and approaches must be played well, and at the very first green the hint is given that the short game must be well done. The fourth hole is one of the jewels of Canadian golf. The teeing ground is on a height, and below it is a series of descending plateaux like giants' steps until the level is reached. When he has made a very passable drive the player is called upon with a very proper second to carry the Black Creek which guards the green and is coiled like a snake about it. The shot must have fair length and it must be very straight as well. Normally the hole is 365 yards long, so that in mere distance it is not a terrible thing, but when medals are being played for its length is stretched out to the four hundred yards. At the sixth the stream which they call Humber comes into the reckoning. It is a nice two-shot hole, and the seventh is an excellent short one with the inky creek here again. With the stump of a tree protruding from the water, large leafy growths upon the surface, a general sleepiness and the green in a sequestered corner beneath a shading hill, this is quite one of the most attractive of water holes. It is a strong hole, too, with fear about it, for the carry is one of 165 yards, and I was told that when Miss Rhona Adair, now Mrs. Cuthell, several times lady champion, was in these parts some years ago she twice did the carry and a third time her ball skimmed the water and reached the green after all. This was good work for a lady, especially as I rather fancy she must have been using the gutty ball at that time. The greens at Lambton are generally excellent, and they have adopted a means for keeping them in good order which, though it has been tried in other parts of America, has not to my knowledge been employed elsewhere. I have heard objections raised against it, but the results at Lambton are uncommonly good. Nearly all the greens here are kept properly moistened by a process of sub-irrigation, and are never watered on the surface. Below the green there is a deep bed of cinders, and over this and about eighteen inches from the grass there is a network of water pipes made of a hard porous clay, "weeping clay" they call it, the entire under-surface of the greens being covered with them. At the corner of each green there is a feed pipe connecting with this network, and once a day the water supply is laid on to it and all the pipes under the green are loaded. The heat of the sun then slowly draws the water through the porous pipes and up to the surface, and the results of the process are uniformly good. Lambton is a fine institution altogether. There is a short ladies' course as well as the other, a fine toboggan chute down the slope in front of the club-house, and the latter is in all respects an admirable place, well fitted with baths, bedrooms, and public apartments that are elegant and comfortable. This place has something to do with Toronto life of to-day. There are seven hundred members, and now it costs a new one the equivalent of six hundred dollars in his first year. He has to get a hundred-dollar share in the club to begin with, and these are at such a premium that he has to pay five hundred dollars for one. On one of the walls of the club-house is a life-size portrait of the champion of the country in a characteristic attitude with his brassey under his arm. * * * * * The case of Toronto is very interesting. The club, which takes the name of the city and is one of the oldest in the country, was started in 1876, and completely reorganised some eighteen years later. The pretty little course that it had until lately was on the outskirts of the city, with an old and quaint farm-house, which had from time to time been enlarged, for a club-house. As to the course, it was quite nice. It was very undulating, ravines, gullies, and belts of trees being prominent everywhere. The turf was good, and some of the holes were excellent. In the club-house there were fine trophies and some old prints, and a plan of the old course at St. Andrews, with a photograph of old Tom Morris attached to it, signed "From Tom Morris, to the members of the Toronto Golf Club, 1896." Everything belonging to this old course was sweetly mellow, and one's visit there made a pleasant experience. But it met a fate which has been common enough near London but rare elsewhere. The speed of Toronto's expansion brought it about, and, owing to the encroachments of the builders, the club had to move. I was there at the parting, and it was a sad one. Its members, however, being a very wealthy and enthusiastic body of gentlemen, determined to make for themselves a new home which should be as good as anything that could be done, and their ambition was fulfilled. Etobicoke! It is one of the wonders of the west, and I was the first wandering British player to set his foot upon it. Etobicoke is several miles out from Toronto, and here with the money that the club obtained from the sale of the old course they bought 270 acres of what was virgin land, being for the most part covered with trees at the time. This they had cleared, ploughed, and properly prepared, and Mr. Harry Colt came out from England to lay out the course. His finished work, as I have seen it, must rank as one of his masterpieces. As on so many of the Colt courses there is something of a Sunningdale look about the holes, and nearly all are extremely good. A very fine short one is the fourth and one with which the architect himself was much in love when he had completed the design from the natural materials that were at his hand; and the tenth is a wonder of its kind, the hindmost tee being on a hilltop from which a glorious view of the course is to be had, with Lake Ontario beyond it, while some way lower down the slope are second and third tees, making the distance shorter. The soil is sandy, the turf is good, and the course must be considered to rank as first class absolutely. Mr. W. A. Langton, who went over it with me, said he believed they had come into possession of what would be the finest golf course in America when it has matured, and his judgment may be right. Many parts of the world were laid under tribute for the making of this course at Etobicoke where the club is still called by the good old simple name, the Toronto Golf Club. It was designed, as I have said, by an English architect, and in order to give a grass to the course that would stand the rigours of the climate better than the ordinary grasses with which courses in North America are generally sown, seeds were obtained from Finland. Then nearly all the rough work of construction was done by Bulgarians and Roumanians, these immigrants being splendid for work of this kind. They were paid at the rate of about seven shillings a day, and they lived in huts which they made on the ground and saved the greater part of the money that they earned. A little over £16,000 or 80,000 dollars were paid for the land, and about the same amount was spent on its preparation and completion as a course; while £20,000 or 100,000 dollars were spent on the building and equipment of a splendid club-house, embracing the utmost comfort and convenience, with about fifty bedrooms. This is a members' club, and the club has all the members and money that it needs, and it is not a speculative enterprise in any way whatever. But British golfers must surely pause with wonder when they hear of a place like Toronto spending £50,000 on a new golf course! Such is the enthusiasm of the Canadian for the game, that while this enterprise was afoot a six-holes course was being constructed alongside it, at a cost of £10,000, for a gentleman who intended to build a house near by to which he might ask his friends. * * * * * One pleasant day when staying at Montreal I went out to Dixie, a few stations along the Grand Trunk line, where there is the course of the Royal Montreal Club, to be regarded now as the oldest properly established club in the Dominion. This one alone has that title of Royal which Queen Victoria gave it permission to use in 1884. In its early days the course was in Mount Royal Park, overlooking Montreal. Out here at Dixie a certain flavour of the old spirit and good strong sporting simplicity of the game are tasted. The course is somewhat flat and parky, and big banks of bunkers stretch across the fairway, making the general style of the architecture very much of the Victorian, but the undulations and unevennesses of the banks and hollows are redeeming features. Some of the holes are good and the putting greens are excellent, but generally the course suffers from the absence of testing second shots. There is a magnificent view up the river from the seventh tee. A house agent might honestly declare that the club-house is commodious and comfortable. It was made before it was the fashion to erect palaces on golf courses, and sheet-iron bulks largely in its composition; yet it is cosy enough inside, and contains many relics of peculiar interest. In a glass case there are some ancient clubs with which members played in the early days, and a leather belt for which they competed, the names of the winners being written on the inside. There are many other courses in Montreal and round about it. There is the Beaconsfield Club with its place situated some way up the river, reached by the G. T. R. at Point Claire. The part of Fletcher's Fields in Mount Royal Park, on which the Royal Montreal Club first played, is now in the occupation of the Metropolitan Club, and is only about five minutes' ride by car from the centre of the city. On the eastern slope of Mount Royal is the course of the Outremont Club, which, at the time of my visit, was about to go forward to a new and great enterprise; while on a plateau at the western end of Mount Royal are the nine holes of the West Mount Club, most charmingly situated, with fine views of the city and the river. At Ottawa there is a course which ranks high among the very best on the continent. It is different in character from that at Dixie, for here there are ravines and gullies, and the land is strongly undulating everywhere. The bunkers and other hazards are natural, the putting greens are smooth, and the subsoil is of sandy loam. It is on the other side of the Ottawa River, beyond Hull, and owing to its being exposed to a broad reach of the stream it is seldom that there is not much wind blowing across it. And there are courses all the way from east to west of this wonderful, blossoming Canada. We find that wherever we wander in the Dominion we are not much distant from a golf club. Even when on a day I sailed across Lake Ontario and made the Gorge Valley trip to the Niagara Falls there was golf near by had it been wanted. Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, round and about the Rockies, and up them too--everywhere the game is played. I was told that when the course at St. John, New Brunswick, was started in 1897, Mr. H. H. Hansard, who made the opening stroke, holed from the tee in one. Holes in one have been done in many curious circumstances, but surely this is one of the most interesting of all. Compare the excellent beginning of St. John with what happened the other day when a new course was being started here at home. I am sorry to say that the municipal dignitary upon whom the chief responsibility was cast missed the ball the first time, and also the second, but contrived to move it from the tee at the third attempt. A note has just reached me from a friend in the Dominion saying that out on the Gulf of Georgia, on the coast of Vancouver, they are reaching forward to a golf ideal. They have planned and started there a new town, which they have called Qualicum, of which the golf course is the central feature. They have laid out a fine one along the shore, one that has splendid natural qualities, and they are doing their best to make it understood that here is a golf city if ever there was one, for they have christened the streets and roads by such names as St. Andrews Road, Berwick Road, Portrush Road, Rye Road, Sandwich Road, and Dollymount Road; and there are others with the names of Hoylake, Sunningdale, and all the rest of our British best. Friends whom I consulted in the matter declared there was no golf in Quebec, little but French people, French talk, and French games of two generations back, the Canadian French not yet having adopted the sport to which so many of the Parisians have attached themselves with great earnestness. I was barely satisfied with such denials, and when, after another night on the C. P. R., I found myself on a glorious Sunday morning on those famous heights of Quebec, whence the view is one of the most magnificent in the world, I set about investigating the matter all alone. I can hardly say why, but somehow I strongly suspected the Plains of Abraham, the big, bare piece of land on the heights overlooking the St. Lawrence, on which Wolfe and Montcalm, more than a century and a half ago, fought that great fight, and died. I have always found it as a most remarkable thing that where great battles have been waged, and big encampments made, golf courses in a great number of cases have been laid out there later. Sure enough, then, the game was here on the Plains of Abraham. I had just been looking upon the pillar with the simple inscription, "Here died Wolfe victorious," and had walked for the length of two or three good drives towards the citadel end of the plain, called, I think, the Cove Fields, when putting greens came to view, with sticks not two feet long and bits of red rag attached to them in the holes. The greens and the teeing grounds were rough as could be, and there were no proper bunkers on the course, but plenty of trouble for all that, the ground being coarse and stony. The public could roam about the place just as it pleased, and did so, and there did not seem to be anything to prevent any one from playing the game on this course. It looked just like public golf on common land, and though it is a far cry from Blackheath to Quebec, there is something in the nature and character of this golfing ground at the historic Canadian port to remind one of England's oldest and crudest course. I discovered afterwards that the Quebec Golf Club, a club without a club-house, had acquired the rights to play on it; that this club is one of comparatively early origin; that its members are clearly primitive in their tastes, but sincere and earnest; and I am led to the belief that the course has another point of similarity with Blackheath, being the oldest now in existence on the American continent. It is said that a daughter of old Tom Morris, who married a Mr. Hunter and went to America, was largely responsible for the beginning of golf at Quebec. Men and boys were playing on it on this beautiful Sunday morning when the bells in countless steeples of Quebec and at St. Levis on the other side of the St. Lawrence were ringing their music through the stillest air. I sat down on the edge of the course overlooking the precipitous depths to the river, far down below, where the smoke from a warship at anchor came lazily from the funnels, and looked for long enough to gain an undying impression of one of the grandest panoramas in the world, seen at its most peaceful and its best. Nature had a grand inspiration when she made Quebec as now we find her. * * * * * This marvellous country is a rare place for making the new beginning. Everything is so raw, so suggestive, so encouraging to earnest failures who would, like Omar, if they could, conspire with fate, shatter the existing scheme of things and "remould it nearer to the heart's desire." Canada is indeed a fine place for hope for the future. I met several men in the country who told me, that on leaving England and Scotland, they had perforce, with all the hard work before them, to give up the game for a long period; while another reason was, that those having been much earlier days, there were fewer courses there. So years after, when the fortunes had been made, they came back to golf again, and they were making another new beginning, and felt a certain gladness as they remembered some of the faults and the torments of the old game with all its vast imperfections. In everything they would start over again as if it were all quite new, and they knew nothing about it. Generally they have made successes of their second golfing lives on earth in this way, but yet they have found that they needed to act warily and be on their guard always against old enemies, for golf poisons are marvellously subtle and enduring things; and it has been found that when once a man contracts a habit that is bad it will last for ever, whether he plays the game continually or not, and the worse the habit the more incurable it is. The best that can be done is the application of a system of subjection, by which the disease is kept under, and does not pain or hinder. But men who have fallen into bad and hopeless complications with their golf, and found that it never could be improved any more, have tried to begin it all over again as left handers--the most drastic change--and even that has failed. They have then realised that the only way to die happy is to give up the game for a matter of half a generation and start again, with the determination to keep the head still, to begin the back-swing with the wrists, and not to start pivoting on the left toe as soon as the driving is begun, as if it were necessary to do this thing, as so many of the teachers have suggested, to the ruin of their pupils, for the unsteadiness it has produced. One learns to do this pivoting after an hour's practice at the game, and can pivot well when nothing else can be done at golf. But it takes years and years sometimes to get rid of such a stupid custom. The left heel must rise, but let it rise as little as may be, and of its own accord. Its rising should be always a result of something, and not a cause of something else. What is needed at a beginning, or a fresh start in any golfing life, is a thorough grasp of essential principles. Considering the subject the whole way through, we may feel that there are really only two essential and compulsory principles applicable to all cases, instead of two hundred or more as the bewildered player is often led to imagine. These two are, first, that the eye must be kept upon the ball until it has left the club; and, second, that in addition to the still head there must be one fixed and practically motionless centre in the human system while the stroke is being made. It is neglect, generally accidental, of one or both of these principles that causes most of the bad shots that are made. Let us remember that. Never, or hardly ever, should we neglect these principles, and if we do not our handicap is almost sure to come down, not only because so many bad shots will be avoided, but because the exactness, certainty, and quality of all the strokes will be steadily improved as they cannot be when hampered by neglect of the principles. The eye makes the connection between the captain in the brain and the engineers of the physical system. It is the speaking-tube or the telegraph apparatus. There can be no union without it. But, as we all know, it is not such an easy thing to keep the eye on the ball as it ought to be kept on it, and the more anxious the player the more liable is he to err in this matter. As to the fixed centre--somewhere in the interior of the waist--we should reflect that the golfing swings, when carried out properly, consist of the action and movements of thousands of different muscles, operating in different ways, different directions, and at different times. Perfect harmony and correlation among them all is necessary if the general result is to be smooth and exact. Make no mistake about it, the golfing swing, with all its complications and the acute precision that is necessary for its good and proper effect, is one of the most wonderful things of which the physical system is capable. When I reflect upon it I think it is marvellous that the human man can make it as he does. To obtain harmony among all these thousands of movements there must be one centre from which they are all regulated. If we think it out we see that this is so, and then we appreciate the importance of what is too baldly described as keeping the body still, as we have perhaps never done before. As a point of truth, the body as a whole cannot be kept still, but there must be one centre that must be fixed from the moment that the club addresses the ball until the latter has left its place after impact. The captain in the brain, the eye, and the fixed head and centre are the great trinity who manage the whole concern. Only one man who has neglected this law has ever raised himself to eminence in golf, and that man is Edward Ray, who has done it by mere physical strength. When the fixed centre is held secure a great host of evils which constantly cause failure are avoided--swaying of the body, collapse of the legs, improper foot work, dropping of the right shoulder, falling forward, and more of such a kind of fatal faults. * * * * * In the biggest dictionary that I can find neither the word "futurism" nor "cubist" is given a place, and yet these words, meaning certain movements, are probably on the tongues of art folks with much frequency in these times. In the same way the word "subconsciousism" and "subconsciousist" are not in this or any other dictionary; but they may yet be coined and made legitimate to fill certain vacancies, and they represent definite golfing systems. The principle of subconsciousism in essence, then, is that of showing a visionary picture to the mind for a moment, banishing it, and, in a certain measure, forgetting all about it, and then going on with the game as if the incident had been closed. But the mind retains its record more or less vaguely always; and the picture thrown on the mental screen makes an impression there which stays; and that impression is an influence upon the succeeding physical actions. Subconsciously the player does something--it may be little or much--to imitate the movements in the mental picture that he saw. He cannot avoid it; the influence upon him cannot be wholly resisted. If, as it were, he saturates his mind with impressions of this kind, of the strokes he would like to play, of the way he would like to play them, he will gradually and almost surely begin to play them just like that. It has been recognised for ages that the best golf is that which is played entirely subconsciously, that is to say without conscious effort, and without thinking in detail of the stroke that has to be played. When a man is "on his game" he has none of this thinking to do, and does none. There seems to be only one way of playing the shot, and that way is unavoidable to him and quite natural. He does not need to shuffle about to find his proper stance, and he is not anxious about any part of his swing. The moment a clear consciousness of detailed action asserts itself, and the man does think about the movements of his swing, and does shuffle about for his stance, he goes off his game, and the stronger the consciousness the more he goes off. These points are disputed by nobody. A little while since a new writer on the game declared that the golfer at the beginning of his swing thought of the advice of one professional; half way up he thought of the suggestion of another; at the top he remembered the recommendation of a third man; and coming down, the hint of a fourth flung itself into a mind that must have been working with amazing rapidity in the most difficult circumstances. What the result of such strokes is was not suggested; but if any number of golfers carried out their scheme of swinging in this way we should know exactly why it is that so much bad golf is played. As a matter of truth nobody has ever been able to mix up his plans in such a manner; but the statement suggests the extreme of consciousness, and fear with it also. With subconsciousness there is no fear, no hesitation, and no doubt. Now we can show how our subconsciousism, when unaided and not encouraged (there is nearly but not quite a contradiction in terms here), has had its effect upon the player hitherto. If a man watches the play of any golfer much better than himself, say a first-class professional, very closely for some time he takes a little of that man's style into his own system without knowing it, and, it may be, without making any conscious effort to imitate it. He is much more likely to succeed in this way than by making any deliberate attempt to copy. Again, you will often find players telling you, that after a week of watching a championship meeting, and without having paid attention to any player in particular, certainly without attempting to imitate any one, they find on resuming their own game that a new influence is upon it; that in particular they address the ball in a more businesslike way, with more confidence; that their swing is less flabby, and that they play their iron shots with much greater sense of wrist, and with more firmness. This has been noticed over and over again, and it is a most interesting result of the influence of impressions involuntarily recorded on the mind. Consider another way in which the impression acts. A player may be removed from the game through illness or some other reason for a time, and during that period he works some of the problems of golf out in his mind, and constantly pictures a new and particular way of playing a stroke that has troubled him. When he returns to the links he plays the stroke like that without any effort to do so, or perhaps without even thinking of it. Another remarkable example of subconsciousism was afforded to me recently by a good golfer, who said that to develop a certain stroke which he had found beyond his best efforts--conscious efforts--he had three enlarged photographs made of that stroke as executed properly by a first-class man, one showing the beginning, the other the top of the swing, and the third the finish. He had these pictures placed alongside each other on one of the walls of his room, and there they were all the time, not to be avoided. He made no effort to study them, but his mind simply absorbed them, and then subconsciously he found the stroke coming to him until in the end he played it just like that. In these matters subconsciousism is shown to be at work without being understood or at all suspected. Having this valuable agency at command the next thing is to apply it, and make it of more thorough practical effect without permitting it to change to interfering and dangerous consciousness. In the cases that have already been cited certain methods are plainly suggested. Here is another which has, as I know, proved amazingly effective at times. The player, we may say, is not driving as well as he should, or in the way he would like to do. At the moment of taking his place on the teeing-ground he runs through his mind, as it were, a cinematographic picture of his favourite model player doing the drive. He sees, in imagination, the man taking his stance, swinging the club back, down on to the ball again, and finishing. He just sees it once, and bothers about it no more. Then he sets about his own drive without any further reference to the mental picture that his mind has absorbed. The mind does the rest. The drive may not be made in the ideal way that was imagined. It may be done in the old way. It may even be foozled. But there has been an influence at work, and if that influence is always employed in the same way the good result will come in time, always provided--and this is important--that the model is one that is suitable to the player, and can be copied by him. It would be useless for a man who is far past forty, very fat and very short, with no athletic quality in him at all, to take Harry Vardon and his graceful lithesome swing for his mental cinema show. Another way in which practical subconsciousism may be made exceedingly valuable is by imagining a place to which the ball has to be delivered without looking at it when it ought not to be looked at, as when a very short running or pitching approach has to be made. The very best of men often find it impossible to keep the eye fixed on the ball until the stroke is done. A little while since there was the case of one of the finest amateur golfers of the time flopping his ball into the bunker guarding the green of the first hole at Sandwich from the bank thereof, when, if he had played an easy shot and kept his eye at rest, he would almost certainly have avoided this trouble, and then won the St. George's Cup for which he was playing. I remember an exactly similar case in the final of the Amateur Championship of 1908, at Sandwich, when Mr. Lassen, who did win, knocked his ball into the big bunker in front of the old tenth green there from the top of the cliff overlooking it. What is needed in such cases, or in like cases when presented to inferior players, is something to keep the mind's eye contented, and it has been found to serve if a picture of the hole is flashed into the mind just before the stroke is made. This is what is certainly done, though unintentionally, when putting. The man does keep his eye on the ball when making his stroke this time; but yet it is most desirable that his mind should retain a very clear and exact impression of the place where the hole is, the distance of it, and the features of the green in between. In other games that may be compared with golf, the player has his eye on the object at the moment of striking; in billiards the very last glance is given at the object ball, and the eye is on it at the moment the stroke is made. That is because the player is sure of his way of striking, as in putting he is not. If you try a method of putting which was once attempted by some players, but was severely and properly discountenanced by the authorities, of lying down on the green and putting with the end of the club, billiard fashion, you will find that then the eye is on the hole when the stroke is made. In golf, the player's eye being wanted for the ball, a last look is given at the hole, and the picture of it is kept on the mind when the stroke is being made, and it influences the application of strength more than the player often realises. This application of strength is always done subconsciously, and here again there is a part of professional teaching which does not recognise the fact when it ought to do. The teachers tell us that to strike the ball a certain distance with an iron, the club chosen should be swung back to a certain point, that to get twenty yards more it should be swung upwards so many more inches or degrees, for a farther distance so much more swing should be made, and so on, throwing the onus of swinging the proper distance on to the conscious effort of the player. By a moment's thought it will be realised that players do not consciously regulate the lengths of their swings in this way, that they could not do so, and that any deliberate stopping of their swing at a certain carefully calculated point would be ruinous to the stroke in hand. What is done is, that an estimate of the distance to which the ball has to travel is made; this is taken into the mind, and the mind, having much experience, influences the swing so that it is quite subconsciously made of the proper length, or at all events the length that the mind suggested. In this way the swing is certainly made short for short shots, and longer as the greater distance is needed; but it is wrong to suggest that the matter is carefully and consciously arranged by the player. The truth is that not one player in a thousand could tell you, when about to make a swing with an iron club, exactly how far he intends to swing, or having made the shot successfully, how far he did swing. His mind subconsciously arranged the whole affair. An interesting case was quoted to me some time since of the success a man achieved in lofting over stymies, and the reason why. This person never seemed to miss. He related that he found previously that his failures were due to looking at the other ball too much when in the act of making the stroke. He then found that he succeeded frequently when he did not look at either that ball or his own but at the hole itself. Doing this enabled him to carry his club through, failure to do which is the chief cause of missing these shots. But he did not altogether believe in this system, which seemed dangerous, and he compromised by keeping his eye fixed on his own ball, but at the same time imagining the hole and seeing mentally his ball dropping into it. Since then his success has been wonderful. In much the same way and by the same principle it will be found that the best way in the world to encourage a good follow-through, and to stop jerky hitting with wooden clubs, is to look at the ball properly and yet imagine it a couple of inches farther on. The principles of this subconsciousism suggest one earnest recommendation to the player who is bent on making a change in a faulty or ineffectual style, and it is that such change is better brought about gradually and in the way of a coaxing influence rather than by a quick drastic alteration. Thus the player whose swing is too upright and who wants to obtain a flatter one, or he who desires to change from a long swing to a short one, or the other way about; or again he who would bring the ball more over to the right foot (one of the most difficult of all changes to make for a player accustomed to have it nearly opposite the left toe, but a desirable one in these days when the rubber-cored ball shows no disinclination to rise as the gutty did); all these players would do better to make their changes slowly and gradually and by way of subconscious influence. If the ball is moved three inches to the right all at once the entire swing is upset and the whole driving arrangement is likely to go to pieces. But when done in the other way the gradual change is not noticed, and when the ball gets to the desired position it would be as difficult to play it from the old one, as the new one would have been, if assumed suddenly. It is sometimes said of golf that the most exasperating part of the whole thing is, that the more you try to succeed in it the more you fail. There is more truth in that sad reflection than may have been fancied, and a fine moral in it too. To "try" in this case means to make conscious effort. * * * * * After all, in this teaching about subconsciousism we are merely going back again to Nature, to simplicity, and to an original idea that there is undeveloped golf in all of us just because all the movements of the game are so natural, and natural because they are so true and rhythmical. In everything Nature encourages always the best in a man, and she likes most the graceful movement, the perfect poise, the equal balance. The easier, the more natural, and the more rhythmical our movements are in golf the more successful will be the efforts always. The undeveloped golf is always in the system, and with fair encouragement or a hint that is sufficiently obvious the instinct will surely lead a young subject to its cultivation on good lines. Man when old becomes awkward and contrary, and so the aggravations of the game arise. I have always maintained that if we placed a young boy who had never seen or heard of golf on a desert island and left him there with means for his subsistence for a few years, together with a set of golf clubs and a few boxes of balls, the people who might be wrecked on those lonely shores thereafter would find him playing a good scratch game and in want of nothing but a caddie, for which part the arriving boatswain might be indicated. But these wrecked miserables, with their shiverings and their grumblings, would jar unpleasantly upon the happy peace of this purely natural golfing youth, in all the ecstasy of the discovery of his own world. Probably he would wish the others--all except the boatswain--to leave him there when a white sail of relief was seen upon the horizon. A pretty speculation arises instantly. Suppose at the same time we had placed upon another desert island four thousand miles away another raw child, innocent of the simplest, vaguest thought of what golf is or could be, and left him also with clubs and balls and directions for obtaining fresh meat and fresh water when the human desires in food were felt. He would surely take to the game in the same way as the other boy did, practise it and probe into its mysteries with just the same enthusiasm, would become a good scratch player also, and would probably make use of the same simple expression of condemnation when a shipload of people uncivilised to golf were wrecked that way. But here is the point: this second scratch desert-island boy would probably be just as good as the first scratch desert-island boy, no better and no worse, and if they were to play for the Championship of the Most Lonely Islands, nothing is more likely than that their excellent match would have to go to the thirty-seventh hole or beyond it. They would, being good material to begin with, attain approximately equal results so far as playing the holes in a certain number of strokes is concerned, and each youth's system would be perfect for himself, but between the two there would be the very widest differences, and the basic principles that were common to the games of both players would be so encrusted with masses of individual detail and coloured with temperamental attitude that they would be scarcely discernible. CHAPTER X GOLF DE PARIS, AND SOME REMARKABLE EVENTS AT VERSAILLES AND CHANTILLY, WITH NEW THEORIES BY HIGH AUTHORITIES. In front of the red brick club-house of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club at Hoylake, a citadel which by its tower and clock commemorates the great achievements of Hoylake's famous son, John Ball, there was assembled late in the afternoon of Friday, the 21st of June 1907 (being the forty-seventh year of the Open Championship), a large gathering of golfing persons who by their speech and demeanour suggested some of the vivid unrealities of a stage crowd near the footlights. They had a self-conscious and somewhat artificial bearing towards each other. They muttered and beckoned. They gave the impression of being a little uneasy and nervous. Friends among them who essayed to conduct a conversation found themselves at a loss for appropriate comments upon what had happened and made remarks which had no clear or relevant meaning. Professor Paterson, wearing the red rosette, came from the house and stood before the little table bearing a silver cup which had been held by the line of champions all the way from the time of Morris, the younger, and a familiar friendly figure in chequered garments moved about in a manner of official preparation. What had happened had indeed been dramatic; but the drama had had the living circumstance of full reality. We could not discuss constructions and readings, and suggest other endings. Here was the one gross fact, that Arnaud Massy, a Basque, the professional attached to the leading club of Paris, a strong bonily built man with no British blood in his being, had just made himself the possessor for the year of that historic championship cup, which hitherto had never been taken out of the United Kingdom. This was something which the gathering did with difficulty absorb into their golfing minds. They were good sportsmen, and they cheered because they knew that this Massy was a fine fellow and a good champion; but it was all a little dream-like, and there was a spell that needed to be broken. Massy, the victor, with a big smiling face came forward. The gold medal was delivered to him. There was a little silence, a few muttered incoherent words, and then this splendid Massy threw up his hands into the air and shouted out with a full blast from his lusty lungs, "Vive l'entente cordiale!" The tensity was broken; the people cheered easily, naturally, and whole heartedly; they accepted Massy as the true and proper successor to James Braid in the Open Championship, and wished him thoroughly well--even though he were a Frenchman or a Basque. He had done the right thing. This foreign player (never forgetting that he was trained to the game at Biarritz, which in golf is mostly British, though it lies under the laws of France) was brought to England and Scotland by Sir Everard Hambro, and was improved in golf at North Berwick with Ben Sayers assisting him. He well deserved to win that championship, and it should not be overlooked that, so to say, he has confirmed his victory by making a tie for the championship again since then. He is the only man outside the great triumvirate who has done so much as twice to reach the top of the list in modern times. He was well on his own very good game. There was a crispness about his play with his wooden clubs that indicated the man who for the time being had full confidence and could hit his hardest. And Massy's putting, especially in the case of the most difficult and fateful of all putts, those of from five to nine feet--putts for the missing of which there is the fullest excuse, for whose holing there is enormous gain--had been splendid for a long time before and was most excellent then. At those putts of the kind I remark upon I do not think that Massy in accuracy or confidence has his equal in the world. He strokes the ball into the hole as though it were the simplest thing to do; easily and gracefully he putts it in. In other ways he makes a fine figure of a golfer. Military training in France has given him a stiffer, straighter build than most great golfers have, for this game tends a little to a crouching gait and posture. Massy marches from the tee to the ball that has gone before with a quick, regular step of the right-left-right military way, and when he comes up with the ball he does a right wheel round, presents his club, and plays his second with a quickness and lack of hesitation in which he is second only to George Duncan. Particularly in putting is Massy a man of inspirations and quick impulse. And I must not now forget that there is in the world a charming little lady who is called Mlle. Hoylake Massy, which is her proper name. Providence is disposed often to be kind and generous to the strong and those who have well deserved, and that week Mme. Massy gave to the man who was even then making himself the champion a sweet little daughter. Having won the championship, the next question was one of christenings, and, said Massy to his wife, "Voila! Surely she shall be called our little Hoylake!" Which she was accordingly, Mme. Massy, rejoicing in her husband's success, like the good, happy little woman of Scotland that she is, having cordially agreed. And in France there were rejoicings among the golfers. My friend, M. Pierre Deschamps, fine and keen sportsman (and the "father of golf in France," as we call him for the grand work he has done in establishing the game so well at La Boulie, where he is president of the Société de Golf de Paris, and encouraging it with all his heart and energy elsewhere in his country), rose and made a remarkable declaration that golf was to be the "national game of France." The national game of France, our Scottish golf of English development, started, as some still will have it, in Holland, played in some sort of way as _jeu de mail_ even in France, practised in Pekin, called the "national game" also, as I have heard it, in America--now it was to be naturalised and made the "national game of France!" Ubiquitous golf indeed! M. Deschamps, whose words are careful if they are quick, as befits one who is in the diplomatic service of his country, sat down and wrote an essay on golf in general, and Massy's success in particular, and, addressing the new champion as if he were before him, said: "Et maintenant à vous la parole, mon cher Massy; continuez votre brillante carrière, jouissez de votre belle gloire dont nous sommes tous fiers, comme Golfeurs et comme Français; à cette heure, où tant de links s'ouvrent chez nous, pour répondre aux besoins d'enthousiastes sportsmen, puissent d'autres professionels de notre race suivre votre example, unique encore dans les fastes du 'Royal and Ancient Game,' et contribuer à faire de ce sport un jeu national dans notre beau pays de France!" That was written. In victory you may be magnanimous, and M. Deschamps at this time would graciously waive all questions of origins and growths; he must have felt that then it mattered little that a kind of golf called _chole_ had been played ages back by the people of the north, and that it was possible the Scots had copied from them. It was enough that Arnaud Massy was "le Champion du monde." * * * * * Disregarding all those doubts about the _jeu de mail_ and the game of _chole_, and considering only the real thing as we know it, taking its time from the stone temple by the Fifeshire sea, it was away back in 1856 that the game was first played on the soil of France, and that was in the south by the Pyrenees at Pau. Yet at that time only the wintering British were concerned. Forty years went on before the French themselves made a fair beginning with the game. In 1896 the Société de Golf de Paris was established, and it has been a splendid success. To-day in prestige and influence it stands for the headquarters of the game in the country, though since it was begun there have sprung up many clubs of great pretensions, with good courses, nice club-houses, distinguished memberships, and unlimited francs. Yet La Boulie holds her queenship still. Excellent golfing places have been made at Chantilly, Le Pecq, Compiègne, Fontainebleau. Out on the north-west coast at such resorts as Le Touquet, Dieppe, Deauville and Wimereux by Boulogne the game is established. Long years back I played at pretty open Wimereux when there was but a nine-holes course there, and not the excellent one of eighteen that has now been made. Shall it not be considered as a happy token that golf links are commonly found on old battlefields and at places where armies have encamped? Sometimes this is just because the soldiers play the game when they are abroad; sometimes it is because entrenchments are bunkers all prepared; but oftenest it is just coincidence. Whatever it be or why, it is the fact that there is golf where armies and battles have been in Egypt, in South Africa, in the United States and Canada, and at many places. Where there was the fury of flying shells there is now only the peaceful hum of the rubber ball. One recalled when first at Wimereux that here the great Napoleon had encamped with his grand army, the same as was to cross the Channel to defiant isles and make a conquest of them. But playing neither the first hole nor the last do we need any reminder of what great Bonaparte wished to do, for by us there towers aloft the monument that he had erected to that successful invasion of Albion that never did take place. Hereabouts is indicated the place where the master-general in full satisfaction with the progress of things, and in remembrance of great achievements, distributed his military favours. And here all along are deep grass-covered trenches, and larger, rounder, shallow pits that once might have been kitchens or stables. All these that now are bunkers and hazards are where Napoleon camped and waited. And on a fine day our white-cliffed Albion is in full view. Sometimes there may even be a sigh as one reflects that the Corsican little dreamt of what should be done with his camping land when a hundred years were gone, that those sportsmen of Britishers would be playing their game about there, taking their divots and holing their putts, and striving for golden tokens given for competition by the mayor and municipality of adjacent Boulogne! It was not for no reason that Arnaud Massy called aloud "Vive l'entente cordiale!" In the heart of the country there have been more golf clubs and courses formed, and they are supported now mostly by the French. At Rouen and Rheims the game may now be enjoyed. It is spreading. M. Deschamps may yet be soundly justified. And indeed when we take our clubs to Paris we feel that he should, and heartily do wandering players echo the cry of Massy, who by his victory signalised the fact that French golf had grown from babyhood to the strength of independence, and was now to be considered as an entity. There is a subtle sweetness about a golfing expedition in Paris that there is about a little holiday for the game at no other place. One is not here suggesting that it is better for golf and other matters to go to Paris than elsewhere, only that it is quite different, intensely enjoyable, and easily convenient. We breakfast in comfort in London, read the newspaper afterwards, go through the pack of clubs to see that the roll-call is rightly answered, and with time enough for everything move along to Victoria. Had we dawdled less we might have gone much earlier from Charing Cross. We meet quite casually other golfers in our compartment on the South-Eastern, and inquire with no astonishment as to which of the Parisian courses will be scarred by their irons before their trip is done. From Dover or Folkestone we have a quick and comfortable crossing; we discover some people who are bound for Le Touquet and tell us of the excellent changes there, and then on the comfortable railway of the Nord we are swung happily into the heart of France, and are in the capital before the sun has set on a summer's day, and with time yet to go out to La Boulie, which is by Versailles, or Chantilly, and stretch our English arms and legs in preparation for matches of the morrow. We are at home as golfers without delay. What one feels about golfing in Paris now is that while there is always that elevation of the spirits, that sense of extra life, that little superfineness of feeling that are induced by a sojourn in the capital by those who feel themselves somewhat akin to her, and there is a certain subtle difference in the golfing ways and systems, such as we not merely find but wish for, golf at Paris and the world over is really very much the same--the same not merely in the playing of the shots as in the general scheme of things, the going and the coming, the _tout ensemble_. We settle ourselves comfortably in a big hotel in the Rue de Castiglione, and next morning we fling away the sheets before eight as alive as any Parisian _ouvrier_. The _café complet_ disposed of, the next question is that of clubs and balls. If it is a fine day and there is time for the walking, we may stride through the corner of the gardens of the Tuileries, across the corresponding corner of the Place de la Concorde, over the bridge and into the station to the left by the side of the Seine and down the steps to the platform, where there always awaits us at the most convenient time what is in essence largely a golfers' train. Our golfing people are in full evidence. You cannot mistake their kind in a train of France any more than you can when they journey from Charing Cross to Walton Heath. They pervade. So on to the other end of the journey at Versailles, and there the carriages await us, and the brake for those who like it, and we are bowled and rattled along through that place which has seen much of the makings and undoings of France, and on to La Boulie, where we hasten to the first tee, fearful of any waiting. Or, alternatively, we take a taxi-cab that is outside the hotel in Paris, and let loose through the Parisian streets with it, across the Place Vendôme, past the Opera, away along to the Gare du Nord with our inimitable Parisian taxi-man hurtling round the corners with all the fury of a charioteer in the races of ancient Rome, making us reflect that it is well there will be a rest of an hour before being called upon to do the first putting at Chantilly. So we perceive that the going and the coming are very much what they might be in England, with just that difference that gives a piquancy, while, after a day on the course, it is found to be quite excellent to have the gaiety of Paris at one's disposal. Those who have tried it generally agree that golf de Paris makes the finest change of the game, the most exhilarating that may be had by the player of the south of England, who is not too far removed from Charing Cross or one of the ports. It may be 444 miles from our metropolis to St. Andrews, and 383 to North Berwick, but it is only 259 to Paris, and despite the sea the journey lasts a much shorter time than the dash to the north by the fastest trains. We do not compare the golf of Paris with the golf of our historic and beloved seats of the game, but the courses of France, as inland courses, are good, and we think again of the virtues of the change complete, of the _tout ensemble_. Good things have come out of France in the days of long ago and in recent times; golf that is nearly of the best order rises in it now, and when we see Mr. Edward Blackwell and some others of the great men of the auld grey city who are most particular about all golfing things playing themselves on the slopes of La Boulie, over the plains of Chantilly, and through the forest of Fontainebleau, we know that things are moving tolerably well. * * * * * Upon our initiation at La Boulie, our curiosity is stirred and attention is attracted to many things. Perhaps M. Deschamps, or such a good sportsman as the Baron de Bellet--whose son, M. François de Bellet, has won the Amateur Championship of France, while Mlle. de Bellet is the best of the lady players in the country--would conduct a guest about the place and show him many things that would interest him, and many more that as a golfer he would most honestly admire. La Boulie is not a great course despite all the championships that have been played upon it, but the Société de Golf de Paris, which has a membership of 750 at a subscription of about £10, is quite a great institution. Yet, let me hasten to say that in the first remark I was judging La Boulie on the highest inland standard, and even then the judgment must be qualified by the statement that if not great in the best sense La Boulie is good and is quite interesting. At one time it suffered much from the nature of its soil and turf, but greenkeeping science, the francs of France, and the loving and most assiduous care of M. Deschamps, have changed much if not all of that. In the summer time it is quite one of the most beautiful courses I can think of with its wealth of trees, in which the nightingales sing soon after the golfers have done, and its majestic undulations, which come so near to being mountainous that herein, with so much climbing to be done and so many uphill and downhill shots, is one of the greatest faults of the course. But everything is well done at La Boulie, and human ingenuity and thoroughness are well applied. M. Deschamps is a fine humanitarian, and exerts himself constantly for the welfare of the caddies, who are as good for their business as any caddies in the world. It was a happy idea on his part to have these boys trained under a semi-military system as he has them now. They are all housed in a building near to the first tee under the care of the club; they have to observe regulations of duty and life which are good for them, and they are dressed in a boy-scout khaki uniform with touches of red to brighten it, and the principles of boy-scoutism are worked into their young lives. This is excellent, and indeed it is the truth that already we have a little to learn in golf from France. By the way, one of the curious laws of the country--curious as it seems to us, though soundly sensible--is that boys are not allowed, when under about fifteen years of age, to carry more than a certain weight in the way of work, and this prohibits caddies from carrying a bag of clubs of more than fair extent. As a matter of detail you will find that the weight quantity allowed works out to something like ten clubs of an average mixture, but happily for some good friends of mine there is no weighing at the first tee and no officers of the Republic there to see it done. They threaten to arrest us at St. Andrews if we play the game with iron clubs only, and they have the power through bye-laws ratified by Government to do so and send us to prison. Is it possible that a wandering player in happy France should be lodged in a modern Bastille for that on one eager day he defied ill omen and the law by carrying thirteen clubs in his bag, as both James Braid and Edward Ray have done when winning championships, the weight limit being exceeded and all the unhappiest consequences following? M. Deschamps took the initiative in founding the Golf Union of France, which is based completely on the American system and is likely to be a strong force in the golf of the future. * * * * * To the best of my knowledge they have only one plus-handicap amateur in France, being M. François de Bellet, who is rated at plus 1 at two or three clubs, but I have examined the handicap books at different places and find that there are a few scratch men, and that the number of players who have single figure handicaps is quite good in proportion to the whole, and is increasing. The fears we had that the French temperament was not good for the game prove to be unfounded; while the French enthusiasm is equal to anything that we know. There are cases of golf fever in France that are every degree as bad--or as good--as those we find here at home. One muggy winter morning, when a friend and I teed up at the beginning of the round at La Boulie, we could with difficulty see the flag on the first green, short as was the hole. We surmised that we might be the only players; but, no, many holes ahead, having started early, was a match going on between a baron of France and one of his rivals. The baron was taking the game with exceeding seriousness, and the information was given to me that he played two rounds on the course every day of his life. "Saturdays and Sundays?" I asked my caddie. "Toujours!" was the answer. "Even if it rains?" I pursued. "Toujours!" the boy answered with emphasis. "Or snows or is foggy?" I persisted, and then the carrier of clubs replied a little impatiently and with finality, "Toujours!" intending to convey that in all circumstances whatsoever the indefatigable baron played his two rounds a day, and independent witnesses confirmed the statement of the boy. This surely is the French counterpart of what is considered to be the finest case of golf enthusiasm that Britain has produced, being that of old Alexander M'Kellar who played on Bruntsfield Links in the brave days of old and was known for his ardour as "the Cock o' the Green." He also would play always; when snow covered the course he begged and implored some one to become his opponent in a match, and if nobody obliged he would go out alone and wander the whole way round, playing his ball from flag to flag, the greens and holes being hidden. At night he would sometimes play at the short holes by the dim glimmer of a lamp, and golf by moonlight was his frequent experience. Once upon a time his suffering wife thought to shame him by taking to the links his dinner and his nightcap; but he was too busy to attend to her. M'Kellar is long since dead, but something of his soul survives in England--and in France. And there are old and experienced golfers in France. There are Parisians who are members of the Royal and Ancient Club of St. Andrews, and I have met others who could argue most deeply with me upon the peculiarities and merits of many British courses from Sandwich and Sunningdale to Montrose and Cruden Bay. I took tea at Fontainebleau with M. le Comte de Puyfontaine, who exercises a kind of governorship over the course, and he told me that he learned his golf twenty-three years ago at a place near Lancaster, and that since then he has played in many parts of the United States and elsewhere. * * * * * I have endeavoured to make the point that the French are worthy and thorough, that the Parisian golf and golfers must be taken seriously, and that it is a pleasure to go among them with our clubs. Their courses are nearly good enough for anything, and they are all different from each other in type and characteristics. Fontainebleau is cut out of the forest, and silver birches line the fairway, while some of the great boulders which are peculiar to the place stand out as landmarks near the putting greens--but not so near as to be useful to the erratic player. Holes of all kinds are at Fontainebleau, and some of them make pretty puzzles in the playing. The teeing ground for the third is high up on a hill and the view is charming, but that may be of less account than the circumstance that the carry is farther than it looks, and the hole is a long one. The fifth is a catchy dog-leg hole, which the caddies of Fontainebleau do not call a _jambe du chien_, as you might expect them, but a "doc-lac." Soon the game will be Gallicised completely. The ninth, being a drive and a peculiar pitch, is a strange hole which worries the pair of us exceedingly. It looks one of the simplest things, but there is an inner green and an outer one, as one might say, and the former is on a high plateau. There is a secret about it which we did not discover in three full days. The tenth is a fine long hole, with a guard to the green that might have been brought up from the Inferno, and so on to the end in great variety. I like Fontainebleau. Chantilly has less character but more length. It is a better test of wooden club play, but not of pretty work with the irons in approaching. Yet it is well bunkered, the fairway is smooth and dry, as it is at Fontainebleau, all through the winter, and the putting greens are most excellent, fast and true. If most parts of the course are a little flat, there is a great ravine about the middle of it which gives a touch of the romantic and helps to the enjoyment. The turf at La Boulie does not winter so well as it does at the other places, though the club has spent many thousands of francs in applying real sea-sand to it for its improvement; but in the spring, the summer, and the autumn, golf here at Versailles is a fine pleasure. Yet some will say that, much as I tempt them, they would not after all go to France for golf, that indeed they could never confess to others that they had been to Fontainebleau and Versailles and Chantilly for their game. But why may they not take their game and their historical views and reflections on the same days, as they may do better in France than elsewhere; though when we play at St. Andrews or at Sandwich, where Queen Bess visited, and Westward Ho! we wonder again how strangely this royal and ancient game does attach itself and cling to the old places of celebrity, and especially those whose fame was made for them by kings. It is curious. The keen golfer is a man of thought and sense. We play on a morning at Fontainebleau, and in the afternoon we wander through the rich galleries of the wonderful palace where many kings of France held magnificent court, a place where the great Napoleon loved to rest a while between campaigns. There are relics of the Emperor in many chambers; and it was at the chief entrance here that he bade his last good-bye to the old guard and went lonely away, an emperor no more. The wonders and the glories of Versailles are known even to those who have never crossed the Channel; Chantilly has had its great romances of history also. The old castle was put up in the ninth century; here the Condes lived in fine state, and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the place was very famous. The good French have endeavoured to make their courses suit their places. Sometimes we seem to look even on these playgrounds for a touch of art, a little delicacy, a fineness and a high quality, and we think in just that way of the golf de Paris when the train of the Nord runs us homewards again. * * * * * The seaside golf in the northern and north-western parts of France is coming to be an important thing in the general scheme. Personal association and its seniority above all except Dieppe have led me already to mention Wimereux, but the golf of Wimereux is not the queen of the game of northern seaside France. In all honesty we must crown the slightly younger Le Touquet, on the other side of Boulogne, with that distinction. Here you may have one of the most charming changes of the game, and the most wholesome, delightful rearrangement of your general daily living system. Go to Etaples from Boulogne, then spin in the car through that splendid forest, skimming by Paris Plage and its casinos and evidences of lightness of life, and so through to Touquet, where there is a course for golf that is most excellent in every respect, lengths and character of holes, sandy nature of soil, quality of putting greens--everything. Some of the holes are a little tricky; but the course in general has been enormously improved in recent times, and it well deserves the championship dignity that has now been accorded to it. The girl caddies there are the best of their kind. I remember a little Marie for such an intuition regarding clubs to be used as I remember no other assistant: and after playing for a day through these avenues of fir trees with the great banks of silver sand in the distance, shutting off the sea, then dawdling among the coloured lights at Paris Plage listening to the music after dinner, and in the night sleeping in an upper room near to the links, and hearing at the last moment of consciousness the wind music floating in from the surrounding trees, one feels that this is almost an enchanted land, with the spirits of happiness and pleasure controlling a joyful cosmos. Dieppe is good, and it is quite different. Here the golf is some seventeen years of age, the whole system of things is well matured and settled, and the golfing season goes along with a fine swing from the beginning to the end. It was Willie Park who first laid out this course, but it has been much altered and lengthened since then, and now there is a fine club-house and all that a player might wish for, and especially one who likes to contend in competitions. There is something for such challengers to do all the time; I know few other golfing places where there are so many competitions in August and September, and yet they are no nuisance to the people who say they hate such things. At Etretat the game has been making excellent progress lately; at Deauville by Trouville, where you bathe always except when you do not golf or sleep or eat, it has been long established, and the course there has recently been raised very high in quality; and at Cabourg and Havre, in the same region, there are courses also. There are at Etretat thirteen holes, and yet you may play a lucky round, and I am reminded that in the long ago, when golf near the sands of Picardy was first being thought of, a wise man of Cabourg sent for an English course architect, and, displaying to his view one nice field, said, "Voila! Make me a hole! Two if possible!" But they know much better now than that, and Cabourg has its full eighteen. To golf, to lie down and sleep, to splash and tumble in the sea, to seem to do so much and yet to do so little except make a few drives and miss some putts--it is all a very happy holiday that you may enjoy at these places. * * * * * The championships of France, which began in a small and gentle way, have lately risen to be very important events, and they gain a most wonderfully cosmopolitan entry. In 1913, which was the greatest year for championships in general that the game has ever known--Taylor winning his fifth Open at Hoylake, Mr. Hilton his fourth Amateur, Mr. Travers his fourth American Amateur, Ouimet beating Vardon and Ray in the American Open--the championships of France did indeed rise to the first class, and in both events, the Amateur at La Boulie and the Open which was held for the first time at Chantilly--and the first for it to be taken away from the mother course at Versailles--produced some most exciting business. I have never seen a more extraordinary final in its way than that in the amateur event at La Boulie on this occasion, when Mr. E. A. Lassen came to grips with Lord Charles Hope--and such grips they were! I was led to describe it at the time as a dramatic affair of four periods and a spasm, and that is just what it was. Lord Charles Hope, though not physically strong, has acquired a fine game, and in the first period of this thirty-six holes match we witnessed him playing some quite beautiful golf and exercising the most complete self-possession and steadiness, gradually piling up a big lead of holes upon his more experienced opponent, who has been once Amateur Champion of Britain and a finalist another time, and seeming to make himself a certain winner. The duration of this period was one whole round, and at the end of it Lord Charles had five good holes to his advantage. The second was a period of peace, in which we watched Lord Charles keeping a tight hold on his most valuable gains, while Mr. Lassen, if losing nothing more, was gaining nothing when it was absolutely necessary he should be gaining quickly if he was not to be the loser of the day. Time was flying and holes were being done with, and fewer of them being left for play and recovery. This period terminated at the turn in the second round, with Lord Charles Hope still four to the good and "still winning." The third period lasted from the tenth to the fourteenth holes in this round, and in it the man who had seemed to be very well beaten threw a new life into his game, tightened it up, made it exact, certain, and aggressive, while at the same time his opponent seemed to collapse entirely, his driving becoming soft and uncertain and his short game nervous. The Yorkshire player won four of these five holes and at the fourteenth he was level with his man. Never was there a more extraordinary illustration of the truth that no match is lost until it is won; to some extent it recalled that amazing championship at Hoylake, when Mr. Sidney Fry so nearly gained the title after being at one time, as it appeared, hopelessly beaten by Mr. Charles Hutchings. Now it was surely Mr. Lassen's match; but in the crisis Lord Charles Hope came again and fought every inch of the way home. In this period every hole was halved to the end of the round, so that after the statutory thirty-six had been played the state of things was as at the beginning of the day. No business had been done, and each man might be said to have had his tail up quite as much as the other. The spasm followed. The thirty-seventh had to be played. Mr. Lassen teed up his ball, said to himself that he must keep it to the left as there was the dread out-of-bounds on the right that had been a constant trouble to him, swung, struck, and to his dismay saw the little white ball bearing slowly but surely to the right after all. It did not reach the trees, but, almost as bad, it fell into the big deep bunker out that way, and made recovery difficult. Lord Charles Hope seized his advantage. A good ball shot straight down the middle of the fairway, and the hole and the match were his. An extraordinary game indeed that was. In the Open Championship at Chantilly there was an entry that was nearly good enough for a championship on British soil. Vardon and Ray, out across the Atlantic, were missing, but otherwise the class was as numerous and good as need be, and there were a few of the best British amateurs. George Duncan won, as he had won the "News of the World" tournament the week before, and so made it clear that he had come into his own at last. These two were his first really big victories in classic open events, and they were brilliantly and indeed easily gained. But it was not Duncan's victory, so well deserved as it was, that makes this championship at Chantilly worth a place in golfing history. It was something else that very nearly happened. Among the competitors was an amateur in Mr. H. D. Gillies, who at different times in recent seasons has shown an immense capacity. At St. Andrews in the Amateur Championship only a few months before he had made a brilliant display. Now, here, he did a thing which to the best of my belief and after a searching of all the records had never been done before, and that was in an open championship competition of the first order, decided by four rounds of stroke play and with the best players of the world arrayed against him, he as an amateur led the whole field for three consecutive rounds. Mr. Ouimet in America did not lead for three rounds, no amateur had led for three rounds in any open championship before, and it is not often that any professional has done so either. Mr. Gillies has enormous powers for concentration and effort, and, as one might say, he can strain himself at the game until he nearly drops. In his third round he had a wicked piece of bad luck which cost him two most valuable shots--not the sort of bad luck that one gets through finding a specially nasty place in a bunker, but the much worse variety which is the result of a grave error in course construction. After one of the finest drives one might wish to see, at a hole just after the turn he found his ball lying on a road which had to be treated as a hazard, and from here he was bunkered. He knew that Duncan was pressing him hard, and that he had not a stroke to spare. Still by an enormous effort he kept his lead, and at the end of the third round it looked as if it would still be a lead of two strokes, when alas! on the home green he lost a stroke in putting. Instead of having a lead of two over the terrible George for the last round he had now a lead of only one. There is not much difference between one and two--it may all be accounted for by the very smallest of putts--but in a case of this kind the moral effect is very great. You see, when you lead by two strokes you realise that you can afford to lose one of them and still be leading, but when you only have an advantage of one there is the cold truth that you cannot afford to lose anything at all or the lead will go--the lead that Mr. Gillies had held all the time. One may be sure that he felt this, for coming off that home green some one said to him quietly, "You still lead, Gillies," and he turned with a little melancholy and responded, "Yes, but one stroke is not much to lead Duncan by, is it?" The effect was visible at the first tee in the afternoon. He knew the responsibility. He took an infinity of pains, far too much. He addressed his ball until he was sick of looking at it any more, and then he topped it into the bunker in front of him. Good-bye, Open Championship of France! But there it was, a brilliant achievement for all that, and if he had won, as once he seemed likely to do, no man could have done justice to the golf history of that year with amateurs Ouimet and Gillies as Open Champions. * * * * * Surely Mr. Gillies is one of the most interesting studies in the game at the present time. Born in New Zealand, he became a boat-race Blue at Cambridge, and is the only one who has won a high position in first-class golf. Now he is a surgeon in Upper Wimpole Street, already with a high reputation as a specialist in matters affecting throat, ears, and other organs of the head. He is evidently a man of immense will-power, with a most enviable capacity for concentration and for obliterating from his mind completely what is not essential to the business of the moment. He will work at his profession continuously for a week or a month and only just remember golf, and then he will suddenly appear in a great competition, perhaps a championship, and be a golfer and nothing else whatever. That is as it should be, as it is always supposed to be in golf, but few men can exchange themselves to this extent. When he won the St. George's Cup at Sandwich he had not touched a club for ages, but somebody insisted on motoring him down there for the occasion. He had no idea of going to Chantilly, but was at Wimereux when an entry form was sent along to him there, and he said to Mrs. Gillies, "Let us go and watch the professionals," but they watched him instead. He is always going to courses he has not seen, and when he has not been playing golf for a long time, and then doing wonders on them. Tall and athletic in build, in demeanour he is solemn, and I have heard it said that his attitude at times somewhat suggests that he is about to put his opponent on the operating table--which in a sense he often does. He belongs to the hard thinking and slow playing school. Although he has a keen temperament, and is a man who at his best plays largely from inspiration, yet he is much of what we call a mechanical golfer, and is very measured and deliberative in his movements. He has studied and satisfied himself about what are the essential principles of this mysterious game, and he applies them to the best of his intense ability. He keeps himself steadier on his feet than almost any other player I can recall. Those who have had the necessities of pivoting on toes drilled into them from their first day at golf should make close observation of the Gillies way and see how well that way pays. He swings his club backwards but a little way and very slowly, but finishes the swing at great length. As is often the case with players of his attitude towards the game, his iron strokes are plain and they can be depended on. But the most interesting feature of his system and his principles is the remarkable steadiness with which he holds his head during the making of his stroke. We understand very well that of all principles this is the most imperative, and that he who disobeys it is completely lost. When we have foozled we know well that the presumptive cause was a little movement of that most restless and anxious head. We know also that head movement disturbs the general balance, and induces body movement, and have not troubled to consider why. A reason seems vaguely obvious, but Mr. Gillies knows more about matters of the head than other people, and from his surgical knowledge he has come by one of the most interesting theories that have been propounded in connection with this game and believes in it absolutely, which is one reason why he has decided that, when driving, whatever happens his own head shall be absolutely motionless. This is not a matter for a layman to explain or guess at, and so I have gone to Mr. Gillies himself and begged from him his theory. He says to me, then, that he has always felt that keeping the eye on the ball is certainly the key to the situation, but in recent times he has realised that the importance of so doing is really in keeping still the delicate balancing organs of the head when executing the shot. These organs or semicircular canals are intimately connected with the eye, and also give one the sense of position. The least movement of the head upsets the fluid in these canals, so that the sense of position is more or less lost, according to the amount of movement. Without the sense of position the stroke is almost sure to fail. "I take it," he says, "that your visual memory is good enough to remember the position of the ball, if you shut your eyes just before hitting it; but if you move the head at the moment you cannot hit the ball correctly. Swaying the head in putting, as Tom Ball does, is probably not very disturbing owing to the movement being so slow that the fluid in the canals does not get jerked. At the same time I can understand him requiring a great deal of practice to perfect the sway." To the layman this theory is very remarkable, and it is impressive for two reasons, one being that it is backed by expert scientific knowledge, and the other that it is emphasised by successful application. * * * * * And if Mr. Gillies is one of the most interesting figures that have arisen in amateur golf in recent times, most certainly George Duncan is the most interesting of the newer professionals. Here is an artist at the game if you will, the greatest genius of golf that has come up since Harry Vardon rose to fame. I am convinced that in the new period that is beginning with the inevitable decline, to some extent at all events, of the old triumvirate, George Duncan will be far and away the most conspicuous figure. He is a great golfer, and is in every way admirably fitted for supremacy. A more fascinating player to watch and study and think about afterwards has never driven a ball from the tee. When he first came out it was declared that he was the fastest golfer who had ever lived. It was said that he walked up to his ball and hit it away before anybody had time to realise that he had taken his stance. He was likened unto hurricanes, lightning, and racehorses. I remember that Mr. Robert Maxwell, being once partnered with him, in an Open Championship I think, remarked afterwards that it was the most violent and disturbing experience of fast golf he had ever known. All this was true. Duncan never seemed to find it necessary to think as we do, and not merely we with all our doubts and hesitations, but those far better than we are, men who have won championships. He dispensed with all alternatives, those fatal alternatives that ruin our own game. We often fail because there are not only so many ways of doing the same thing in golf, but because we try to think of too many of them when we have a stroke to play and change from one to another and then to a third, until our increasing indecision can be no longer tolerated and some sort of shot has to be played. Analyse your own emotions and experiences, and you will discover that this vacillation has been the cause of many disastrous failures. But George Duncan never suffered in this way. He is a man of lightning decision, of peculiarly sound and valuable inspiration, and he is one who, having once decided, does not swerve from his determination no matter what may be the allurements in the way of alternatives. Duncan does not know the alternative. He has no use for it. He does not recognise it. He believes that first thoughts in golf are best, and he abides by them. He decides and he acts. And he does all such thinking as is necessary for his decision while he is walking from the place where he played his last stroke to the place from which he will play his next, so that when he reaches his ball there is nothing to do but get to business without any waste of time. All these were features of the early Duncan just as they are of the present one, and they have been developed and perfected during the ten or dozen years that he has been out in the professional world. But the Duncan of the early period had a fault of temperament in that he would go wild. He would at the moment of crisis lose his head, think of impossibilities and try to do them. He would lose his grip of his game. Elation and despondency would alternate too quickly in his mind. He would be careless; he would forget consequences. Who that ever saw it will ever forget the way in which he let the Open Championship at St. Andrews in 1910 slip from his grasp in that terrible last round? He had done rounds of 73, 77, and 71, the third being then and still the record of the course. Another 77 would have given him the Championship. Instead of that he did an 83. The next year at Sandwich he did very much the same sort of thing in his third round. It has seemed that in each of the last four or five years he was good enough to win the Championship, and that it was largely his own fault that he did not do so. That is why we used to say of him that ambition should be made of sterner stuff, that these weaknesses of his temperament were inexcusable and must be stamped out. Duncan has cured that fault of temperament now. He has stamped it out. The other day when he and I were discussing his predecessor in the same flesh, he said, "All that is past and done with. It is gone behind me. There is no more of it. I am quick still. I shall always be quick because that is I, Duncan, my nature. I cannot be anything else. And why should I not be quick? Are there not too many slow golfers in the world? But for the rest of it I am steady now. I feel hold of myself and the game. I do not forget." Championships should come quickly to him now. CHAPTER XI RIVIERA GOLF, AND WHAT MIGHT BE LEARNED FROM LADIES, WITH A CONSIDERATION OF THE OVERLAPPING GRIP. One who will only play on summer days is a little less than half a golfer after all. Golf at the full demands resource, good heart, some courage, and a settled nerve, and it is of its principle that in the matter of places, times, and weather the game shall be taken as it is found. Hence the real golfer should not only tolerate the play in the bad seasons when there are howling winds and drenching rains, and much of life seems damp and sad, but he might be expected even to feel some occasional satisfaction in it. One who can hold himself up to the big wind and drive a ball that whistles through it to the full drive length, then play a good second and all with fine allowance and good wind work with his irons, so that the game works out well enough for any day, is one whose contentment is a state to be envied. Rarely does one feel the thrills of the golfing life better than when playing well in a lashing wind, with clothes that soak and stick; the sense of mastery is magnificent. Yet of such luxuries of winter golf one may sometimes tire. The strong would be gentle again; and sunshine comes well after storms and leaden skies. Swearing in December that this winter shall see us stay at home the season through, playing on our east coast links throughout, January finds us hesitate, and in February, if we wait till then, there is a journey being made away through France to the sweetness of life by the blue Mediterranean Sea. It is an unforgettable change. We have spoken wrongly when sometimes after, at the end of a winter season, we have declared we tired of it. Never. We have returned to London weary at the end of a January day from Sunningdale or Walton Heath, or it may have been just back along on the underground from the Mid-Surrey course at Richmond, which seems as well in winter as any, and much better than most others. But London is murky and dirty. It is cold, it is windy, there is a drizzling rain, and the streets are very dirty. It will be three-quarters of an hour before we may be seated at the dinner table. Oh, we become a little tired of this! Troubles never come singly, and probably on such a day a match or matches have been lost. Those who are not of the community do not understand what worries make up the full agony of this game, and that is why the loss of two matches was considered by the gentle lady with her friend at tea to be the cause complete of the horrid din as of breaking furniture in the hall, the barely-stifled awful words, the yelping and limping of the little dog that suggested some sudden and unexpected injury, and the general impression that was conveyed throughout the household of havoc and disaster. "It is nothing," said gentle Fanny of the perfect understanding as, with her toes in pink satin on the fender, she poured another cup for Mrs. Larcombe. "Really, it is only George, who, I can tell, has lost _both_ his matches, dear!" But it was not the matches only. It was the waiting lone and weary for Marmaduke at the beginning of the day; it was the lame excuse of Marmaduke for his tardiness; it was the aggravating manner of the man throughout and the stupidity of the caddie; it was the stickiness of the greens; it was something wrong with the fateful golfer's lunch that made it all worse in the afternoon; the slicing that was more frequent and farther into the rough; the pitch shots that were topped still more; and the putts that ever lipped and stayed outside. It was the luck that went viler all the time, the cruelty of circumstance, the misery of it all; and after the twin defeat the sad discovery and reflection that if one little thing--perhaps only the pressure of a finger--had been remembered about some big things that were wrongly done, it might all have been avoided. It is realised again that of all the sad thoughts the saddest is: "It might have been." It is then that the agony of golf is experienced; it is then that the golfer is not happy. And it is then, on the retreat to town, that one may seem to hear the Mediterranean call, and see a vision of a sun glistening on a flowered and song-laden land where golf is played. Take the chance, unhappy man; make the change then if you can. The strongest emotions often arise from the widest and most sudden contrasts. Our beautiful English summer comes to us too slowly and gradually through the vicissitudes of spring for the fullest delight. One may step out from the mist and drizzle of a London street into the greater darkness of a theatre, and it is all blank and gloom and nothingness, but there is a quick expectancy. A few moments, and there is the tinkling of a bell, the curtain is rolled up, and there is a blaze of light with a pretty picture, perhaps, of summer with a full suggestion of Arcadia. Music and song, love and gladness, and younger again is the heart in years. Thus for a while the load is lightened. It is like that when one wanders to the Riviera for golf in the depth of England's winter. We leave London when it rains and is cold and heavily depressing; the spirit is weary from the trials of the season. Charing Cross--the Channel--Paris, hardly less gloomy than her sister Londres,--the plunge into the rumbling darkness of the fast train on the P. L. M.--sleep and dreams. And in the morning the bell rings and the curtain of the new and sunny world rolls up, and it is glorious summer. Nothing in the way of change of scene is quite so good as this. Those who do not know the Riviera may try to imagine it, but in the clearest vision they cannot approach the grand reality of this sudden change. Marseilles--Toulon--Hyères--Costebelle; and there is the sunshine, the flowers, and the game. A rest of a day, quiet slumber through the night, and in the morning drowsily one hears a beat, beat, beat upon the window-panes, and, not being then awake to Hyères, or Costebelle, it seems perhaps but the dismal tapping of the London rain. But later it is discovered to be the tapping of the leaves and rosebuds on the glass. Breakfast on the terrace, the contenting cigar whose smoke rises wreathingly through a still atmosphere upwards to the blue, and then an effort to lift oneself from a summer languor. Clubs in possession again, a walk for a little way along a rose-fringed road, and then a plunge through a coppice along a broken stony path that thousands of golfers have trod before. Through a field of narcissi, through the planted violets, past a little vineyard on to the plain below--there the golf course is. Then play the game all day, and mount to the hotel again when the afternoon is nearly spent. But in the earlier afternoon at Costebelle I would rather climb back through the little wood after my single round, enjoy this perfect illusion of summer, and read and rest in laziness. Tints of lemon and citron come into the sky when the sun falls to its setting. Out beyond the plain is the sea and then the Iles de Hyères, or the Iles d'Or as they have been called, because the sun will shine upon them when it has left the mainland for the day--Porquerolles, Portcros, Titan, Bagaud, and Roubaud--a pearly-coloured group. You may make a short journey to them, to the blue Mediterranean which is so very blue. There is the delicate blue of the sapphire, and the richer blue of the turquoise. There is the wide blue of the Italian skies, and a wonderful blue in some women's eyes. But there is no blue that is so deep, so glorious, so soulful as that of the Mediterranean Sea, as in fancy I see it now. We gaze upon it and are content. All is so peaceful and pleasant. Over the hills comes a booming sound; it must be naval gunnery at Toulon. Grim realities of life and strife press even into this sweet scene. Yet they are French guns, and they are not meant for England either. I love Costebelle. For the simple sunny happiness of the life that is led there it is incomparable. * * * * * And this happiness in scene and sun, be sure, is the greater part of the golf on the French and Italian Riviera. There is often much doubt by those who have not been there upon the quality of Riviera golf. It varies. It once was poor; it was bad. It is now much improved, and it is improving still as the demand for it has quickened, as the people of southern France who depend so much upon their British visitors have come to realise the full meaning of "the golf boom" and the education and bettered tastes of the golfing people who leave Britain in the winter time. It is now, as golf of the inland kind, quite tolerably good, which is to say that in degree it might rank fairly well up in the second class of British inland golf. It is no better than that; it is sometimes not so good. Climatic difficulties on the Riviera are somewhat desperate. In the summer there is a continuous baking heat, and this is followed by days of warmth and nights of frost, and in such confusion of temperatures the golf courses have to be grown afresh for every season. Until recent times the putting greens needed to be newly sown and cultivated for every winter season, and I believe that it was at Nice that Mr. Hay-Gordon, secretary of courage and discernment as he is, first gave battle to the destructive climate and determined he would hold his putting greens--which at Nice are better than at almost any other place in southern Europe--right through the suns of summer and keep them on from one season to another. At Nice, again, thanks to gold, and thought, and enterprise, they have what the guardians of other Riviera courses do much envy, a magnificent supply of water, and this is lavished upon the turf through the dry time when the golfers are back at their homelands. The experiment of Nice, which was a fateful one, proved successful, and since then it has been copied by other clubs out that way, and greens are kept on and are much the better for it. In the old days it was a painful thing, as I remember it, to tread upon those tender new-born blades of grass, thin and scarce they were, and unfit for such usage as golfers give. It is far better now. Then also the construction of the courses has been much improved; but it must be remembered again that conditions and circumstances do not encourage or even agree with ideas of length and bunkering as we of Britain entertain them. Yet these things do not matter. We need no six thousand yards and no bottle-neck approaches when we wander southwards to the sun. Life shall be taken simply then; the press of existence shall be relieved, the game shall be made a little gentler than at other times, the nerves shall not be unduly tried. So we discover that there is a virtue in what is little more than five thousand yards, a generous amplitude of short holes, and enough to satisfy of those that can be done with a driver and an iron of sorts. In a mood of ease and languor, when even strong men who like the game find joy in a mixed foursome, we come to admire the Riviera system; and we may find men at nights hard in argument upon the points and delicacies of the fifth hole or the fifteenth, the aggravations of the sixth and the sixteenth, when they would disdain to think of such like in their golfing life at home. That comes of the influence of the sun; it soothes and satisfies, and it makes contentment. Then there is this good thing to be said for the Riviera golfing way, that it yields a very full variety, and it might well be advertised that it embraces something to suit all tastes. Not only does it vary in the kind of course, but in the way of life that is attached to it. The manner of living at Hyères and Costebelle is more of the English country kind and more sporting healthily open-air, with less of the flummery of fashion, than it is at other Riviera places, not meaning by that that there is not enough of good music and social entertainment for evening hours. The sea is a distance off, and there is next to nothing of promenading. Here we live well and are happy, and the sun is very warm. R. L. S. lived at "La Solitude" at Hyères, and he loved it. The golf in some respects is as good as elsewhere on the littoral; in some ways it is even a little better. There is the course of Hyères flanking one side of the quaint old town, and there is Costebelle with the chief hotel on the hillside on the other, and its golf course on the plain below. Hyères is a gentle course, pretty, smooth and nice, and much improved in recent times. The turf is good for southern France, and some of the holes are remembered, as where we play through an avenue of trees with silver bark. Golf is younger at Costebelle and it is quite different, but if one were led to make comparisons, as from which we shall refrain, it might be said that often youth is no harmful thing. Golf architecture had already advanced to a science when this course was first made, the first planning being done by Willie Park, and such as Mr. John Low have advised upon its improvement since, while M. Peyron has lavished much money and attention upon it too. Even if there are still some rawnesses apparent, golf at Costebelle comes near to being the real thing. Then it is a good point in favour of this end of the Riviera that here we have the golf almost at the door of our hotel as it is scarcely to be had at any other place. It is something to walk down to the first tee, and pluck a rose by the wayside as we go. * * * * * That of Cannes is a pretty course. The Grand Duke Michael has done much for it and here he is a king. Society is high at Cannes, the people come along to La Napoule, six or seven miles from the town, in their motor-cars in a long procession, and it is the proper place for the luncheon party and such social entertainments as go well with a verandah, sunshine, and the flowers. One would go to the golf club at La Napoule even though one did not golf; many do--perhaps too many. Those who eat and chatter, kiss hands and smile, but never take a divot are losers of something that is heartening. A river runs through this golfing land, and twice we cross it by a famous ferry worked by hands upon a rope that is stretched across the stream. On one side of the river there are twelve holes laid and on the other there are six; but the six may be considered to be better than the twelve for the pleasure that they yield. First we play three of the batch of twelve, and then we are floated to the precious six. Here there are big sand bunkers of a natural kind, and they are nicely placed. The fairway is tolerably good, and there are putting greens in pretty places. If this were all it would be good; but the course of Cannes gains a splendid charm from its magnificent situation which cannot be ignored. There is a promise of beauties to come when we approach the club-house by that long avenue of golden mimosa; later there are glimpses of almost heavenly scenes. If the golf at these continental places is gentler than at home, such things as scenery may count for a little more. I have never had full sympathy with the suggestion that the golfer cares nothing for scenery or sparkling air except when he is off his game and then falls back upon them for compensation. There is not only hypocrisy in this, but in suggesting the player to be scarcely above the savage it is unfair to a healthy taste that has had some training in appreciation of natural beauties. One does not dwell upon cloud effects nor let the mind loose upon a panorama when the strokes are being done and there is a man to beat, but sunlight and sweet scenes have always their strong effect subconsciously, and it would be a pity if they had not. I shall not place the course of Cannes at La Napoule in that warring and jealous company, many clubs strong they are, each of which claims that it is the most beautifully situated in the world. I have played upon three or four of such courses, and indeed their claims have appeared to be strong. It is enough that Cannes is very beautiful. It will be well if there are a few moments for waiting caused by a slow-going match in front when your ball has been placed on its little pinnacle of sand on the fourth teeing ground, for spread out in the distance there is a glorious panorama of the snow-capped Maritime Alps, on whose last spur there lies glistening white in the sunshine the little town of Grasse where sweet perfumes are distilled and where, as they say, twelve tons of roses are crushed to make a quart of essence. Grasse rests on that hillside like a linen sheet dropped there by the gods. When we have done this hole and face about, there are the pearly-tinted Esterels ahead. Hereabouts the holes are chiefly laid out through avenues of fir trees, and here and there, especially when one is approaching the eighth green, the picture is one that bears some suggestion of an Italian charm. Elsewhere in the round the Mediterranean is presented, as once when we look across the bay in which Cannes is placed to Cap d' Antibes at the opposite corner from La Napoule. By comparison some of the concluding holes are a little dull in looks; but when we play them in the afternoon the sun is setting behind the Esterels in front, and then there is indeed a sunset to be seen. Again, the course of the Nice club is at Cagnes some miles out from the town. It is different from the others of the Riviera, and it has its special advantages. I recall an example of one of them which was the more impressive since it was made on the occasion of my first visit to the course. That was years ago, and we had been held up at Nice for five days and five nights by continuous and heavy rain during the whole of that long time, and it was in February too. Such a spell of Riviera wet seems almost incredible, but it happened, the oldest inhabitants, for the credit of their country, declaring that such a thing had never been before since the world as they knew it had begun. When this kind of thing happens on the Riviera there is only one thing to do, and that is go to the casinos; and it was bad for us in every way that this rain came down like that even if it was good for the Casino Municipal and the others at Nice and for M. Blanc at the adjacent Monte Carlo. When the five days and five nights had been endured, when the heart had grown sick of what happened at the tables, when our thoughts had turned to Sicily and Egypt--for during this period of the flood I had made one voyage (we should call it a voyage though the journey was done by motor-car along that glorious Grand Corniche) to the Riviera of Italy, and there at Bordighera and San Remo (and what a pretty little course it is at Arma di Taggia) found it to be raining still--the sun came out again and the question of golf arose to life. But surely, it seemed, golf would be impossible for some time; courses would need to dry. However, we argued that a stroke with a driving mashie is better than no play, and so we took the car at the Place Masséna and soon were out at Cagnes, and there we played on a course that was as dry as any course need ever be though the rain had been pelting down to within three or four hours before. In one or two hollow places there were little pools of casual water, but otherwise the state of things was such that we might sit upon the grass when the opposition was badly bunkered and needed time for his recovery. Others knew that Nice recovers quickly, for when we were out in the middle of the course we espied some figures a couple of long holes away, and about the attitude of one of them there was something strangely familiar. There was a manner of walking on the course not so much stiff as small and quite precise, and there was a club being carried vertically, head high up as if it were a gun and the carrier were one of a line of infantry. I can recall only one man who sometimes walks with his club like this--not that there is anything against it--and, knowing him, I still regret that opponent had not courage to accept a wager of anything from five francs to fifty that I could name the man at that distance of seven hundred yards, having no knowledge that he I had in mind was on the Riviera at all. It was Mr. Arthur Balfour, ex-Prime Minister, who, chafing for lack of golf after his own five days' shutting up, had motored over from Cannes at the moment that the rain held up. There is a certain plainness about many of the holes at Nice, but others are interesting. The first is appetising, the eighth is a mashie shot over a belt of trees, and the ninth is one of the longest I know, quoted on the cards at 605 yards and stretching away to the west, parallel with the sea-shore, and quite close to it so that a highly extravagant slice might deliver one's ball to the Mediterranean. However, we get there very quickly, and the hole is not so long as figures make it seem, for there is much run on the ball at Cagnes. One of the prettiest holes follows this one. The sociabilities here are excellent, and Nice itself, being rather a place of tumultuous excitement and very much within the Monte Carlo zone and influence, you may find it a beneficial thing in many ways to get out to the golf club as frequently as you can. In recent times they have effected a great improvement to the course at St. Raphael, and up at La Turbie, overlooking Monte Carlo, and in one of the finest situations conceivable, they have made a new one with considerable luxury of appointment. The climatic difficulties which they had to encounter here, at a height of nearly two thousand feet, were such that they had not dreamt of, much less reckoned upon, and for a time an appreciable portion of the money was being lost on the greens that was being gained through the reds and blacks in the casino down below, the two organisations not being without association with each other. The construction of this course stands out as one of the great engineering feats of golf. The top of the mountain on which it was determined that it should be made was a bare rocky waste. There was not even the necessary soil to grow the grass on. It was determined to take up the soil from a neighbouring valley, and three hundred men were employed to do the work. There was no railway, no horse or mule traction would get the stuff properly up that hillside, and so it was carried in baskets on the backs of those three hundred men. Next, rocks were blasted, the soil was spread, seeds were sown, and a result was awaited with anxiety. Then came down some tremendous rains, and down the hillside that soil was washed away, and most of the carrying up had to be done all over again. But labour and perseverance conquered, and at last the grass was made to grow, and the plain truth is that here now they have a course that for the Riviera is quite passably good, and most extraordinarily beautiful in its situation, the Alps being in the picture on three sides of it, and the Mediterranean down below on the fourth. On a fine day Corsica can just be seen. Now it is clearly indicated that the man who would demonstrate a perfect alliance with happy fortune must accomplish a grand double event. He should break the bank at Monte Carlo in the morning, and he should hole in one at La Turbie in the afternoon. This course and that of Sospel are a new and separate feature of Riviera golf. Formerly the whole strength of the golf of the littoral lay at its western end, and it was down near to the level of the sea. Now Monte Carlo and Sospel, chiefly Sospel, have moved the balance a little nearer to the east. Sospel is agreeable; and here again the construction of the course and its improvement to its present good state stand for a great triumph of skill and perseverance. Sospel is some thirteen miles behind Mentone in a valley of the Alpes Maritimes, and it is a quaint old place. If one never golfed at all, the journey there with all its thrills and excitements, and the picturesque little town that is at the end of it, are well worth a day of the time of any man. That journey may be made by motor-car, or now by tram, and one may safely say that there is no other golfing journey of its kind that can compare with it. As to the course, it possesses turf which is as good as anything to be found in the vicinity of the Mediterranean, and though the round is only a trifle over five thousand yards, and there is no hole of so much as four hundred, it is nice golf for all that, and the wooden club is needed frequently for the second shots. Here and there by this Mediterranean sea new courses are being made. They have one at Grasse. There will be others soon. The truth is that dawdling on the Riviera has gone quite out of fashion, and it has come to be understood at last that this wine-like air and the golden sunshine are better than the dim light and dank atmosphere of the gaming rooms. A few persons who go to the Riviera in the winter seem to be nervously afraid of giving up much of their time to golf. I have heard them say to themselves and others: "Is not the golf of London better than anything by the Mediterranean, and why then do we pay hundreds of francs to come here merely to play golf, and almost forget that we are in the south of France?" You will not forget that you are by the blue sea to the south of Europe. Not only is the glory of this part of the world in winter better understood and better appreciated by those who golf than by those who don't, but by far the most is made of their time by the players of the game. I do not see what is the use of going to the Riviera unless one golfs. * * * * * It may seem a strange reflection, but it is the truth, that when at the Riviera for any length of time in the winter, and especially when at such a place as Hyères, one is inclined more to a thorough overhauling of one's game, a study of its weaknesses and a determination upon certain improvements, than at any other time. A good explanation is, however, possible. At holiday time like this one has the play continually. One is detached from all the workaday considerations of life at home. And then again one is thrown among new golfing friends from all parts of the world, people of infinite golfing variety and all charged with their own new ideas. We see every kind of style and every degree of skill, and if much of the style is bad and the skill is often deficient, there is something always to be learned or suggested. And it has been found as a matter of practical experience that at such places the majority of people fall to thinking of their ways of driving, often because their driving at the beginning out there is very bad, and that in turn is often due to the difficulty at first of sighting the ball properly in the pellucid atmosphere. But the whole system of driving is overhauled, and one would dare to suggest that proportionately to the number of players involved there are more conversions made from the plain grip to the overlapping on the Riviera in the season than anywhere else. Only this very morning as I write--a bitter cold morning when I shiver in proximity to an east coast links, and sigh for the passing of a few days more when the Channel shall be crossed and a glad journey south made on the P. L. M.--a letter comes up to me from a friend at Hyères demanding that all possible information printed and otherwise shall be transmitted on the subject of the grip, for there is a drastic revolution to be made in the case of one anxious golfer! In this matter, one of the most important in all practical golf as it surely is, there is a suggestion of great value to be made. The advantages of this grip as they are being discovered by more converts than ever before, are greater driving power owing to wrist work being easier, and also the fact that the left arm and hand pull the club through better and drive the ball as it ought to be driven, the overlapping reducing the right hand to a low subjection. No matter how good and careful the player may be, he who uses the two-V grip is certain sometimes to be in trouble with his right hand, which will constantly attempt to establish a lordship over the left, which when done is fatal to the good swing and the straight ball. Straight driving along a good, low trajectory, getting a ball with plenty of run on it, might almost be said to be characteristic of the overlappers, who are certainly off their drive less frequently than their brethren. These being the advantages of overlapping, how is it to be gained by those who have all along been addicted to the plain two-V way of gripping, and now find it impossible after many trials to convert themselves, these trials having been made in the most obvious way by hard practice on the teeing ground and with a brassey through the green? This is a good question to ask, but the answer is too often disappointing. Those who have started their golfing lives as old-fashioned two-V men seem fated to remain as such. As it happens, I believe I have come by the simplest and most effectual way of making the conversion; at all events, it is one that has never failed, though it has been tried in very many cases. It is simplicity itself. Nearly every man who tries to adopt this grip does so with his driver. It is natural, because it is for the driving that he most wants the grip, and he never thinks about it for anything else. In these experiments, however, he feels in constant danger of missing the ball--and sometimes does miss it--is most extremely uncomfortable, entirely lacking in confidence, and sooner or later comes to the conclusion that the overlapping grip, whatever its merits, is not for him. The sure and certain way is to begin with the putter, which is easy and also valuable, because the experience of the best players is that the overlapping grip improves one's putting at least as much as it does one's driving. You may become accustomed enough to this way of gripping the putter on the first day to try it in the most important match or competition. After two or three weeks of this way of putting, let the grip be tried for short running-up approaches, which will be satisfactorily accomplished after a very little practice, and then, after another week or two, let it be used for short lofted shots. The crisis comes when a swing of such length has to be made that the head of the club has to be raised more than elbow-high. A difficulty will be experienced at this stage, but it will soon be overcome, and when it is the way to overlapping with the driver is opened. Within a week the man is a complete and happy convert. On the general question of grips and gripping, which is high in the minds of golfers preparing for their season's campaign and setting their bags in order, one does feel that points of detail are not generally considered as they should be. In many cases the grip has really more to do with the effectiveness of a club than the head thereof, and yet perhaps not more than one golfer in four is properly suited. In general the grips are too short, too thick, and their thickness is too uniform. A very thick grip tends to take weight from the head, to spoil the feel and balance of the club, and to reduce the sense of control over it, but thickness in moderation is good for weak hands and fingers. Thin grips throw the weight into the head, give extra control, and improve the feel, but in excess need strong hands and fingers. The professionals nearly all use quite thin grips, their hands and fingers being very strong. But remember that the right hand and its fingers are stronger than the others, and also that that hand has less work to do in gripping, while as it is mainly concerned with steadying and guiding it is best suited by thinness of grip. Clearly, then, the grip should be thicker for the left hand than for the right, should, in fact, taper. This morsel of theory is overwhelmingly justified in practice, and that is what we mean when we say that most grips are too uniform in thickness, for they are nearly as thick for the right hand as for the left, and end suddenly with a kind of step just beyond the place where the right forefinger is applied. For hands of moderate strength let the circumference at the top for the left hand be 2-11/16 in. in diameter, and at the place where the right forefinger holds on let it be 2-1/2 in. From this point let it taper off gradually for about 4 in. until the leather has nothing underneath it, and then half an inch of wrapping on the bare stick brings the grip, as it were, to fade away into nothing. The full length of a grip of this kind may be about 12-1/2 in., and the tapering conduces greatly to the improved feel of the club and to a look that somehow makes for confidence. In the case of iron clubs the length and the decreased thickness towards the bottom are very good when taking a short grip of the club. * * * * * Matters appertaining to ladies' golf also come more prominently before the average male player of the game when he is on the Riviera with the sun than they do at other times. He sees more of it for the reason that his home exclusiveness cannot be tolerated there, and he sees much to make him think, even though the best lady players of the game do not often go that way. After watching a ladies' championship for the first time I left the place with some deep reflections. The idea that men have anything whatever to learn from ladies in regard to golf may seem preposterous, but it is not so. There may be a thousand times as many good men golfers as there are lady golfers who are as good, but there are just a few of the latter who are very good indeed, far better than they are generally supposed to be, and their style and methods are very well worth studying. When great events are stirring in golf the leading Scottish newspapers regularly print leading articles upon them, of so much general importance are they considered. After the ladies' championship in question, I read a leading article in a Glasgow daily newspaper, and it said that it was evident that if Miss Ravenscroft and Miss Cecil Leitch were to enter for the Amateur Championship and were to maintain their best Turnberry form the result would be disconcerting to those who hold that the scratch man can give the equally competent woman golfer half a stroke or thereabouts. With this I agree. The game of girls who can drive 250 yards, who can win 330-yard holes in threes to other girls' fours, who can do nine holes in 37, and so forth, needs to be taken quite seriously. The real importance of the matter is just this, that the best of these girls have arrived at a result which is superior to that attained by the average man golfer, and they have reached it by a system and a method which are practised by comparatively few male players. Their golfing principles and styles are quite different. Is there nothing we can copy from them? Surely. Now we hear very much about 300-yard drives, which one is half given to understand have become the regular thing with the most modern balls; but we know, as a matter of fact, that the average man does not drive anything like this distance, and that he would give a part of his income to be able to drive as far as some of the very best girls do at the championships. They achieve their distance not at all by hard hitting, for they hit quite gently, but by long, free swinging, perfect timing, and especially by full following through, that is to say, they swing in just the same way as it was necessary for the best men players to swing in the days of the gutty ball. They finish their swings with the club head and shaft right round their backs and their hands well up; I saw some of them who made nearly as perfect models of the golf swing as Harry Vardon does in the picture made of him by Mr. George Beldam and in the statuette by Mr. Hal Ludlow. Their style was most excellent and it was a fine thing to see. Necessity has caused it. These girls have not the strength of arm, wrist, and fingers to get a good length in the same way that men get, or try to get it now; the rubber-cored ball has not made the game so easy for them that they can dispense with an inch of the fullest swing that they can make. They seem to use their wrists but little, and all their movements are as smooth and harmonious as they can be. In this way they drive many yards farther than the average man golfer does. In the Amateur Championship you will not see one man in three drive the ball in this way now. Short swinging, imperfect following through, and a jerky, snappy kind of hitting have become almost general now that the balls can be so easily driven by the exercise of mere wrist power. The result is that good style in driving has become very rare among men. From the point of view of results obtained this is well enough for men who play in championships; they drive much farther than the best girls do, though I do not think that they are generally so straight. But the average golfer, consciously or unconsciously, copies his superiors, and most of them have now no style and do not know the sensuous pleasure that is obtained from a full swing, a clean hit, and the complete finish which seems to give a thrill to every nerve in the system. Then, if these men with all their jerks and wrist strain still do not get that length to which they may think they are entitled--as most of them do not--would it not be worth while to go back to the old way of better style and practise most assiduously at the full swing until they get it right? The very best girls show evidence of fine schooling in this matter. They hit the ball with marvellous cleanness. In a large proportion of cases the advice to male players in these days to swing short and hit hard is sound so far as mere results are concerned. But all men are not so strong in the forearm as they may think, and they do not get the length they seek, while another thing to remember is that the long complete swing when once mastered is less frequently thrown out of gear than the short one, which is a very difficult thing to keep in order. Then there is something to notice also in the preliminaries to the drive as the really good girls go through them. Not all players suspect what a deep influence the preliminary waggling of the club has on the subsequent swing. The influence is enormous, and the way that the majority of male players waggle is one that directly encourages jerky hitting. You will find that they tighten their wrists as they lay the club to the ball and move the head of the club back in two or three short, quick movements, rarely letting the head go forward over the ball. This is strongly conducive to a fast back-swing, a fast on-swing, and no follow through. It makes for the hard hit pure and simple. Now many girls who get long balls by big swings keep their wrists very loose in the waggling and allow the head of the club to swing easily backwards and forwards like a pendulum two or three times, four or five feet in front of and behind the ball each time, so that when the real swing is entered upon it is almost a continuation of the waggle and is made at much the same pace. This is a direct encouragement to the long swing, long follow through, and smooth rhythm of the entire movement. Between the man's waggle and his swing when done in the manner described there is no sort of connection whatever, and the driving is always much the poorer for the fact. Again, in the putting the ladies' play is full of morals for men. I do not hesitate to say, after an immense amount of observation, that the putting of many of the girls at their championship is quite as good as most of that we see in the men's Amateur Championship. They are deadly with the short putts up to two yards, and they hole the long ones with astonishing frequency. They come to their conclusions speedily as to what is the proper thing to do, and, having done so, they make their strokes with no further hesitation. We see very little tedious and laborious examination of the line, and, we may be sure, that they are the gainers for it. In the men's Amateur Championship the wearisome ways of some of the competitors are notorious. They study the line meditatively from north, south, east, and west, convince themselves of the existence of influences which do not in reality exist at all, next they hang over the ball with their putter addressed to it until one suspects them of having fallen into a cataleptic state, and then they miss the putt. The girls putt with a great confidence and accuracy. Of course these eulogiums refer only to the best of the lady golfers; between them and the others there is a very big gap, and it would be ridiculous to pretend that the average championship girl is yet within miles, as it were, of the corresponding man. But she has ways that the average man might often copy to advantage. Miss Cecil Leitch, who is surely the finest mistress of golfing method and style that her sex has ever yielded to the game, and is splendidly worthy of the championship that at last, after much waiting, she won at Hunstanton in the summer of 1914, comes as near to being a perfect model as any one I can think of. She has graced a masculine way in golf with some feminine delicacy, and there is art, there is science, and there is rhythm in all her golfing movements. And she is splendidly accurate. Her iron play is a thing to be admired, and one might say of her as one cannot of all players who have been many years at the game, whatever may have been their success, that she is indeed a golfer. * * * * * And whoever is the champion of any particular period may be interested to know that at no time and place is he ever so much appreciated as away from his own country during the time when it is so wet and cold at home that people play comparatively little--less perhaps than they should do. As masters indeed they are properly regarded, and most dissectingly discussed are the champions when their disciples are abroad; and it is a good thing too, for if there must be influences on the game of humble players, let them come from the heights. In this matter many of us have always regarded John Henry Taylor as quite one of the best of models, despite what any one may say about a lack of beauty in his style. Taylor, five times champion, is indeed a very great master of this game, and he has special advantages as a model in that first he is deeply practical and can explain everything he does correctly (I know some of the greatest players who explain, but incorrectly, that is, they do not even know what they do themselves), can reason, and is almost, as one might say, a medium between the inspired play of Vardon and the mechanical way of Braid. He is one of the most thoroughly practical golfers who have ever played, and perhaps he has taught more other golfers than any one who has ever lived. I believe that to be the case. Taylor plays his wooden clubs with a round swing, and to-day some great authorities are disposed to condemn that style of swing utterly and declare that only the upright one is the real thing. But what about Hoylake in 1913? Then Taylor won his fifth championship, and he did it chiefly, as I believe, by his magnificent driving, done in such circumstances of terrible weather as would have made it next to impossible for any ordinarily good player to drive at all. Above everything, Taylor's golf is effective, and it is effectiveness we want. Once he explained in an interesting way how he viewed his own driving and how he gained the power that he does with his comparatively short swing. He is what we may call an open-stancer, and he insists that stance and character of swing must be adapted to each other in a special way, that for the open stance only a round-the-body swing is suitable, and that when a man plays an upright sort of swing with a square stance his right elbow must inevitably leave his side, and that is one of the worst and most frequent faults in driving, though one often little suspected or appreciated. If he stood square, says the champion, he feels he would lose direction; if his swing were upright he thinks he would lose distance, and if his right elbow were allowed to leave his side, then he is sure he would lose power; and direction, distance, and power are the three essentials of good driving. So he is all for the open stance and flat swing, and one of its chief merits and necessities is that in the back-swing the wrists do not permit the head of the club to move outwards and backwards in the line of flight behind the ball as it has been preached they should do, but begin to circle the club round at once, and by this means the right elbow is kept to the side. The importance of this elbow movement is very great. It might be safe to say that more than half the golfers of to-day do it wrongly and suffer accordingly. Taylor urges, of course, that the initial turn of the wrists at the very beginning of the swing is extremely important; and then as to the arm movement, he emphasises that the right elbow should be kept close to the side and should move round the side irrespective of any movement of the body. That makes for a smooth flat swing, and a sense of enormous gain in power is certainly the result. He says that he feels a gain of half as much power again by this movement in comparison with an upright swing. The initial wrist movement induces it. He warns those who think of trying to flatten their swing, and so gain some of the power which he certainly has, against allowing excessive body movement to which they will be very liable. CHAPTER XII ABOUT THE PYRENEES, AND THE CHARMS OF GOLF AT BIARRITZ AND PAU, WITH POSSIBILITIES FOR GREAT ADVENTURE. It is not a bad thing to be at the Gare d'Orsay in Paris on a night in early February, seeing a porter attach to one's baggage a scarlet label with the words "Pyrenees--_Côte d'Argent_" printed diagonally across it on a bright yellow band. It indicates a journey southwards to the sun, to a corner of the Bay of Biscay where there are Biarritz and St. Jean-de-Luz and Pau, and the Pyrenees queening over all. Golf was played in these parts some ages back; indeed it was here that the foundations of continental winter golf were laid long before any stir was made elsewhere. It is not always warm at Biarritz; often it is windy; sometimes it is very cold; but generally it is genial and pleasant, constantly sunny, and there is something about the place that conduces to a strong and healthy sporting feeling. It is a matter of taste. I am not here to write down that from the golfing point of view it is either better or worse than the Riviera. They are not the same. They have bad holes at each, and some good ones at both. Biarritz, which is one of the most popular golfing winter resorts in existence and retains its great popularity in spite of its rivals (really when I was there lately in the month of February they told me they had already taken £700 in fees that month, though there was then still a week to go), has some holes which, as we think upon them at home in England, seem quite shockingly bad. They are not so much bad as nearly improper. And yet when we are at Biarritz we do love these holes, as do the great players without exception, and as lief would we suggest the filling up of the Cardinal bunker at Prestwick and the flattening of that range of Himalayas at the same glorious golfing place as touch an inch of the face of the Cliff hole at Biarritz. The course has the gravest faults, but it is very enjoyable to play upon in February, and in the winds that blow there one needs to be playing uncommonly well to get round in figures reasonably low. On the other hand, the golf at Nivelle by St. Jean-de-Luz and Pau is among the winter's best in Europe. There is indeed much difference between the coast of silver and the coast of blue, and the contrast comes out strongly in the golf. There is less of music and flowers and softness of life, less languor at Biarritz than at Cannes and Nice and other Riviera places. The games are everything, and the easy strolls and the social dalliances are much less. In the morning we seldom see the young ladies in fine costumes bought in Paris. They flit fast about the streets and along up the Avenue Edouard VII. in short skirts and the simplest _semi-négligé_ dress, each with a brightly coloured jersey-jacket of a very distinctive colour--a brick red, a sulphur yellow, a cobalt blue, something that does not hide itself. Every one is keen and openly admits it. And the golf club beyond the lighthouse is a great institution, and it is splendidly governed by Mr. W. M. Corrie, the honorary secretary. Biarritz golf is distinctly peculiar. The course is a short one; it offers a generous continental supply of holes that can be reached with a good shot from the tee (but they must be good and well-directed shots, for the guards of the greens are exacting), and the turf and putting greens are as good as one has any right to expect them to be in the south of France. These are generalities. Now the course, like the old Gaul of Caesar, is in three parts. We begin the play and go on for some seven holes on a flat tableland; then we plunge down over the cliffs to the level of the sea, come up again to the tableland at the thirteenth hole, and so finish on the level. One may leave the first part of the play out of consideration. It is neat, but one often feels the desire to be "getting down below," where there is better sport and much scope for skill and enterprise. At last we come to a teeing ground on the edge of the steep white cliff which is some hundred and thirty feet in height. It is a drive-and-iron hole that is before us, and quite a pretty thing, a hole that for feature and natural beauty it would not be easy to improve upon. To a part of the underland, where the drive must be placed, has been given the name of "Chambre d'Amour," and tales for sorrow and weeping are told of it, of lovers being caught by the tide and dying there. The green is away in a corner of the course, tucked up in the shadow of a towering lighthouse, and the bounding waves of Biscay come rolling almost to its very edge. If we are not convinced that it is technically perfect, this is at all events a charming hole, one of the most picturesque we can find in France, At the lighthouse we turn about, play some plainer things along the level of the sea, and then come to a piece of golf which is famous all over the world. The ascent to the higher surface has to be made at the thirteenth, and it is done at what is known to every one as the Cliff hole. Nearly all who have never even seen it have heard of the Cliff hole of Biarritz, have studied pictures of it, and speculated upon its peculiar difficulties. No hole on the continent of Europe has nearly such a reputation; indeed, it is perhaps the only one with a special celebrity. I have been asked questions about it in America. I have seen and played it, examined it thoroughly, and thought it out. It is a queer thing, quite different from any other hole I know. It needs such a shot to play it properly as is not demanded elsewhere. And yet it requires absolute skill, the proper shot must be played and played thoroughly well, and it is practically impossible to fluke it. Why, then, should this not be reckoned a good golfing hole? The circumstances are these: The teeing ground is on the lower level, and it is only some fifty yards from the base of the cliff. The ground in between is rough and stony. The cliff here is about forty yards in height, and, if not vertical in the face, bulges outwards frowningly at the top, while a thin stream of water trickling down at one side seems to add a little more to the fearsomeness of the thing. At the top edge of the cliff there is grassy ground sloping quickly upwards for about a dozen yards until a line of wire is reached, and there the green begins. The fact that the green (which is tolerably large and in two parts, an upper and a lower) then slopes downwards away from the player does not make matters easier. Beyond it is another precipice, but wire netting is there to save the ball from this, and there is some wooden palisading to keep it out of trouble on the left. Then there is a local rule saying that if the ball reaches the top of the cliff, but does not pass the wire, it must be teed again, with loss of distance only, the man not being allowed to play it from the tee side of the wire. (He would do so at peril of toppling over the cliff!) But all these things do not make this awful hole much easier in the play. One day I sat on the edge of the cliff and watched the people playing it, and the ball that reached the green and stayed there was a rarity. It can be done. Braid and Taylor and Vardon would do it all the time, and it is no trick shot that is wanted. You might hit hard at the ground in front of the wire and make the ball trickle on, but that would call for more than human accuracy. Or you might sky your ball up to the heavens and let it fall straight down on to the green, and that would be superb. But champion Taylor would take his mashie and play, perhaps, some fifteen yards above the cliff with all the cut that he could put upon the ball, and then he would be putting for a two. A difficult hole follows, but after that the work is easier. * * * * * With a pair of prism glasses looking Spainwards to the left, we may just discern the quaint and quiet little town of St. Jean-de-Luz. It is one of the best of the winter places for golf, for health and sunshine, and no nonsense. The little town is thoroughly Basque, and the player in his hours away from the game will have a good satisfaction in wandering about it and peering into such places as the old thirteenth-century church which is a perfect specimen of the religious architecture of the Basques, and such a thing in churches as you would not see elsewhere. It was here that Louis XIV. came for his wedding two and a half centuries back. And in this locality we have three courses to play upon--three! There is the old one of St. Barbe, which is a nine-holes affair, and has one hole--the third--called the "Chasm," which is a very strong piece of golf, for the drive is over a deep fissure in the rocks, with the sea running in below. St. Barbe is the second oldest course in France--Pau being the oldest--and there are some fears, perhaps exaggerated, that it may not be in existence for many years more. Another of the three is the course of the St. Jean-de-Luz club at Châlet du Lac, and this also is one of nine holes. Until a little while since there were twelve, but then three were captured by the terrible builders, who seem to oppress the golfers all over the world; but the club received some compensation in having a new and neat little club-house erected for them at the landlord's expense. And here also they make the claim that "the scenery surrounding the course is probably the finest to be obtained from any course in Europe." Certainly it is very good. The nine holes are very tolerable in golfing quality. Here and there the driving must be very straight. A pull, for instance, at the third, will deliver the unhappy ball to the Bay of Biscay, and the sea will bang it about the rocks for a long time after. At the fifth, again, one must respect the ocean when approaching. Generally, however, the holes are somewhat easy, and do not worry so much as to hinder appreciation of the surrounding views, which are indeed magnificent. Out one way is the grand panorama of the snow-topped Pyrenees, and the light and colour effects upon them change at nearly every hour throughout the day. Below is the pretty harbour and town of St. Jean-de-Luz. Away to the west is the great expanse of the Atlantic, framed here at the course with a wildly rocky coast, and up along to the north is a rough fringe of shore, the innermost corner of the Bay of Biscay, which leads the eyes out to the most distant point, where a cluster of buildings gleams in the sunlight, and the tall, white lighthouse beyond them indicates that the place is Biarritz. But Nivelle, the course that rises up from the bank of the broad river of that name, is the chief course of the group and quite a wonder of golfing France. When I first saw it and inquired upon its origin I felt that here was something which was undoubtedly among the best in Europe, and yet only five or six years ago all the land, except a small piece which is occupied by two of the eighteen holes, was bare soil on which cabbages, turnips, and other edibles were being grown. Listen to the story of the creation of Nivelle. One day Mr. Frank Jacobs, the secretary of the St. Jean-de-Luz Club, and a Spanish doctor, went exploring the country round, and they hastened to Count O'Byrne to tell him that there was ground on the banks of the stream Nivelle which looked to have the possibilities of such a full-sized golf course as was needed then. He agreed with them. They were men of keen discernment; for even then while a little of that land was pasture the rest was under cabbages and other growths. It was ascertained that a hundred and sixty acres could be bought for six thousand pounds, but such a sum of money was not at hand. Count O'Byrne told the local hotel-keepers the truth that unless there was a first-class golf course there St. Jean-de-Luz would lose in the race for winter popularity, and he asked them to guarantee the money in the first place, a company to relieve them afterwards. They did so accordingly, and the land was secured; but the farmers could not be turned off at once, and some time was lost thereby. When they came to make the course they followed an interesting and, as we would think, an extraordinary procedure. The farmers, recovering from their grief and resentment, gave up to the incoming golfers a priceless secret. They said that if they would leave the bare land alone to look after itself it would from its own sources grow for them the most beautiful grass for their purposes that they could ever dream of on the happiest summer's night. So the Count and his comrades gathered their men about them, the land was raked and smoothed out, and then they borrowed the town roller, being the heaviest thing of the kind in the district, to flatten it down. And so they left it and waited. Sure enough up came the tender blades of grass, and in a season there was a thick coating there, fine, beautiful turf, and I can answer for it that it is nice to the touch of the feet and excellent for the game. The climate in these parts is most times a little moist and better for the production and preservation of golfing turf than that of the Riviera. The hotel-keepers were soon relieved of the full responsibility by a company floated for ten thousand pounds, the capital afterwards being increased to twelve thousand, but they were so much enamoured of the project, believed in it so utterly, that they and the tradesmen took up as many shares as they could get. But some great personal driving force was needed, and it was found. A Dundee gentleman, a keen golfer and a great lover of this sweet spot in France, Mr. W. R. Sharp, came forward and increased his commanding interest in the club and the course, and he has done wonders for them. That he is president of the club is a good thing for the club. Now there is a charming club-house; Arnaud Massy, once open champion, has a pretty villa for himself close by, some hundred and forty golfers are playing on the course at the busy time--and play goes on all through the year--and only four years after the course was opened the company was able to pay a dividend. So I say that this is a miracle of golf. Of course, the story is not complete at this. Fine turf and a prosperous club do not necessarily make good holes. But St. Jean-de-Luz has holes as good as most in Europe. They would even be good on a first-class inland course in Britain. They are, thanks to the broad undulations of the land, good in character. The round is opened with a fine two-shotter of a full four hundred yards, with an incline against the player from the tee. The drive must be properly placed, and that is the case nearly all the way round. The second is a pretty short hole; the third presents a fearsome drive across a yawning quarry; at the fourth the return over it is made in the progress to the longest hole, one of five hundred and fifty yards, and so on to the end, some of the middle holes being very good, the seventeenth a fine full one-shot hole, and a good drive and iron of three hundred and eighty yards downhill to terminate. The view from the seventeenth and eighteenth tees, the town of St. Jean-de-Luz shining in the sun, the Nivelle pressing itself into it, and the pretty harbour white-flaked with the waves, is peaceful and pleasant, and it gives that sense of "going home" which one always likes to have when playing the last holes of a round. * * * * * The game itself is not everything in the golfing life; it attaches other occupations and diversions as necessities to itself which are all added to the sum of "a day's golf" and make of it a thing of adventure and time packed with variety of deed and thought. There is the meeting and the parting; the lunch time and--everything! Chiefly there is the journey, and has it been properly considered how golf and the car have been linked together for a magnificent combination of sporting joy? In the remembrances of every player there must be happy and stirring episodes of motoring to and from the game. I have hundreds of them, apart from all those countless pretty spins on the outskirts of London town. Motoring for golf is an entirely different thing from motoring for nothing. The golf-motoring out from Paris to Fontainebleau and the other places round the capital of France is unforgettable, and always will there be clear cut in my mind the details of an expedition I once made to this Nivelle, St. Jean-de-Luz, at a time when lounging golfless in the north of Spain. It is not frequently that we go crossing frontiers in motor-cars and having our clubs examined with wonderment and irritating inquiry by officers of the _douane_ twice in the day, going and returning, for just two rounds of the best of games. Nor is it a common thing that in one day English golfers should speed along in a German car from Spain to France and from France back again to Spain to play on a splendid course with French and Scottish opponents--a considerable mixture, if you like. I was idling at San Sebastian when the aforesaid Mr. Sharp, with such thought and kindness as golfers display towards each other, gave greeting and said, "Come to Nivelle again for a day of play." But how? It was thirty miles away, and those trains, with changes at Irun and Bayonne, would be most fearfully slow. "Bother the trains!" said Sharp, "what are motors for, and particularly what may be my own car for? Say the time when you will have risen and bathed and taken your _café complet_, and it will have gone over to San Sebastian by then." So it came about that it was waiting at the door of my hotel at eight o'clock in the morning. Coats were buttoned up, pipes were lighted, and when the first quarter was being chimed from the church steeples we were already doing our thirty to forty miles an hour through the hilly suburbs of San Sebastian. There are such hills in Spain and France between San Sebastian and St. Jean-de-Luz as you can hardly think of; but the speed dial showed that we flashed up some of them at thirty and darted down the other side at sixty-five. Great hills to the left with jagged skylines and strange formations as go by such names as "Camel's back"; and such sweet vales with mountains framing them over on the right! Hereabouts is some of the prettiest scenery of Spain, and I hope not to forget how on that glorious morning the mists of the new day dissolved in the warming sunlight, and the opalescent gossamer that had clung about those peaks of Spain gave place to strong blues and greys, and then to shimmering rose. At Irun, on the Spanish side of the frontier, the car's papers had to be shown, then we bowled over the dividing river, and at Hendaye the Frenchmen asked their questions and did their looking into things. Then up a steep hill for the last, and in a few minutes we were gliding down into St. Jean-de-Luz, all of this heartening business done within the hour. At the end of the day, two rounds done, when the sun was setting, I was swung again over those Spanish tracks, and just when the light had completely failed and a few spots of rain came beating upon the glass the sixty horses in the Benz had done their duty. I opened the casement of my room at the Maria Christina; soft sounds from the sea floated in, and soothed one to a pensive mood. * * * * * The case of the golf of Pau is curious. Here, so far away from Britain, far from Paris, four hours even from the coast at Biarritz, inland and hugging closely to the Pyrenees, we have positively one of the oldest golf clubs in the whole world. At the beginning there was Blackheath, and then there were the Edinburgh Burgess, the Honourable Company, the Royal and Ancient, Aberdeen, and two or three other clubs. Golf, growing up, made its first leap across the seas to Calcutta in 1829, and seventeen years afterwards it settled in Bombay. It first landed in Europe in 1856, and was definitely and thoroughly established at Pau, and has remained there flourishing ever since. This circumstance is the more curious when we reflect that at that time there was no golf about London except at Blackheath. The Royal Wimbledon and the London Scottish Clubs were then unborn. Such great institutions now as the Royal Liverpool Club at Hoylake and the Royal North Devon at Westward Ho! were undreamt of, and a boy child might have been born to a golfer at Pau and grown almost to middle age before the Royal St. George's Club at Sandwich was begun. Scots, of course, were at the bottom of all this pioneering work. The early Blackheath golfers were Scots; they carried the game to Westward Ho!; they fostered it in India, and some of them went off with it to Pau, where they liked to spend the winter in the warm sunshine and in air which for sweet softness is almost incomparable. Over the fireplace in the smoking-room of the club-house is a picture of three of the founders of the club, who were still living in 1890--Colonel Hutchinson, Major Pontifex, and Archbishop Sapte. Another of those founders was Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. Lloyd-Anstruther. Thus it happens that the charm of age and long settlement hang upon the golf of Pau as they do upon no other golf club in Europe. Here, as not elsewhere, you feel impressed upon you the dignity of golf, realise that it is not a thing of to-day or of yesterday, and there are almost the same deep pleasure and elevation of spirit and feeling when you come to such a place after wandering among newnesses elsewhere as there are in abiding for a while at St. Andrews or North Berwick in October, the crowds then being gone away, after a course of southern golf of the most recent preparation. The club-house at Pau is of the kind you would expect to discover at a good club of long and honourable standing up-country in England. The attributes of age and tradition are to be found within it. On a wall is a painting twelve feet long depicting the leading golfers of Pau in 1884, assembled on the course, and it was done by that Major Hopkins who did such work, now celebrated, concerning the earliest golfers at Westward Ho! gathered by their iron hut. In this picture of Pau there are some eminent golfers shown, such as Colonel Kennard, not long since dead, who was field-marshal of the Royal Blackheath Club; but the artist leads the eye to the gaunt figure of Sir Victor Brooke, a tam-o'-shanter on his head, addressing the ball on the tee in the way of a determined man. Sir Victor, for four or five years captain of the club, was the lion of the golf of Pau in those days, and when a match book, now lying musty in a corner, was started his was the first entry that was made in it. The course is beautifully situated on the Billère plain, a mile or so to the west of the middle of the town; and in the unusual absence of a friendly car it is a pleasant walk through a shaded avenue of lofty beeches in the splendid Parc du Château. One is a little puzzled to estimate the quality of this course, being faced with a kind of semi-official printed statement that "Pau is undoubtedly the best course on the continent" which to some degree is intimidating. The turf, grown on a dark, sandy soil, is excellent, and more than fifty years of play upon it have given it the firmness and crispness that we miss elsewhere. The holes are of good length, well arranged, and not easy. Yet pancake was never flatter than the central part of the course, and with the very dullest and plainest kind of mid-Victorian bunkering--three low, straight grassy banks in line with each other right across the fairway--the golf hereabouts is less good to the eye, at all events, than it is to the spirit in the play. The first hole, a long one, with a road running diagonally across near the green, close to which there is a little cottage, somehow by its surroundings recalls memories of old "Mrs. Forman's" at ancient Musselburgh, and the second is a short hole of quality. From the fourth tee the line of the course bends round to the right, and for half a dozen holes we are away from that central part; there are ups and downs in the land that give more colour to the golf, and here and there are clumps of bushes that need consideration. All the time we are close to the bank of the River Gave, and at length, near to a point where a wild stream plunges into it, we cross to a spit of land between them and play a few holes there. They are nice holes. The ground heaves and rolls, and there must be good calculation and accuracy in approaching. Another stream runs through this isolated part of the course, and the green of the fourteenth hole closes to a point where two running waters nearly meet and there is a rutty road alongside. It is a pretty green, the situation is cunning and delightful, and that fourteenth hole is one of the best in France. Not a doubt about it--Pau is very good in parts. But we turn up a note on the golf in a little guide to Pau, and read: "Owing to the nature of the soil and their admirable preservation, the links at Pau compare favourably with the course at St. Andrews, in Scotland, where the conditions are almost ideal." O, Pau! * * * * * Now Pau is one of those places where the golf, excellent and admired, is not domineering, as one might say. You take it, you enjoy it, and yet you live in an easy contentment after your game without raving about it. It is a delightful little of a most happy and contenting whole. That is because Pau of all places on this planet makes one feel rested, contented, peacefully, languorously happy, and that is a most blessed state at which to arrive after a long season's course of tubes and taxi-cabs, noises and disturbances, crushes and crashes, late nights and far too early mornings, and, yes--for they also come with the burden of the Londoner--heavily bunkered five-hundred-yard-holes near our excellent London town. The air is famous for its sweet soothing properties. It wraps itself round your tired limbs, it steals into your nervy senses, and it comforts you. Pau lets you quietly down, rests you, gives you sleep, stills those jagged nerves that twitched so much in town. Every one says so, and it is true. One morning I gossiped on the course with Mr. Charles Hutchings, the wonderful man who won the Amateur Championship at Hoylake in 1902, and who has known what nerves are since. He told me he has now been wintering at Pau for the last twenty years, and it is the only place that is any good to him. "Before I come to Pau, and even when I am at Biarritz," said he, "my nerves are like this"--and he slowly passed his right hand up along his left arm from the hand to the shoulder--"and when I am at Pau they are like this," he added, and he smoothed the arm back again from the shoulder to the fingers. It was as if he had been stroking a cat the wrong way and the right one--that was the idea. Biarritz, so very bracing, certainly makes you jumpy, and many of us have played far better at Pau than at Biarritz; in fact, we find that at Pau we can hit the ball as cleanly and with as much confidence as anywhere. That reflection leads us when gazing abstractedly upon those Pyrenees, which are so good for thought, to consider the effect of climate upon one's game. Undoubtedly the effect is great, and yet it is neither appreciated nor properly considered. After working hard for a spell in town we say we will go for a weekend's golf, and, when we can, we choose a highly bracing place, because we believe it is good for us and "bucks us up." But do you remember how often the golf that we play at such places is so extremely disappointing? The "bucking up" seems to have failed. Take Deal, for example. There is hardly a course in the world that I like and admire as much as this; but that strong air of Deal upsets the game of nearly every man at the beginning. Pau is supposed to be a little relaxing, but, except for the fact that we do not eat so much as at Biarritz, we hardly notice it. It soothes us, quietens us down, reduces our boiler and engine arrangements to low pressure, and _voila!_ our game comes on, and it does so because the question of playing well or ill by a man who knows the game is nearly always a question of the steadiness of his nerves, and there are fine shades of this steadiness that we do not always realise. That is why we play well at Pau, and it makes us think sometimes that the relaxing places have not had full credit for their golfing quality hitherto. There is a general conspiracy among all things at Pau to rest and soothe the tired man. There are the bells. How can they affect the golf? you ask. See, then. We know of the fame in song of "The Bells of Lynn" and those of Aberdovey too; but it seems to me that the bells of Pau should have an equal celebrity. They are excellent. Alongside the hotel at which I stay at Pau a fine church steeple towers up, and there is in it a splendid belfry with skilful ringers to use it. Sometimes their performances wake us before our proper time in the morning, which is the first effect. Then on some days and nights the ringers practise a kind of bell music, which holds one spellbound. It begins slowly and quietly with a few hesitating notes in the bass. Soon there is an answering echo in the treble, and then it all gradually increases in time and volume until in three or four minutes a veritable torrent of stormy music is crashing out from the tower and flinging itself out to the Pyrenees. And then it is as if the crisis passes, the bell music dies away again, and at the end there is but the thin little tinkle of a treble bell sounding lonely in the night. There are other fine belfries in the town; but, more than that, there are little churches all along the hill that frames our course on its northern side, and these have good bells as well, and they all chime the hours and the quarters--and all at different times! When one set of chiming begins just as you reach the green, you know that listening for the others will so much distract you that three or four putts may be needed, while the other man, being very phlegmatic, is down in two for a win again. There is one of these churches with its bells which has cost me many holes; its chime for the quarters is exactly the first four notes of the good old tune, "Home to Our Mountains." It strikes once for the quarter, twice for the half, three times for the three-quarters, and four times for the full hour, and, with the other two quick notes of the line missing, it always seems incomplete, and always irritates. If I am just about to swing when these bells begin to chime I see a catastrophe before me. If there were no Pyrenees there would be no golf at Pau; I doubt if there would be Pau. Those glorious hills, beyond which are the castles and gold of Spain, make an almost matchless view, and they are so strong, so insistent, that they seem to dominate us in every consideration. If you should tell me that mountains that are more than twenty miles away can have nothing to do with the golfer's life and game, I ask you to go to Pau and be surprised. Those far-away hills give us rest, and they calm us to those moods of reflection to which, as golfers, we are so well inclined. From the window of my favourite room at Pau, I look right out on to the majestic chain, and have the best view of it that is to be had. Below is the Boulevard des Pyrénées, more than a mile in length. Beyond there is a valley, and beyond that the Pyrenees rise up to one long wonderful white-topped line. Looked at in this way they seem so very near, and yet their nearest point is more than a dozen miles away, and there are peaks four thousand feet in height which seem within easy walking range, and yet are distant forty miles. From one end to the other we look out upon a length of some thirty miles of these peaks, and indeed the effect is most enchanting. This is the view that I get at its very best from my little window high above the boulevard, and it is the view that brings scores of thousands of pounds of English money to be spent in the winter and the spring at Pau. It is a view that never palls, for it is never the same. To our eyes those great Pyrenees are always changing--kaleidoscopic in variety of shapes and colours. There are mysteries of the light and atmosphere about them which make for perpetual curiosity and wonderment. In the morning when we rise our first thought is as to what the Pyrenees will look like to-day, and gazing out from our little window we see them all done up afresh in new colours and shapes by Nature. They change as the hours pass, and then one is curious to know what new surprise the sunset will have in store. Sometimes in the morning they stand out bold in black and white, just as if they were plain and simple Pyrenees. In the middle of the chain two great points of peaks rise up from all the rest, and they are in the straight line out from the lofty window where I sit. They are the Grand Pic and the Petit Pic du Midi d'Ossau, and they are the pet favourites of all of us who gaze out southwards to the range beyond which the Spaniards dwell. The greater peak curls over a little at the top towards the lesser one, that seems always to be snuggling up close to it, and they look to us always to be like a lover hill and his timid lady. Another morning all these mountains will be of a sapphire blue. Next day they may be rosy red. But the best effects are those of a phantom kind. Now and then those Pyrenees seem to have gone away to a hundred miles beyond, and we see them rather dimly, but still with their outlines well defined. They look like ghost mountains, and in imagination we can peer through them to a nothingness beyond. Yet more curious, there are mornings, fine and bright in Pau, with everything shining in the sunlight, when there are no Pyrenees at all! There is that little low range of hills in front, with the chalets and the chateaux all plainly to be seen, and the light seems as good as ever it was in southern France; but the Pyrenees, where have they gone? Not a trace of them is left, and we are lonely, disconsolate. It is as if a jealous Providence had wrapped them up in the night and carried them off to another land where their eternal solitude would not be hindered by the touring man and woman. But they come back again by night, and their gradual reappearance is a thing for happy contemplation. Yet for the greater glory and richness of colour the evening sunset effects are the best of all. Then from the corner at the right the setting sun shines along the hidden valley between the little hills and mountains beyond, and it is as if in that unseen place below, millions of fierce lights had been set burning and shining up the Pyrenees as rows of hidden electric bulbs are sometimes used to throw a soft, weird glow upon a ceiling and cause it to be reflected back again beneath. Then the Pyrenees are as an ethereal vision; their base is like a golden band and their tops like filmy gossamer, so that these seem to us to be not mountains of the world at all, but high hills of heaven itself. And away in the west the sun sets in a burning Indian red, and the thin crescent of a new moon, with an attendant star, rises in the firmament. It is this that I look upon from my own crow's nest at Pau when my tramping of the day is done. * * * * * One day at Pau a voice was raised in our little party and it said, "Let us get up closer to those splendid Pyrenees"; but another said, "Where should we get our golf?" It was answered that there was golf everywhere, and there must be some right alongside those white-capped peaks. Argelès! We remembered. It was advertised and well recommended as a good course, "open all the year round," and laid in the most delightful situation, the Pyrenees going up from its very edge. The prospect sounded well. We decided at night that on the morrow we would proceed with our bags of clubs to Argelès, and the porter at our hotel gave full directions for getting there, which made it seem a very simple business. It appeared that it was about thirty miles from Pau to Lourdes, and with the journey two-thirds done we were to change trains there. But, short as the distance was, it was to take us two hours. Our train would start at twenty minutes to nine in the morning. The match of the day, with four golfers implicated, was accordingly made overnight, and anticipation of the joys of Argelès became keen. All this was well, but when three of us had slept and were mightily refreshed, certain hitches and accidents began to happen. The fourth party to our contract still slumbered heavily at a quarter-past eight, and being then reminded, by sundry taps, of the prevailing circumstances, he muttered indistinctly that he was not to be tempted from his situation by the opportunity of playing two rounds on any course in Paradise. So we left him snoring, piglike, there, and we were only three. We got to Lourdes and descended from the train. Troubles arose forthwith. The station-master blandly observed, and as it seemed with a hardly hidden smile (how is it that non-golfers of all classes always do seem to be made happy upon the contemplation of a golfer being suddenly robbed of his game?), that there was no train from there to Argelès until the afternoon, the service which the hotel porter had in mind not beginning until three days later. By the same token the return train which we reckoned on was non-existent, and he expressed doubts about our sleeping that night at Pau if we persisted in what he could not help regarding as a very mad enterprise born of too much enthusiasm. We thanked him, and went out into the streets of Lourdes to see what could be done. Truly, we were only ten miles from Argelès, even if the road was through the mountains. And it was a fine day. Suddenly, and as it seemed from nowhere, up came carriages from all parts of the compass, each drawn by a pair of horses, the coachmen all loudly soliciting the favour of driving us to Argelès, which they explained was fifteen miles away--a deliberate exaggeration. The first man to whip up to us asked for twenty francs for the single journey, and the others were amazed at his impudence. Another offered to take us for fifteen, and a third cabby came down at once to twelve. Then they all did so, and the market seemed to settle at that price, a great gathering of coachmen surrounding us and expatiating on the superior merits of their various horses and the comfort of their vehicles. It was a great spectacle, this golfers' carriage market at Lourdes! At last the first man to make an offer to us, suddenly, in a mood of desperation, came down to ten francs, and we closed with him, not so much because of the saving of an odd franc or two, but because his pair of bays certainly did seem to have more fast trotting in them than any of the others. It was such a glorious journey down the valley of Argelès as golfers seldom make, huge, rocky, snow-capped mountains rising up from either side of the winding road. Leaving Lourdes there were two high hills on the left, one surmounted with a single cross and the other with three crosses of "Calvary" standing out clearly against the sky. Then, later, from the bottom of the valley a stumpy hill suddenly rose up in the middle, an old keep of mediaeval times on the top of it, and after that the great peak of the Viscos, with the pass to Gavernie on one side of it and that to Cauterets on the other were presented. Soon afterwards we rattled down the little main street of Argelès, and lunched at the chief hotel. There was then a ten minutes' drive to the course, and our coachman--a local fellow, and not the one who drove us from Lourdes--stopped at various cottages on the way and shouted out inquiries as to whether Adolphe or Marie or Jeanne was at home. He was getting caddies for us, as he explained there would be none otherwise. Eventually from different places we picked up three--two little girls and a boy--who hung on to the back of the vehicle and proceeded with us to the appointed place. The course has great possibilities, but as yet they are thinly developed. CHAPTER XIII THE GAME IN ITALY, AND THE QUALITY OF THE COURSE AT ROME, WITH A SHORT CONSIDERATION OF THE VALUE OF STYLE. The other day, when we sat on the deck of a little steamer plying on the lake of Como, contented in warm spring sunshine with a sublime panorama of blue water and white-topped Alps, I was led to recall some of the few remarks which a shrewd and pungent commentator on life and men, the late Henry Labouchere, had made about our game, and, as he was not himself a golfer, and not the most tolerant of men despite his certain breadth of mind, it may be guessed that they were not complimentary to the game. We had left Varenna, and the little ship was paying its dutiful respects to Bellagio and Menaggio and such like places of an Italian fairyland. Hereabouts, as I remembered, Mr. Labouchere had lived in the proper season, and it came about some seven years back that a golf course--and a nice course too--was established near by, and the local hotel-keeper, in proper enterprise, ran a conveyance each day regularly at a certain time from his door to the club-house. Radical as he was--if he really was--Mr. Labouchere disliked this disturbance of the old peace and harmony of his lakeland retreat, and affected to see something vulgar in it. This wit and cynic, who once, answering an inquiry, said that he liked a certain lady of his acquaintance well enough but would not mind if she dropped down dead in front of him on the carpet, certainly wished that golf had never grown into the human scheme of things, and he complained loudly of its invasion here. He suggested that Italy was now passing to the dogs. Had he lived a little longer he would surely have played at Menaggio, and we could have assured him then that golf in Italy was long before his time, and would certainly be of good help to the country for long after. It is one of the curious facts of golfing history that the game was played in Italy before any golf club, except one, was definitely established in Scotland, the only exception being the Edinburgh Burgess Golfing Society, and lo! it was played there by a Scot, and a Scot so good as the bonnie Prince Charlie himself. When I first went to the Villa Borghese in Rome, I remembered, on approaching it through the park, that when Lord Elcho went there in 1738 he found the Prince playing in the gardens. Many courses now exist in different parts of this beautiful Italy, and the country has begun to take its place in the great forward movement in European golf. It has begun slowly; but now, as I have seen it, does really advance. * * * * * A little fable is quickly told. A wise father had sent his son, for the good of his mind, to Rome, and when the boy returned he asked him what he thought of the city that is called eternal. Harold then answered, "I think, sir, that the lies at Rome are very good." Do not judge Harold harshly upon this answer, as you may be inclined to do. He might have come to know less of Rome had he not discovered that the lies on the Campagna were so good, and that the legions of mighty Caesar which were exercised there had left no enduring marks of their galloping behind them. He might not have gained so many good Roman friends to tell him helpfully of the wonders of the city. And if golf is a little thing, and the contemplation of Rome is so enthralling, yet, be it murmured, the golf of Rome is one of the wonders of the golfing world. I have found it so. As it was to me, so it will prove a revelation to all golfers who go to Rome and have as yet no knowledge of the course that is there. For the full-bodied character of the holes, caused by natural land formations, and for their variety and interest, I do not hesitate to say that there is no course on the continent of Europe which is better, and I support this statement with another, that while I can hardly recall any hole where a bad shot will go unpunished or a good one without reward, yet in the whole round there is not a single artificial bunker. Nature has seen to all the tests and difficulties. Of what other course can this be said? Golf at Rome was begun in 1898, and ever since then there have been some fine golfing men working to what they were sure would be a successful end, chief among them being Mr. R. C. R. Young, who in the capacity of honorary secretary has been largely responsible for the general management of the club. Lately the round has been extended from nine holes to eighteen, Mr. Young and Doig, the professional, having done the planning of the new holes, and with this the golf of Rome enters upon a new era. The club flourishes, the golfing community, partly Roman, partly British, and partly American, is zealous, and the people there have come to believe that even the most serious, studious, and high-minded folk who go to Rome to steep themselves in living history of the past need for their refreshment some antidote to ruins. "St. Peter's, and the Colosseum, the Forum and the baths of Caracalla," said one of them to me, "will bring the foreigners to Rome, but only golf will keep them there!" Count this for weakness in man, and for his utter modernity if you like; but it is the truth. Consequently the golf of Rome is entering upon a new forward movement. I think that when the public in distant places comes to realise that the golf of Rome is half as good as it really is, thousands and thousands more will go to Rome than do so now, to play upon the Campagna, and during the time to gather to their souls a scent of the glory of the ancient mistress of the world. I have a vision of Rome becoming a headquarters of continental golf in the near future. On a morning after some days among the ruins--such a glorious morning, with the Italian sun burning gold amid a heavenly blue--two noble Romans came in their chariot for a barbarian wanderer at his hotel at half-past nine. They were not real Romans, but Augustus could have played their part of host no better, and a forty-horse-power car moved us towards the Campagna more speedily than the best of chariots. Away we went by the foot of the Equilinus, down the Via Emanuele Filiberto, through the gate of St. John Lateran in the Aurelian wall, and then straight on. In a few minutes we were at Acqua Santa and inside the club-house. Of all the club-houses in the world, this is surely one of the most curious and interesting. It is an old farm-house, skilfully adapted to its purpose, and we shall be sorry if in the course of time and a grand extension of the golf at Rome it is given up for anything more palatial and conventional. Here in an upper room we take the necessary nourishment in a simple way, and among other liquid refreshments there is the real _acqua santa_ itself, a pleasantly bitter and quite delicious water that is drawn from a spring by a farm-house at a corner of the course. In days gone by the water was considered, perhaps not without good reason, to have splendid curative properties, and popes of Rome came to it and blessed it accordingly. I believe that one of them derived some healing benefit from it. And now, as we think of popes and cardinals, we recall that one of the latter, Cardinal Merry del Val, had some kind of a course in his private grounds, and so far he has been the only cardinal golfer. Once before he died a scheme was afoot for a visit by him to the course at Acqua Santa. In a good and sensible and honest way the golf club of Rome is already a considerable social centre. Perhaps some day the King of Italy--already patron of the club--will join himself to the majority of kings and become a golfer too. A leading member of the famous historical family of Colonna, Don Prospero Colonna, is president, and a number of the most eminent people of Rome are among the members. Princes and princesses, counts and countesses, ambassadors of nearly all countries, and American millionaires may be found playing the game regularly at Acqua Santa. The keenest golfer of them all is Dr. Wayman Cushman, who is handicapped at plus 4, an American who spends half his year in Maine and the other half in Rome, where he plays golf nearly every day. The Americans are strong in the golf of Rome, and some of the young Italians are showing excellent form. There is one of them, Don Francesca Ruspoli, educated in England and son of a Roman father and American mother, of whom great golfing things are expected. Really this is an excellent course; but the full merit of it will hardly be appreciated in the first round or the second, for the wonderful views and the special points of interest in them will constantly interfere with concentration on the strokes and thought upon the scheme for reaching the putting green. Standing upon the first teeing ground and pondering for a moment upon the carry to be made across the little valley in front, the panorama begins at once to suggest its superior claims. Leftwards are the Apennines, opalescent in the morning mist, capped with snow upon their peaks. There are the Alban Hills, where the shepherds were born who followed Romulus on the Palatine, and at the end of the range is Monte Cavo, on the top of which are the ruins of the temple of the god of the Latin races, living in the Latium, the ground between the mountains and the sea. On the wine-yielding bosom of these shining hills there lies sparkling white in the morning sun the village of Frascati. There are the Sabine Hills with Tivoli, and away in another direction there is Mount Soracte, well said to look out there like a wave in a stormy sea. Up into our middle distance on the left-hand side, on the fringe of the course, are the splendid ruins of the Claudian aqueduct which stretch right across the Campagna, one lonely pile coming close up to our sixteenth green alongside which the Via Appia Nuova stretches, with two famous umbrella pines helping on the scene. There is so much for a beginning, and more views press upon us as we advance along the course. The play is opened with a good hole of drive and iron length, the second brings us back again with a drive and a pitch, and then away we go to the left with one of the cunningest seconds to be played across twin streams, making this third hole of Rome one of the most exacting in the way of approach that is to be found in Italy or even in the whole of Europe. When we come to the sixth we play up to the summit of a high tableland, and as we ascend the hill we pluck from the turf some of the freshest, prettiest crocuses that have ever grown, the course being as nearly thick with them in March as North Berwick is with daisies in the month of May. And from these heights what a view again over towards the city of Rome! Out along that way there is the tomb of Cecilia Metella, Crassus' wife, and away on the boundary there is the church of St. John Lateran and the great dome of St. Peter's. If golf is a royal and ancient game, here is a setting for it. Near to the eighth hole we turned aside to the ruins of an ancient Roman villa, and Santino, my little Italian caddie, with finger excavation, gathered some morsels of polished marble which may have touched the feet of Roman ladies in those great days of old. The line of the tenth comes close to one of those deep-cut streams that flow to feed the hungry Tiber, and in some ways this hole reminds us of the fourth at Prestwick where the Pow Burn insinuates itself close to the golfer's way. At our backs when we stand on the eleventh tee is a cave that might serve for robbers but which really makes an excellent shelter, and it was related that a few weeks before my time in Rome three ambassadors, being the British, the American, and the Austrian, were seen to sit in there and shelter. And who then shall say that, if "only a game," golf has no possibilities and powers in such high crafts as diplomacy? The twelfth is an excellent hole, and so are they all. The sixteenth takes us winding round a big bend between a hill and a stream and then faces us full to the putting green, which has the Claudian ruins for a background. The play concludes with a seventeenth which has a putting green very shrewdly placed, and an eighteenth where the second shot is played through a little valley, these ending holes abounding in golfing beauty and character. There is to be said of this course, and in the most sober and well-considered judgment by one who has seen golf in many lands, that there is scarcely an inland course anywhere that seems more naturally adapted to the game. Each hole has strong character of its own; I could remember them all after but a single round. Some time soon they will make an attempt at Acqua Santa to carry their putting greens on from one season to the next, and then they will get a thickness and trueness and quality that greens can gain in no other way. The golfers of Rome are keen, and they have energy and enterprise. A great future awaits this club and course, and I believe that when more money is spent on it, as will be soon, it will be in nearly every thinkable way the most attractive course on the Continent. The mood that gathers about one when in Rome tends to taking the game rather more seriously and thoughtfully than at the Mediterranean resorts; it becomes a real recreation, the refreshing change. The club's nearness and convenience to the city are very good. It is but a few minutes' journey by either train or tram from the heart of Rome to the club-house, near which there is a special golfers' railway station. * * * * * A Franciscan friar was the first to point out to me the situation of the nine holes of Florence--nine plain fair holes, though they have nothing of architectural beauty in them, not a trace of feeling, nothing of the mediaeval glow of spirit that separates this city from all others in the world, hardly a touch of imagination in their two or three thousand yards. Yet they serve their modern purpose well. For six days and six nights the rain had poured down upon the dripping Firenze from inexhaustible clouds; the saucer in which the city is laid emptied its floods into the Arno until, dirtier and more turbulent than usual, the big stream tumbled itself violently through the bridges. We wandered through the Uffizi Galleries and the Pitti Palace and the Bargello of courtyard fame. There is nothing in the world like sweet Florence, and it is a hopeless soul that feels no spark of artistic fire crackle for at least one inspiring moment when the glories of this city that was born and lived to the human expression of beauty are contemplated. But an incessant rain provokes a bold defiance; there almost seemed to be a weakness in such constant shelter, and I remembered a suggestion that was sent to me from a far distance--"Go up to Fiesole if you can." So in the car I went to Fiesole. We went out of the town and by San Gervasio, and wound past San Domenico, and twisted our way up the hill until, with five miles done, or it may have been a little more, the old Etruscan town, with the fragment of an ancient wall, was reached. At the very summit, where once a Roman castle stood, there is the Franciscan monastery. A brother in his umbrian gown looked meditatively outwards from the porch, and he was gracious and friendly when I told him I would like to go inside. From a loggia within we looked out upon one of the finest panoramic views of its kind. The rain had ceased. Grass was seen upon the Etruscan hills, tentacles of the Apennines came clear again through dissolving mists, and a golden light flamed up in the western sky. And in its peaceful hollow there lay Florence, the palace of art, a mediaeval jewel glistening there like a mosaic in white and terra cotta, with its great duomo in many-coloured marbles lording it over the lowlier piles. Florence! Sweeping the valley with a glance, the monk turned towards the north-east and, leaning upon a wall, he pointed with his right hand and said, "Pisa!" Over there was the city of the leaning tower and the baptistery with the amazing echo. But in the nearer distance there was a square patch of vivid green, and I traced its situation along there by the course of the Arno, by the Cascine, and other landmarks, and made nearly sure of what it was. The thought was incongruous at the time, nearly inexcusable, but yet there is little in golf that is vulgar after all, and it could not be denied that there was the golf course out that way. By some careful questions I gained confirmation from the friar. I told him I looked for a place, a special place, whose locality I described precisely. And he held out his hand again. The golf course was nearly in the line of Pisa. While so many things in Florence are four or five hundred years old at least, the golf course is only fifteen. Still, fifteen years makes a good maturity in these times, and Italy, if its courses are few, has some distinctions among them. Many continental courses depend for their attraction on their setting. Those of Florence and Rome have the most perfect setting conceivable, but while the course of Rome could live on its merits had there been no Rome, the course of Florence never could. Yet the city helps it out, and, though poor be the holes, here we have indeed one of the most enthusiastic little golf communities one might ever wish to mix among. The club is captained by Mr. J. W. Spalding, head of the great athletic business firm, who has ceased to live in America and lives now wholly in Florence, which he would hardly do were it not for this golf course, on which he plays nearly every day. Mr. Spalding is a fine example of the keen and determined golfer. A few years ago, in a terrible motor-car smash in Italy, he lost completely the sight of one eye. As soon as the surgeons and the doctors let him loose again he hurried to his favourite course at Florence and--think of it!--at once he won the scratch gold medal. He is a scratch man now, and plays as well as ever. These and many other things I learned on the day after the monk had pointed out to me the direction of the nine holes of Florence, when I went along to San Donato to make a closer view of them, to drive and putt at them. The golfers of Florence are a good company, managed with zeal by Signor Mavrogordato, in the capacity of honorary secretary. They are as keen and interested in their game as if they were at Sandwich, and they have a miniature club-house situated on a spot of land that has a cemented water-filled moat all round it, those who would enter having to pass over a little rustic bridge. The holes are plain with artificial cross bunkers, and the architecture is of what might be called the low Victorian school. One of the features of the course is a couple of tall trees that stand up in the middle with thin straight trunks parallel to each other, looking for all the world like Rugby football goal-posts. One great advantage that this course has is that it is splendidly convenient to the city. Take a tram-car No. 17 labelled "Cascine" from one particular corner of the cathedral square, say "Golf" to the conductor, pay him a penny for the fare, and the rest is inevitable. In a quarter of an hour you will be deposited at a junction in the roads by the barrier of Ponte alle Mosse, and two minutes' walk from there takes you to the iron gates which give admission to the course. * * * * * There is the beautiful bay at Naples, and Pompeii, and a short voyage on the steamboat to the sweet isle of Capri; but golf has not yet come to Naples, though it will do so soon. When we travelled down there from Rome we were aboard a train that was taken by many of the Naples members of the Italian Parliament who were going home for the week-end--the "deputies' train" they often call that six o'clock from Rome. They had been having a fearful week of it, wrangling about their recent Libyan war and the cost of it, and their nerves were in rather a jagged state. I fell into conversation with one of them, and he said that he wished he were a golfer, as from all that he had heard and understood it was the real and only thing for the soothing of a deputy after such scrimmaging and scratching as they had been having in the Chamber that weary week. He asked questions about our Parliamentary golfers, and was informed about Mr. Balfour, Mr. Asquith, Mr. Lloyd George, and all the others. I told this honourable member for Naples that nearly all our Parliamentarians played the greatest game of all, and that the Mother of Parliaments was all the better for it. He was impressed. He said there should be golf at Naples by the time I went there again--even if it was set there for the benefit of the tired members only! Above all things, Venice is a place for reflection, and when we are there we think of all things we have seen and done in Italy, and shape exactly the impressions that have been made. One time there were two or three of us in a gondola. The crescent of a seven days' moon hung among the stars in the Venetian night. The gentle regular plash that was made by Giovanni Cerchieri, our gondolier (and be it said that his gondola is the blackest and smartest and most finely dignified of all that glide on the Grand Canal), as he swung backwards and forwards to his work behind us, with a sigh or a murmur that might have swollen to a real boat-song had we encouraged it, was nearly the only sound on the still waters. And in this Venetian night, an hour after the coffee, we were in the mood of men who feel that they are soon to return to the cold hard facts of life. The rest of Venice might go to glory; we, soothed amid such ease and comfort as might have satisfied a doge, turned our thoughts to the links of home. There was nothing incongruous in the association of ideas and facts. Venice we found to be splendid for meditation, and any place with such a quality, like the top of a mountain, or the side of a purling stream, is a fine one for golfing consideration and conjecture. One man would talk of art, of pictures, and of sculpture; another would stupidly keep to golf. And then a compromise was suggested, when it was said that a question had once been asked as to whether there was such a thing as style in golf! Any thoughtful player who ever had any doubt upon this matter--but, of course, no thoughtful player ever could--would have it dispelled if he went to Italy even though he never played a game, did not take his clubs, and never saw a golf course there. It were indeed better for his education in this matter that he should not play when on Italian ground, for one would not expect to find on the courses there the best examples of golfing style. The fact of style in golf would come home to him when he wandered through the galleries and looked upon all the magnificent sculptures that are among the matchless treasures of the country, though there is no study of a golfing swing among them. I do not see how any player of the game who is thoughtful and contemplative can go to Italy and fail to be enormously impressed with the lessons that are silently delivered from the sculpture in the galleries and museums of Rome, Florence, and other cities. In hundreds of pieces here we see the suggestion of beauty put forward in every movement and exercise of the human body, and particularly when the frame is being brought to some considerable physical effort, when the limbs are being placed upon the strain, are grace and rhythm and style exhibited to us, and with them there is the suggestion always of the extreme of power. There is indicated the close relationship between exact and graceful poise, perfect balance, and supreme controlled and concentrated force. The very utmost efficiency is always suggested in all this artistic balance. As the art is better and more appealing, so the suggestion of power is increased and the marble almost seems to break with life. Considered in this way, what a fine thing is the "David" of Bernini in the Borghese Gallery! But for our golfing suggestion some of the discobolus models serve us better. Without ever having attempted to throw a discus, one may very well understand that success at such an exercise depends almost wholly upon perfect balance and accurate concentration of force and true rhythmical movement, and in the models in the Vatican and the National Museums in Rome and elsewhere we see how it might be done. The discobolus of Myron, reconstructed as it has been, and with the head made to face in the wrong direction, so they say, is a magnificent thing. In the National Gallery of Rome they have made a reconstruction from a fragment of another, and they have made the figure to look sideways and half upwards to the discus held at arm's length behind him ready for the throw, whereas in the Myron the face is to the front and the eyes are down. (Though one may know nothing at all about the ways in which the discs were really thrown, or what is the best way to throw them, one is hardly convinced of the desirability of disturbing the head in the back-swing of the arm and letting the eyes follow the object in the hand. Surely concentration would be impeded and balance suffer.) But in these images we see the intensity of the relation between style and power, and we realise that if there were no style in golf there ought to be, and the next moment, that of all modern games golf is a game of style and nothing else. Perhaps you may play it without style, but then it is not the same thing, and it can never be so thoroughly effective and precise. Unconsciously, perhaps, James Braid had style in his mind when he said that at the top of the swing the golfer should feel like a spring coiled up to its fullest tension, straining for the release. That is just what the discobolus suggests, and the golfer gets the fullest enjoyment from the game, the supreme physical thrills, when he feels this high tension for a moment and then its even, smooth, and quick escape, and he cannot feel it so when he has no style and all his movements and positions have not been made in perfect harmony. Some may say that the actions of the discobolus were probably not so very fine as the sculptors have made them out to be, and that much of the shape is merely artist's fancy, but probably they are fairly true to life. If they are not, one cannot contemplate them for more than a few moments without feeling that life ought to be true to them. The golfer in the suggestion of grace and power, as in the models that have been cut of Harry Vardon at the top and end of his driving swing, reaches some way towards the discobolus. CHAPTER XIV THE AWAKENING OF SPAIN, AND SOME MARVELLOUS GOLFING ENTERPRISE IN MADRID, WITH A STATEMENT OF GOLFERS' DISCOVERIES. "When we were in Madrid----" I have sometimes begun in conversation, and then invariably from one or more in the company there has been a quick interruption with--"But there can be no golf in Madrid! You do not go to Spain for golf!" But one who knows may answer that there is as good reason to go there for it as to most other places out of Britain, that in different parts of Spain there is fair golf to be had, that in Madrid there is a new course which is excellent and embraces some of the prettiest holes we would ever wish to play after passing by the Pyrenees, and that I have found there Spanish gentlemen to play with who have been among the happiest and most agreeable companions and opponents I have encountered. In a reflection upon my own experiences I dare to say that I would recommend a doubtful stranger to go to Spain only if he is a golfer, for by the agency of the game will the life and facts of the country be best presented to him, and mysteries be explained. The magic passport of golf is indispensable in all such circumstances. The truth is that it was golf that led me to Spain on my second visit to the country, and I had then one of the most interesting and instructive holidays I have had in my travelling life, during which I had the opportunity of seeing something of the inside of Spanish life and government, of discovering truth about the forces that work in the regeneration of this old country, for really an awakening is taking place, and one dares to say the firm establishment of golf is a symbol of it. I had some interesting conversations with the Count Romanones, who was then the Prime Minister, with his brother, who is the Duke of Tovar, a man of broad sympathies who takes a leading part in many social movements of high importance in Madrid, and with other persons of much importance. These talks, with the open sight of all that was passing in Madrid, made a deep impression. "You are a golfer, and we of Spain may give you some good golf to play!" said the Prime Minister cordially when by invitation I called upon him at his palace in the Paseo de la Castellana. He is a man of forcible appearance and manner. The face is thin, and its lines of character are strong--cold and strong. The aquiline features have something of Spanish--no Italian--fierceness about them, and the Count makes a piercing look which is considered discomforting to nervous strangers. But he is a very attractive companion in talk; his verve, his vivacity are wonderful. When discussing a subject in which he is interested his whole being becomes aflame; eyes sparkle and features quiver; he beats his fingers in the palms of his hands; he leans over towards you and gesticulates like an artist in enthusiasm. A man of hot nervous energy, one of keen purpose and determination is this statesman of Spain. He suggested that the new sports of his country were symbolic of her great awakening, of which he said he would talk to me that I might tell others what Spain is now and what she would be. "Europe does not understand my country," he remarked, "True, there has been little occasion to understand her. But a change occurs. Spain at this moment is passing through a most remarkable process of transition. You are right in a suggestion you have made to me; unsuccessful wars do not cause interminable loss and disasters. The war with the United States was not all bad for Spain. We may have lost Cuba, but the development that has taken place since then in our country at home, in its agriculture and its mining, and again in its healthy natural feeling, has been enormous, and is a good substitute for many islands." And then he went on in a deeply interesting conversation to tell me of the great awakening of Spain indicated in many different ways, and of all her political, social, and other ambitions. The Duke of Tovar, who is also coming to take an interest in the golf of Spain, smoked his cigar on a divan in his palace, and a Moorish boy brought coffee to us. The Duke travels much, and brings things and people back with him. I see that he has been an ambassador-extraordinary to the Pope of Rome and has received the most gracious papal thanks. A little of a statesman, he is much of an artist, and a marble bust of Alfonso _rex_, his own sculpture, casts a shadow beside us. In innumerable ways this Spanish nobleman associates himself with the life of the people, goes among them, attends their meetings, and he began telling me that one of the secrets of the new Spain was the important fact of the nobles taking to business, becoming the promoters and managers of industrial companies, as they were. He told me of dukes who were doing things. One of the new movements, in which he has assisted to his utmost and thoroughly believes in, is the boy scout movement, which has caught on like wildfire in Madrid. Three thousand Spanish boys were enrolled within a few weeks of the establishment of the system in the city, and the Duke became a president of a section. All class distinctions are avoided in this matter. "My son is going with the son of the porter," said the Duke of Tovar. And he most certainly believed in golf for the people, and would tell me stories of its beginning and its development. As to Madrid, never was such a quick transformation accomplished in any city of the world, save when 'Frisco perished and was made again, as is being done here in the city on the plateau of Castile. The Spaniards having decided on the regeneration of their country and on persuading foreigners to come to it, have determined they must have a capital befitting a first-class power. The result is that Madrid is being torn to pieces and rebuilt. Everywhere there is a fever of building raging. Think of it: but three years ago and there was not a single first-class hotel in Madrid; now there are two fine ones. The Alcala, where the Madrileños stroll and mount up the hill to the Puerta del Sol, the great bare square where the idlers lounge, where the bull-fighting papers are sold, where there are many offices for the sale of lottery tickets, where there are cafés and yellow tramcars (run by Belgian companies, if you please!) and much life but no gaiety until very late at night, is soon to be deposed from being chief street of Madrid, for they are making a new ideal street, very wide and one mile long, which is cut straight through the heart of the city and is to be called the Gran Via when it is done. Millions and millions of pesetas' worth of property have been demolished to allow for the straightness of this street, which is to ask for comparison with a part of the Fifth Avenue across the water. Thirty-seven millions of pesetas were lately voted by the Municipal Council for the removal of the cobble stones of Madrid, their places to be taken by asphalte and wood. The cobbles of Madrid are picturesque; they make good harmony with those antique watchmen who seem to have been reincarnated from our own eighteenth-century London, walking the slumberous streets at night, lanterns in their hands and jangling bunches of giant keys suspended from their girdles, their business being to open the outside doors of blocks of flats for late-returning occupiers who in an unthinking languorous way of Spain would carry no keys, but leave the affair of their homecoming to the fortune of the night, the vigilance of the watchman, and the blessing of Providence. But the cobbles are not convenient. They are seldom repaired, and even in such a spacious public place as the Prado, which is a kind of Hyde Park Corner, there are sometimes deep holes which fill with water when it rains and make such pools as ducks might like and dogs would drink, but which take a leg of mine some way upwards to the knee when the night is dark. There was an old Madrid of which trills of love and passion have been sung. Fevered lovers sang to ladies whose lips were red, and whose skin was dark, as their hearts were gay--voluptuous women. Guitars and flowers; blood and life. That Madrid has nearly passed away. A few steep and narrow streets and some dirty open spaces, with little of the delicate charm of age to recommend them, are most of what is left of it in a quarter near to the royal palace. The city of later times, the Madrid of to-day, is already and quickly giving way to a third Madrid which will soon be made. In this that I have written I may seem to neglect my theme, and yet the state of Spain does most closely concern the strange case of golf in the country. Here is an answer to interrupters who are quick to say that one does not go to Madrid for golf. When Spain was all romance and colour, all dirt and laziness, it was no place for games like this. Bicycles were not popular then because they had to be pedalled ceaselessly, or the riders would fall: they, being as symbols of action, did not permit of lounging or a little slumber. In the days of the first and second Madrids, athletics could not be contemplated; the corrida was supreme and solitary for Spanish "sport." Now there is an athletic movement. There are many football clubs; there is a national cup competition and the King has given the cup. Still the corrida flourishes, but it is threatened. In the new movement for the third Madrid there are social clubs such as we have in London. There is an inclination for strong, healthy sport, and the King encourages it with all his royal might and influence. Don Alfonso has been the good leader of the royal game in Spain. The main point is that golf in these days is a token of a healthier disposition and a new progress, and it is a strong influence upon character. In the old Spain such a sport as this was quite impossible; now it grows, and, to me as one who has considered the birth and rise of golf in many countries, the case of Spain is deeply interesting. When I went there I remembered what some of the thoughtful and candid Americans had said about this game exerting a needed and subtle influence upon their own national character. It is such influences that are needed in Spain, and I shall go again among the Madrileños to see this one in the working. Already they have courses, nice and tolerable, in Barcelona, Bilbao, and many other provincial places. When I went to San Sebastian, one of the most beautiful and fully equipped seaside resorts in the whole world, the municipal authorities assured me that they felt a fear that the bull-fights were becoming a doubtful attraction to foreign visitors, and they were giving their attention to the establishment of a municipal golf course. It will be the first municipal golf course on the continent of Europe. * * * * * Let me plunge to my revelation and state that Madrid, in New Castile, land of the toreador, country where so much of the Middle Ages does yet survive, where games till lately have been almost unknown, this Madrid comes now to be possessed of such a first-class course as might be the envy of many a British seaside resort. While I lingered in the city Señor Fabricio de Potestad, one of the most active members of the general committee of the Madrid Golf Club, and of its green committee too, was a kind counsellor and guide. Just as might happen at home, while at breakfast at the Ritz there came to me notice that the car was waiting. Señor de Potestad, his clubs and mine inside the car, had the golfer's expectancy upon a genial Spanish countenance, rubbed hands, and declared it was a fine day for the game. We sped away from the Prado, and considered handicaps and odds as golfers must. But first we went for object lessons in the progress of Spanish golf. Three or four miles out we reached the hippodrome where some nine years back the game was born. Don Alfonso had been learning golf in England; he had striven with it in a left-handed way while he wooed a British princess in the Isle of Wight, and he gave a Spanish decoration then to the professional who showed him how to hold his hands and where to put his feet. Then nine simple stupid little holes were laid out in this hippodrome, and there they still remain as relics of the earliest age in the golf history of this country, the uncultured time when the ball was missed, the days when a hole in nine might have been considered good and a seven enough to make the soul of a great grandee quiver with a new found joy. Three Spaniards stood forward with the King as the pioneers of Spanish golf, and still they are among its leaders. There was a great sportsman, the Duke of Alva, president of the club; there was the Marquis de Santa Cruz, and there was the Señor Pedro Caro, perhaps the only Spanish golfer of early times besides Don Alfonso himself who learned his strokes and swings in England, where he was schooled, and who with the Count de la Cimera and the Count Cuevas de Vera, cousin of my guide, is one of the three best players of Spain. Two of them are Spanish scratch, and the Count de la Cimera lately achieved the distinction of being the first of his land to rise to the eminence of plus one. Thus you may perceive that the golf of Spain is helped by the best people, and that is not because it is fashionable, and it is not only because the King has shown a liking for it, but because the Spaniards have found in it a quick fascination, an awakening pastime, such a strong diversion from the often heavy life of their country as they had not imagined. Had you seen, as I did, the Duke of Aliaga bunkered one afternoon before a high steep cliff in front of the eighteenth green on the second oldest course of Madrid; had you seen him pensive as he felt the extraneous sorrows of a Spanish nobleman of riches and high station; had you seen the gleam of gladness in two Spanish eyes when the ball was heaved somehow to the top in one (the gods may know how he managed it; but we said to him that it was a splendid shot, and I do believe it was!) you would not doubt that golf was meant for Spain as these people declare it was--"the thing of all others that we needed," so they say. This second oldest course, the "old course" as they begin to call it now, marks the transition period of Spanish golf. It is not the primeval course of the hippodrome, but one which was made in 1907 at a place apart and a little farther along the road. The land is worth a million and three-quarters of pesetas now when Madrid has become so much bigger than it was, and the course falls within the city zone; and as the players became educated they yearned for something better, and they moved again. But fond memories will cling for long enough to this old course of Spain; with a little help from fancy one may look upon it even now as a kind of old Blackheath of Spanish golf. There is a small club-house with dining-room, dressing-rooms and all complete, in quite the English way, on a spot of rising ground, and from the verandah we may look over a part of the course, with a short hole to begin with and some curious bunkering here and there, with a highly modern attempt to adopt the system of humps-and-hollows bunkering that has been so well established on inland courses at home. Somehow one gathers the impression that the Spaniards have been striving all the time towards some kind of indistinct ideal, realising that the sport they had discovered was a great one and trying to improve their practice of it. And I recall that it was J. H. Taylor, the old designer, the old constructor, the quintuple champion, who was pioneer in the planning of courses in Madrid, and he laid out this one of eighteen holes very well for the early Spanish golfers. One of the curiosities of the course is the putting green at the eleventh hole, which is quite round and is surrounded by an evenly shaped earthen rampart. On seeing it for the first time the average Englishman observes to the Spaniard who is with him, "How like a bull-ring!" The remark is justifiable and it seems appropriate; but the Spanish gentleman has heard it many times. Playing the bull-ring hole is a satisfying experience, most exceedingly contenting. We play what we shall consider a perfect approach shot to our Plaza de Toros hole. The ball is pitched into the ring just over the near side of the barricade. A big bound and it is by the hole side, a smaller skip and it is away to the other side of the circle, and then there is one nervous little jump up towards that enclosing height. The perplexed ball seems in our fancy to claw up the steep slope, which is about four or five feet high; it nearly reaches the top. We, the player, feel a little pitter-patter in the heart. Is that little white bull of a ball of ours going to get over the fence and spoil the thing? It should not; we pitched him as nicely as human skill could ever pitch. He is vicious; but he is spent. The gay life which he had at the beginning of the stroke is flickering out. He cannot escape. Our cuadrilla of one, the little Spanish lad with the bag of clubs, advances and hands the putter, taking back the mashie which has done its business. The ball comes trickling back from the bank--back and back, and it comes on to within some seven or eight feet of the side of the hole. Then it falters and stops, done for. Meanwhile there is another white bull of a ball only four feet away; this also had come back from the bank, but a little more. I, as an espada, take my steel putter for the finishing touch. I see the line, I have the momentary hesitation, the nerves are tightened, and then I make the stroke, and happily it is a good one. The ball has gone down. In truth both balls go down, and "Four, señor!" and "Four--a half, _amigo_!" and the play to the eleventh hole of old Madrid is done. Even if there is a slope to the hole and there is the bull-ring rampart round it, we say that a four at this piece of golf is good. We also argue out that bull-ring with our consciences. I have seen nothing like it. It was clearly the object of those who made it to pen the ball up towards the hole, to make the golf a little easier, for it was found to be hard enough (as you and I have found it hard enough at home) to catch the ball and keep it and lead it to its hole. This hole, the rampart, seems to be a concession to the frail humanity of man. Conscience murmurs chidingly, "You know, you English golfer, that you should never have been so near to that Spanish pin! You should have been bunkered, my friend, perhaps badly bunkered, beyond the green!" But being in Spain, and doing as Spaniards do, we are a little independent, have a freedom of idea, and with some peevishness of manner, an arrogance, a way as of telling conscience to attend its other business and get back to London--where in some places they do place bunkers and hills upon the greens to keep the golfer, as it seems, from holing out at all--I retort, "I played a good shot anyhow; I only just pitched over the bull-ring fence; I pitched the ball up high and let it drop straight down, and cut every leg from it that it ever had. No man could do better with the ground so hard. It was right that the ball should come back." I shall hope that with their attachment to a new love that is so beautiful and good, the Spaniards will not give up their old course here that has served them faithfully and brought on their game. Besides, it is a course that is pretty in its situation. Away beyond, many miles away, are those snow-topped Guadarrama Mountains, fine rough things. Though it was March, and untruths are told about the wickedness of the Spanish climate, we lunched with Señora Elena de Potestad in the open outside the club-house in warm sunshine glistening on a pretty scene. Señora Elena is quite the best lady golfer of Spain; but writing the truth as she told it, the charming wife of my friend is not Spanish, but is a Russian lady from Khieff. I suspect her of being the best Russian lady golfer and the best Spanish too; it is curious. She has done the first nine holes here at Madrid in something less than bogey. Next to her on the championship list is the Marquesa de Alamoncid de los Oteros, six strokes behind. Queen Victoria sometimes plays, and I have seen that extremely popular lady of Spain, the Infanta Isabella, golfing here with the professional and a maid of honour. The game is doing well with the ladies of the peninsula; they like it. I had a gentle argument with the Señora Elena, who seemed a little doubtful whether golf were quite a ladies' game, for all her own skill and love for it. She pleaded the other feminine occupations and interests, even the distractions, and the difficulty of surrendering to the tyranny of golf. In her view it seemed to be of the ladies' life a thing apart, while we have known it to be a man's complete existence. As our speedy car skimmed the road on the way back to Madrid that night, Señor Fabricio would talk of the good influence of the game, and the special benefits that it might and did confer upon his hopeful countrymen. "Twelve years ago," he reflected, "I might meet all my friends at the corrida. All were for the bull fight--and the ladies too. But now--if I went myself, as I do not--I should see none. They are all for golf. At my club in Madrid we say one to another about the time of lunch, 'Do you go to golf this afternoon?' It used to be, 'I suppose you go to the corrida, eh?'" One thinks and wonders. I took tea in the lounge at the Ritz, and gossiped with a man who had just come along from Portugal and told me of some exciting times they had been having there. They had decided on having more golf, and were about to make a municipal matter of it near Lisbon. Hitherto, as I knew, they had had only one golf course in the whole country, and that was at a place called Espinho, some eleven miles out from Oporto, and it was said that bulls intended for the fights were fed up there and did their roaming exercise on this course. It is not a comfortable idea. The new course is out at Belem on the banks of the Tagus near to Lisbon, and this is the exact place at which Vasco de Gama landed on returning from his greatest voyage of discovery. It is an eighteen-holes course; it has been well planned; and much money is being spent on it. The Portuguese having started a new form of government and begun a new national life--as they hope--have come quickly to the conclusion that they need golf and much of it, for already a second course for Lisbon is being arranged, and there are to be others in different parts of the country. If King Manoel goes back, he will be prepared for them, for he has cultivated a fair game at Richmond. * * * * * In the evening we went to stroll among the cafés of Madrid, and presently peered into the old parts of the city, where life is simple and strong, where the humbler Madrileños resort, and there are dancing entertainments of a strange kind. On a little stage there is some jingling music worked out from a bad piano, and a troupe of girls with some gypsies among them will make a dance that, for all its art and all its naïveté, is somewhat coarse. Other girls will sit round them in a semicircle and keep up a kind of barbarous wail, occasionally bursting into a mock shout of approval. A song will follow, and a chorus with it, and by and by the entertainers will descend and drink wine with the people in the café, and all this will continue until the night is very late. But out in the Puerta del Sol the lights are bright and there is more gaiety than there has ever been. So we wandering golfers, reckless of the game of the day that follows (after all we are to give a bagful of strokes to these Spaniards and can beat them yet--but not always, one remembers), turn in to one of the music halls which have three shows a night, the third beginning at midnight, and we see La Argentinita dance, see the rumba done. Then down the Alcala and over the Prado home. We shall insist that this is a part of our golf in old Madrid; it is not the conventional golfing holiday, as I try to show. Another day we will run out for many miles to El Escorial (thanking the Duke of Tovar for the offer of his car) and ruminate in this most sombre architectural creation of the great Philip--palace, monastery and tomb in one--and another day out to Toledo, a grand dead city of a long past of many phases and eras, a mummified city it seems to be, with halls and places that look sometimes as if they had but just been left by the rich grand caballeros of the time when Spain was great. You can nearly see their ghosts, gay in satins and crimson silks, leaning over flowered balconies, singing, kissing, laughing, and always living. I dislike the corrida. It is horrible. Its time has gone. I had enough of it once when south at Algeciras. But a Spanish golfing companion said that it was a very special day, and for the experience, and as a matter of being guest, I should go. There were eight bulls done instead of six, and horses in proportion, and a county councillor of Madrid took us behind all the scenes, into the hospital, into the matador's chapel, and explained everything. He was a courteous gentleman. He said they would have golf in Madrid, that the corrida would leave in time, but for the present the people must have the corrida. It takes time to make great changes, he said, even in Madrid--where it does take more time for movements than anywhere else. But the point of this reference is the harsh contrast that is indicated--our peaceful game of golf in which nothing is killed, no blood spilled, nobody hurt, and yet, as we think, the greatest, fullest sport of all, stirring the emotions better than any corrida in Madrid or Barcelona, and this awful feast of blood and death. I have seen golf in many places, but never in one where its setting seemed so utterly impossible as here. And yet golf in Madrid is strengthening, and by ever so little the corrida, so they tell me, is weakening. That the game can begin and can hold and grow in such a place is surely the utmost testimony of its power. Games like golf have some work to do in Spain. It is because of such considerations, because of the extraordinary environment in which this peaceful, excellent sport is set, that I have found golf in Madrid such a remarkable and interesting study, and have dwelt upon it and provoked the contrasts when I might. See contrast now again, yet more wonderful. The next morning broke bright and blue, and Señor Fabricio was round betimes in the Prado with his car. We were to go to the new course that day. We sped away on the Corunna road for some four or five miles from Madrid, and then turned up towards the higher land. All this was King's land; El Pardo it is called. Here is the new golf course of Madrid, which takes the place in the Spanish golfers' hearts and plans of the other one of which I have already written, that with the bull-ring hole. This of El Pardo is part of a great new sporting establishment, embracing a magnificent polo ground, tennis courts, and all the advantages and appurtenances of a thorough country club in the manner of those which began in America and have since been copied in England, and more recently at Saint-Cloud near Paris. Considered in some ways 1 am a little disposed to count this new golf course of Madrid as the eighth or ninth wonder of the whole golfing world, just as the Spaniards themselves set up a claim for El Escorial to be ranked as the eighth of the world at large. There are sound reasons for the nomination. I have shown that it might well have been held that the Spanish people's character and dispositions were a soil in which no good game might grow, and yet that it was being urged and proved that there was a great process of regeneration going on and that golf indeed had been given a very good start. Now we come to the astonishing climax for the time being in this little story of contrasts. Here, if you please, at El Pardo on the estates of Don Alfonso is just one of the nicest, best, and most interesting courses for golf on which the excellent game might ever be played. It is quite new and it is most thoroughly up to date. It is a course of which good clubs in Britain might be exceedingly proud. You and I would be glad to play there nearly always, and we should have little fault to find. When I was there it was only just being finished. Its history is a nice romance. The golfers of Spain had risen to that state when they felt they needed something better for the improvement and the enjoyment of their play than the rough primitive course with the bull-ring hole which had ceased to satisfy their needs and tastes. They were restive. Came Don Alfonso to their comfort and their happiness. At El Pardo was the ideal golfing land--wide undulating sweeps of lovely country, majestic undulations, grand environment, with the splendid Guadarramas in full view. It was a scene sublime. The land was wooded, trees would have to be felled, the ploughshare would have heavy work to do; but that is how courses are made to-day. Not in Don Alfonso's power was it to give the ground outright, but he passed it to the golfers for a nominal rent of a thousand pesetas a year, which, being converted to English reckoning, would be some £37. There was land for the polo and the tennis hard by. Estimates were procured, and it was discovered that to do the work of felling and ploughing, sowing and construction, building and finishing, a sum of just about twenty-two thousand pounds in English money would be needed, and most of the money would go to England too. Then with zest the golfers and other sportsmen of Madrid came forward, each one subscribed according to his means and ability, and in a very little while all that great fund of money was obtained, and it was in the bank before the work was started. That was a splendid achievement; the golf of Madrid deserves to prosper now. It was determined that with such a beginning everything should be done most thoroughly afterwards. Thousands of trees had to be cut down, the ground cleared, ploughed, and raked, and the putting greens sown. On hardly any course in any country has the work of construction been done more thoroughly. Then Mr. Harry Colt was brought from England to design the holes, and he gave of some of his most cunning, most artistic work, having a fine field for his quick imagination. The result is eighteen holes as good and rich as Spanish holes need be. Some of the short ones are as good short holes as I have seen. One with the green on a hog's back, the seventh, is a most appetising thing. At the third there is a quick slope on the left of the green and the approach is one of those twisty things that are a strong feature of the Coltian style of architecture, demanding a skill and calculation from the player that many bunkers would not exact. There is a dog-leg hole for the fifth that leads to a green partly framed in a corner of trees. Parts of Spain are treeless, the great plain above which Madrid is placed, the long lone sweep of land that you look down upon from the palace, down to the Manzanares and beyond to a far horizon, is one of the most desolate countries that my eyes have seen. But here at El Pardo there are trees enough. Chestnuts and cork are everywhere, and the course has a look of our sweet Sunningdale at home. Harrows, rakes, and spades have done their work most wondrous well, and the nicest gradients have been given to the putting greens. But there is something even more remarkable still that has been done. Make it as you would, tend it as you might, but if Nature were to be depended upon the loveliest course in all Spain would have to perish, for the climate forbids. So the climate had to be foiled. Water was needed, water everywhere, water always, always. The Madrid golfers, wise beyond all British example, determined they would have their water at the very beginning of things. Some way distant there was a river or canal, and it was tapped for their supply. Great cemented aqueducts were built to carry it across valleys; it was piped through hills. The water in abundance was brought up here to the course; and it was laid on to every teeing ground and putting green and to the entire fairway so that everywhere, always, the water should be poured on, the fine grass that grows should be kept always green, and the turf, which is of full sandy kind, should be always golf-like and moist. That was a splendid achievement. I enjoyed the round of the new course, delighted in a pretty valley hole towards the end, and admired the enterprise of the Spanish golfers exceedingly. They have golf in Madrid. As the express climbed with me upwards back to France I reflected again on these wild contrasts, and the struggle for light by Spain. * * * * * As a pursuit golf differs from all others in that there is no exclusively right way and no utterly wrong way of doing anything connected with it. Those engaged with it are constantly, to use their own expression, finding out what they are "doing wrong," and then with great eagerness and activity and newly revived hope are setting forth to repair their errors and place their game upon a new foundation. Yet despite this eternal discovery of faults and remedies, only a little is ever found out of the full truth that is hidden somewhere, by even the very best of players, and herein lies the consolation of the humbler people in that, if they know little, their superiors, being champions, know only a little more compared with all that there is to be known. Thus upon every disappointment an encouragement ensues. If these points are considered it will appear that there are deep truths in them, while at the same time they convey morals and point the way to a betterment of one's game. And the most important point is that there is no one exclusively correct way of doing anything, and this, with all the circumstances surrounding the proposition, leads us inevitably to the conclusion that this is no game for narrow-minded and conventional people, who would always do as others do, and have not the will to exercise their own convictions which, along with their admiration for some of the tenets of the political party to which they do not belong, are stifled in their consciences and put away. Golf is indeed a game for extensive individualism, for the free exercise of convictions and for continual groping along unknown channels of investigation in search of the truth. Those who do not investigate and explore in this way miss a full three-fourths of the intellectual joy of this pastime. And the investigators must have the courage to reject things of information that are offered to them, even when conveyed with the very highest testimonials for their efficacy from the best champions of home and foreign countries, while at the same time they should have the will to put into exercise even the most fantastic scheme of their own imagination. All dogmatic teaching in golf is wrong. There are two or three essential principles as we have called them--the keeping of the still head, the fixed centre in the body, the eye on the ball, and such like--which must be obeyed under the certain penalty of failure, because these might be said to be the laws of Nature as applied to golf, and have nothing to do with the eccentricities of human method. But, these being properly respected, there are innumerable ways of building upon them structures of golf which, in the goodness of results in the matter of getting threes and fours and winning the holes, are much the same at the finish. One of the structures may be precise, another may be plain, a third may be ornate, and a fourth may be rough and vulgar. Yet in efficiency and in results they may be just the same, and in most cases the man is led to his style of golf building largely by his own temperamental case. So long as the essential principles are observed in each case, being the same always but kept hidden in the recesses of the building, many things may be done that the books do not teach. The books are valuable to the utmost for their suggestions and for bringing the player back to his base, as it were, when he has wandered too far in his explorations, piled theory on theory and got his game into the most hopeless tangle. For corrective purposes they are in this way quite essential. They stand for the conventions and for the middle ways; they enable us to make a fresh start. And the golfer is always making fresh starts. What is the cherished belief of to-day is abandoned next week, the discovery just made and looked upon as solving the last problem that keeps the handicap man away from scratch, is found later to be a temporary convenience only and to be dependent on something else in the system of a highly fleeting and uncertain kind. These beginnings, this starting over again with increased hope, add always to the pleasure. What players need to remember above all things is that the games of no two men are quite alike, any more than the men themselves are quite alike, and that among the very best the widest dissimilarities exist, that the best game that any man can possibly play is not one copied from others, but that game which is his very own, the one built up on his physical, intellectual, and mental peculiarities. Every man has a game of his own somewhere which is quite different from any other, and that game, when he can play it, will be more effective than any other that he could play. What he has to do, therefore, is to find out that game in all its peculiarities, and this is what the explorer and investigator is constantly trying to achieve. He is finding out the mysteries not of the game in general, as he sometimes imagines, but of his own game, and the more he discovers the better is he as a golfer. Surely there is proof enough of the absolute soundness of this proposition in the fact that the discoveries as they are made, meaning not those which are found later to be worthless, but those which become established in the permanent system and are invaluable, are often absolutely opposite to those made in another case and which become permanent in the same way. Why, even the champions differ more widely than any others--yet one remembers that this should not be a matter of surprise, but something that by this argument is quite inevitable. The champions have been marvellously successful in the mining of their own golfing seams, and that is the chief reason why they are champions. And all this helps to make golf the game it is--the eternal finding out, the progress, with its occasional set-backs, towards the discovery, the completion of the golfing self. I have only met one man in my life who has golfed and never found anything out, and that was Mr. John Burns, the Minister of State, who assured me that once in the old days of the Tooting Bec course he was persuaded by a number of political persons to go with them to play the game there one day. He had never handled a golf club in his life, but having some practical knowledge of cricket, felt that golf could not offer any serious hindrance to him. Consequently he agreed to take his part in a foursome, and in the progress of this match usually drove the best ball, with the result that his side was well victorious. There seemed nothing in his game that needed improvement. Herein we observe Mr. Burns displayed many of the qualities of the highest statesmanship, but he rose majestically in his determination that from that day he would never play golf again, much as he liked it, and he never has. He has these three distinctions--that he has played golf once and once only in his life; that being a golfer, as all are who are once initiated, he has never lost a match; and that he has never found anything out. I shall hope to be present at the second game he plays, the resolution having broken down, and then we shall see discoveries made. But once again, "Golfer, know thyself" is the supreme moral drawn from the experiences of the players who have golfed and studied most. Every golfer worth the name has found out hundreds of things and hopes to find many more; some of them are quite different from any of the other things that have been found out; he has his own private collection, and in it almost any person might find something that might with a little alteration be added to his own. So I remember that when we came up out of Spain, where the golfers are in that happy state that they have at this present stage almost more to discover than any other golfers in the world, a new spring season was beginning in the homeland of the game and all players were looking over their stock of knowledge and seeing what they had found out in the most recent times. It occurred to me then to send out a demand to a number of good players whom I knew for their enthusiasm, for their individualism and their strength of mind, and for their conscientious investigations, and ask them what they had lately discovered in an original kind of way which had beyond question materially improved their game. The answers were enlightening, and some of them, which I may quote, are worth pondering upon. One of the best players of my acquaintance sent to say that he had made a discovery, which, applied as a resolution, had done him more good than any other half-dozen he had ever thought of. The essence of the new idea was that on the teeing ground especially, and when approaching his ball through the green, he would see to it that the stepping of the feet, the movements of the arms, hands--everything involving action--should be as slow and deliberate as possible, even the very speech itself, for the reason that this slow sureness created an irresistible tendency in the golfing action that was to follow, the back-swing was then slow and deliberate, and the whole movement was harmonious and precise. The probable value of this idea is suggested by the fact that the man who is slow and deliberate in his waggling--not meaning one who prolongs it unduly or does it in a hesitating way--generally does his swinging better. Another player said the best discovery he had ever made was the idea of imagining his weight during upswinging to be on his left foot without really throwing it there, at the same time holding his legs a little more stiffly than had been his wont and keeping his heels on the ground as long as he could. By these things, which could all be grasped in the one general idea of making himself conscious of his legs all the time, he has come by a firmness and steadiness of system that have added enormously to his driving capacity; in fact, it has converted him from being a man who could not drive at all to a very good driver indeed. I remember that once I was watching Taylor teaching a scratch man and giving him hints for curing some considerable cutting and slicing to which he was addicted. The champion turned round to us and said that one of them was the best tip he had ever suggested in his life. It is the simplest thing. In addressing the ball he would have the patient turn over the face of the driver until that face is positively hanging over from the top, pointing to the turf, at such a fearsome angle--no limit to it--as to make it seem impossible to do anything but smother the ball when coming down on to it. The back-swing has to be begun with the face in this threatening situation. The truth is that the nervous fear that it inspires is the secret of the success of the method. The man believes that if he comes down on to the ball like that there will be a horrible disaster, and all the time in the down-swing he is subconsciously (another to that long list of most important subconscious movements) making corrections and allowances, and his wrists are doing a twist to get the club right by the time of impact. It is this wrist action, with the left hand managing it, that is wanted, and the arm action that it induces. The club reaches the ball properly, and the ball goes off without a slice. If sometimes it is smothered it does not matter; the cure will take effect in time. But, you say, you do not want to go on for ever addressing the ball in this seemingly grotesque way. No; but, again subconsciously, when the ball is being hit and driven properly and the arm and wrist action become natural, there is a sure tendency towards a settling down to normal ways, and without the man bothering about it any more the club will gradually get itself straight. CHAPTER XV THE SUPERIORITY OF BRITISH LINKS, AND A MASTERPIECE OF KENT, WITH SOME SYSTEMS AND MORALS FOR HOLIDAY GOLF. The chief and essential difference between golf in Britain and all other places in the world, as everybody feels on coming home to it after wanderings with clubs abroad, is that here in the home of the game it is "the real thing" as nowhere else. Climate, soil, history and sentiment, and the temperament of the people have combined to make golf here a thing that foreign people who have never seen and enjoyed it cannot imagine. It is not only that its excellence is so great, but its variety so infinite; and perhaps it is because of that excellence and variety that, human nature being in such a constant state of discontent, our people in these days are so much concerned with problems of architecture and the attainment of ideals which vary much with individuals and cause incessant wrangling. It is when we are far away that we think most of the magnificence of the courses on the western seaboard of Scotland--Prestwick, Troon, and Turnberry among them, with Machrihanish and Islay in more lonesome parts--of the wealth of golf in that East Lothian district that is so amazingly crowded with fine links, of the splendid strength of such as Hoylake and others in Cheshire and Lancashire, of our own east coast with such jewels as Brancaster set in it, of that marvellous trinity of courses on the Kentish seaboard, which as a golfing land has surely not its match in the world--Sandwich, Deal, and Prince's, in the group--of Littlestone and Rye along the southern coast, and then in the west such a glorious golfing ground as Westward Ho! And there is Wales with its pretty and excellent Porthcawl, Ashburnham, and many more, and Ireland also with its great Dublin courses, Portmarnock and Dollymount, and then sweet Newcastle in county Down, and bold Portrush. Indeed there are no others like the British courses, and it is always a tremendous speculation with any golfer of experience as to which he likes the best. When he comes to make it he has to separate in his mind the feelings of admiration and those of affection, for it commonly happens, if the judgment is reasonably good, that one may have the utmost admiration for some particular course, for its unimpeachable architecture based so well on perfect theory and the attempt always to make the punishment fit the crime and award stern justice, and yet not greatly delight to play upon it because in a way that sometimes he can hardly understand it does not give him his utmost pleasure. Here again the inexplicable emotions settle it. But in that matter of "justice" which seems so much to be the ideal of new architects, there comes the reflection in the ordinary golfer's mind sometimes as to whether golf, not really being a game of justice now, would be better if it were one, whether with so much that is unfair and tantalising removed from it the game would be half so good. Surely in no fine sport is there always exact justice done, and if it be made an ideal is it not possible that the nearer such ideal is approached the poorer may become the sport, not perhaps in regular proportion but in approximate effect? Golf is a game of Nature after all, and Nature in some ways does not always stick to justice. One may ponder upon what Anatole France once said about this justice. "In the vulgar sense," he wrote, "it is the most melancholy of virtues. Nobody desires it. Faith opposes it by grace and Nature by love. It is enough for a man to call himself just for him to inspire a genuine repulsion. Justice is held in horror by things animate and inanimate. In the social order it is only a machine, indispensable doubtless, and for that reason respectable, but beyond question cruel since it has no other function than to punish, and because it sets jailers and executioners at work." And perhaps it may be said that golf has little enough in principle to do with justice either; and we have seen into what perplexities the good authorities of St. Andrews have fallen by their vain endeavour to make a code of laws that would settle the just dues of every golfer in every circumstance. Nature in her variety has contrived to beat them all continually. Perhaps it may be the same with the construction of courses, but the end of all golfers' endeavour, however much it may be criticised, is the good of the game, and it is generally achieved. * * * * * Those who in the most dispassionate frame of mind have considered carefully all the points that should count the most and detached themselves as well as they might from their private and inexplicable preference have generally come to the conclusion that there are three courses in this great golfing country of ours that are somewhat better than all the rest in their golfing quality. One of them is old St. Andrews, another of them is middle-aged Westward Ho! and the third is the youthful Prince's at Sandwich. Considered as the perfect course, weighing point against point, a jury of the best critics might have difficulty in coming to any other decision than that architecturally, for the real magnificence of its golfing value, the great creation of Mr. Mallaby-Deeley on the golfing land by Pegwell Bay is supreme. Here ten years ago there was nothing but a barren waste of sandhills, just as they had been, as it seemed, since the very beginning of things--lonesome, useless, forgotten. Then it was realised that what was good for nothing else was best of all for golf. Mr. Mallaby-Deeley saw it and understood, and now hereabouts the land is comparatively priceless so much is it coveted by the golfers, who also now understand as they see. Other great courses have been the productions of a long period of time, improvements continually on an original structure of the crudest kind. Westward Ho! was not made in a season, nor in many seasons. Only recently some of its most delightful touches have been added to it. St. Andrews was the work of generations. But Prince's, though it has been appreciably changed from its original design, was like one great flash of inspiration, and as such is surely the most amazing achievement in the architecture of golf. Mr. Mallaby-Deeley in other ways has shown himself to be a man of immense imagination; but was it ever better illustrated than in his making of Prince's? Our admiration for the course may be not the less but greater because we cannot play her properly. For my own humble part I love most the championship course of the Royal Cinque Ports club at Deal near by. Here there are charm and variety, and holes of the most splendid character. If some find fault with them, what does it matter when they are so good to play? The Royal St. George's course at Sandwich, again, is a most beautiful thing; surely there is no other which gives such an infinite pleasure to a greater number of capable players. But for sheer golfing quality, Prince's truly is the queen of all. * * * * * I have asked Mr. Mallaby-Deeley to tell me what his ideals are in this matter, and in response he has made a statement of such interest and value that it should be given at its length. He said that, premising that for purposes of consideration we should regard "ideal links" as having reference only to the sequence of holes, both as to ranges of length, difficulty, and beauty of design, he submitted that the making of such an ideal course, given suitable ground, depended then on three things only, being knowledge, time, and money. St. Andrews and his own Prince's come nearest to this ideal, but the former fails in that it is too straight in and out, and also because one can pull all the way out and all the way home again without falling into any trouble, the truth being that the more one pulls the greater the possibility of safety in doing so. Some say that if you do thus pull you cannot reach the greens, but in these days that is not so. We have seen them reach those greens after the most exaggerated pulling. Then he thinks that the set of St. Andrews in the matter of prevailing winds is far from ideal, for so often the wind is at one's back all the way out and against the player all the way coming home, or the other way about. Again, no one can deny, he says, that St. Andrews has three if not four very ordinary and commonplace holes. Prince's, as now laid out, has in general opinion not a single commonplace or uninteresting hole in the whole course, but it has had the advantage of being laid out many years after St. Andrews, and after the introduction of the rubber ball. A course comes nearer to the ideal as its holes are placed to every variety of wind. In the early days of Prince's at Sandwich the disadvantage of an in and out course were soon discovered and an enormous amount of money was spent in altering it to its present form, in which, with the single exception of St. George's, it is the best in existence, the old course at Sandwich being ideal in this respect. Mr. Mallaby-Deeley, looking upon his Prince's in the supercritical way of a pleased but still insistent creator, can see only one blemish in it, and that is that the two short holes, being the third and the fifth--though the fifth is longer than the third--come too close together. Any two holes on a course may separately be extremely good, but coming together lack something of perfection because of the repetition that instantly arises. He would have the pin visible for every approach shot on his ideal links, and the only exception he would make would be in the case of a full second shot with a long carry over a high bunker to the end of it, for this to his mind is a most interesting shot. Such an one, he points out, is that presented at the sixteenth hole at Littlestone, and he would be surprised to know that any one would ever think of altering that hole in order to enable a player in the distance to see the pin. He also would not agree to placing a bunker immediately at the back of the green, which punishes the man who dares to be up and encourages "pawkiness." The visible pin is imperative at short holes; he will admit no exceptions. But all who have been to Prince's have been most impressed with the beauty and golfing perfection of the dog-legged holes there, a couple of which are presented at the beginning of the round, immediately introducing the stranger to some of the best delights of this course. He would have dog-leg holes of both shapes in his round, those bending to the right to worry the slicer, and those angled towards the left to help the long driver who greatly dares. The first hole at Hoylake and the second and eleventh at Prince's are dog-leg holes that he likes best. But, he will tell you, by far the most vital matters to consider in making any course with pretensions to being ideal are the position of the greens and the bunkering through the course and near the hole, and, though it is a consideration that is too often overlooked, it is nearly as important to bear in mind from which quarter the prevailing wind blows. He believes every shot from the tee to the hole ought to be of equal importance, but in the case of the majority of the courses this is not so. Despite the fact that on the tee the man has everything in his favour, a perfect stance and a teed-up ball, he is given more space to play into and a greater margin for inaccuracy than in the case of any other shot. This, says the architect, is wrong. Surely it should be as necessary on the ideal course to place the tee shot as any other. He has turned the subject of ribbon bunkers very thoroughly over in his mind. In a general way, he does not like them because of the varying winds. He says, "_Tutiores ibis in medias vias_," is a safe and golden rule of life, and it applies equally to ribbon bunkers which while they make some holes mar many more. Most frequently on account of wind and other things this form of hazard fails as a fair guard to the green for a hole that is meant for two full shots. It is then wrongly placed, and would generally be improved by the substitution of ear bunkers to catch sliced and pulled shots thereto. The push shot is one of the most difficult in the game to play, but it is one of the prettiest and most satisfactory in accomplishment; but the ribbon bunker is often unfair to the man who plays it. Yet the absence of such ribbon bunkers does not prevent the man who likes to play his high mashie shots from still playing them. Thus the absence of this form of bunker is fair to all, while if placed very near the green its presence penalises the push-shot player. But many a tee shot would be tame if it were not for the ribbon bunkers some way ahead. In epitome he says to the student of architecture--"Bunker your course so that every bad shot is punished; place your bunkers so that every shot must be played and played well; make the length of your holes such that if a shot is foozled it costs you a stroke; guard your greens right and left, and even to the very edge and into the green itself, if necessary, but this must of course depend on the length of shot to be played; and at one-shot holes make the green a very fort of surrounding bunkers, and guard the tee shot. Do not leave it open as at the famous short hole at St. Andrews, a much overrated hole. But above all things, make your bunkers fair; don't make them impossible to get out of except by playing back." As to the lengths of the holes on his ideal course he would have about twelve two-shot holes varying from 380 to 440 yards, and there should be three one-shot holes of about 165, 180, and 200 yards respectively. There would be two or three drive-and-iron holes of about 350 yards each, but a drive-and-iron hole should be so constructed that if the drive is missed it will be impossible for the man who missed it to sail on the green with his next. There is a good example of this in the fifteenth at Prince's, for although this hole is only a drive and an iron the penalty for missing the drive is that it takes the player two more shots to reach the green because of the nature of the ground in front of the tee. And then he would have it a condition that the last three holes should average about 400 to 420 yards each, and the seventeenth and eighteenth should be made specially testing ones. This is the ideal course, and, being such, it is not a place for foozlers. But if it is properly and fairly constructed it will be easier and pleasanter to play on than a course which is made difficult by the simple method of making it unfair, for example by putting bunkers in the wrong places, by cutting the hole in a ridiculous position on the green, by punishing the man who is "up" (a new-fangled and absurd idea of course construction) by placing the hole immediately in front of a bunker at the back of the green, and by leaving the approach to the green from a long shot rough or broken, and so unfair. It is easy to make any course difficult, and so conducive to high scoring, by making it unfair. This induces pawky play because the punishment for bold play may be too severe. He is also of opinion (and there is a constantly growing tendency to agree with him) that there is too much premium on putting, and that it plays far too important a part in the game, especially among first-class players and in first-class matches. He thinks the hole should be six and a half inches instead of four and a quarter. Under present conditions a putt missed by half an inch bears the same punishment (although the rest of the hole through the green may have been played faultlessly) as a hopelessly bad shot by one's opponent through the green. Prince's supports its creator's arguments very well indeed, and one enormous fascination of it lies in the fact that it is always suggesting to you, always inviting you, always tempting you to do the more daring thing, and hinting that, even though you failed, the suffering might not be too much. In that, it seems to me, lies the chief charm of this masterpiece of architecture. * * * * * So when we come home from other lands, let us think of golfing holidays in our own, and moralise from old experience. It is an aggravating circumstance that while there is hardly anything in the way of change and holiday that is so splendid as a golfing holiday, there is hardly any kind that is so easily spoiled. The golfer is not dependent on the weather, only to a small extent on his friends, he seldom knows limits of time or space, yet he fails oftener in his pursuit of the perfect happiness of a summer vacation than do the unsophisticated people who kill the time of August and September in other ways, and that happens because of the very fascination of the thing, and the enthusiasm and excess to which it leads him on. In our working days limits are imposed upon us; when we are loose and unrestricted all system and wise restraint fly to pieces. It is not only that we often play too much on holidays, but that during play and in the intervals between those spells of action the imagination is at work too fast and makes riot upon settled methods which have raised the game of the individual to some more or less agreeable sort of quality. Excess and experiment are the two evils that shatter so many golfing holidays, and yet the contradictions of golf are such that we find there is something good to be said both for excess and for experiment. But be all this as it may, it is not until a man has gone through twenty golfing holiday campaigns that he fully realises he has an education to serve in this matter, and after twenty more he is able to start out on the forty-first in the strong confidence that from the days and weeks before him he will extract the full available supply of rich golfing delight. These remarks do not well apply to the person of the thick phlegmatic temperament who plays now with the same set of clubs that he started with ten years or more agone, the which have not had their shafts varnished, nor their grips attended since the time of their first swinging. This man is without imagination, without feeling, and, with no blessing upon him, we may let him wander away to play wherever he will, knowing that he will always derive some great satisfaction from his pursuit and gain mightily in health. He is not like most of us; he is as the man without any religion; he is very material. He eats, he plays, he rests, he sleeps. And he does very well in it all; and yet we of the majority who think always, ponder deeply, worry exceedingly and are wracked with doubts and conflicting theories, disappointed ever in fruitless experiments, do not envy him. The material person does not go down into the depths where we grieve and are in pain (how often do we go and grieve!), but neither does he ascend to the heights of pleasure that are scaled by successful experiment, by the sudden discovery of some wonderful secret that seems to have unlocked the gates of the higher golf and rendered us immune from failure for evermore. (Never mind what happens in the morning!) We may suffer the depths for those hot moments of life on the summits. This preamble is needed for warning. Golf is the great game of emotions, and at holiday times those emotions are quickened, strung up and, flying loose in riot, play the devil with our game. I am sorry to believe that many young men who come back to their homelands from the golfing holiday grounds in October do so with inward sighs and stifled sobs. They tell us that they have had the most glorious time; they may foolishly give an account of a round said to have been done in 74, and of many of the longest holes that cost them only four strokes apiece, and we forgive them for their words which we know are false, realising the pain of their case and that their dissembling is in a small manner for the good of the game. Their emotions have led them astray; they have been weak and foolish; they have done the wrong things and they have left undone all those which were recommended to them as right. They have played three rounds a day, and they have bought new drivers and putters. And some of them have actually changed their stances and had an inch cut off a favourite shaft! Truly their emotions have led them wrong. Player! if you would pass the placid holiday, kill those emotions and cast them off. You may then take a golfing holiday from which you will derive that magnificent material comfort and refreshment that your butcher and baker do when they walk upon the promenade at Margate and, well fed, sleep at times on the sunlit sands. You will really believe on your return to labour in the town, that you have had a splendid time, but soon you will cease to talk of it for you will find that there is very little to remember. Time was passed; that was all. The man whose emotions played old Harry with him does not forget. He has something indeed to remember, for he lived very much in his month of play. So you will see that in the scheme of golfing things as jointly ordained by Nature and kind Providence, with the petty meddling of the man himself, there are different processes of holiday, and each in its way is the best. As in so many other affairs of golf there are contradictions abounding. But let us, after such philosophy, move to some definite considerations, and consider life and facts as they are presented to us. * * * * * One of the doctors' papers was well laughed at a little while since for suggesting that, on account of the nerve strain that it makes, golf is not an ideal game for everybody, especially busy folks with few hours and days for recreation. To quote: "If he takes his failures to play a good game to heart, it is doubtful whether his health gains very much. He has had, it is true, the advantage of a change of scene and occupation, and has lived for a while in a healthier atmosphere, and, if he had only been satisfied with his game, all these things would have conspired to send him back to his work cheered and braced up. But he may play very badly and become unduly worried thereat. A game that is calculated to increase an irritability which has arisen out of a trying week's work can hardly be said to be recreative, at all events to the mind." The medical writer concluded impressively: "The game of golf, if it does not go smoothly, presents so many points of analogy with the tiresome eventualities of life that there can be little doubt that persons of an irritable, gloomy, and worrying disposition would be better if they did not seek their recreation on the links." The common people sometimes look upon these pronouncements from the columns of the professional paper as being like the essence of the wisdom and knowledge of the whole of Harley Street. I remember, however, that when this was published the golfers ridiculed and condemned it, and agreed to take more golf and less medicine. It is not my function to advocate the playing of less golf than is played, much less the stoppage of any of it, but I dare to suggest that there was a germ of truth in what the medical paper said. There are kinds of players who should take their golf with restraint and caution, especially at holiday times. The truth is that a vast proportion of golfing holidays are completely ruined through a bad plan of campaign, or over-doing it, or both--commonly both. We would say nothing to a doubter now about the selection of his friends for his party; he should know that it is a matter demanding the extremest care. A golfing holiday _à deux_ may expose all the least beautiful parts of each man's character, and those who are not such friends that they can comfortably bear each other's infirmities might do better even to go on their golfing way lonely and without a partner. There is much to be said for the freedom of this latter holiday existence, and odd indeed would be the golfing place where there were not many games for the solitary stranger to play. The night before the opening of the campaign, the eve of the journey outwards, is a trying time to many men. I think of those who take loving interest in their clubs, and have many of them, including a first-class reserve, and perhaps a second-class reserve also, to the original set that is in full commission. The man who has only seven clubs in the world, and seems to take a pride in telling you that he has had them all since the beginning of his golf, is in no difficulty. But with others the trouble is how many clubs to take, and how many to dare to leave behind. After the first selection it is seen that about five or six drivers are put in the list, very many irons, and a large assortment of putters. All the ex-favourites are to be tried over again and experiments to be made with a number of others. It is found then that too many clubs have been selected; but after the most painful and difficult weeding out there may still be some twenty left, and these are taken. It is a mistake. From the day of arrival at the holiday place the man is in doubt as to what he will play with, and he mixes up his game into a bad state of confusion through using different clubs almost every day. It is a good rule, to which every golfer subscribes after twenty campaigns, if not before, to take away the regular clubs as used every day at home, not one less and only two more, being a spare driver and an extra putter. In that way happiness and contentment lie. I would leave out the driver did I not know the case of a man who so much grieved for one he had left behind that he travelled three hundred miles back home to get it! The little truth that there was in the indictment against the game by the doctors' paper is that it is possible for some men, many of them, to have too much of it, when it becomes bad for the men and bad for their game, and holidays are rendered failures. There was a time when really good golf could only be had at the seaside, or very far away from the great centres of work and business. That is no longer the case, and the situation is that the golf we are having all the time at home is hard and strenuous, demanding great ability and thought. The golfing holiday, then, might very well be made an easy one on a links where the holes are simple, and--remembering another scare that was made by a doctors' paper some time later--I believe that there is as happy golf to be had up on the hills, and in the lonely country places, as on the margin of any sunny sea. But it is the excess of golf that is played on holidays that spoils everything in the case of the man of a somewhat nervous temperament, and one who may not be as strong and beefy as the John Bull of the pictures. Too many of these people seem to think that, as they have gone away for golf, they should have as much of it as they can get, and play to excess accordingly. Three rounds! Three rounds! One of the reasons why some men play so much--as they put it to themselves--is that they wish to improve their game, and they conceive that the holiday time is the best of all in which to achieve that end. But experience shows that very seldom indeed is a man's game improved at such a time; very frequently it is injured, and that through the excess. When so much of it is played, weariness, though half unconsciously, is induced, proper pains are not taken at every stroke, carelessness becomes constant; then, with deterioration, too many experiments are tried, and worst of all, that terrible, and for the time being incurable, disease of staleness sets in, and there is then an end to all happiness and enjoyment. There is hardly any cure for staleness except complete abstention for a time. It needs some strength of mind to carry out such a resolve, but he who severely limits his golf at holiday times enjoys it the more, and he and his health and his game are the better for it. A holiday system based on wise restrictions is a splendid thing. Men of long experience have tried many of them, and the best of all is this: Play two rounds on the first day of the week, one on the second, two again on the third, one on the fourth, two on the fifth, one on the sixth, and take a whole holiday from the game on the seventh day. That is not too much nor too little. Another point for remembrance is that on the days that are warm and long the old convention of one round before lunch and another afterwards is not a good one for the best and most enjoyable employment of the day. Much better is it to play in the morning, rest pleasantly--sleep, perhaps--in the afternoon, and play again in the cool of the evening, when golf is the best of all--always provided your course is not laid out in a straight line from east to west and back, for playing full against a setting sun is a very tantalising thing. * * * * * Mention has been made of staleness. In our minds there is awakened an unhappy thought with which something had better be done for good contentment's sake ere we pass along to the pleasant consideration of this holiday golf. Staleness is the canker that kills many of these expeditions that are planned with the happiest promise. It is a dread golfing disease that rages on the links almost like an epidemic during August and September. It spoils the game and happiness of every player whom it attacks, and sometimes it cuts holidays short. It is nearly safe to assume that when on holiday one golfer in every half-dozen is afflicted with it, and some of the others are in danger. It consists in the absolute incapacity of the player to produce a game that is within very many strokes of his real form; in truth the game of a good man may fall to the twenty-handicap level or lower, and each new effort on his part to raise it up again only results in a worsening of the case. There is no certain cure except isolation from the game and long rest. A trouble that has the power, then, to ruin the golfing holiday, and often does, must be considered very seriously. Here is the progress of a case for the details of which I can personally vouch. I was a sympathetic witness of it. The man was playing well at the beginning of the holiday season and went for a month to a fine east coast links where there was no town, no village, and no society but that of golfers, and nothing to do but golf, which was what he desired. For a week he played well, doing two rounds every day, and sometimes three. The weather was hot. At the beginning of the second week there were signs of a failing game. His first anxiety soon increased; he changed his ball, then began to make alterations in his stances and swings, and at the end of the second week was all foozles, and getting worse. Soon afterwards it was obvious that the cause of the whole thing was staleness. The man tried the heroic remedy of loafing about his quarters, golfless, for a couple of days, reading novels and pretending to play bowls against himself. He also studied the stones in the old graveyard near by. On the third day he went back to the links very hopeful, but the case was as bad as before, and, desperate, he gave his game a three days' rest after that. This also failed. Neither of the resting spells was long enough. This being a man of keen nervous temperament, who took his game very seriously and was very miserable, he did the wisest thing by giving up his holiday and going home to work in London. The primary cause of staleness is excess of play, resulting in exhaustion of nervous and physical energy, which in turn produces carelessness, decreases the capacity for taking the infinite pains that are necessary to the game, and--important--brings about a failure in the subconscious working arrangement between the mind and the physical system that has everything to do with the proper accomplishment of the various strokes. The movements of every golfing swing, as we have agreed, are extremely complicated; they consist of hundreds of little movements amalgamated into one great system, and while one is conscious of the system, it is impossible for the parts of it to be anything but subconsciously done, and they are made perfect by training and practice, and by getting the brain and the physical construction to work together exactly and with harmony. When staleness comes on, this working arrangement breaks down and the player attempts the hopeless task of trying to do consciously what can only be done the other way. I believe that this is the true explanation of staleness. _Note 1._--The exhaustion of the nervous and physical energy is often unsuspected, and is covered up by the enthusiasm for the game. _Note 2._--Excess of play does not mean only a frequent playing of three rounds a day. Two rounds every day, as a regular thing, may be excess in many cases. Much depends on the individual. A man of highly-strung temperament will become stale much more quickly than a beefy, phlegmatic person, who is commonly immune. _Note 3._--Staleness is very much more easily induced, and develops more quickly and dangerously, in hot weather than at other times, because the tax on the nervous energy and the eyesight is so much greater then. Now here are the common symptoms and the results of staleness. Almost the first real sign of it is swaying of the body. This is very slight at first, and is rarely suspected; but it brings about a general collapse of the swing and the entire golfing apparatus. A very hopeless sort of tap is given to the ball on the tee, and it is driven perhaps only a hundred and fifty yards. As everything seems to have been done properly, the player is mystified, begins to experiment, and then worse troubles come on. Shakiness of the legs, and much exaggerated knee and foot work, often resulting in collapse of the right leg and the player getting up on his toes, make up the next symptom; and another one that is a common accompaniment of the beginning of staleness is falling or lurching forward as the club is brought down on to the ball. Anything like a proper swing is, in such circumstances, impossible. Bad timing begins immediately; then there is overswinging and too fast swinging; and, of course, the moving of the head and the taking of the eye from the ball, those two faults that never miss an opportunity of coming in to add to the woes of the worried golfer. What must the stale golfer do for his salvation and happiness? In the first place, if he has had this thing before, he should be on his guard against it and catch it in time. If taken at the very beginning an early cure is quite practicable. The golf should be stopped at once for a few days, and a rest and change, as complete as possible, taken. Then the game should be resumed warily--one round a day. In addition to this, some men will insist on having alterations made in their clubs. They deceive themselves. One of the greatest champions of all times once, in intimate conversation, laid down a rule to me with great seriousness, and it is one never to be forgotten. He said: "Never make a change in your regular clubs, and never buy a new one, unless it is a putter, when you are playing badly. Only make changes when you are playing at your very best. You may then play even better, knowing so well what you want." Yet, warn them as much as you may, many men will make extensive changes when they are stale and desperate. One plea to them then--the change having failed, go back to the old clubs before changing again. Never get far from your base, or you will be lost in doubt and confusion. Let it be the same with methods as with clubs. If a new way fails, let the sick man go back to the old one before experimenting again. He should remember that that old one has served him well, and the possibilities are that he will have to stand by it after all. Then the stale golfer should try to encourage himself; he should try a new set of opponents, play with men of longer handicap than himself, who normally would never outdrive him, and so on. A change of links often works wonders, but if the staleness has gone very far, and it matters little, it is often wise to give up the golfing part of the holiday if one is in progress. We have seen the advice given to play through a period of staleness. This is a heroic measure, but it would not succeed in one in six cases, and the suffering would be too great for the ordinary mortal. We tell him to take few clubs away with him, and to be faithful to them, and they will serve him well. And we tell him when his golf is ill not to fly to the dangerous stimulant of a new club. And yet, where is the man who does come back from his holiday without a new one in his bag, one fond relic of those days that were so tightly packed with golf? We bring them back with us, the names of their nativity upon them, as hunters and explorers bring trophies from distant lands. Mutely they testify for us. Sometimes when the holiday is done they are added, for their merit and fine service, to the clubs in commission in the bag; oftener they fall into the reserve; frequently they are given a purely honorary office and sent off with a title to the golfer's own private House of Lords as magnificent relics. * * * * * A diary should be kept during the golfing holiday; indeed it should be kept at all times. More such are made than the golfing world realises, because they are often, to the uttermost degree, secret and private, and that not merely for the reason that some diarists place themselves in the confessional when they make their entries, but because, alas! they are conscious of serving their own vanity by exaggeration of their best achievements. It may be kept for one of two distinct reasons, or for both of them, though the latter is not generally done. The two different objects are entertainment and instruction. For the former, the small things that are sold in shops will do. You write down, each time you have been playing, where the game was had, who the other man was, and what you beat him by; or the extent of the disaster if it was the other way about. In the column devoted to "Conditions" you exaggerate the force of the wind; and under "Remarks" you say you were driving and putting splendidly when you won. If you lost, the space is left blank. This record is in its own way valuable, because at a future time it will refresh the memory concerning great golfing days of the past, and thus furnish a real enjoyment. When a game of golf is played, and finished, it is not done with. It is lodged in a great store of remembrance, with full particulars attached to it, ripening with time, so that the player's memories are among the best happenings of his golfing possessions. All of us know that this is so, and it is as a kind of catalogue that the little diaries serve their purpose well. The diary of analysis or instruction is a very different thing. The object is to make a serial record of ideas and successful experiments, faults and tendencies--most particularly tendencies--in order that on periodical examination of it the player may derive useful lessons and improve his game. One should get a good exercise book, bound nicely and strongly, with morocco corners, and just enter up one's performances on the plain paper according to any system that one may choose, giving prominence to a line at the top of each entry, naming the day, the place, and the man. I have seen diaries kept in this way, and they have been very serviceable. But the man who is starting anything of this kind must come to a definite agreement with himself to be absolutely honest and sincere; and he must also be very introspective, and have keen discernment for his own faults and constant observation for all that he does at every stroke. Otherwise it were better that he merely kept the diary of glorious remembrances. Let him, if he keeps a diary of fact, hold it secret from all the world; but every night after his play put down in it the plain, real truth about what happened; and let him see to it, after much thought upon recent events, that he does properly know the truth. This point is emphasised because men may be short with their putts, say on sixteen of eighteen greens in one round, and yet not notice the frequency of the same fault; or they may be pulling or cutting their putts all the time and be oblivious, in the same way, to the circumstance. Or they may be pitching their approaches too short of the greens, or slicing most of their drives. The point is that the golfer's memory for his own misdeeds is an exceedingly short one, and he rarely gets them tabulated and analysed as he should. If he made an analysis of his play at the end of the day, stated the truth about it in the book, and then examined that book carefully once a week, he would learn something about the causes that were preventing him from getting on in the game, and the next step would suggest itself. Some would say that the making of personal statistics in this way would be a very troublesome matter, and they would be certain to tire of it soon. It is not so much a nuisance as might be imagined; it becomes interesting, and it helps one's game. But if you are doubtful about this idea, do keep a diary of sorts anyhow, for it is such a pity to let the golf that has been played die out of memory. You may gather a notion of the value and interest of what might be called played golf by reading through the match-book of another man, like that of the late F. G. Tait, which is included in the delightful and pathetic memoir that Mr. John Low wrote about him. Tait, model of golfers, always filed the facts about his matches, but briefly. Not many words were wasted in the "Remarks" column; what was said there was the plain truth. Often it was "F. G. T. in great form," but the recorder knew how to denounce himself. It does one good to read through this diary of one who was soldier, hero, golfer, and darling of the game. * * * * * But not every man departs on a golfing holiday for a strenuous time of continuous match-play with keen rivals who might be fine companions, and who would keep him up at night with bridge, after a day's work on the links was done. All sorts and conditions of men are included in this comprehensive golfing world of ours; and some have most contemplative moods, love solitude, and, alone with themselves and the game, probe deeply into its mysteries and into their own weaknesses. It is to the credit of the pastime that it accommodates itself most splendidly to every disposition and mood and manner; and men of a lonely way have gone solus on their holidays, and held themselves solus all the time, and have come back again, well refreshed and satisfied. They have often enough had fewer disappointments than the others. They have practised extensively, and they have improved themselves as golfers. Practice is indeed a feature of many golfing holidays. Here at such times we have the full game at our disposal and nothing but the game, and now, if ever, we can make ourselves to be better golfers. That is how we reason. It is a matter to be considered carefully. Practice fails in most cases because the golfers concerned do not concentrate upon their efforts with that keenness, thoroughness, and determination they exhibit when playing a real match. The game is not the same to them; they do not try so hard, however much, as one might say, they try to try, and the result is there is such an excess of looseness, carelessness, about their methods, that bad habits are born; and these persons then had really better not be practising at all, for thus they do harm to their game. This is one reason why one-club practice is better in small quantities than in large ones. It is not sufficiently interesting when kept up. What we should do, therefore, is to make the practice interesting, and fortunately the circumstances of the game afford wide scope for doing so. There is no other game that is half so good in this way. Golf to many people's minds is not merely a game to be played with others and against them; it is a study, a subject for meditative research and exultant discovery. If others should regard such terms as immoderate, golfers anyhow know they are fairly employed. The essential difference that the presence of a man as opponent makes is that a real game, hard and according to the law, has then to be played, and there can be a winning or a losing of it. Well then, it is our business, in order to make solitary practice interesting and valuable, to create a game for ourselves. It is easily done, and there are some wise men who say that they would rather play their solitary game, going round the links alone with all their clubs or nearly, than they would play a match with a stranger who happened not to turn out to be the right kind of golfing man. Many who start systems of solitary competitive play against themselves in this way fail with them, did they but know it, because they are not honest with themselves. Having become very badly bunkered, and having taken three for recovery, they must not call it one because they should have got out in one, had they played the shot just right; nor, having missed a foot putt, must they consider it as holed because if they had tried their uttermost they could have holed it. We must see that it is of the essence of solus play, and making it valuable, that the man should try his best and should know and feel that he has no second attempt at the same stroke, just as he has none in the real game when others are there. If he permits himself second drives and putts, all the strokes are done without the sense of responsibility, and the player then were better indoors writing letters to his friends to come and match themselves against him. Therefore let the first and the most inexorable rule in one's solitary golf be that the shot once made must count, no matter what its quality. What may be permitted--and this does not operate as an exception to the rule--is that when a shot has been badly done another ball may be played from the same place. One may learn something in this way, but always must it be understood that the first ball must count; and it is a good maxim that there should be no attempted repetition of a successful stroke, for if it were done well again the man would be no better off in mind or skill, and if it failed there would be an unnecessary disappointment and uncertainty. Now, to consider ways of competing against oneself that will make interesting the lonely game, and lift it to value too, every man of thought might quite well devise some suitable system for himself; but we may tell him of some that have been successful with many players, and of a good principle to embrace in any new one, which is never to make the test or competition too severe. I believe that golfers are improved more by coaxing and flattery than by harsh measures and heavy defeats. It is often said that the best way to improve is to play against better players than ourselves, but there are limitations to that advice which are not always sufficiently emphasised. The superior party ought not to be too much superior, the different points of the game of the two men should not be very widely contrasted, and the better player should be giving to the inferior one so much allowance that the latter ought to win as often as he loses, never letting it be forgotten that, when handicaps are right and three-fourths of the difference is allowed, the odds are really always in favour of the better player, as has been proved over and over again. Even when a man is of long experience and has been fashioned by nature in the heroic mould, it is impossible to play his very best golf, and be improving on it, unless he "has his pecker up." The pecker properly set makes happiness and confidence, and it is only when such moods are engendered that the man is led on to higher things, perceives the absence of limitation to his prospects of improvement, and likens himself to the chrysalis of a Vardon or a Braid. Above everything else, as we have agreed so often before, golf is a game of hope. Crush the hope by setting the man a task that is beyond him and you take away the joy of the game and kill the happy prospects. The golfer who is winning will win again and play better. In these observations there have been some principles for practice laid down that are seldom emphasised, but are of the most vital importance. To make exact systems to suit them is, after all, a simple affair. Now many men play round after round, counting their strokes, as if they were playing in a medal competition, and comparing results at the finish, always trying to break their own records. They may gain some benefit from this play, but it often fails in interest, and consequently in value, for the same reason that medal competitions do--because of the continual occurrence of the one, or it may be two, very bad holes. The percentage of cards that are turned from good to bad merely by one disastrous hole must be very high, and when a man is playing a practice round and does a nine at the second hole, it is difficult for him to treat the remainder very seriously or be keen about them. The remedy is simple. Let this system of playing and comparisons be that his aggregate shall always be for sixteen or seventeen holes only, leaving the worst to be eliminated. There is nothing unfair in doing so. The one bad hole is frequently more the result of accident than of inability. At the beginning of a system of practice play three holes may be dropped regularly from the reckoning, then a week later two, the week after that one only. Comparisons of form are more accurate and reliable when the worst hole is eliminated, than when all eighteen are totted up. Then the man may play the bogey game; but instead of opposing the set bogey of the course and complicating the business with handicap strokes, let him make a bogey of his own of such a kind that it represents not the scratch man's proper game but his, so that when he is playing well he ought to beat it, and it should be a tolerable match. In constructing such a bogey, he might make allowance for his own special likes and dislikes in regard to particular holes. Again, I have known men to derive pleasure and improvement from a system of practice against the ordinary bogey by which they merely reckoned the number of holes at which they equalled or beat the phantom's figures, disregarding the losses. There is a little difference between this and the ordinary reckoning, and it is in the direction of encouragement if the player is coming on. And then there is the interesting system that was first set forth by a most eminent player who has been amateur champion more than once, by which the practiser wins half-crowns for his good play and loses them on his off days. He plays against bogey on terms that give him an equal chance. Then he establishes a money-box with two sections in it, one being for bogey and the other for himself, and into each section he deposits four half-crowns, which is very little to pay for all the enjoyment he is about to gain. When bogey beats him one of the half-crowns is lifted out of the man's section into the ghost's, but when flesh and blood prevail the coin comes back. The course of practice is ended when one side or the other has got all the half-crowns. If bogey has them there is something wrong with the game of the man, and he had better start another series; but when the man is triumphant he may depart for a holiday exultingly and spend the money on it, in the doing of which he will probably win some more, his form being so much bettered by his lonely practice. CHAPTER XVI THE OLD DIGNITY OF LONDON GOLF, AND ITS NEW IMPORTANCE, WITH A WORD FOR THE CHARM OF INLAND COURSES. Perhaps in the middle ages of the game some rare old conservative of a player at one of the great Scottish seats of golf was told by another that a gentleman had just arrived by the coach from London and would like a match in the morning, and it is distinctly possible, if he was the excellent man we picture him, that he ejaculated, "And where, sir, is London?" The manner would have been Johnsonian, if not the sentiment. Should any one now be disposed to regard such lack of knowledge--though I think you would find it was only what might be called judicial golfing ignorance--or narrowness, or whatever it was, as merely stupid or a little culpable, he may hesitate. The pride of dignity, arising from conscious strength and superiority, was a fine thing among the Scottish golfers, and certainly was to be admired. That spirit, that sturdy consciousness of personal value, have helped to the making of a British empire. And sometimes a golfer would wander in the north and be discovered by the players there to have a wooden club with a brass sole, and thereupon he might be good-humouredly mocked for being the Blackheath golfer that he was, since it was on the famous course by London that the brassey was first used. Since then London has given other good things to golf, including many courses that are unequalled among their kind and a number of players of high championship rank. And sometimes there is more golf played in a day within twenty-five miles of Charing Cross than there is in the whole of Scotland in a week, and much of it is very good golf. But this is not a place for comparisons, and particularly it is not meant for one in which the English gratitude to Scottish benefactors for the gift of this remarkable game is to be lessened from the full. It is only suggested that London golf is now a thing of great account. That is coming to be understood; but one doubts if the Londoners properly realise that the game in the metropolis has rich history and traditions which make a match for those of nearly any other place. Except that the great players of the game of different ages were so little acquainted with it, Blackheath has golfing land as historic as any, and the Royal Blackheath Club, with its origin in 1608, is the oldest in the world. That is London. Some time since there was a fashion for open-air shows of pageantry, and if the golfers had then been so disposed they could have put forward a pageant of London golf that would have embraced most picturesque and impressive tableaux. There is King James the First of England and the Sixth of Scotland, keen golfer indeed, playing the game at Blackheath in the company of some of his nobles when the court was at Greenwich, and there is a charming scene to be imagined in which the monarch gives his royal sanction and authority to the Society of Golfers that is established at this place in 1608, as it is well believed to have been, and in varying forms to have maintained its existence ever since, being to-day the Royal Blackheath Golf Club, and highly respected. I think we should regard this King James as being the very first of our London golfers, and he makes a fine figure of a player for the distinction, keen enough in all conscience. Five years before the reputed beginning of the Society at Blackheath he appointed William Mayne to be the royal clubmaker, and a few years later gave one named Melvill a monopoly of ball-making at four shillings a time. Altogether this makes a good scene of golf. Here in the earliest days the course of Blackheath consisted of but five holes, which was then considered the proper number, and was the same as the Honourable Company had at Leith. Later there were seven holes arranged, and though they are played in a different order, those seven remain much the same to-day. It is to the discredit of London golfers as a body, those golfers who make the most reverential pilgrimages to northern shrines, that they have not, to the extent of one in a hundred, ever been to the scene of the old Blackheath golf, or played a game there on this hallowed ground, as they may at their will. It is the story again of the prophet in his own country, the same failing as that by which the majority of Londoners might be condemned for never having visited the Tower of London. I believe I have met more golfers in America who have been to Blackheath than I have met in England, for I have encountered several who told me they had not cared to sail back home until they had made the short journey down from Charing Cross to the famous common. Apart from the sense of history and the sentiment of pilgrimage, Blackheath, as a practical golfing proposition still surviving, should interest every golfer intensely. Surely it is one of the most interesting courses, one causing the deepest reflections, and one which, even by play upon it, might have some good effect on a man's game. For it is a chastening course, is our old Blackheath; one that makes humility if course ever did, and one that gives us the best contentment with our modern lot. Men who have played at Blackheath do not so constantly complain of the weak effort of their greenkeeper, and his governing committee, at their most favoured club. A little while since the cry was raised that golf had become too easy--too easy! It was said that the improving of the fairways and the smoothing of the putting greens had taken all its early viciousness from the game. Conditions have certainly changed, but when champions tell me that this maddening game from time to time brings their nerves to the state of piano wires, it may be reckoned as sufficiently difficult for the ordinary mortal. But Blackheath is extraordinary and most educative. It is certainly hard enough, though the modern bunker scientists have done nothing with it, and in the ordinary sense it has no bunkers. New theories of bunkering and the changing necessities of new kinds of balls trouble the Blackheath golfers not at all, for the course belongs to London and not to themselves, and they cannot do any engineering work upon it, as is being accomplished continually on other courses. Of the seven holes that are played the shortest is 170 yards, there is another of 230, a third of 335, another of 380, another of 410, a sixth of 500, and the longest is 540. The two very long holes come together, and though they are virtually bunkerless you may be assured that they take an uncommon amount of playing, and that he who gets them in five strokes each is skilful and fortunate too. Here, as nowhere else, is one made to feel that inferior shots bring their own punishment with them without any artificial hazards. The common is quite flat, but it is intersected by various roads and paths, and the greens are generally near to these walking ways. Variety is given by the great gravel pits which are here, as they have been for ages, although they are now smoothed and grassed over, and the biggest of them has to be played through at both the long holes. What is known as "Whitfield's Mount," a little clump of enclosed trees, is almost the only relief from the bareness and flatness of this golfing common. The lies are better than they used to be, but however kindly they may think of them at Blackheath--and we must respect them for doing so--they are not good. How could they be? The common is open for the children of London, or any other place, to play upon, and for the grown-ups to lounge about or walk over, which in abundance they do. It is primarily a public common and only secondarily a golf course, and the vast majority of those who walk upon it know nothing of the great game, except what they occasionally see as they pass along. The golfers have no rights. They have the greens, as they are called for compliment, smoothed a little and made in some way to resemble greens; and there are holes of sorts but not generally with flags in them, and there are no teeing boxes. The fairway is as hard as might be expected, and consists for the most part of bare places and tufts. There is no smoothness and evenness of proper golfing turf about it. But one does not say this in an unappreciative way. Not for a million balls or a permanent increase of drive would we have Blackheath anything but what it is, for if it were changed the charm would be gone. Let us go there and try the game. We must decide in advance that, like Vardon, Braid, and Taylor we can play our real game before any gallery in the world, and let our nerves and self-confidence be braced accordingly, for those who play at Blackheath must undergo great ordeals. A number of children, usually accompanied by a small dog, discover us soon after our appearance on the course, and gather close while our stroke is being made, very close. There is a little boy, perhaps, one or two little girls, the baby, and the dog. We consider most the baby at Blackheath. The boy, occasionally relieved by the elder girl, is the spokesman of the party, and in tones indicative of complete sympathy with the objects of the expedition, which are to strike the ball and project it in the direction of the holes, he explains to the remainder what is about to be done, what is done, and how we fail to do what was intended. He corrects himself whenever he finds his information to have been wrong. Willie having told little Liza something about the performance that is pending, the child inquires about what will happen if the gentleman does not hit the ball, and the gentleman, hearing, develops fear. At this moment the dog, which has been lingering quietly within a yard of the ball, shows signs of becoming restive, and is inclined to smell at it. Finally it favours only a disconsolate bark. Somehow we despatch that ball at last, and then Willie, Nell, Liza, baby, Towser, and selves move on some way towards the hole, but not so far as we should have done, because the ball happened to strike a lamp-post; and on the way Liza desires to know if a golf ball would kill anybody if it hit them, and wishes Willie to buy one some day. And a human sweetness there is in these little Blackheath urchins after all! This early innocence is a sublime and splendid thing, and when in like circumstances you would scowl, you gentlemen from London, remember, if you please, that Liza called you one, and she thinks you are. And the caddies! At Blackheath they have the most wonderful of all caddies. The ways and manners and the character of the St. Andrews and Musselburgh caddies are inferior. These Blackheath fellows are not like the usual thing. They lean against the wall of the club-house and offer their services to the stranger, declaring that it is a nice day for the game, when a storm is gathering over the common. Generally the caddie is given to laziness; they are a shiftless company. But see, though the Blackheath caddie looks as indolent as any to begin with, he is in truth one of the most active fellows within a hundred miles of Charing Cross, as you very soon discover, after beginning the round with him. The old red flag of traction-engine law obtains at Blackheath still. The golfer is a dangerous person, death lurks in his flying ball, and so a man with a scarlet banner must walk before the player to warn all people that he is coming on. But we make the caddie do the ordinary work of carrying, and teeing up, and red-flagging also, and he contrives in effect to be in two places at the same time. He tees the ball, lays down the driver by the side of it, and then runs ahead with a coloured handkerchief, which is the red flag, and he waves it while on the run and the golfer follows. So the caddie, leaving near the ball the club that is needed, goes on again, and is always a shot ahead. Reaching the green he stands by the hole until the golfer comes near enough to see it, and then the man hurries away to the next tee, sets everything in a state of preparation (and he carries a supply of sand in his pocket), and at once is off again to the distance of a drive before the player has holed out. The weakness of this system is that the caddie, by force of circumstances, can know little or nothing of the progress of the match, he is not one of the party, and he cares nothing at all about our good shots. He lacks the sympathy of the real caddie, but he is marvellously efficient all the same. If it is true, as we always say, that golf is the same all over the world, I would suggest that if there is a place where it is not the same it is at Blackheath, and that is why every one should go there, and it should cease to be the fact that more London golfers have been to Fifeshire than have been to play upon that historic course. * * * * * Take a glimpse into the rich past of Blackheath golf. Look into the old bet-book of the club and see some entries there, and do not forget that all bets were made on the understanding that all members of the club had a share in the gains of the winner no matter whether the bets were made in cash or kind. On Saturday, July 9 1791, "Mr. Pitcaithly bets Captain Fairfull one gallon of claret that he drives the Short Hole in three strokes, six times in ten--to be played for the first time he comes to Blackheath--after the annual day. Lost and paid by Mr. Pitcaithly, the 10th September." A little while later "Mr. Christie bets Mr. Barnes one gallon of claret that he drives from the Thorn Tree beyond the College Hole in three strokes, five times in ten, to be decided next Saturday." Mr. Christie in due course performed his driving feat and won his bet. Then "Captain Welladvice, having left the company without permission of the chair, has forfeited one gallon claret"; and "Mr. Turner bets Mr. Walker one gallon claret that he plays him on Wednesday, the 12th inst., four rounds of the green, and that Mr. Walker does not gain a hole of him." Again, "Mr. Longlands bets Mr. Win. Innes, Sen., that he will play him for a gallon of claret, giving Mr. Innes one stroke in each hole. Four rounds on the green. Out and in holes to be played." One may well understand that all the good claret that was thus available from these gallant bets, together with what was bought and paid for in the ordinary course, had a heartening effect upon those old golfers, with the result that in the fine fancies that floated in the dining-hall of the "Green Man" after dinner, drives seemed all endowed with unusual length, and direction was always good. Again it is recorded that on an evening of June "Captain MacMillan bets a gallon with Mr. Jameson that Captain Macara in five strokes drives farther by fifteen yards than any other gentleman Mr. Jameson may name of the Golf Society now present, to be determined next Saturday"; and no sooner had Captain MacMillan registered his bet than there came along Mr. Callender, who "bets Mr. Hamilton one gallon that Mr. R. Mackenzie drives in five strokes farther than Mr. H., to commence at the Assembly Hole and go on five strokes running." Then Mr. Innes gets into a sporting mood, and he "bets Mr. Wilson a gallon (a guinea) that he beats him, allowing Mr. Innes the tee stroke with his wooden club, and after with his irons. Out and in--four rounds." All these were in the latter days of the eighteenth century, and all the time the happy golfers were filling up the bet-book of the club, not with golfing bets any more than, or as much as, with bets about events of the great war that was in progress; as, for instance, when Mr. Satterthwaite "bets Mr. Callender a gallon of claret that Admiral Nelson's squadron does take or destroy the French transports in the harbour of Alexandria, or the major part of them." In the Knuckle Club and the Blackheath Winter Golf Club, forerunners of the Blackheath Golf Club, the same happy state of affairs prevailed. The Knuckle Club was a very remarkable institution. In form it was a secret society. Each member had to be initiated, and had to learn certain signs and answers to questions by which he would know brother members from strangers. Also, the members wore orders or a kind of regalia, and there were heavy fines if they allowed themselves to be seen outside the club-rooms with these special tokens of their community about them. On one occasion we have a member, named James Walker, heavily fined in claret for being so thoughtless as to take home his order. The holder of the golfing gold medal for the year was termed the Grand Knuckle, and was the chief of the club, which boasted also a "Registrar," and various other officials of much dignity of title. As the mystic element of the club decreased, so the golfing strength and enthusiasm of it increased, and it was by this process of evolution that in course of time the mystery lapsed and the name was changed. Before the competitions of the club took place advertisements were always inserted in the _Times_ and the _Morning Chronicle_ of the period, and it must be remarked that play in these competitions was usually conducted on the strictest lines. One record in the minutes reads: "28th March, 1795. Medal Day. It being stated to the club that Mr. Innes, one of the candidates for the medal played for this day, lost his ball; the opinion of the club was desired whether the loss of the ball put an end to the candidate's chance for the honours of the day." The club determined that it did. So more than a hundred years ago their medal rules were stricter than ours, in this matter at any rate. "Scrutineers" always examined the medal cards after dinner, and announced the winner. In the early part of last century there seems to have been rather less of betting and a little more of feasting. There were gifts of venison and turtle from the members, and the supply of claret, varied now and then by champagne and choice spirits, was very copious. Each time a child was born to a member, he contributed a pound's worth of claret to the weekly or monthly dinner; and whenever a member was married, the same thing was done. The golf of Blackheath, and all connected with it, was then a highly picturesque thing. The course was yet only a five-holes affair. The clubs of the players were carried by pensioners of the Royal Naval Hospital, Greenwich, in their quaint uniforms, and an allowance of beer was regularly made to them by the club until 1832. The pensioners were caddies until 1869. The Royal Blackheath Club was, and still is, most original and interesting in many points of its constitution and government. To be captain of this club, small one comparatively as it is now, is to fill a high office, the honourable nature of which is duly impressed upon the holder at the time of his election and installation, for he is elevated with much ceremony and in much the same way as the captain of the Royal and Ancient Club. The retiring captain sits in his chair at the meeting for the last time, and thanks are offered to him by grateful members for the good things he has done in his year. And then the captain-elect is called by name by the secretary, who takes in his arms the silver club which is the equivalent of the mace in Parliament, the symbol of power and active authority, and places himself at the head of a procession which is formed. The field-marshal, conducting the newcomer to the chair, follows behind, and so they make their way to the head of the chamber, where the field-marshal presents the new captain to the old one. There are various little forms of ritual to be gone through; the new captain makes a solemn declaration of loyalty and fidelity to the club and his office, and, particularly, expresses his anxiety to maintain its dignity, and then he commits himself irrevocably and awfully to an undying oath--he kisses the club! All this is to-day just as it was in the ancient days. Mention has been made of the field-marshal of the club; no other club boasts a field-marshal, who fills an office of most ineffable and incomparable dignity. Captains may come and go, year by year; they do their work well; and they lay down the club. But the field-marshal is above all captains, and he is in office till he dies. He is a prince over captains. He is essentially a golfer--not a mere ornament--and a good golfer, and one strong in the true spirit of the game. Because a good field-marshal is not easily found, he is made much of. The installation of a new one is a fine ceremony. There is a solemn gathering, all the famous trophies and bits of regalia are furbished up; there are speeches, forms, declarations, questions, answers; and if it were a very coronation the thing could scarcely be more serious. The silver club is held before the field-marshal elect, and he is presented with the special medal of his office, when he is finally addressed thus: "We expect and ask that you will wear this medal at all golf meetings as your predecessors did; and we have further to ask that you will in all time coming, while you are spared in health, do all that in you lies to maintain and support the rights and privileges of this ancient club; to maintain the honour and dignity of the club; and should any attempts be made to interfere with the rights of the club, that you will aid the executive in endeavouring to put down such interference, so that the club may maintain the high and honourable position that it ever has done, since its institution in 1608. Kiss the club!" The field-marshal kisses it, and thus he is exalted among the highest in the whole world of golf. There are many eras with marked features to be noted in the history of the club. Even now many of those features are still perpetuated. Dinners are still held; dignity still is high. We have now heard much of the old-time Blackheath golfers; but an era of vast consequence, not only to Blackheath but to the game, is one that can still be remembered by some old golfers, that of great activity which began just before the middle of last century, and is only just now reaching its climax in the great and universal "boom" in golf. It has already been suggested that Blackheath led the way, and led it most effectively. For long after it had done so it was still the premier club in England, and in playing strength was the best. The club itself has few solid possessions--just a few fine old club heirlooms--but many great memories. In a very modern sense it is poor, having a comfortable but not a magnificent club-house, and no splendid links of eighteen holes. But the Royal Blackheath Golf Club is like a fine old English gentleman of the very best kind, ignoring all new ways of thought and life, eschewing all sordidness, clinging to the fine simple principles of wise fore-fathers. That is just what it is, the fine old English gentleman whom the age has outstripped. It is the Colonel Newcome of the clubs. * * * * * And in that pageant of London golf that we suggested there are many other picturesque and significant scenes. If we cannot be sure of the places where the holes were cut, nor of the situation of the teeing grounds, it is still certain, from documentary evidence, that a golf course that was made at Molesey Hurst was only second, in point of seniority, in England, to Blackheath itself, and it was very high up in the list of the golf clubs of the world. Manchester came next in 1818. There are concerned in the only existing record two people of no less credit and renown than David Garrick, the actor, and the eminent Dr. Alexander Carlyle, of Inveresk, who witnessed the Porteous riots, saw the fight at Prestonpans, and amid these many excitements cultivated his game to a fine point, was one of the keenest golfers of the eighteenth century, and won the Musselburgh medal in 1775. Carlyle was like many others of the Scottish parsons of those good times and the present, who would take their golf clubs with them wherever they might wander, on the chance of opportunity presenting itself. He came to London, and knowing of Blackheath, the clubs came with him. Garrick at that time had a house at Hampton which in recent days was occupied by the late Sir Clifton Robinson, the organiser of the London electric tramway system. Garrick asked John Home and a number of friends, including Carlyle, to dine with him at Hampton and bring their golf clubs and balls with them that they might play on the course at Molesey Hurst. When the six of them, who were in a landau, passed through Kensington, the Coldstreams, who were changing guard, observed their clubs, and gave them three cheers "in honour of a diversion peculiar to Scotland." There might be a railway train in the pageant of London golf, one of the early trains with engines of the Stephensonian style. The period would be just after the accession of Queen Victoria, and there would be two gentlemen travelling together from London to Aldershot, one of them being Sir Hope Grant, a keen golfer, a member of the Royal and Ancient Club, who held a military appointment at Aldershot, while the other would be the Duke of Cambridge. It has been recorded that in matter of companionship this journey was a very dull affair, for Sir Hope Grant was moody, and failed to respond to the well-meant attempts of the Duke to open conversation. He seemed troubled. But suddenly after long silence he jumped up from his seat, rushed to the window of the compartment and opened it. At this stage the Duke of Cambridge felt that things could not be well with his companion, and jumping up after him, grabbed him by the tails of his coat. A moment later they both sat down, and looked at each other. "Well," said Sir Hope Grant, in the manner of a man recovering from a great surprise, "that is a thing that you seldom see near London; there were two men playing golf in a field out there." And then in the pageant there would be represented the starting of golf at Wimbledon in 1865, with the Blackheath emissaries all on fire with the zeal of their enterprise. Wimbledon with its Royal Wimbledon and its London Scottish, its famous holes and its windmill, and all the rest of it, has played no small part in golfing history. At the beginning seven holes were made as they had them at Blackheath, and did you ever hear that at Wimbledon once there was a round that consisted of nineteen holes, the longest round in number of holes in the world? Tom Dunn, who was responsible for the extension of the course about 1870, told the story, and so far as I am aware he only told it in America. We may repeat it here in the words he used. The committee had asked him whether he thought they might make a full-sized course on their land, and, coming to the conclusion that they might, he was told to go on with the work, and eventually was satisfied that he had made a good job of it. The secretary of the period is said to have been somewhat imperfectly acquainted with the game in general just then, and went to Dunn with the inquiry as to how many holes they had on the old course at St. Andrews, and was told. "The secretary thought a moment," said Tom, "scratched his head and began to look wise. Then he approached very closely, and nodding his head for me to bend my ear, he whispered in a hoarse voice, 'Tom, let us have one more!' 'Oh, that is impossible,' I replied. 'It cannot be, for eighteen is the orthodox number.' 'I care not for that,' replied the secretary, who was accustomed to have his own way, 'we will have one more!' I was very young at the time and I would do anything rather than offend the gentleman, for he had much influence, and I wanted his goodwill; so I reluctantly submitted to the demand. The committee met the next day, and I was asked if I had succeeded in making an eighteen-holes course. I replied, with some hesitation, that I had made a nineteen-holes course, and explained why I had done so. Well, you never in your life saw a more excited lot of men. There was an uproar in a moment, and all made a dive for the poor secretary, who never heard the last of it." * * * * * Within sight of Wimbledon now there is Coombe Hill, one of the best and most recent achievements in the new metropolitan golf. Here is a contrast indeed! One may sometimes wonder how those ill-tempered people who grumble that golfers in these days take their game, and all about it, too richly, and that fine club-houses do not make plus players--such complainers still being eager for all the most modern comforts themselves--would like to live their golfing lives for a season after the early Wimbledon manner in all its great simplicity. The first club-house those golfers ever had, if you would call it by the name, was the old iron "shooting house," and it measured only eight yards by six. It served the purposes of club-room, clothes-room and others. If its floor space was small, its roof was high, and the members' clothes were hung up on hooks, to the very top; and were lifted up to their proper places, and reached down again by a pole. Most of the numerous members had their private hooks, and a boy who worked the pole had a most marvellous memory for the garments and their proper owners, so that when a member, coming in suddenly, called for his jacket and his stockings, up went the pole, and down came the goods without a moment's delay, and all correct. This remarkable young person has his proper and highly-developed successor in Gibbon, the house-steward at the present Mid-Surrey club at Richmond, who, though he has nearly a thousand members to consider, knows so well the particularities and possessions of them all. Tom Dunn had his workshop in this iron shooting house, and here he kept a fair stock of clubs and balls, and did his own repairs. Presently some of the members suggested to him that it would be agreeable if he stored some eatables and drinkables in his shop for their sustenance and comfort, before and after rounds; and so he laid in a stock of wines and spirits, sandwiches and eggs, and so forth, which had of necessity to be laid out on his bench where there were varnish, shavings, sawdust and pitch as well. Behold here the early London golfer! It is an interesting historical fact, that when a few years after its establishment, and just before the Tom Dunn era, the club first thought of engaging a professional, the committee set it on record that "they took a very favourable view of young Tom Morris's application for the post." The people who accuse the moderns of being over fond of prizes in competitions--and a nasty name they call them!--might be told the tale of the old golfing baronet of Wimbledon, now dead, who once won five shillings, being his half share of the third prize in the sweepstakes attached to the monthly medal competition there. It was the first prize that this keen but unfortunate golfer had ever won, and he begged the permission of the committee to be allowed to add more money for a richer keepsake. The consent of the authorities was graciously given, whereupon the prize-winner purchased for himself a golden-eagle writing stand for which he gave a hundred sovereigns, adding ninety-nine pounds fifteen shillings to the prize-money. Friends, not being golfers, who called upon him had the prize exhibited to them, and they said, "Goodness, what a fine player you must be!" He felt he was, and that the prize was worth the money. When the 'nineties of the last century were reached golf began to spread in London, and such clubs as Northwood with its "Death or Glory" Hole, Tooting Bec, and Mid-Surrey laid the foundation for the great London golf that was soon to come. This Mid-Surrey club with its thousand members, its financial turnover of thirty thousand pounds a year, its hundred thousand rounds that are played on that excellent course in twelve months without its showing hardly the wear of a blade of grass, the twenty thousand lunches that are eaten by their members, the four thousand pounds that were spent in one year lately on the improvement of the course, is, I believe, the busiest golfing institution in the world. It is well said that there is nearly always a couple driving off from that first teeing ground near the rails in the Old Deer Park. And one might add that as a place where golf is played in a plain but excellent spirit, without any fancy trappings, the club here is one of the best organised and managed in the world, and is a vast credit to the secretary, Mr. J. H. Montgomerie, while the course, whose putting greens are a match for any in existence, is a fine testimonial to that prince of greenkeepers, Peter Lees, who was lately captured by the Americans for a great new course on Long Island. Lees has been a great influence in the development of modern golf in England, and I know that he will make a great difference to American courses. And there is champion J. H. Taylor as the club's professional. In a special way Mid-Surrey stands for London golf. It has come to this, that we no longer fear to speak and write of the great excellence of the London golf courses. Sunningdale at the beginning of the present century opened up a new era not only in London golf but in golf in general--the period of the inland courses of a far higher class, better and more interesting in every respect than anything that had ever been dreamt of before. Sunningdale was followed by Huntercombe and Walton Heath, of which Sir George Riddell has assisted to make such a magnificent success. There have come after them Worplesdon, Burhill, Bramshot, Stoke Poges, Sandy Lodge, Coombe Hill, St. George's Hill, and many others all belonging to the same class. Many of us hold to the fancy that Sunningdale, the mother of the new sort of courses, is still the best and most charming of them all. She is the Berkshire jewel; magnificent. But comparisons are not easily made, for, most remarkably and happily, these new modern inland courses that are setting an example to the world and which the world is following wherever it can afford it, vary enormously in character, in appearance, in the precise sort of golf that they present and offer, whereas at the beginning of inland golf we had the fancy, and the fancy truly led to fact, that in the main all inland courses must be the same--plain, flat, one cross bunker here, another there, and then the green. Not only the architecture, but, far more than that in its beneficial effects, the greenkeeping has been improved, soils are understood, they are fortified and seeds are adapted to them, and results are achieved which not ten years ago would have been regarded as impossible. The result is that we have fairways and putting greens on some of our best inland courses near London which are rarely excelled at the seaside, although nothing can ever give to inland turf that firm springiness--a term slightly paradoxical but one easily appreciated--which is the characteristic of good seaside links. No longer is good inland golf to be despised. It has charms all its own, and it has the distinction that golf as we know it to-day would never have existed if it were not for the inland courses. There are fewer hedges on them now than once there were, and no more ditches than there should be. * * * * * To a section of old conservatives it may seem a dreadful thing to say, but it is the truth that one of the reasons why we love our golf of London, praise it and rejoice in it, is because of its glorious trees. We know courses on the coast where there is never a tree or a bush to be seen, and never one to be avoided in the playing. The golfers who live and play and die in those parts know nothing of the splendour of trees and the leaves that come and go, and knowing nothing they will even sometimes wrongfully say that no golf course ever should have a tree about it. Golf is a game of Nature; allow it then all the best effects that Nature can supply. Permit it the trees that the townsmen otherwise so seldom see; cutting them down, hewing them away will not bring the ocean nearer nor liken the course more to seaside golf. Trees belong to the inland game as much as sandhills to the other, and when a question of removal arises, let constructors and committees reflect that a golfer can be made in a season and he perishes some time later, that a new hole can be made in a week and may be altered the week after, that some shots which are thought of might be hindered by the tree but that only one shot in a dozen is likely to be of the kind that is considered--and that the tree has taken ages to grow, and will live ages on, being more of eternity than many generations of golfers. They may not always be conscious of the fact, but the people who live in towns and are cooped in them constantly, abiding in flats, working in gloomy chambers and travelling in underground railways, derive more than half their golfing enjoyment from the vision of Nature, less adorned than in the public parks, with which they become associated in their golf--grass to tread upon, surrounding trees through which soft breezes croon, and timid clouds creeping slowly underneath the blue. There is nothing so good as the golf of the true seaside links; there could not be. In this, the real thing, we have land formations that are impossible on inland flatness; there are the wildness of dunes and bent that cannot be reproduced artificially away from the coast; we have the perfect turf that is ideal for the game and which has never yet been completely imitated away from shore, and above all, through the rich variety of situation and possibility, we have the course springing surprises on us all the time. This is golf in the highest, the stern, cold, enthralling game. London golf is a gentler thing, a little softer, but it has charms that are all its own, and they are the charms of green Nature and the delights of changing seasons. By the sea it is warm or it is cold, and there is little difference else from the beginning of the year to the end. But in London the golfer notices the seasons as he does nowhere else, and they are everything to him and his happiness. And the trees best tell him of the seasons, and it is then that he might exclaim, as Ruskin did, "What a great thought of God was that when He thought a tree!" In this way the two most beautiful seasons of the year, spring and autumn, touching nearest the heart, creating inspirations and causing reflection, the germinal and the fall, are the most splendid times for golf in London, and at other inland places, and they are surely the best seasons of all for the enjoyment and happiness of the game. But particularly they are London's seasons. In the spring there is the time for preparation, when all golfers are keen in a new life. Then the leaves of the trees are opened, and are there prettier scenes on any course than on some of those near London then? There is hardly to be fancied a better day than could be had at St. George's Hill or on the New Zealand course at Byfleet when the golden gorse is in bloom and gives out its rich perfume, while the trees that line the fairway all about are full to life again. Think, when May is come, of the glory of Sudbrooke Park, Cassiobury, of Sunningdale, even of Neasden, Northwood, and a hundred more. Then there comes the holiday time, and the seaside links, and the golf of London rests until the autumn, and then it is alive again; and let the faults of London golf be whatever they may, the players are few who are not happy to return to the old courses of home. Be they ever so poor they are their very own. This of all others is the most delightful golfing season. The white sun of summer has been toned to gold, and the air is sweet and cool; the turf is moist again. It is soothing; but there is a pathos in it all that the golfer, sensitive and sympathetic observer as he has become, must always feel. One may tramp a country lane and notice little, but the men of this game have been trained to notice. Here present is the season of the fall, the rest after achievement, when Nature closes in upon herself and lapses to her sleep. She has done her season's work, done it wisely, ever well. So the fires of heaven burn low again. Green of the world turns russet and bronze, with flashes of scarlet and gold. A smell of earth that is moist with autumn dew rises in the morning air. When the round begins the sun warmth is not enough to dry away the little globules of the dew, tears of the sobbing night, and the course has a glittering sheen upon it. From drooping branches of beeches and sycamores that half surround a putting green in a corner of the course, crackling leaves are falling and some must be moved before the intruding ball can be putted to its appointed place. As the little golfing company moves along to the adjoining tee more of these spent leaves come fluttering sadly down. But, a little sad as this may be, the golfer of the towns, with summer memories of mountains and hills and deep lanes still lingering in his mind, hearing the crooning of the summer seas and the lapping of waves near northern putting greens, has his consolations. He is grateful for the coppery leaves and the early dew, though they may hinder play a trifle. They are as echoes from the north and east and west. We see no dew in Piccadilly, and there are no mountains in the Strand. THE END _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. BOOKS ON GOLF THE SOUL OF GOLF. By P. A. VAILE. Illustrated. Extra Crown 8vo. 6s. net. _GOLF ILLUSTRATED._--"We can only say that we read it through without finding a dull page, and that in our opinion it is a book which will give hope to the duffer and new light even to the advanced player." THE MYSTERY OF GOLF. By ARNOLD HAULTAIN. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. Mr. HENRY LEACH _in the EVENING NEWS_.--"Mr. Haultain's book answers to all the tests to which it may be submitted, and I am strongly disposed to regard it as the best book of its kind that has ever been written." TRAVERS' GOLF BOOK. By JEROME D. TRAVERS. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. _FRY'S MAGAZINE._--"Mr. Travers' book is a valuable contribution to golfing literature, and it should be bought and read by every golfer." THE ART OF PUTTING. By W. J. TRAVIS and JACK WHITE. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 1s. net. _GOLFING._--"Into little space Mr. Travis crowds many valuable hints to the willing student.... It's a big shillingsworth, and those of you who invest will find that is so." * * * * * GREAT LAWN TENNIS PLAYERS: THEIR METHODS ILLUSTRATED. By G. W. BELDAM and P. A. VAILE. With 229 Action Photographs. Medium 8vo. 10s. 6d. net. GREAT BATSMEN: THEIR METHODS AT A GLANCE. By G. W. BELDAM and C. B. FRY. With 600 Action Photographs. Medium 8vo. 10s. 6d. net. GREAT BOWLERS AND FIELDERS: THEIR METHODS AT A GLANCE. By G. W. BELDAM and C. B. FRY. With contributions by F. R. Spofforth, B. J. T. BOSANQUET, R. O. SCHWARZ, and G. L. JESSOP; and 464 Action Photographs. Medium 8vo. 10s. 6d. net. LAWN TENNIS, ITS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. By J. PARMLY PARET. With a chapter on Lacrosse by W. H. MADDREN. Illustrated. Extra Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. * * * * * BOOKS ON SPORT HUNTING THE ELEPHANT IN AFRICA, AND OTHER RECOLLECTIONS OF THIRTEEN YEARS' WANDERINGS. By Captain C. H. STIGAND. With Introduction by Theodore Roosevelt. Illustrated. 8vo. 10s. 6d. net. THE ADVENTURES OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER. 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41149	----	THE SOUL OF GOLF MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO [Illustration: GEORGE DUNCAN The famous young Hanger Hill professional, one of the finest golfers, and probably the best golf coach, in the world.] THE SOUL OF GOLF BY P. A. VAILE AUTHOR OF 'MODERN GOLF,' 'MODERN LAWN TENNIS,' 'SWERVE, OR THE FLIGHT OF THE BALL,' ETC. _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_ MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1912 COPYRIGHT TO PHILIP REGINALD THORNTON MY CO-WORKER IN IMPERIAL POLITICS PREFACE It is frequently and emphatically asserted by reviewers of golf books that golf cannot be learned from a book. If they would add "in a room" they would be very near the truth--but not quite. It would be quite possible for an intelligent man with a special faculty for games, a good book on golf, and a properly equipped practising-room to start his golfing career with a game equal to a single figure handicap. As a matter of fact the most important things concerning golf may be more easily and better learned in an arm-chair than on the links. As a matter of good and scientific tuition the arm-chair is the place for them. In both golf and lawn tennis countless players ruin their game by thinking too much about how they are playing the stroke _while they are doing it_. That is not the time to study first principles. Those should have been digested in the arm-chair, where indeed, as I have already said and now repeat with emphasis, the highest, the most scientific, and the most important knowledge of golf _must_ be obtained. There is no time for it on the links, and the true golfer has _no time_ for the man who tries to get it there, for he is generally a dreary bore. Moreover, the man who tries to get it on the links is in trouble from the outset, for in golf he is faced with a mass of false doctrine associated with the greatest names in the history of golf, which is calculated, an he follow it, to put him back for years, until indeed he shall find the truth, the soul of golf. This book is in many ways different from any book concerning golf which has ever been published. It assumes on the part of the reader a certain amount of knowledge, and it essays to bring back to the truth those who have been led astray by the false teaching of the most eminent men associated with the game, teaching which they do not themselves practise. At the same time it seeks to impart the great fundamental principles, without which even the beginner must be seriously handicapped. It does not concern itself with showing how the golfer must play certain strokes. That certainly may be done better on the links than in the smoking-room; but it concerns itself deeply with those things which every golfer who wishes really to know golf, should have stowed away in his mind with such certainty and familiarity that he ceases almost to regard them as knowledge, and comes to use them _by habit_. When the golfer gets into this frame of mind, and not until then, will he be able to understand and truly appreciate the meaning and value of "the soul of golf." This he will never do by following the predominant mass of false teaching. This book is a challenge, but it is not a question of Vaile against Vardon, Braid, Taylor, Professor Thomson, and others. The issue is above that. It is a question of truth or untruth. Nothing matters but the truth. It rests with the golfing world to find out for itself which is the truth. This it can do with comfort in its arm-chair, and afterwards it can with much enhanced comfort, almost insensibly, weave that truth into the fabric of its game, and so through sheer practice, born of the purest and highest theory--for there is no other way--come to the soul of golf. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE PREFACE vii I. THE SOUL OF GOLF 1 II. THE MYSTERY OF GOLF 15 III. PUTTING 47 IV. THE FALLACIES OF GOLF 95 V. THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEIGHT 117 VI. THE POWER OF THE LEFT 140 VII. THE FUNCTION OF THE EYES 162 VIII. THE MASTER STROKE 178 IX. THE ACTION OF THE WRISTS 202 X. THE FLIGHT OF THE GOLF BALL 222 XI. THE GOLF BALL 283 XII. THE CONSTRUCTION OF CLUBS 316 XIII. THE LITERATURE OF GOLF 334 AFTERWORD 350 INDEX 353 ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE FACE PAGE GEORGE DUNCAN _Frontispiece_ I. HARRY VARDON'S GRIP 16 II. HARRY VARDON. STANCE AND FRONTAL ADDRESS IN SHORT PUT 38 III. HARRY VARDON AT THE TOP OF HIS SWING 60 IV. HARRY VARDON AT THE TOP OF HIS SWING IN THE DRIVE 82 V. J. H. TAYLOR AT THE TOP OF HIS SWING IN THE DRIVE 104 VI. HARRY VARDON. THE FINISH OF HIS DRIVE 124 VII. HARRY VARDON. THE FINISH OF THE DRIVE 146 VIII. EDWARD RAY. FINISH OF DRIVE 168 IX. JAMES BRAID. FINISH OF STROKE 190 X. HARRY VARDON. FINISH OF A DRIVE 212 XI. JAMES BRAID. FINISH OF DRIVE 234 XII. GEORGE DUNCAN. A CHARACTERISTIC FINISH 256 XIII. J. SHERLOCK. STANCE AND ADDRESS FOR IRON-SHOT 278 XIV. J. SHERLOCK. TOP OF SWING IN IRON-SHOT 304 XV. J. SHERLOCK. FINISH OF IRON-SHOT 330 CHAPTER I THE SOUL OF GOLF Nearly every one who writes about a game essays to prove that it is similar to "the great game, the game of life." Golf has not escaped; and numberless scribes in endeavouring to account for the fascination of golf have used the old threadbare tale. As a matter of fact, golf is about as unlike the game of life as any game could well be. As played now it has come to be almost an exact science, and everybody knows exactly what one is trying to do. This would not be mistaken for a description of the game of life. In that game a man may be hopelessly "off the line," buried "in the rough," or badly "bunkered," and nobody be the wiser. It is not so in golf. There is no double life here. All is open, and every one knows what the player is striving for. The least deflection from his line, and the onlooker knows he did not mean it. It is seen instantly. In that other game it may remain unseen for years, for ever. Explaining the fascination of anything seems to be a thankless kind of task, and in any case to be a work of supererogation. The fascination should be sufficient. Explaining it seems almost like tearing a violet to pieces to admire its structure; but many have tried, and many have failed, and there are many who do not feel the fascination as they should, because they do not know the soul of golf. One cannot appreciate the beauty of golf unless one knows it thoroughly. Curiously enough, many of our best players are extremely mechanical in their play. They play beautiful and accurate shots, but they have no idea how or why they produce them; and the strange thing about it is that although golf is perhaps as mechanical a game as there is, those who play it mechanically only get the husk of it. They miss the soul of the game. Golf is really one of the simplest of outdoor games, if not indeed the simplest, and it does not require much intelligence; yet it is quite one of the most difficult to play well, for it demands the greatest amount of mechanical accuracy. This, on consideration, is apparent. The ball is the smallest ball we use, the striking face of the club is the smallest thing used in field sports for hitting a ball, and, most important, perhaps, of all, it is farther away from the eye than any other ball-striking implement, except, perhaps, the polo stick, in which game we, of course, have a much larger ball and striking surface. In all games of skill, and in all sports where the object is propelling anything to a given point, one always tries, almost instinctively, to get the eye as much in a line with the ball or missile and the objective point as possible. This is seen in throwing a stone, aiming a catapult, a gun, or an arrow, in cueing at a billiard ball, and in many other ways, but in golf it is impracticable. The player must make his stroke with his eye anywhere from four to six feet away from his little club face. One may say that this is so in hockey, cricket, and lawn-tennis. So, in a modified degree, it is, but the great difference is that in all these games there is an infinitely larger margin of error than there is in golf. At these games a player may be yards off his intended line and yet play a fine stroke, to the applause of the onlookers; while he alone knew that it was accident and not design. The charm of golf is in part that its demand is inexorable. It lays down the one path--the straight one. It must be followed every step, or there is trouble. Then there is in golf the sheer beauty of the flight of the ball, and the almost sensuous delight which comes to the man who created that beauty, and knows how and why he did it. There is at any time beauty in the flight of a golf ball well and plainly driven; but for grace and the poetry of flight stands alone the wind-cheater that skims away from one's club across the smooth green sward, almost clipping the daisies in its flight ere it soars aloft with a swallow-like buoyancy, and, curving gracefully, pitches dead on the green. Many a man can play that stroke. Many a man does. Not one in fifty knows how he puts the beauty into his stroke. Not one in fifty would be interested if you were to start telling him the scientific reason for that ball's beautiful flight. "The mechanics of golf" sounds hard and unromantic, yet the man who does not understand them suffers in his game and in his enjoyment of it. That wind-cheater was to him, during its flight through the air, merely a golf ball; a golf ball 'twas and nothing more. To the other man it is a faithful little friend sent out to do a certain thing in a certain way, and all the time it is flying and running it is sending its message back to the man who can take it--but how few can? They do not know what the soul of golf means. So, when our golfer pulls or slices his ball badly, and then--does the usual thing, he cannot take the message that comes back to him. He only knows the half of golf, and he does not care about the other, because he does not know what he is missing. He is like a man who is fond of music but is tune-deaf. There are many such. He may sit and drink in sweet sounds and enjoy them, but he misses the linked sweetness and the message which comes to his more fortunate brother who has the ear--and the knowledge. There is in England a curious idea that directly one acquires a scientific knowledge of a game one must cease to have an interest in it so full as he who merely plays it by guesswork. There can be no greater mistake than this. If a game is worth playing well, it is worth knowing well, and knowing it well cannot mean loving it less. It is this peculiar idea which has put England so much in the background of the world's athletic field of late years. We have here much of the best brawn and bone in the world, but we must give the brain its place. Then will England come to her own again. England is in many ways paying now for her lack of thoroughness in athletic sports. Time was when it was a stock gibe at John Bull's expense that he spent most of his time making muscle and washing it. Then it was, I am afraid, sour grapes. England had all the championships. The joke is "off" now. The grapes are no longer sour. The championships are well distributed throughout the world--anywhere but in England; and we say it does not matter; that the chief end of games is not winning them. Nor is it; but we did not talk like that when we _were_ winning them, and the trouble is not so much that we are losing, as the manner in which we are losing. The fact is that we are losing because our players do not, in many sports, know the soul of the game. The ideal is lost in the prosaic grappling for cups or medals, in the merely vulgar idea of success. Thus it comes to pass that many will not be content to get to the soul of a game in the natural way, by long and loving familiarity with it. Hordes of people are joining the ranks of the golfers, and their constant cry is, "Teach me the swing," and after a lesson or two at the wrong end of golf, for a beginner, they go forth and cut the county into strips and think they are playing golf. Is it any wonder, when our links are cumbered with such as these, that those who have the soul of golf are in imminent daily peril of losing their own? One who would know the soul of golf must begin even as would one who will know the soul of music. There is no more chance for one to gather up the soul of golf in a hurry than there is for that same one to understand Wagner in a week. It is this vulgar rushing impatience to be out and doing while one is still merely a nuisance to one's fellows, which causes so much irritation and unpleasantness on many links; that prevents many from starting properly, and becoming in due course quite good players; for it is manifest that the "rusher" is starting to learn his game upside down, as, indeed, most professionals and books teach it. There can be no doubt that the right way to teach anything is to give the beginner the easiest task at first. About the easiest stroke in golf is a six-inch put. That is where one should start a learner. The drive is the stroke in golf that offers the greatest possibility of error, so he is always started with it. It is his own fault. "Teach me the swing" is the insistent cry of the beginner, who does not know that he is losing the best part of golf by turning it upside down. He will never enjoy it so much, or play so good and confident a game as he would were he to work his way gradually and naturally from his putter to his mashie, to his niblick, his iron, his cleek, his brassy, and his driver. Such a one may come to an intimate knowledge and love of the game. The rusher may play golf, but it will be a long time before he gets to the soul of the game. A very good golfer in reviewing a golf book some time ago stated that he did not care in the least what happened while the ball was in the air, that all he cared about was getting it there. He has played golf since he was five years old, but he has clearly missed the soul of the game. It is not necessary to dilate upon the wonderful spread of golf throughout the world. An industrious journalist some time ago marked a map of England wherever there was a golf club. It looked as though it had been sprinkled with black pepper. It is not hard to understand this marvellous increase in the popularity of the great game, for golf is undoubtedly a great game. The motor has, unquestionably, played a great part in its development. Many of the courses, particularly in the United Kingdom, are most beautifully situated. Many of the club-houses are models of comfort, and some of them are castles. The game itself is suitable for the octogenarian dodderer who merely wants to infuse a little interest into his morning walk, or it may be turned into a severe test of endurance for the young athlete; so no wonder it prospers. There is a wonderful freemasonry among golfers. This is not the least of the many charms of the game, and to him who really knows it and loves it as it deserves to be loved, the sign of the club is a passport round the world. Many a time and oft I see golfing journalists, when writing about the game, stating that something "is obvious." It has always seemed to me that it is impossible to say what is obvious to anyone in a game of golf. Writing of George Duncan, the famous young professional golfer, during the first half of the big foursome at Burhill, a great sporting paper said that a certain mashie shot was a "crude stroke." The man who wrote that article did not know the soul of golf. He saw the mashie flash in the air, some turf cut away, and a ball dropping on to the green. Just that and nothing more, and it was "obvious" to him that it was a crude stroke. One who knew the soul of golf saw it and described it. It was a tricky green, with a drop of twenty feet behind it. To have overrun it would have been fatal. There was a stiff head-wind. The player would not risk running up. He cut well in under the ball to get all the back-spin he could. He pitched the ball well up against the wind, which caught it and, on account of the spin, threw it up and up until it soared almost over the hole, then it dropped like a shot bird about a yard from the hole, and the back-spin gripped the turf and held the ball within a foot of where it fell. It was obvious to one man that it was a crude shot. It was equally obvious to another, who knew the inner secrets of the game, that it was a brilliantly conceived and beautifully executed stroke. One man saw nothing of the soul of the stroke. He got the husk, and the other took the kernel. Much has been made of the assumption that golf is the greatest possible test of a man's temperament. This has to a great extent, I am afraid, been exaggerated. It is one of those things in connection with the game that has been handed down to us, and which we have been afraid to interfere with. I cannot see why this claim should be quietly granted. In golf a man is treated with tragic solemnity while he is making his stroke. A caddie may not sigh, and if a cricket chirped he would be considered a bounder. How would our golfer feel if he had to play his drive with another fellow waving his club at him twenty or thirty feet away, and standing ready to spoil his shot?--yet that is what the lawn-tennis player has to put up with. There is a good deal of exaggeration about this aspect of golf, even as there is a good deal of nonsense about the interference of onlookers. What can be done by one when one is accustomed to a crowd may be seen when one of the great golfers is playing out of a great V formed by the gallery, and, needless to say, playing from the narrow end of it. Golf is a good test of a man's disposition without doubt, but as a game it lacks one important feature which is characteristic of every other field sport, I think, except golf. In these the medium of conflict is the same ball, and the skill of the opposing side has much to do with the chances of the other player or players. In golf each man plays his own game with his own ball, and the only effect of his opponent's play on his is moral, or the luck of a stymie. Many people consider this a defect; but golf is a game unto itself, and we must take it as it is. Certainly it is hard enough to achieve distinction in it to satisfy the most exacting. When one writes of the soul of golf it sounds almost as though one were guilty of a little sentimentality. As a matter of fact, it is the most thorough practice which leads one to the soul of golf. Many a good professional can produce beautiful shots, such as the wind-cheater and the pull at will, but he cannot explain them to you; and no professional ever has explained clearly in book or elsewhere what produces these beautiful shots. A famous professional once asked me quite simply, "How do I play my push-shot, Mr. Vaile?" I explained the stroke to him. He is as good a sportsman as he is a golfer, and would be ashamed to pretend to a knowledge which he has not. When I had told him, he said, "Thank you. Of course, I can play it all right, but I never could understand why it went like that. Now I shall be able to explain it better to my pupils." Now it may in some measure sound incongruous, but I repeat that unless one knows the mechanics of golf one has missed the soul of the game. It is simply an impossibility for the blind ball-smiter to get such joy and gratification from his game as does the man who from his superior knowledge has produced results which are in themselves worth losing the game for. Many a golfer, or one who would like to be a golfer, will wonder at this. Many a game at billiards has been lost for the poetry of a fascinating cannon when the win was not the main object of the game; but in this respect billiards and golf are not alike. One is not, in golf, penalised for putting the soul and the poetry of the game into his shots, for they come of practice, and simply render one's strokes more perfect than they would otherwise be. So in the end it will be found that he who knows the game most thoroughly will have an undoubted advantage. Therefore it behoves every golfer to strive for the soul of golf. And now, as we must for a little while leave the soul of golf, let us consider its body, that great solid, visible portion which is the part that appeals most forcibly to the ordinary golfer. It is this to which the attention of players and writers has been most assiduously directed for centuries, yet it is safe to say that no game in the whole realm of sport has been so miswritten and unwritten as golf. This is very strange, for probably there is no other game that is so canvassed and discussed by its followers. The reason may possibly be found in the fact that golfers are a most conservative class of people, and that they follow wonderfully the line of thought laid down for them by others. This at its best is uninteresting; at its worst most pernicious. Another contributing cause is the manner in which books on sport are now produced. A great name, an enterprising publisher, and a hack-writer are all that are now required. The consequence is that the market is flooded with books ostensibly by leading exponents of the different sports, but which are, in many cases, written by men who know little or nothing of the subject they are dealing with. The natural result is that the great players suffer severely in "translation," and their names are frequently associated with quite stupid statements,--statements so foolish that one, knowing how these things are done, refrains from criticising them as they deserve, from sympathy with the unfortunate alleged author, who is probably a very good fellow, and quite innocent of the fact that the nonsense alleged to be his knowledge is ruining or retarding the game of many people. This is a most unscrupulous practice, which should be exposed and severely condemned, for it must not be thought that it is confined to any one branch of sport. While we are dealing with the slavish following of the alleged thought of the leading golfers of the world, we may with advantage consider a few of the most pronounced fetiches which have been worshipped almost from time immemorial, fetiches which are the more remarkable in that they receive mental and theoretical worship only, and are, in actual practice, most severely despised and disregarded by the best players; but unfortunately the neophyte worships these fetiches for many years until he discovers that they are false gods. Perhaps one of the silliest, and for beginners most disastrous, is the ridiculous assertion that putters are born, not made. In the book of a very famous player I find the following words:-- It happens, unfortunately, that concerning one department of the game that will cause the golfer some anxiety from time to time, and often more when he is experienced than when he is not, neither I nor any other player can offer any words of instruction such as, if closely acted upon, would give the same successful results as the advice tendered under other heads ought to do. This is in regard to putting. Now this idea is promulgated in many books. It is, in my opinion, the most absolute and pernicious nonsense. The best answer to it is the fact that the writer of the words was himself one of the worst putters, but that by careful study and alteration of his defective methods, he became a first-class performer on the green. Also it will be obvious to a very mean intelligence that there is no branch of golf which is so capable of being reduced to a mechanical certainty as is putting. The importance of removing this stupid idea will be more fully appreciated when one remembers that quite half the game of golf is played on the green, leaving the other half to be distributed among all the other clubs. It is well to emphasise this. A good score for almost any eighteen-hole course is 72. The man who can count on getting down in an average of 2 is a very good putter. Many professionals would throw away their putters if they were allowed to consider it down in 2 every time. This gives us 36 for puts. With this before us we cannot exaggerate the pernicious effect of the false doctrine which says that putting cannot be taught, that a man must just let his own individuality have full play, and similar nonsense; whereas the truth is that one might safely guarantee to convert into admirable putters many men who, from their conformation and other characteristics, would be almost hopeless as golfers. I must emphasise the fact that there is no department of the game which is so important as putting; there is no department of the game more capable of being clearly and easily demonstrated by an intelligent teacher; and there is no department of the game wherein the player may be so nearly reduced to that machine-like accuracy which is the constant demand, and no small portion of the charm, of golf. Another very widely worshipped fetich, which has been much damaged recently, is the sweep in driving a ball. Trying "to sweep" his ball away for two hundred yards has reduced many a promising player to almost a suicidal frame of mind. Fortunately the fallacy soon exasperates a beginner, and he "says things" and "lets it have it." Then the much-worshipped "sweep" becomes a hit, sometimes a very vicious one, and the ball goes away from the club as it was meant to. It is becoming more widely recognised every day that the golf-drive is a hit, and a very fine one--when well played. Perhaps the most pernicious fetich which has for many years held sway in golf, until recently somewhat damaged, is that the left arm is the more important of the two--that it, in fact, finds the power for the drive. Anything more comical is hard to imagine. There is practically nothing in the whole realm of muscular exertion, from wood-chopping to golf, wherein both arms are used, that is not dominated by the right, yet golfers have for generations quietly accepted this fetich, and it has ruined many a promising player. The votaries of this fetich must surely find one thing very hard to explain. If we admit, for the sake of argument, that the left arm is the more important, and that it really has more power and more influence on the stroke than the right, can they explain why the left-handed players, who have been provided by a benevolent providence with so manifest an advantage, tamely surrender it and convert their left hand into the right-handed players' right by giving it the lower position on the shaft? If this idea of the left hand and arm being the more important is correct, left-handed players would use right-hand clubs and play like a right-handed player, with the manifest advantage of being provided by nature with an arm and hand that fall naturally into the most important position. I think that this consideration of the subject will give those who put their faith in the fetich of the left, something to explain. Almost from time immemorial it has been laid down by golfing writers that at the top of the swing the golfer must have his weight on his right leg. A study of the instantaneous photographs of most of the famous players will show conclusively that this is not correct. It is expressly laid down that it is fatal to sway, to draw away from one's ball during the upward swing; the player is specially enjoined on no account to move his head. A very simple trial will convince any golfer, even a beginner, that without swaying, without drawing his head away from the hole, he cannot possibly, if swinging correctly, put his weight on his right leg, and that at the top of his swing it must be mainly on his left--and so another well-worn belief goes by the board. So it is with the exaggerated swing which for so many years dominated the minds of aspiring golfers to such an extent that many of them thought more of getting the swing than of hitting the ball. It is slowly but surely going. The era of new thought in golf has dawned. It will not make the game less attractive. It will not make it any more exacting, for the higher knowledge cannot become an obsession. It sinks into a man, and he scarcely thinks of it as something beyond the ordinary game. It brings him into closer touch with the best that is in golf. He is able to obtain more from it than he could before. He is able to do more than he could formerly, for a man cannot get to the soul of golf except through the body, and love he not the body with the love of the truest of true golfers he will never know the soul. This chapter originally appeared in _The Fortnightly Review_ in the United Kingdom, and in _The North American Review_ in the United States of America. CHAPTER II THE MYSTERY OF GOLF There is no such thing as "the mystery of golf." One might reasonably ask, "If there is no such thing as 'the mystery of golf,' why devote a chapter to it?" But "the mystery of golf" should really be written "the mystery of the golfer," for the simple reason that the golfer himself is responsible for all the mystery in golf--in short, "the mystery of golf" may briefly be defined as the credulity of the golfer. Notwithstanding this, at least one enterprising man has produced a book entirely devoted to elucidating the alleged mystery of golf, wherein, quite unknown to himself, he proves most clearly and conclusively the truth of my opening statement in this chapter, that the mystery of golf is merely the credulity of the golfer; but of that anon. There really is no mystery whatever about the game of golf. It is one of the simplest of games, but unquestionably it is a game which is very difficult to play well, a game which demands a high degree of mechanical accuracy in the production of the various strokes. It is apparent from the nature of the implements used in the game that this must be so. All the foolishness of nebulous advice, and all the quaint excuses which have been gathered together under the head of "the mystery of golf," are simply weak man's weaker excuses for his want of intelligence and mechanical accuracy. Until the golfer fully understands and freely acknowledges this, he is suffering from a very severe handicap. If, when he addresses his ball, he has firmly implanted in his mind the idea that he is in the presence of some awesome mystery, there is very little doubt that he will do his level best to perform his part in the mystery play. We do not read anywhere of the mystery of lawn-tennis, the mystery of cricket, the mystery of marbles, squash racquets, or ping-pong. There are no mysteries in these games any more than there are in golf, and the plain fact is that the demand of golf is inexorable. It insists upon the straight line being followed, and the man who forsakes the straight line is immediately detected. In no game, perhaps, is the insistent demand for direction so inexorable as in golf. Perhaps also in no game is that demand so frequently refused, and, naturally, the erring golfer wishes to excuse himself. It is useful then for him to be told of the mysteries of golf--the wonderful mysteries, the psychological difficulties, the marvellous cerebration, the incredibly rapid nerve "telegraphing," and the wonderful muscular complications which take place between the time that he addresses the ball and hits it, or otherwise. Now, as a matter of fact, this is all so much balderdash, so much falseness, so much artificial and indeed almost criminal nonsense. It would indeed almost seem as if the people who write this kind of stuff are in league with the greatest players of the world, who write as instructions for the unfortunate would-be golfer things which they themselves never dreamed of doing--things which would quite spoil the wonderful game they play if they did them. [Illustration: PLATE I. HARRY VARDON'S GRIP Showing the overlapping of the first finger of the left hand by the little finger of the right. This is now the orthodox grip.] If there may be said to be any mystery whatever about golf, it is that in such an ancient and simple game there has grown up around it such a marvellous mass of false teaching, of confused thought, and of fantastic notions. No game suffers from this false doctrine and imaginative nonsense to the same extent as does golf. It is magnificently played. We have here in England the finest exponents of the game, both amateur and professional, in the world. If those men played golf as they tell others by their printed works to play it, I should have another story to tell about their prowess on the links. Golf, in itself, is quite sufficiently difficult. It is quite unnecessary to give the golfer, or the would-be golfer, an additional handicap by instilling it into his mind that golf is any more mysterious than any other game which is played. The most mysterious thing about golf is that those who really ought to know most about it publish broadcast wrong information about the fundamental principles of the game. Innocent players follow this advice, and not unnaturally they find it tremendously difficult to make anything like adequate progress. Naturally, when some one comes along and explains to them in lengthy articles, or may be in a book, about the psychological difficulties and terrific complications of golf, they are pleased to fasten on this stuff as an excuse for their want of success, whereas in very truth the real explanation lies simply in the fact that they are violating some of the commonest and simplest laws of mechanics. Here, indeed, I might almost be forgiven if I went back on what I have said about the mystery of golf, and produced, on my own account, that which is to me an outstanding mystery, and labelled it "the mystery of golf." This really is to me always a mystery, but I should not be correct in calling it "the mystery of golf," for it is more correctly described as the simplicity of the golfer. This mystery is that practically every writer about golf, and nearly every player, seems to labour under the delusion that there is a special set of mechanical laws for golf, that the golf ball flying through the air is actuated by totally different influences and in a totally different manner from the cricket ball, the ping-pong ball, or the lawn-tennis ball when engaged in a similar manner. That is bad enough, but the same delusions exist with regard to the conduct of the ball on the green. Now it is impossible to speak too plainly about this matter, because I want at the outset to dispel the illusion of the mystery of golf. There is no special set of mechanical laws governing golf. Golf has to take its place with all other games, and the mechanical laws which govern the driving of a nail, a golf ball, or a cricket ball are fixed and immutable and well known, so that it is quite useless for any one to try to explain to intelligent persons that there is any mystery in golf or the production of the golfing strokes beyond that which may be found in other games. Some people might think that I labour this point. It is impossible to be too emphatic at the outset about it, for the simple reason that it is bad enough for the golfer to have to think at the moment of making his stroke about the things which actually do matter. If we are going to provide him with phantoms as well as solid realities to contend with, he will indeed have a sorry time. As a matter of fact, about seven-tenths of the bad golf which is played is due to too much thinking about the stroke _while the stroke is being played_. The golf stroke in itself may be quite easily learned; I mean the true golf stroke, and not the imaginary golf stroke, which has been built up for the unfortunate golfer by those who never played such a stroke themselves, and by those who write of the mystery of golf; but it is an absolute certainty that the time for thinking about the golf stroke, and how it shall be played, _is not when one is playing the stroke_. As a matter of fact the golf stroke is in some respects a complicated stroke. Certain changes of position in the body and arms take place with extreme rapidity during the execution of the stroke. It is an utter impossibility for any man to think out and execute in proper order the component parts of a well-executed drive during his stroke. When a man addresses his ball he should have in his mind but the one idea--he has to hit that ball in such a manner as to get it to the place at which he wants it to arrive; but between the time of his address and the time that the ball departs on its journey his action should be, to use a much-hackneyed but still expressive word, practically sub-conscious; in fact, the way he hit that ball should be regulated by habit. If the result was satisfactory--well and good. If otherwise, he may analyse that shot in his armchair later on; but when once one has addressed the ball it is absolutely fatal to good golf to indulge in speculation as to how one is going to hit that ball, and if to that speculation one adds a belief in what is called "the mystery of golf," one had better get right away back to marbles at once, because it is a certainty that any one who believes in nonsense of this sort and practises it can never be a golfer. The bane of about eighty-five per cent of golfers is a pitiful attempt to cultivate style. The most contemptible man at any game is the stylist. The man who cultivates style before the game is not fit to cumber any links. Every man should strive to produce his stroke in a mechanically perfect manner. A good style is almost certain to follow when this is done. Style as the result of a game produced in a mechanically perfect manner is most desirable, but style without the game is simply despicable. One sometimes sees misguided golfers, or would-be golfers, practising their follow-through in a very theatrical manner. It should be obvious to a very mean intelligence that a follow-through is of no value whatever, except as the natural result of a correctly executed stroke. If the stroke has been correct up to the moment of impact, the follow-through will come almost as naturally as a good style will be born of correctly executed strokes. Self-consciousness is the besetting sin of the golfer. It is hardly too much to say that the ordinary golfer devotes, unfortunately, too much thought to himself and "the swing," and far too little to the thing that he is there for--namely, to hit the ball. In golf the player has plenty of time to spare in making his stroke, and he occupies too much of it in thinking about other things than the stroke. The essence of success at golf is concentration upon the stroke. The analysis has no right whatever to intrude itself on a man's mind until the stroke has been played. The inquest should not be held until the corpse is there. If this rule is followed, it will be found that the corpse is frequently wanting. Golf is a very ancient game. Lawn-tennis is an absolute parvenu by its side, and there are many other games which, compared with golf, are practically infants. Golf stands alone as regards false instruction, nebulous criticism, and utter disregard of the first principles of mechanics. I have always been at a loss to understand this. It is not as though golf had not been played and studied by some of the keenest intellects in the land. We have had, as we shall see later on, men of the highest scientific attainments devoting their attention to the game, writing about it, lecturing about it, publishing things about it which exist solely in their imagination. This truly may be called a mystery. I cannot leave the mystery of golf without giving some illustrations of the things which are published as instruction. For instance, I read lately that a good style results in good golf. This is the kind of thing which mystifies a beginner. The good style should be the result of the good golf, and not the golf of the style. I read elsewhere: As a matter of fact most of the difficulties in golf are mental, not physical, are subjective, not objective, are the created phantasms of the mind, not the veritable realities of the course. I find these things in Mr. Haultain's book entitled _The Mystery of Golf_. There is no game where there are fewer mental difficulties than in golf. The game is so extremely simple that it can practically be reduced to a matter of physical and mechanical accuracy. The mental demand in golf--provided always, of course, that the man who is addressing the ball knows what he wants to do--is extremely small and extremely simple. "The created phantasms of the mind" are supplied by fantastic writers who have proved for themselves that these phantasms are the deadliest enemies of good golf. In another place I read the following passage: You may place your ball how or where you like, you may hit it with any sort of implement you like; all you have to do is to hit it. Could simpler conditions be devised? Could an easier task be set? And yet such is the constitution of the human golfing soul that it not only fails to achieve it, but invents for itself multiform and manifold ifs and ans for not achieving it--ifs and ans, the nature and number of which must assuredly move the laughter of the gods. Probably this is meant to be satirical, but it is merely a libel on the great body of golfers. It is not the "human golfing soul" which "invents for itself multiform and manifold ifs and ans for not achieving it." He who invents these ifs and ans is the author of the ordinary golf book on golf, written ostensibly by some great player, and the "ifs and ans" most assuredly, if they do not "move the laughter of the gods," are sufficient to provoke the derision and contempt of the golfer who feels that nobody has a right to publish statements about a game which must act in a detrimental manner upon those who attempt to follow them. It is not the "human golfing soul" or the human golfing body which is so prone to error. Those who make the errors are those who essay to teach, and the time has now come for them to vindicate themselves or to stand back, to stand out of the way of the spread of truth; for one may be able to fool all the golfers some of the time and some of the golfers all the time, but it is a sheer impossibility to fool all the golfers all the time; and if the teaching which has obtained credence in the past were to be left unassailed, the result would be untold misery and discomfort to millions of golfers. It is for this reason that I am dealing in an early chapter with the alleged mystery of golf, for I want to make it particularly clear that in the vast majority of cases those who attempt to explain the mystery of golf proceed very much on the lines of the octopus and obscure themselves behind clouds of inky fluid which are generally as shapeless in their form and meaning as the matter given off by the uncanny sea-dweller. In fact, the ordinary attempt to explain the mystery of golf generally resolves itself into the writer setting up his own Aunt Sally, and even then exposing how painfully bad his aim is. Nearly every one who writes about golf claims for it that above all games it is the truest test of character, and in a degree unknown in any other game reveals the nature of the man who is playing it, and they proceed on this assumption to weave some of the most remarkable romances in connection with the simple and fundamental principles of the game. In the book under notice we are asked ... and yet why, _why_ does a badly-played game so upset a sane and rational man? You may lose at bridge, you may be defeated in chess, you may recall lost chances in football or polo; you may remember stupid things you did in tennis or squash racquets; you may regret undue haste in trying to secure an extra run or runs in cricket, but the mental depression caused by these is temporary and evanescent. Why do foozles in golf affect the whole man? Humph! It is no use blinking matters--say what the scoffers may--to foozle at golf, to take your eye off your ball, cuts down to the very deeps of the human soul. It does; there is no controverting that.... Perhaps this is why golf is worth writing about. It certainly is mysterious that any "sane and rational man" can write such stuff about golf. This is a fair sample of the kind of thing one gets from those who attempt to treat of golf from the physiological or psychological standpoint. I can hardly say too often that there is no such thing as the mystery of golf, any more than there is, in reality, such a thing as the soul of golf, but the mystery of golf is a meaningless and misleading term. The soul of golf means, in effect, the heart of golf--a true and loving understanding of the very core of the game. It would be bad enough if the persons essaying to explain the alleged mystery of golf knew the game thoroughly themselves, but, generally speaking, they do not--in the case under consideration, the writer himself admits that he is "a duffer." Now taking him at his own valuation, it does indeed seem strange that one whose knowledge of the game is admittedly insufficient, should attempt to explain to players the super-refinements of a game at which he himself is admittedly incompetent. It may seem somewhat cruel to press this point, but in a matter such as this we have to consider the greatest good of the greatest number, and we must not allow false sentiment to weigh with us in dealing with the work of anyone who publishes matter which may prejudicially affect the game of an immense body of people. The attempts to deal with the psychology and the physiology of golf are a mass of confused thought and illogical reasoning, but it is when the author proceeds to deal in any way with the practical side of golf that he shows clearly that his estimate of himself, at least in so far as regards his knowledge of the game, is not inaccurate. Let us take, for instance, the following passage. He says that William Park, Junior, has informed us that ... pressing, really, is putting in the power at the right time. You can hit as hard as you like if you hit accurately and at the right time, but the man who presses is the man who puts in the power too soon. He is in too great a hurry. He begins to hit before the club head has come anywhere near the ball. This quotation, I may say, is not from William Park's book, but is taken from the volume I am quoting, and the last sentence--"He begins to hit before the club head has come anywhere near the ball"--shows clearly that the author has no idea whatever of even a mechanical analysis of the golf stroke, for it is impossible to begin the hit too soon. The main portion of the power of the drive in golf is developed (as indeed anyone with very little consideration might know) _near the beginning of the downward swing_. This is so simple, so natural, so apparent to any one who knows the game of golf that I feel it is almost unnecessary to support the statement; but there are so many people who follow the game of golf, and are willing to accept as gospel any remarkable statement with regard to the game, that I may as well refer doubters to James Braid's book on _Advanced Golf_ wherein he shows clearly that anyone desiring to produce a proper drive at golf must be hard at it from the very beginning of the stroke. The author continues: If in the drive the whole weight and strength of the body, from the nape of the neck to the soles of the feet, are not transferred from body to ball, through the minute and momentary contact of club with ball, absolutely surely, yet swiftly--you top or you pull or you sclaff, or you slice, or you swear. It is almost unnecessary to tell any golfer that the whole weight of his body is not thrown at his golf ball, for this, in effect, would produce a terrific lunge and utterly destroy the rhythm of his stroke. Here is another remarkable passage--"and as to that mashie shot where you loft high over an abominable bunker and fall dead with a back-spin and a cut to the right on a keen and declivitous green--is there any stroke in any game quite so delightfully difficult as that?" and my answer is "Certainly not, for there is no such stroke in golf." When one puts a cut to the right or to the left, one has no back-spin on the ball. The back-spin is only got by following through after the ball in a downward direction, and as to a mashie approach with a cut to the right--well, the cut on a golf ball in a mashie stroke is in practical golf _always_ a cut to the left, which produces a run to the right. The shot as described by Mr. Haultain simply does not exist in golf. It probably is a portion of the mystery of golf which he has not yet solved. Then we are told ... not only is the stroke in golf an extremely difficult one--it is also an extremely complicated one, more especially the drive, in which its principles are concentrated. It is, in fact, a subtile combination of a swing and a hit, the "hit" portion being deftly incorporated into the "swing" just as the head of the club reaches the ball, yet without disturbing the regular rhythm of the motion. This again is another of the mysteries of golf, and a mystery purely of the inventive brain of the author. The drive in golf is played with such extreme rapidity that the duration of impact does not last more than one ten-thousandth of a second, yet we are asked to believe that the first portion of the stroke is a swing, but in, say, the five-thousandth of a second it is to be changed to a hit. Could the force of folly in alleged tuition go further than this? We now come to an absolutely fundamental error in the golf stroke, an error of a nature so important and far-reaching that if I can demonstrate it, any attempt on the part of its author to explain anything in connection with the golf stroke mechanically, physiologically, psychologically, logically, or otherwise, must absolutely fall to the ground. We are told "the whole body must turn on the pivot of the head of the right thigh bone working in the cotyloidal cavity of the _os innominatum_ or pelvic bone, the head, right knee and right foot remaining fixed, with the eyes riveted on the ball." Now, put into plain English this ridiculous sentence means that the weight of the body rests upon the right leg. It is such a fundamental and silly error, but nevertheless an error which is made by the greatest players in the world in their published works, that I shall not at the present moment deal with the matter, but shall refer to it again in my chapter on the distribution of weight, for this matter of the distribution of weight, which is of absolute "root" importance in the game of golf, has been most persistently mistaught by those whose duty it is to teach the game as they play it, so that others may not be hampered in their efforts to become expert by following false advice. Further on we are told, "in the upward swing the vertebral column rotates upon the head of the right femur, the right knee being fixed, and as the club head nears the ball the fulcrum is rapidly changed from the right to the left hip, the spine now rotating on the left thigh-bone, the left knee being fixed." Of course, I do not know on what principle the man who writes this is built, but it seems to me that he must have a spine with an adjustable end. None of the famous golfers, so far as I am aware, are able to shift their spines from one thigh bone to another. Moreover, to say that "the vertebral column rotates upon the head of the right femur" is merely childish unscientific nonsense, for it is obvious to any one, even to one who does not profess to explain the mystery of golf, that one's spine cannot possibly rotate within one, for to secure rotation of the spine it would be necessary for the body to rotate. This, it need hardly be pointed out, would be extremely inconvenient between the waggle and the moment when one strikes the ball. We are told that in the downward swing "velocity of the club in the descent must be accelerated by minute but rapid gradations." For one who is attempting to explain the mystery of golf there could not possibly be a worse word than "gradations." The author, in this statement, is simply following an old and utterly obsolete notion. There is no such thing as accelerating the speed by minute gradations. Quoting James Braid in _Advanced Golf_, from memory, he says that you must be "hard at it" from the very moment you start the stroke, and even if he did not say so, any golfer possessed of common sense would know that the mere idea of adding to the speed of his golf drive by "steps," which is what the word "gradations" implies, would be utterly futile. The futility of the advice is, however, emphasised when we are told that these gradations come from "orders not issued all at once, but one after another--also absolutely evenly and smoothly--at intervals probably of ten-thousandths of a second. If the curves are not precise, if a single muscle fails to respond, if the timing is in the minutest degree irregular--the stroke is a failure. No wonder it is difficult." It would indeed be no wonder that the golf drive is difficult if it really were composed as indicated, but, as a matter of fact, nothing of the sort takes place in the ordinary drive of a sane golfer. There is one command issued, which is "Hit the ball." All these other things which are supposed to be done by an incredible number of efforts of the mind are practically performed sub-consciously, and more by habit than by any complex mental directions. The drive in golf is not in any respect different from numerous other strokes in numerous other games in so far as regards the mental portion of it. Now so far as regards the complicated system of mental telegraphy which is claimed for golf in the production of the stroke, absolutely the same thing happens in practically every game, with the exception that in most other games the player is, so far as regards the production of his stroke, at a greater disadvantage than he is in golf, for he has nearly always a moving ball to play at and much less time wherein to decide how to play his stroke. In golf he has plenty of time to make up his mind as to how he will play his stroke, and the operation, to the normal golfer, in so far as regards the mental portion of it, is extremely simple. His trouble is that he has so much nonsense of this nature to contend with, so much false instruction to fight. If he were given a correct idea of the stroke he would have no difficulty whatever with regard to his "gradations." Braid has explicitly stated that this idea of gradually and consciously increasing the speed is a mistake, and I have always been especially severe on it as one of the pronounced fallacies of golf. I shall deal with it more fully in my chapter on "The Fallacies of Golf," but I may here quote Braid, who says: Nevertheless, when commencing the downward swing, do so in no gentle, half-hearted manner such as is often associated with the idea of gaining speed gradually, which is what we are told the club must do when coming down from the top on to the ball. It is obvious that speed will be gained gradually, since the club could not possibly be started off at its quickest rate. The longer the force applied to the down swing, the greater do the speed and momentum become. But this gradual increase is independent of the golfer, and he should, as far as possible, be unconscious of it. What he has to concern himself with is not increasing his speed gradually, but getting as much of it as he possibly can right from the top. No gentle starts, but hard at it from the top, and the harder you start the greater will be the momentum of the club when the ball is reached. Now this is emphatic enough, but it should not be necessary to quote James Braid to impress upon any golfer of average intelligence that this idea of consciously increasing his speed gradually as he comes down to the ball is the most infantile and injurious tuition which it is possible to impart. To encumber any player's mind with such utterly stupid doctrine is most reprehensible. As an illustration of how little the author of this book understands the true character of the golf stroke, I may quote him again. In a letter recently published over his signature he says: "Mind and muscle--both should act freely and easily _till the moment of impact_; then, perhaps, the mind should be concentrated, as the muscles must be contracted, to the utmost." Now this is such utterly fallacious doctrine that I certainly should not notice it were it not that this book, on account of its somewhat original treatment of the subject, has obtained a degree of notice to which I do not consider it entitled. This is so far from what really takes place in the drive at golf that I must quote James Braid from _Advanced Golf_, page 56. It will be seen from Braid's remarks that the whole idea of the golf drive from the moment the club starts on its downward course until the ball has been hit is that of supreme tension and concentration. It seems almost a work of supererogation to deal with a matter of such apparent simplicity, but when one sees matter such as that quoted published in responsible papers, one realises that in the interests of the game it is necessary to deal with statements which really, in themselves, ought to carry their own refutation. Braid says: "Look to it also that the right elbow is kept well in control and fairly close to the side in order to promote tension at the top." Again at page 57 he says: "Now for the return journey. Here at the top the arms, wrists, body--all are in their highest state of tension. Every muscle and joint in the human golfing machinery is wound up to the highest point, and there is a feeling that something must be let go at once." On page 58 we read again: "No gentle starts, but hard at it from the very top, and the harder you start the greater will be the momentum of the club when the ball is reached." At page 60 again: "Keep the body and wrist under tension a little longer." At page 61 we read: Then comes the moment of impact. Crack! Everything is let loose, and round comes the body immediately the ball is struck, and goes slightly forward until the player is facing the line of flight. If the tension has been properly held, all this will come quite easily and naturally. The time for the tension is over and it is allowed its sudden and complete expansion and quick collapse. That is the whole secret of the thing--the bursting of the tension at the proper moment--and really there is very little to be said in enlargement of the idea. Now here it will be seen that Braid's idea, which is undoubtedly the correct one, is that the golfer's muscles, and it follows naturally also his mind, are in a state of supreme tension until the moment of impact, _when that tension is released_. On the other hand, we are told by our psychologist that the moment which Braid says is the moment of the collapse of the tension is the moment for introducing tension and concentration. The statement is, of course, an extremely ridiculous one, especially coming, as it does, from one who presumes to deal with the psychology and physiology of golf, because nothing could be further from the truth than the statement made by him. It proves at the very outset that he has not a correct idea of the golf stroke, and therefore any attempt by him to explain the psychology of golf, if golf may be said to have such a thing as a psychology, is worthless. Our author has also explained how, in the downward swing, the speed of the club is increased by extremely minute gradations. I have elsewhere referred to this fallacy, but the matter is so important that I shall quote James Braid again here. At page 57 Braid says: Nevertheless, when commencing the downward swing, do so in no gentle, half-hearted manner, such as is often associated with the idea of gaining speed gradually, which is what we are told the club must do when coming down from the top on to the ball. It is obvious that speed will be gained gradually, since the club could not possibly be started off at the quickest rate. The longer the force applied to the down swing the greater does the speed of the momentum become, but this gradual increase is independent of the golfer, and he should, as far as possible, be unconscious of it. What he has to concern himself with is not increasing his speed gradually, but getting as much of it as he possibly can right from the top. I am very glad indeed to be able to quote Braid to this effect, for if we may accept his statement on this matter as authoritative, it completely refutes one of the greatest and stupidest fallacies in golf, which is this particular notion of gradually increasing one's speed by any conscious effort of muscular regulation. Now if Braid's statement with regard to the muscular work in the downward portion of the drive is correct, it follows naturally that the explanation of the "mystery of golf" offered by the author is merely an explanation of a mystery which he has evolved from the innermost recesses of his fertile imagination; but it is needless for me to say that unless such an idea as this is absolutely killed, it would have a most pernicious effect upon the game of anyone who came within its influence. It may seem, perhaps, that I attach too much importance to the writing of a gentleman who describes himself as "a duffer." It is not so. No one knows better than I do the influence of printed matter. I have lived amongst print and printers and newspapers for very many years, and needless to say I know as well as any man that not everything which one sees in print is true, but the remarkable thing about the printed word is that even with one who is absolutely hardened and inured to the vagaries and extravagances and inaccuracies of those who handle type, the printed word carries a certain amount of weight. We can easily understand, then, that to those who are not so educated the printed word is much more authoritative. Therefore, even if the circulation of a book or a paper may be very little, it is always worth the while of one who has the interests of the game at heart to do his best not only to scotch, but absolutely to kill false and pernicious teaching of this nature, for the simple reason that even if a book circulates but a hundred copies, or a newspaper two hundred and fifty, which is giving them both a remarkably small circulation, it is impossible, or at least extremely improbable, that any man will be able, by his influence, _to follow each copy of that book or that newspaper_. There is a great fundamental truth underlying this statement. If one gives a lie a day's start, it takes a terrible lot of catching. This is particularly so in connection with printed matter, and I have had some very remarkable illustrations of the fact. So strongly, indeed, do I realise this fact, that although I believe that I am as impervious to adverse criticism as any one, I will never, if I can prevent it, allow criticism of that nature which I consider inimical to the interests of any subject with which I am dealing, to get the slightest possible start. Indeed, I have, on occasions, carried this principle still further, and when I have known that matter was to appear which I considered of a nature calculated to produce wrong thought in connection with a certain subject I have taken means to see that it did not appear. It will be readily understood that I am not now referring to matters of personal criticism. I refer particularly to matters of doctrine published and circulated, even in the smallest way. If, for the sake of argument, the paper which spreads that false doctrine circulates only twenty copies, _one cannot follow every copy_, and to do one's work thoroughly and effectively it would be necessary to follow every copy of that paper in order to counteract the pernicious influence which it might otherwise exercise. Taking this view of the effect of printed matter, it should be apparent that I consider the time devoted to refuting injurious and false teaching well spent. In the attempted explanation of the mystery of golf there are some amazing statements which tend to show clearly that the author of that work has not that intimate knowledge of sport generally which is absolutely essential to any man who would even essay satisfactorily to do what the author is trying to do. Let us examine, for instance, such a statement as this: "Indeed, the difficulties of golf are innumerable and incalculable. Take, for example, that simple rule 'Keep your eye on the ball.' It is unheard of in tennis; it is needless in cricket; in golf it is iterated and reiterated times without number, and infringed as often as repeated." Can anyone imagine a more wonderful statement than this? In tennis, by which from subsequent remarks it is clear that the author means lawn-tennis, and also indeed in tennis, it is, of course, a fundamental rule that one must keep one's eye on the ball. It is repeatedly drilled into every player, and even the most experienced players by neglecting it sacrifice points. Lifting one's eye is one of the most prolific causes of missed smashes and ordinary volleys, while the half volleys which are missed through not attempting to follow out this universal rule are innumerable. We are told that it is "unheard of in cricket." This indeed is a marvellous statement. No coach who knows his duty in tennis, lawn-tennis, cricket, racquets, or in fact any game where one plays at a moving ball, could possibly have gone more than about half a dozen lessons, if so many, without impressing upon his pupil the extreme importance of endeavouring to watch the ball until the moment of impact. This, of course, is a counsel of perfection, and is not often perfectly carried out, for various reasons which I shall deal with in my chapter on "The Function of the Eyes." For one who has attempted a critical analysis of the psychology of golf the author makes some wonderful statements. Speaking about "looking" _versus_ "thinking," and keeping one's eye on the ball, the author says: "As a matter of fact, instead of _looking_, you are _thinking_, and to _think_, when you ought to _play_, is the madness of mania." It should be fairly obvious to anyone who does not even profess to be capable of analysing the emotions of a golfer that to look it is necessary to be thinking--to be thinking about looking, in fact; that it would be impossible to look without thinking; that indeed the looking is dependent upon the thinking, or, as our author would probably put it, he must will to look--not only must he will to look, but he must will to hit. Those are the two important things for him to will--to look and to hit. Now those things cannot be done without thinking, and yet we are told that to _think_ when you ought to _play_ is "the madness of mania." The author goes on to give what he calls a very "simple and anatomical reason" for this inability to see one's ball when one is thinking instead of looking. He says: Everybody has heard the phrase "a vacant stare." Well, there actually is such a thing as a vacant stare. When one's thoughts are absorbed in something other than the object looked at, the eyes lose their convergence--that is to say, instead of the two eyeballs being turned inwards and focussed on the thing, they look straight outwards into space, with the result, of course, that the thing looked at is seen indistinctly. I am convinced that this happens to many a grown-up golfer. He thinks he is looking at his ball, but as a matter of fact he is thinking about looking at his ball (a very different affair), or about how he is going to hit it, or any one of a hundred other things; and, his mind being taken off that supreme duty of doing nothing but _look_, the muscles of the eye are relaxed, the eyeballs resume their natural position and stare vacantly into space. It will probably not be news to most of us that there is such a thing as "a vacant stare." We probably remember many occasions when, "lost in thought," our eyes have lost their convergence, but it will indeed be news to most of us that it is the supreme duty of the eyes to do nothing but _look_. We are now face to face with this fact according to this analysis. The author quotes the great psychologist, Höffding, as saying, "We must will to see, in order to see aright." We now, by a natural and logical process of reasoning, have the golfer settled at his ball, his address duly taken, his eye fixed on the ball, and he is in the act of "willing" to see as hard as he can. So far so good. Let us presume that he _is_ seeing. Now we are told that to think when he ought to play is the madness of mania. We must presume that it will now be impossible to proceed with his stroke unless he "wills" to move. How will he "will to move" without thinking? If anybody can explain to me how a golfer can play a stroke without willing to hit as well as to look, I shall indeed consider that he has explained at least one mystery in golf. We are told that ... if during that minute interval of time which elapses between the commencement of the upward swing of the club and its impact with the ball, the golfer allows any one single sensation, or idea to divert his attention--consciously or unconsciously--from the little round image on his retina, he does not properly "perceive" that ball; and of course, by consequence, does not properly hit it. Notwithstanding this statement, we see that the author tries to implant in the mind of the golfer the idea that during his downward stroke arms and hands are receiving innumerable orders "at intervals probably of tens of thousandths of a second," and that at the moment of impact with the ball the mind has to become suddenly concentrated and the muscles suddenly contracted. He surely will allow that in this advice he is trying to impart at least one single sensation or idea which is sufficient to ensure that he will "not properly perceive that ball, and of course, by consequence, that he will not properly hit it." Here is another paragraph worthy of consideration: "But if one tautens any of the muscles necessary for the stroke, the stroke is spoiled." I think I have already quoted James Braid on the subject of tension in the drive, to show that this statement is utterly fallacious, and that without very considerable tautening of the muscles it would be impossible to produce a golf drive worthy of the name. The strangest portions of this alleged explanation of the mystery of golf are always when it comes to the question of practical golf. Let us consider briefly such a statement as the following:-- Both sets of stimuli must be intimately and intricately combined throughout the whole course of the swing; the wrists must ease off at the top and tauten at the end. The left knee must be loose at the beginning, and firm at the finish, and the change from one to the other must be as deftly and gently, yet swiftly wrought, as a crescendo passage from pianissimo to fortissimo on a fiddle. We have already seen what James Braid says about the golf stroke--that from the top of it right to the impact the muscles must be in a state of the fullest tension; while it is of course well known now that the left knee is never at any time in the stroke what is described as loose, for from the moment that a properly executed golf drive begins, the weight proceeds towards the left foot and leg, and therefore it would be impossible to play a proper drive with the left knee "loose." I deal fully with this subject in my chapter on "The Distribution of Weight." [Illustration: PLATE II. HARRY VARDON Stance and frontal address in short put.] As we proceed with the consideration of this work we find that golf is indeed a mystery to the author. We are informed that "the golf stroke is a highly complex one, and one necessitating the innervation of innumerable cerebrospinal centres; not only hand and eye, but arms, wrist, shoulders, back, loins, and legs must be stimulated to action. No wonder that the associative memory has to be most carefully cultivated in golf. To be able, without thinking about it, to take your stance, do your waggle, swing back, pause, come forward, hit hard, and follow-through well over the left shoulder, always self-confidently--ah! this requires a first-class brain, a first-class spinal cord, and first-class muscles"; and--if I might be pardoned for adding it--a first-class idiot. Nobody but a first-class idiot could possibly do all these things without thinking of them, except probably that brilliant follow-through "well over the left shoulder!" I have heard many things enunciated by people who considered themselves possessed of first-class brains, but this is absolutely the first time that I have ever heard of a good follow-through "well over the left shoulder." A good follow-through "well over the left shoulder" generally means a most pernicious slice. Any follow-through at any game goes after the ball. What happens when that is finished is merely a matter of individual style and the particular nature of the stroke which has been played. The club, in some cases, may come back over the left shoulder; in other cases it may point right down the course after the ball; in another it may swing practically round the body. It is little touches such as these which show the lack of practical acquaintance with the higher science of the game. No one acquainted with the inner secrets of golf could possibly refer to that portion of a stroke which is coming back from the hole as "the follow-through." As an instance of absolutely ridiculous nonsense I may quote the following: What the anatomists say is this, that, if the proper orders are issued from the cortex, and gathered up and distributed by the corpora striata and the cerebellum, are then transferred through the crus cerebri, the pons varolii, the anterior pyramid and the medulla oblongata, down the lateral columns of the spinal cord into the anterior cornua of grey matter in the cervical, the dorsal and the lumbar region, they will then "traverse the motor nerves at the rate of about 111 feet a second, and speedily excite definite groups of muscles in definite ways, with the effect of producing the desired movements." Of course this to the ordinary golfer is absolute nonsense, but to the skilled anatomist and student of psychology, who may also be a golfer, it is worse than nonsense, for the simple reason that assuming that the measurement of the speed at which these orders travel has been even approximately measured as proceeding at the rate of "about 111 feet a second," it is obvious that such a rate of progression would be, by comparison with the speed at which the golf stroke is delivered, merely a gentle crawl. One might be excused if one thought that this book was merely a practical joke perpetrated by a very ingenious person at the expense of golfers, but I do not think we should be justified in assuming that, for then we should have to speak in a very much severer manner than we are doing; for when one reads about such things as "the twirl of the wrists, the accelerated velocity, and the hit at the impact," one is justified in assuming that even if the psychology of the author were sound, his knowledge of the mechanical production of the golf drive is extremely limited. He says: Psychologists are, I believe, agreed that there is in the mind a faculty called the Imagination. Indeed, there has been a whole essay written and printed on "The Creative Imagination." Even if psychologists are not agreed on this subject we could, I think, take as irrefutable evidence of the existence of the "creative imagination" the work under notice. It is curious to find one who is endeavouring to analyse matters which are psychologically abstruse exhibiting the greatest confusion of thought. Let us take an illustration. He says: "We misuse words; we construct an artificial and needless barrier between mind and matter. By 'matter' we simply mean something perceptible by our five senses." Let us consider this statement. It would be impossible to imagine a more sloppy definition of matter. According to this definition of matter, glass is not matter, for it is not perceptible by our sense of hearing, smelling, or tasting. It is evident that the author means--which in itself is erroneous--to define matter as something which is perceptible by one of the five senses, but in an analytical psychologist so overwhelming an error is inexcusable. It is manifest that he is not equal to the task which he has set himself in any way whatever. He says that "The golfer, strive as he may, is the slave of himself." Here again we have a gross libel on the poor golfer. The ordinary golfer is not the slave of himself. He is the slave of thoughtless persons who write about things which they do not understand, and, in some cases, the bond-servant of those who write without understanding of the things which they do very well. Elaborating this idea, the author proceeds: "It is not a matter of want of strength or want of skill, for every now and again one proves to oneself by a superlative stroke that the strength and the skill are there if only the mind could be prevailed upon to use them." This truly is a marvellous statement from one who essays a critical analysis of anything. It is undoubtedly possible that a player might be set at a tee blindfolded, and provided his caddie put down sufficient balls for him to drive at and he continued driving long enough, he would unquestionably hit "a superlative stroke." Would this prove that the strength and the skill are there? I wonder if our author has ever heard of such a thing as "a ghastly fluke"? A little later on we read: "Time and time again you have been taught exactly how to stand, exactly how to swing," and he then proceeds to wonder how it is that the unfortunate golfer is so prone to error. The reason is not far to seek. It is found in the work of such men as our author, and others who should know much better than he; it is found in the work of men who teach the unfortunate golfer to stand wrongly, to swing wrongly. These, in company with our author, will be duly arraigned in our chapter on "The Distribution of Weight." That is the plain answer why golfers do not get the results which they should get from the amount of work and thought which they put into their game, for golfers are, unquestionably, as a class, the most thoughtful of sportsmen. If they were not, a book such as I am dealing with could not possibly have secured a publisher. Continuing his argument on this subject he says: ... and yet how often it has taken three, four, and even five strokes to cover those hundred yards! It would be laughable were it not so humiliating--in fact, the impudent spectator does laugh until he tries it himself; then, ah! then he, too, gets a glimpse into that mystery of mysteries--the human mind--which at one and the same time wills to do a thing and fails to do it, which knows precisely and could repeat by rote the exact means by which it is to be accomplished, yet is impotent to put them in force. And the means are so simple. So insanely simple. To which I say, "And the means are indeed so simple, so sanely simple." It is writers who do not understand the game at all who make them insanely complex. As a definite illustration of what I mean let me ask the man who writes that the golfer who desires to drive perfectly "could repeat by rote the exact means by which it is to be accomplished" where, in any book by one of the greatest golfers, or in his own book, the golfer is definitely instructed that his weight must not at any time be on his right leg. In fact the author himself, in common with everybody who has ever written a golf book, _deliberately misinforms the golfer in this fundamental principle_. How, then, can a man who claims to be possessed of an analytical mind say that the ordinary golfer could repeat by rote the exact means by which anything is to be accomplished when it is now a matter of notoriety that practically the whole of the published teaching of golf is fundamentally unsound? Speaking of the golfer's difficulties in the drive the author says, "The secret of this extraordinary and baffling conflict of mind and matter is a problem beyond the reach of physiology and psychology combined." Yes, there is no doubt that it is; but it is a matter which is well within the reach of the most elementary mechanics and common sense. It will probably seem that I am dealing with this attempt to explain the mystery of golf very severely, but I do not feel that I am treating the matter too strictly. Golf is enveloped and encompassed round about with a wordy mass of verbiage. All kinds of men and some women, who have no clearly defined or scientific ideas, have presumed to put before the unfortunate golfer directions for playing the game which have landed him in a greater maze of bewilderment than exists in any other game which I know. It is obvious that if a man is both "a duffer" and a slow thinker it will be unsafe for him, until he has improved both his game and his mental processes, to attempt to explain the higher science of golf for anyone. It should be sufficient for him to study the mechanical processes whereby he may improve his own game until at least he has been able to take himself out of the class which he characterises himself as the duffers. To explain golf scientifically in the face of the mass of false doctrine which encumbers it, it is necessary that one should be, if not at least a quick thinker, an exact thinker, and that one should know the game to the core. It seems to me that there is possibly a clue to the remarkable statements which we get in this book in the following quotation, which I take from the chapter on "Attention": When I first rode a bicycle, if four or five obstacles suddenly presented themselves, these to the right, those to the left, I found I could not transfer my attention from one to the other sufficiently quickly to give the muscles the requisite orders--and I came a cropper ... and so with the golf stroke. It seems to me that here we have the key of the author's difficulty. His mind was fixed on the obstacles--some to the right and some to the left. In similar circumstances most budding cyclists, and I have taught many, confine their attention to the clear path right ahead, and consequently the obstacles "these to the right, those to the left" do not trouble them. This, psychologically speaking, is a curious confession of the power of outside influences to affect the main issue. It seems to me that right through the consideration of this subject the author, like many other golfers, has been devoting his mind far too much to the things which he imagines about golf, instead of to the things which are, and they are the things which matter. No wonder, then, that he has "come a cropper." There is a chapter called "The One Thing Necessary," which starts as follows: "But, since I stated that my own belief is that only one thing can be 'attended' to at a time, you will probably be inclined to ask me what is the most important thing? what precisely ought we to attend to at the moment of impact of club with ball? Well, if you ask me, I say _the image of the ball_." This is really an astonishing statement. "At the moment of impact of club with ball" the image of the ball does not really matter in the slightest degree. As I shall show later on, the eye has fulfilled its functions long before the impact takes place. Also, of course, to the non-analytical mind it will be perfectly obvious that _the image of the ball_ could be just as well preserved if the golfer had lifted his head three to six inches, but his stroke would have been irretrievably ruined. Now, as a matter of fact, by the time the club has arrived at the ball it is altogether too late to attend to anything. All the attention has already been devoted to the stroke, and it has been made or marred. As we have clearly seen from what James Braid says about the stroke the moment of impact is the time when the attention and the tension is released, so it will obviously be of no service to us to endeavour forcibly to impress upon our minds in any way the image of the ball. If there is any one thing to think of at the moment of impact, the outstanding point of importance must be that the eyes should be in exactly the same place and position as they were at the moment of address. Here is a most remarkable sentence:-- It is a pity that so many literary elucidators and explicators of the game devote so many pages to the subsidiary circumstances.... I wonder if they would pardon me if I said that, as a matter of simple fact, if one _attended to the game_ (with all that that means), almost one could stand and strike as one chose, and almost with any kind of club. There is a large amount of truth in this; but it comes most peculiarly from the author of this book, for of all the literary obfuscators whom I have ever come across I have never met his equal in attention to the "subsidiary circumstances" and neglect of the real game. Much time is wasted in an analysis of the nature of attention. Now, attention, psychologically, is somewhat difficult to define from the golfing point of view, but as a matter of simple and practical golf there is no difficulty whatever in explaining it. Attention in golf is merely habit acquired by practice and by starting golf in a proper and scientific manner. I shall have to deal with that more fully in my next chapter, so I shall not go into the matter here. Suffice it to say that lifting the eye at golf is no more a lack of attention than is lifting the little finger in the club-house. It is merely a vice in each case--a bad habit, born probably of the fact that in neither case did the man learn the rudiments of the game thoroughly. We are told that "the arms do not judge distance (save when we are actually touching something), nor does the body, nor does the head. The judging is done by the eyes"; but we must not forget that the arms accurately measure the distance. CHAPTER III PUTTING The great mystery to me, not about golf, but about the work of the greatest golfers, is the attitude which they all adopt with regard to putting. Now, putting may quite properly be said to be the foundation of golf. It really is the first thing which should be taught, but, as a matter of fact, it is generally left until the last. Practically all instructors start the player with the drive. It is beyond question that the drive is the most complex stroke in golf, and it is equally beyond question that the put is the simplest. There can be no shadow of doubt whatever that the only scientific method of instructing a person in the art of playing golf is one which is diametrically opposed to that adopted by practically all the leading players of the world. Instead of starting the beginner at the tee and taking him through his clubs in rotation to the putting-green, the proper order for sound tuition would be to start him six inches from the hole and to back him through his clubs to the tee. This is so absolutely beyond argument that I need not labour the point here, except in so far as with it is bound up the important question of attention--that is, of riveting one's eye and one's mind on the ball for the whole period employed in making the stroke. As I said in the preceding chapter, attention is habit. Attention includes the habit of keeping the eye on the ball and the head still until the stroke has been played. The best way of inculcating the vices of lifting the head and the eye during the stroke is to teach the player the drive first. It stands to reason that if a player is started, say, with a six-inch put, that he has at the moment of making his stroke both the ball and the hole well within the focus of his eyes, so that it is absolutely unnecessary for him to lift his eye in order to follow the ball. It therefore follows that he is not tempted to lift his eye. Now, no player should be allowed to go more than two or three feet from the hole until he has learned to hole out puts at that distance with accuracy and confidence. By the time he is allowed to leave the putting-green, he will have acquired the habit of attention. It will be clearly seen that, starting now from the edge of the green with his chip shot, he is much more certain of striking the ball and getting it away than he would be were he put on to the more uncertain stroke in the drive; so by a gradual process of education the player would come in time to the drive, and by the time he arrives at the most complicated stroke in the game--the stroke wherein is the smallest margin of error--he has cultivated the habit of attention, which includes keeping one's head still. Of course, this is a counsel of perfection which one does not expect to find carried out, although a similar course is followed by all good teachers in every trade, profession, science, or game, but as I have said before, in golf there is a tremendous amount of false teaching which is generally followed. It is, however, a certainty that any beginner who has the patience, perseverance, and moral courage to educate himself on these lines, will find golf much easier to play than it would be if he had started, as nearly everybody wants to start, with "the swing." It is bad enough that putting should be relegated to the position it is, but the attitude of the great writers, or perhaps I should say the great golfers who have written books about golf, aggravates the offence, and forms what is to me the greatest mystery in connection with golf literature. I shall give here what Braid, Vardon, and Taylor have to say about putting. Let me take Vardon first. At page 143 of _The Complete Golfer_ he says: For the proper playing of the other strokes in golf, I have told my readers to the best of my ability how they should stand and where they should put their feet. But except for the playing of particular strokes, which come within the category of those called "fancy," I have no similar instruction to offer in the matter of putting. There is no rule and there is no best way. The fact is that there is more individuality in putting than in any other department of golf, and it is absolutely imperative that this individuality should be allowed to have its way. And now comes a very wonderful statement: I believe seriously that every man has had a particular kind of putting method awarded to him by Nature, and when he putts exactly in this way he will do well, and when he departs from his natural system he will miss the long ones and the short ones too. First of all, he has to find out this particular method which Nature has assigned for his use. Again on page 144 we read that when a player is off his putting ... it is all because he is just that inch or two removed from the stance which Nature allotted to him for putting purposes, but he does not know that, and consequently everything in the world except the true cause is blamed for the extraordinary things he does. Let us now repeat what James Braid has to say on the important matter of putting. On page 119 of _How to Play Golf_ he says: It happens, unfortunately, that concerning one department of the game that will cause the golfer some anxiety from time to time, and often more when he is experienced than when he is not, neither I nor any other player can offer any words of instruction such as, if closely acted upon, would give the same successful results as the advice tendered under other heads ought to do. This is in regard to putting. Further on we are informed that "really great putters are probably born and not made." So far we must admit that this is extremely discouraging, but there is worse to follow. Let us now see what Taylor has to say about putting. At page 83 in his book, _Taylor on Golf_, and in the chapter, "Hints on Learning the Game," he says: Coming back to the subject of actual instruction. After a fair amount of proficiency has been acquired in the use of the cleek, iron, and mashie, we have the difficulty of the putting to surmount. And here I may say at once it is an absolute impossibility to teach a man how to putt. Even many of the leading professionals are weak in this department of the game. Do you think they would not improve themselves in this particular stroke were such a thing within the range of possibility? Certainly they would. The fact is that in putting, more than in aught else, a very special aptitude is necessary. A good eye and a faculty for gauging distances correctly is a great help, indeed, quite a necessity, as also is judgment with regard to the requisite power to put behind the ball. Unfortunately, these are things that cannot be taught, they must come naturally, or not at all. All that is possible for the instructor to do is to discover what kind of a putting style his pupil is possessed of, offer him useful hints, and his ultimate measure of success is then solely in his own hands. It is easy to tell a pupil how he must needs hold his clubs in driving or playing an iron shot, but in putting there is hardly such a necessity. The diversity of styles accounts for this, and in this particular kind of stroke a man must be content to rely upon his own adaptability alone. Now in the same book on page 240, in the chapter on "The Art of Putting," we read: The drive may be taught, the pupil may be instructed in the use of the cleek, the iron, or the brassie, but in putting he must rely upon his own powers of reducing the game to an actual science. The other strokes are of a more or less mechanical character; they may be explained and demonstrated, but with the ball but a few feet distant from the hole there are many other things to be considered, and hints are the only things that can be offered. The pupil may be advised over the holding and grip of the putter, but as far as the success of the shot is concerned it remains in his own hands. In passing, I may remark that it seems to me that in this latter respect the put is not vastly different from any other stroke in golf, or indeed, for the matter of that, in any other game. Continuing, Taylor says: Putting, in short, is so different to any other branch of the game that the good putter may be said to be born, not made. That this is really the case is proved by the fact that many of the leading players of the day, professionals and amateurs alike, are very frequently weaker when playing with the putter than when performing with any other of their clubs. Speaking solely of professionals, is it at all probable that this would be so were they capable of improving themselves in this particular department? Certainly not. Now it will be admitted that this is a very gloomy outlook for him who desires to learn how to put. He is thrown entirely on his own resources. I must quote Taylor once again with regard to putting. He says: And yet it is none the less true that to putt perfectly should be the acme of one's ambition. Putting is the most important factor of success, for it happens very frequently that a man may meet a stronger driver, or a better performer with the iron clubs, and yet wrest the leadership from him when near the hole. There can be no doubt whatever of the truth of what Taylor says in this last paragraph--"Putting is the most important factor of success"; yet we are confronted with the amazing statement made by the three greatest masters of the game, men who between them have accounted for fourteen open championships, men whose living depends upon playing golf and teaching it, that "the most important factor of success" cannot be taught. There is no possible doubt about their ideas on this subject. They deliberately tell the unfortunate golfer, or would-be golfer, that good putters are born and not made, that putting cannot be taught, and that each person must be left to work out his own salvation. It is admitted that putting is practically half the game. It has been well illustrated in the following way:--Seventy-two strokes is a good score for almost any course. The man who gets down in two every time is not a bad putter. This allows him thirty-six strokes on the green, which is exactly one-half of his score. Now what does this statement which is made by Braid, Vardon, and Taylor amount to? It is an assertion by them that they are unable to teach half of the game of golf, and _that_ the most important half, for, as we have seen, Taylor says that it is "the most important factor of success." Now surely there is something wrong here. As a matter of fact it is the most absolute nonsense which it is possible to imagine. Putters are not born. They are made and shaped and polished to just as great an extent as any metal putter that ever was forged. Putting is the simplest and easiest thing in golf to learn and to teach, and it is positively wrong for men of the eminence in their profession which these players enjoy to append their names to statements which cannot but have a deleterious effect on the game generally, and particularly on the play of those who are affected by reading such absolutely false doctrine. There are certain fundamental principles in connection with putting which cannot be disregarded. It is quite wrong to say that the first thing to consider is some particular idiosyncrasy which a man may have picked up by chance. The idea of Nature having troubled herself to allot any particular man or men, or, for the matter of that, women or children, any particular styles for putting is too ridiculous to require any comment. Needless to say, very many people have peculiarities which they exhibit in putting, as well as in other matters, but in many cases it is the duty of the capable instructor not to attempt to add the scientific principles of putting to a totally wrong and ugly foundation. The first duty of one who knows the game and how to teach it is to implant in the mind of his pupil the correct mechanical methods of obtaining the result desired. If, after he has done this, it be found that his natural bent or idiosyncrasy fits in with the proper mechanical production of the stroke, there is no harm in allowing him to retain his natural style; but if, for the sake of argument, it should be found that his natural method is unsuitable for the true production of the stroke, there is only one thing to do, which is to cut out his natural method, and make him put on the lines most generally adopted. Nor is this difficult to do, for it stands to reason that anyone who is a beginner at golf has not already cultivated a style of his own. The statements of these three great golfers are absolutely without foundation--in fact, they are indeed so far from the truth that I have no hesitation whatever in saying that in at least ninety per cent of the cases which come before a professional for tuition, if the subject is properly dealt with by an intelligent teacher, putting is, without any shadow of doubt, the easiest portion of golf to teach and to learn. In the face of the mischievous statements which have been so widely circulated in connection with the difficulty of learning the art of putting, one cannot possibly be too emphatic in stating the truth. In doing this, let it be understood that I am not stating any theory or publishing any idea which I am not prepared fully to demonstrate by practical teaching. It is a curious thing, but one to which I do not wholly object, that those who read my books seem to consider that they have a personal claim on my services as well, and it is no uncommon thing for me to receive visits from men who are in trouble about their putting, their drive, or their approach, and I have not, as a rule, any very great trouble in locating the seat of the difficulty. The pernicious influence of such teaching as that which I have just quoted repeatedly comes before me. I know men who seem to consider that the chief art of putting in golf is bound up in another art, namely, the art of the contortionist, whereas, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Putting, as I shall show later on, is an extremely simple operation. In fact its simplicity is so pronounced that little children, almost without instruction, do it remarkably well, because they do it naturally. It is only when people come to the game possibly rather late in life, and perhaps with habits acquired from other games, and in addition to this are told that they must evolve their own particular style, that we find the difficulty, for the style which is evolved is, in the vast majority of cases, no style at all, and the stroke is played unnaturally. That is what I have to say with regard to the "difficulty" of putting. I shall, later on, deal with the principles involved in putting. It will, in the meantime, be sufficient for me to consider and criticise these statements generally. If this were my own uncorroborated opinion, it is possible that the definite statements of three men like Braid, Taylor, and Vardon might outweigh what I have said, although I do not believe that even in that case they would; for what I have quoted is such obvious nonsense that it would indeed be to me a mystery if any golfer possessed of ordinary common sense could accept any view of the matter other than that which I put forward. However, when dealing with names like these, it is worth while to reinforce oneself. Let us see what James Braid has to say about the matter in _Advanced Golf_. At page 144, chapter x., dealing with "Putting Strokes," Braid says: "Thus practically any man has it in his power to become a reasonably good putter, and to effect a considerable improvement in his game as the result." Here is the message of hope to the putter. It will be remembered that Taylor states that the good putter may be said to be born, not made, and that Braid practically said the same thing. This, of course, is nonsense, and if any refutation were necessary, James Braid himself is the refutation. The first time I saw Braid putting, he was trying a Vaile putter for me at Walton-on-Heath. He came down on the ball before he had come to the bottom of his swing, and finished on the green quite two inches in front of the spot where the ball had been. Before I had reflected in the slightest degree, I came out quite naturally with the question, "Do you always put like that?" "Yes," said Braid in his slow, quiet way, "and it is the best way." By this time I had remembered who Braid was, and I did not pursue the subject any further, but I thought a good deal. I thought that Braid would, in due course, find out that it was not the best way, and I fully understood why he was such a bad putter. Since then Braid has found out that his method was wrong. He has altered it, and now plays his puts in the only proper way, which I shall refer to later on. As everybody knows, Braid is now a very fine putter--_but he was not born so_. If ever there was an illustration of a fine putter made out of a bad putter, James Braid is the outstanding example, and James Braid is the answer to Taylor's question as to whether a professional can improve his putting or not. Any professional whose putting is bad can improve it by using his brains, because when a professional puts badly it is rarely a question of his hands, his eye, or his wrist being wrong. The seat of the deficiency is much deeper than that. Let us now see what James Braid has to say about putting. At page 146 of _Advanced Golf_ he practically eats his own words. This is what he says: Of course, they say that good putters are born and not made, and it is certainly true that some of the finest putters we know seem to come by their wonderful skill as a gift, and nowadays constantly putt with an ease and a confidence that suggest some kind of inspiration. But it is also the fact that a man who was not a born putter, and whose putting all through his golfing youth was of the most moderate quality, may by study and practice make himself a putter who need fear nobody on any putting green. I may suggest that I have proved this in my own case. Until comparatively recently there is no doubt that I was really a poor putter. Long after I was a scratch player I lost more matches through bad putting than anything else. I realised that putting was the thing that stood in the way of further improvement, and I did my best to improve it, so that to-day my critics are kind enough to say that there is not very much wanting in my play on the putting green, while I know that it was an important factor in gaining for me my recent championship. So I may be allowed the privilege of indicating the path along which improvement in this department of the game may best be effected; and what I have to say at the beginning is, that putting is essentially a thing for the closest mathematical and other reckoning. It is a game of calculations pure and simple, a matter for the most careful analysis and thought. Now here at least we have common sense with regard to putting. Braid holds himself out as an example of the bad putter turned into the good putter. He does not, it is true, tell us why he was a bad putter and how he changed his bad methods to his present excellent method, but I have already given the key to that. I shall, however, deal with it more fully when I come to the question of the practice of putting. Braid says on page 147 of _Advanced Golf_, still speaking of putting, that "the mechanical part is comparatively simple." He continues: "Putts most generally go wrong because the strength or the line, or both, were misjudged, and they were so misjudged because the different factors were not valued properly, and because one or two of them were very likely overlooked altogether." I think very few golfers will be inclined to dispute the opening statement that "Putts most generally go wrong because the strength or the line, or both, were misjudged." I may say that I never heard of a put which went wrong for any other reason. If the strength and the line are both right, one always has an excellent chance of ending in the tin! Braid tells us again on page 148 ... that what I call the mechanical part of putting--the hitting of the ball--is simple and sure in comparison with the other difficulties that are presented when a long putt has to be made; yet it is hardly necessary to say to any experienced golfer that there are absolutely thousands of players who fail in their putting, not because of any lack of powers of calculation or a good eye, steady hand, and delicacy of touch, but simply because they have fallen into a careless way of performing this mechanical part, and of almost feeling that any way of hitting the ball will do so long as it is hit in the right direction and the proper degree of strength is applied. Again Braid says on page 149: Absolutely everything depends on hitting the ball truly, and the man who always does so has mastered one of the greatest difficulties of the art of putting. A long putt can never be run down except by a fluke when the ball has not been hit truly, however exactly all the calculations of line and strength have been made. Now the point which I am making, and I hope making in such a manner that no one will ever dare even to attempt to refute it, is the fact that the mechanical operation of putting is one of extreme simplicity, entirely devoid of mystery, and capable of acquirement by persons even of a very low order of intelligence. I want to make it plain beyond the possibility of doubt that putting is the foundation of golf and that it can be very easily learned, provided always that the instructor has a proper idea of the mechanics of the put. Generally speaking, when one uses the word "mechanics" a golfer is afraid that he is about to receive some abstruse lecture illustrated by diagrams and mathematical formulæ, but it is not so. It is essential to a thorough knowledge and enjoyment of the game of golf that the golfer should understand the mechanics of putting. James Braid says that it is a matter of mathematics and calculation, and he is not far wrong; but the mechanics of the put are of such extreme simplicity that no golfer or would-be golfer need be discouraged because one refers to the elementary science which is involved in the making of the perfect put. Rather let him be thankful that he has James Braid's corroboration of the fact, which I have for many years past tried to impress upon golfers, that the main thing to strive at in connection with improving their game is a proper understanding of the mechanical principles involved in producing the strokes. Until the ordinary golfer has this he will not progress so rapidly as he may desire. I think that we may now consider that it _is_ possible to teach people how to put; so, having disposed of this fable, let us consider the most important features of putting. I do not propose here to illustrate the manner in which the stroke is to be played. I have done that fully in _Modern Golf_ and in other places. I am here concerning myself mainly with the fundamental principles. When these are properly grasped, and these I may say are practically all arm-chair golf, any person of ordinary intelligence should be able to go on to a putting green, and by carrying them out become quite a good putter. Let us first consider the manner of propulsion of the ball. Provided, for the sake of argument, that the putting-green were an enlarged billiard table with a hole in the middle of it, and one were given a penny to put into that hole from the edge of the table, how would one endeavour to do it? There can be but little doubt one would try to _roll_ the coin into the hole. Now that is the way one must try to put. The ball must be rolled up to the hole. At first sight this seems an entirely superfluous direction. The reader may say: "In what other way may puts be sent into the hole than by rolling?" Practically, there is no other way. It was the idea that there was another and a better way of holing puts than by rolling them into the hole which made James Braid in the old days such a bad putter, for in those days James Braid putted with what is commonly called "drag." It is no uncommon thing to hear men who play a very fine game of golf advise players to "slide" their long puts up. Put in another way this simply means--advice to play a long put with what is known as "drag." [Illustration: PLATE III. HARRY VARDON At the top of his swing, showing his weight mainly on the left leg. This characteristic is very marked in Vardon's play.] It is well known that at billiards one can hit very hard and direct one's ball very well by playing with a large amount of drag, and golfers have carried this notion on to the putting-green, but, it must be admitted, in a very thoughtless manner. In billiards the ball is very heavy in proportion to its size. It moves on a perfectly level and practically smooth surface, the tip of the cue is soft and covered with chalk, which gives a splendid grip on the ball, and the blow is delivered very far below the centre of the ball's mass, and is concentrated on a particular point. In golf it is impracticable in putting to get very much below the centre of the ball. It can be done, of course, with a club which is sufficiently lofted, but the moment this is done there is a tendency to make the ball leave the green, which is not calculated to make for accuracy. Moreover, be it remembered that the contact here is between two substances which are not well calculated to enter into communion, namely, the comparatively hard and shiny surface of a golf ball, and the hard and frequently unmarked face of a putter. Moreover, the golf ball is frequently marked with excrescences called brambles or pimples. It is obvious that in many cases the first impact will be on one of these pimples, and also in many cases certainly not in a line dead down the centre of that bramble and in a line coinciding with the intended line of run of the ball. When the impact takes place in this manner it is obvious that, according to the simplest laws of mechanics, the put must be started wrongly. It is also obvious that if there is this tendency to go crookedly off the face of the club the ball will have more opportunity of getting out of the track, which it makes for itself in the turf, if it is lifted in any degree from the turf by a lofted club. It is apparent that a golf ball on a putting green sinks into the turf. It is equally apparent that it will, on its way to the hole, make for itself a track or furrow of approximately the same depth as the depression in which it was resting when stationary. That furrow, to a very great extent, holds the ball to its course and minimises very much the faulty marking of a great many of the golf balls of to-day, so that it will be seen that the object of the player should be not in any way whatever to lift his ball from the green in the put, which is the invariable and inevitable tendency of attempting to put with drag by means of a lofted club. It is an extremely common error to suppose that a put played with drag hugs the green more than one played in the ordinary way, or with top. As a matter of incontrovertible fact, no put hugs the green more than a topped put. It would be easy enough to demonstrate this were it necessary to do so, but it is a matter which comes in more in the dynamics of golf, and possibly I shall have the space to treat of it further there. We may, for our immediate purpose, content ourselves with the fact that James Braid has abandoned putting with drag, and now rolls his ball up to the hole with, if anything, a little top, although, be it clearly understood, there is no apparent intention on his part to obtain this top, nor does he in _Advanced Golf_ advocate that any attempt should be made to obtain top; but there can be no doubt whatever that the manner in which he plays his put tends to impart a certain amount of top to the ball, and this, of course, causes it to run very freely. Now with regard to putting drag on a long put, it should be obvious to any one that, considering the roughness of the green, the extreme roughness of the ball and its comparatively light weight in proportion to its size, it would be impossible to make that ball retain any considerable measure of back-spin over any appreciable distance of the green. The idea is so repugnant to common sense and practical golf that it has always been a matter of astonishment to me to think that it could have prevailed so much as it has. However, there can be no doubt that putting under this utterly wrong impression has done a very great amount of harm to the game of players who might otherwise have been many strokes better. Let our golfer understand that there is one way, and one way only, in practical golf to put the ball, and that is to roll it up to the hole. There is generally an exception to prove the rule, and if I can find an exception to this rule, it must be when one is trying to bolt short puts. Practically every one has experienced the difficulty of holing short puts, especially when the green is extremely keen. It is here that the delicacy of the stroke allows the ball and the inequalities thereof and any obstructions on the turf to exercise their fullest power to deflect the ball from the line to the hole. James Braid, in these circumstances, advises bolting one's puts. Needless to say, he explains that one should put dead for the middle of the hole, and by bolting, of course, is meant that one should put firmly so as to give the ball sufficient strength of run to overcome its inequalities or those of the turf. This, unquestionably, is good advice; but if one puts at the hole in this manner and does not get it cleanly enough to sink into the tin at once, the ball with top will run round the edge of the tin and remain on the green. This is the only case in golf that I can call to mind where there is any use in putting drag on a put, and the reason for this is that the distance from the ball to the hole and the nature of the green is such that the ball is able to retain a very considerable portion of its backward spin, and upon contact with the rim of the hole, instead of having a forward run on it which enables it to hold up and so get away from the hole, the back-spin gets a grip on the edge of the hole and the ball falls in. So far as I can remember, this is absolutely the only case in which drag of any sort may be considered useful in a put. When I say drag of any sort I am not, of course, referring to cutting round a put, or negotiating a stymie with back-spin, for neither of these strokes comes within the scope of my remark. Having arrived at a decision as to the best method of sending the ball on its journey to the hole, we have now to consider a point of supreme importance in golf, and one which is not sufficiently insisted upon by instructors. This is, that at the moment of impact the face of the putter shall form a true right angle with the line of run to the hole. That is the fundamental point in connection with putting; but it is of almost equal importance that the right angle shall be preserved for as long a time as possible in the swing back, and also in the follow-through--in other words, the head of the putter should be in the line of run to the hole as long as possible both before and after the stroke. With this extremely simple rule, and it will be apparent that this can be just as well learned in an arm-chair as anywhere else, almost anyone could put well. There is another point of outstanding importance. I have said that the head of the putter should form a right angle to the line of run to the hole. I shall be more emphatic still. Let us consider the line of run to the hole as the upright portion of a very long letter T laid on the ground. The top of the letter T will then be formed by the front edge of the sole of the putter, so that it will be seen that not only does the putter face form a dead right angle to the line of run to the hole, but that the line of run to the hole hits the putter face dead in the centre. For all ordinary putting, that is the one and only way to proceed. One reads in various books about putting off the heel, putting off the toe, and putting with drag. This is, comparatively speaking, all imbecility and theory. There is no way to put in golf comparable with the put that goes off the centre of the club's face. If we may treat the face of the putter as a rectangle, bisect it by a vertical line and also by a horizontal line, the point where these two lines cross each other will be the portion of the putter which should come into contact with the ball. These are extremely elementary matters; but it is impossible, although they are so elementary, to exaggerate their importance, and it is amazing, considering their simplicity, how much neglected they are in all books of instruction, and, generally speaking, by all instructors. For instance, James Braid, at page 149, tells us: Hitting the ball truly is simply a question of bringing the putter on to it when making the stroke to exactly the same point as when the final address was made, and of swinging the putter through from the back swing to the finish in a straight line. This statement would be correct if the address had been made correctly in the first instance, but unless one has it in one's mind to make one's putter the top of the T--that is, the completion of the right angle to the line of run to the hole--the chances are that one's original address was wrong. Then it will be clearly seen that it is not "simply a question of bringing the putter on to it when making the stroke to exactly the same point as when the final address was made." The important point is to see that the final address is correctly made; but in no book which I have read--and I have read practically every book on golf which deserves to be read--do I find any simple and explicit directions for the mechanical portion of the put, which, as James Braid truly observes, is extremely simple. Now for the idea of the stroke: The player will, of course, have learned his grip from some of the books on golf, or from a professional. He will in all probability have adopted the overlapping grip, for that grip tends, more than any other, to bring both wrists into action together; and there can, I think, be little doubt that for most people it is the better grip. Having obtained a good general idea of the simple mechanical operations involved in the contact of the club with the ball, the player now has to consider how that club moves where it is, if we may so express it, bound to him. Well, if he has even a rudimentary idea of mechanics, he will know that if he wishes to swing that club so that it may hit the ball in an exactly similar manner every time, he should suspend it on a single bearing, so that it would swing in a similar manner to the pendulum of a clock. The perfect put, from a mechanical point of view, is made by a motion which is equivalent to the swinging of a pendulum. If, instead of allowing the weight of the pendulum to be, as it generally is, in the plane of the swing, it were turned round so that the flat side faced towards the sides of the clock, we should have a rough mechanical presentment of the golf club in the act of making a put. This is, of course, a counsel of absolute perfection. It is an impossibility to the golfer, both on account of his physical and physiological imperfections, and on account of the fact that the golfer practically never puts with an upright putter. We are frequently told that a put is the only true wrist stroke in golf. As a matter of fact there is no true wrist stroke in golf, for it is evident that if one played the put as a true wrist stroke with a club whose lie is at a considerable angle to the horizontal, the centre of the circle formed by the club head will be away from the ball to such an extent that the instant the club head leaves the ball it must leave the line of run to the hole, and equally as certainly will it leave the line of run to the hole immediately after it has struck the ball. Now this is not what we require, so it has come to pass that the put at golf is to a very great extent a compromise. It must, above everything, be a deliberate stroke with a clean follow-through. There must be no suggestion of reducing the put to a muscular effort. The idea of the pendulum must be preserved as much as possible, and the strength of the put regulated to a very great extent by the length of one's backward swing. It is of the first importance that the body should be kept still during the process of putting, and it stands to reason that the wrists must also be kept as much as possible in the same place. If one finds that one has a marked tendency to sway or to move the body about, standing with one's feet close together will frequently correct this. I have referred to the fact that the put is not a wrist stroke. As a matter of fact, the wrists must in all good putting "go out after the ball." By this is meant that at the moment of impact the wrists must in the follow-through travel in a line parallel with the line of run to the hole, and they must finish so that the club head is able, at the finish, to stay over the line of run to the hole. To do this, it is obvious that the wrists, after impact, must move forward. No true follow-through in the put can be obtained from stationary wrists. This may sound a little complicated. As a matter of fact it is nothing of the sort, and the action is very simple, very natural, and when properly played the ball goes very sweetly off the club and with splendid direction. There is one good general rule for regulating the distance which one should stand from the ball in putting. When one addresses one's ball, one should be in such a position that the ball is right underneath one's eyes. To put it so that there can be no possible mistake as to what I mean, I may say that in most cases the eyes, the ball, and the hole should form a triangle in a plane at a right angle to the horizon. Now I know how hard it is for some people to follow a remark which refers to planes and right angles and horizons, so as this is a matter of extreme importance, and a matter where many beginners go absolutely wrong, I shall make it so plain that there is no possibility of misunderstanding what I mean. Let us imagine a large, irregularly shaped triangle with the apex at the hole. We shall suppose, for the sake of argument, that this triangle is composed of cardboard, that it is a right-angled triangle, and that its base is 4' 6" wide. This triangle, then, is laid on the green so that its base is vertical, and the corner which is remote from the hole represents the ball, the upper corner of the base being, of course, the player's eyes. I believe this to be a matter of very great importance, for here it will be seen that we have the eyes, the ball, and the hole all in the same plane. Some people like putting with very upright putters. For the purpose of experiment I had a perfectly upright putter made, but upright putters are, I think, open to this objection--one's body hangs too far over them, so that at the moment of striking the ball one is looking inwards towards the ball, for one's head projects beyond the line of run to the hole for a considerable distance. It will thus be seen that one is looking down one line to the hole, and putting over another. Needless to say, this cannot be good for direction. The eye, the ball, and the hole should undoubtedly be in the same plane, and that plane at right angles to the horizon. As regards the position of the ball in relation to the feet there is some slight difference of opinion, but generally it may be said that about midway between the feet is the best position. If anything, the ball should perhaps be a little nearer to the left foot than to the right, but this is a matter upon which we cannot lay down any hard and fast rule. The main point for the player to consider will be how he can best secure the mechanical results which I have stated as being the fundamental requisites of good putting. The matter of an inch or two in his stance, nearer the hole or farther from it, is not of very great importance compared with this. Some players have an idea that they can secure a better run on their ball when putting by turning over their wrists at the moment of impact. This is one of the most dangerous fallacies which it is possible to conceive. The idea is absolutely and fundamentally erroneous. If one desires to put any run on one's ball more than is obtained by the method of striking it which I have stated, it is always open to one to play the put a little after the club has reached the lowest point in its swing,--that is to say, as the putter is ascending, but this is practically unnecessary. If one requires a little more run on the ball it is best obtained by making the stroke a little stronger. Any attempt whatever to do anything by altering the angle of the face of the club during impact is utterly beyond the realm of practical golf. There are many refinements in the art of putting which go somewhat beyond the fundamental principles laid down in this chapter, in that they call for cut of a particular kind; but for about ninety-five per cent of the puts which one has to play, practically nothing more need be known by the golfer than is here set out. I am not here going to describe the method in which one cuts round a stymie, for I have done that very fully elsewhere; and, moreover, this does not so completely come within the scope of this work, for it enters much more into the region of practical stroke play than do the matters which I have treated of and which I intend to treat of in this book. There is, however, one stroke which is played on the putting-green, yet is not truly, of course, a put. It is a stroke which I myself introduced into the game several years ago. This is the stroke which is now known as the Vaile Stymie Stroke. It is unique among golf strokes in that it is not an arc. Every known golf stroke before I introduced this stroke into the game was an arc of a more or less irregular shape, but it was an arc. The essence of my stroke is that it is produced in practically a straight line. For all ordinary stymies it is without doubt the most delicate and accurate stroke which can possibly be played, and the manner of playing it, after a golfer has once conquered the force of habit which tends to make him raise his club from the earth immediately he leaves his ball, is very simple. The mashie is drawn back from the ball in a perfectly straight line, and with the sole of it practically brushing, or no more than just clearing the green. It is then moved sharply forward, but instead of coming up with the ball after it has hit it, it passes clean forward down the intended line of flight in a perfectly horizontal line, provided always, of course, that the green is level, so that it finishes some inches down the line to the hole and practically touching the green. No attempt must be made to strike the ball or to take turf. The idea in one's mind should be to divide the ball from the green with the front edge of the sole. Many mashies are not suitable for this shot, because the sole is not cut away enough on the back edge, as indeed the sole of every mashie should be; so it will frequently be found that the best club for negotiating stymies is the niblick, for its sole being cut away so much enables the front edge of the club to get well in underneath the ball. This is a matter of the very greatest importance in playing stymies, for the simple reason that it enables the player to put so much more of his force into elevation than is possible when the front edge of his mashie is cocked up, as it frequently is, by the breadth of the sole of the mashie; for in many cases when one is trying to play a stymie the rear edge of the sole of the club makes contact with the green first and tilts up the front edge, so that it is at least a quarter of an inch higher than it should be, and instead of striking the ball almost at the point where it is resting on the turf, it gets it fully a quarter of an inch to half an inch higher up. The consequence of this is that too much of the force of the blow goes into propulsion instead of elevation. This means that if the stymie is close to the hole and there is only a very short run after the ball has got over the obstacle, the player invariably finds that with his imperfectly constructed mashie he cannot put enough stop on the ball, nor play the shot delicately enough to give it a chance to get into the hole, because the run is in many cases far too strong. Every golfer who desires to play a stymie well should see to it that he has a mashie with a very fine front edge, and that the sole is not flat in any part, but begins to curve away immediately it leaves the front edge. With the mashie constructed on these lines all ordinary stymies absolutely lose their terror if the shot is played as described. The delicacy and accuracy of this stroke are remarkable. The direction is an astonishing illustration of the importance of the rule for putting which I have laid down, of keeping the front edge of the putter at a right angle to the line of run to the hole, both before and after impact. As the whole essence of playing this stymie stroke correctly consists of the straight movement of the face of the club sharply down the intended line of flight and run to the hole, the wrists have naturally to follow the head of the club in a line parallel with that made by the head of the club, and so accurate is the result that in any ordinary stymie if a wire were stuck on the top of the intervening ball, I would guarantee to hit the wire every time. This stroke was a revelation to me of the importance of the principles which I am now enunciating, although, of course, I was well aware of their soundness before I discovered this stroke. The usefulness of this stroke is not confined merely to playing stymies, but it makes a magnificent and accurate chip shot; or if one has a bad portion of green to put over one can, with this stroke, rely upon going as straight through the air as one can in the ordinary course over the green. Lest anyone should think that this is merely a theoretical stroke, let me tell how I came to introduce it into the game of golf. I had used the stroke myself for some time. One afternoon I was in the shop of George Duncan, the famous young Hanger Hill professional. It was raining heavily, and to pass the time I was knocking a ball about on the mat. Presently I set up a stymie and said to Duncan: "Show me how you play your stymie, George." "Oh, just in the usual way," said Duncan. "Well, show me," I said. Duncan took his mashie and played the stymie shot perfectly, "just in the usual way." "There is a much better way of playing a stymie than that," I said, and I set up the shot and showed Duncan how I played it by my method. Very few people can give George Duncan any points with the mashie. He got hold of the stroke at once, and he would hardly wait for the rain to stop before he went out on to the green to try it there. He plays the shot perfectly now, and maintains, as indeed I show in _Modern Golf_, that there is no stymie stroke to compare with it, and of that I have myself absolutely no doubt. In fact, so accurate is the stroke that if I found myself badly off my game with my putter, I should take my mashie and play this stroke, for as regards the fundamental principle of putting it is a wealth of instruction in itself. Cutting round a stymie is nearly always included in the chapter on putting, but it is practically always a mashie stroke, and in the majority of cases is a very short pitch with a large amount of cut. On account of the loft of the mashie the club gets well in underneath the ball, and as the head of the club at the moment of impact is travelling in a line which runs at a fairly sharp angle across the intended line of flight and run of the ball it imparts a strong _side roll_ to the ball. The cut on a golf ball in such a stroke as I am now describing resembles almost exactly the off-break spin in cricket. This means that the ball has a strong side-spin, so that the moment it hits the earth it endeavours to roll sideways, but the force of propulsion fights this tendency, and the resulting compromise is a curve which enables the ball to get round the intervening obstacle, and, if the stroke is well executed, to find the hole. Almost all golf books instruct the player wrongly about this stroke. He is told to draw his hands in towards him at the moment of impact, and in some cases, even where the author calls his book _Practical Golf_, he is told to draw his hands in after impact. Both of these instructions are utterly wrong. There must be no conscious drawing in of the hands at the moment when one is trying to cut a put. All the cut must be done by the natural swing of the club across the intended line of run of the ball: in other words, the cut is a continuous process from the time that the club begins its swing until the time that it ends it. The fact that the ball is in the way of the face of the club as it crosses the intended line of run to the hole may be said to be merely an incident in the passage of the club head. Any attempt whatever to interfere with the natural swing of the club or to juggle with the ball during impact, or, more futile still, after impact, must result in irretrievably ruining the stroke. The stymie shot which I have described will also be found of use a little farther from the green, and by means of it an excellent run-up shot, with most accurate direction, can be played. There is another way of negotiating a stymie which I have never seen described. It is pulling round a stymie. It will be obvious to any one acquainted with the game that cutting round a stymie is merely another form of slice; although of course the run of the ball is obtained in a different manner from the curve of the slice in the air, yet the method of production of the stroke is practically similar. So is it with pulling a put. There is no doubt that this can be done; but I think there is also no doubt that it is the most difficult method of negotiating a stymie which there is. The stroke is played, to all intents and purposes, as is the pulled drive. Some people imagine that it may be obtained by turning over the wrist at the moment of impact. This is quite an error, and is absolutely destructive of accuracy. As, in the cut put, the head of the club is travelling from outside the line across it, towards the player's side of the line at the moment of impact, so, in the pull, the head of the club must be travelling from the player's side of the line across and away to the far side of the line at the moment of impact. That is the secret of the pull either in the drive or the put. I cannot refrain from quoting Vardon again. He says on page 148: There should be no sharp hit and no jerk in the swing, which should have the even gentle motion of a pendulum. In the backward swing, the length of which, as in all other strokes in golf, is regulated by the distance it is desired to make the ball travel, the head of the putter should be kept exactly in the line of the putt. Accuracy will be impossible if it is brought round at all. There should be a short follow-through after impact, varying, of course, according to the length of the putt. In the case of a long one, the club will go through much further, and then the arms would naturally be more extended. This is wisdom as regards the put. There can be no doubt whatever about this being practical golf of the highest order, but Vardon rather spoils it by the following sentence in which he says, "In the follow-through the putter should be kept well down, the bottom edge scraping the edge of the grass for some inches." Now, if that means anything at all, it means that although Vardon's conception of the put and its execution in many ways is excellent, yet he has been making for years the error which made James Braid a bad putter--in other words, he has been putting with drag. It is well known that for a very long time Vardon's weakness was his putting; and I firmly believe that the secret of his bad putting was this low follow-through with his put. I think that Vardon's follow-through in his put is now not so low as it was, and the consequence is that his putting has improved. Vardon continues: It is easy to understand how much more this course of procedure will tend towards the accuracy and delicacy of the stroke than the reverse method, in which the blade of the putter would be cocked up as soon as the ball had left it. What is more natural, then, than that the blade of the putter should be cocked up immediately after the ball has left it? That is exactly what should happen in the perfectly played put. Vardon has already told us that the put is to be played with the "even gentle motion of a pendulum." Let us suppose for a moment that it was the weight of the pendulum turned side-wise which had struck the golf ball. It stands to reason that immediately the weight, which in this case answers to the face of the golf club, has struck the ball and sent it on its way to the hole, the face begins to "be cocked up." Vardon here makes a totally erroneous claim. He claims greater delicacy and accuracy for the put played with drag as against that played as Braid now plays his puts. There can be no shadow of doubt that the put played with drag, or with a low follow-through "scraping the top of the grass for some inches," partakes much more of the nature of a tap than does the put which is played with top or a perfectly horizontal blow. If Vardon has not completely realised this, as I think he has, he will, ere long, do so, as James Braid already has done. I need not here deal with complicated puts; that is to say, puts of such a nature that one has to traverse one, two, or more slopes on the way to the hole. These puts do not, in themselves, contain any of the fundamental principles of golf. Each one stands entirely by itself, and these are absolutely matters in which nothing but practice on the green can be of any use. It will be obvious to any schoolboy that if he has to run across five little hills on his way to the hole, and that three of these slant one way and two the other; and if we say for the sake of example that they are all practically equal in their width and slope, that it will be a case of four of them cancelling out on the good old plus and minus system of our schoolboy days, and we shall then be left practically to calculate how much we will have to allow for putting across the incline of one slope. This is not a case which I should think of giving myself. I merely give it because I came across such an illustration given in a book which is supposed to cater for those who desire the higher knowledge of golf, but as a matter of practical golf these situations but seldom occur. Allowing for the drop in a green when one is putting across the slope, requires a lot of practice, and is most absolutely and emphatically not a thing that can be learned in an arm-chair, or in any golf school. It must be learned on the green itself. Although James Braid has remodelled his putting with such success, he still, to a certain extent, clings to his own idea of putting with drag. On page 154 of _Advanced Golf_ he says: For general use I am a strong believer in a putter having just a little loft. I know that some players like one with a perfectly straight face which does not impart the slightest drag to the ball, their theory being that such putters are capable of more delicate work than others, and that the ball answers more readily to the most delicate tap from them. There may be considerable truth in this, though, obviously, great skill and confidence on the part of the player are taken for granted. And again he says: The strength of long putts can generally be more accurately regulated with a lofted putter than with a straight-faced one. He continues: This is the kind of putter that I might recommend for what might be called a medium or average green, if there can be said to be such a thing; but I wish to point out that the putter that is the best suited to such a green is not so well suited to either a very fast green or a very slow one, and that in each of the latter cases the club best adapted to the circumstances is one with considerably more loft on it. On page 56 he says: Now in both these cases, when the greens are very slow and when they are extremely fast, the best putter for them is one with very considerable loft on the face, and it will often be found that there is nothing better than a fairly straight-faced iron, or an ordinary cleek, if it is big enough in the face to suit the player. With this club and its great dragging power, the effect seems to be practically to reduce the distance between the ball and the hole. Such is the drag that the ball is simply pushed over a considerable part of the way, and it is only when it is quite near to the hole that it begins, as it were, to run in the usual way. The fact is that for the first part of the journey the ball does not revolve regularly upon its axis, as it does when approaching the hole, but simply skates over the turf, and it will be found that with a little practice the point at which it will stop skating can be determined with very considerable exactness. When it does so stop there is still so much drag on it that it is very quickly brought to a standstill. Thus in both cases, of the very fast and the very slow green, the ball can be played without fear right up to the hole when the putter is so well lofted as I have recommended. Here we are told that the ball "simply skates over the turf." As I have shown before, this is one of the greatest fallacies in golf. It is impossible to obtain any results by drag in a long put, which are not better obtained by simply rolling the ball up. Braid says that "with a little practice the point at which it will stop skating can be determined with very considerable exactness," and he goes on to say that "when it does so stop there is still so much drag on it that it is very quickly brought to a standstill." This is obviously nonsense. It is the drag on the ball which makes it do any skating which may take place. It is obvious that when the skating has ceased the drag has stopped exerting its influence. How, then, is it going to stop the ball from rolling in a natural manner? We see here the mistake of importing into golf the well-known phenomena of billiards, but one would have thought that the experience of the billiard-table would have been sufficient to show the fallacy of this statement. The billiard player uses drag to enable him to play his ball fast and accurately, and there is no doubt that by means of this drag he does obtain very considerable accuracy, but directly the ball has ceased to "skate" he knows that that is the time when the drag has entirely departed from it, and that the momentum has conquered the friction caused by the back-spin; in other words, the drag having accomplished its work has gone out of business, and all the run that is on the ball is derived from the remains of the momentum imparted to it. I cannot say too emphatically that in my opinion this idea of putting with drag, or with any club having a loft more than that which barely enables one to see the face of it when it is properly soled, is dangerous and calculated to produce bad putting on the part of anyone who attempts it, even as it did in the case of James Braid himself. There is one remark which James Braid makes about stymies which I should like to refer to here. Braid says: "Given complete confidence, the successful negotiation of a stymie is a much less difficult matter than it is imagined to be, though in the nature of things it can never be very easy." I must say that I differ entirely from Braid in this respect. I maintain that in the nature of things most ordinary stymies, when played in the manner which I advocate, are very easy. The difficulty of the stymie, provided one's club is properly built--and later on I shall refer to the construction of the mashie--is much exaggerated. Eight of ten stymies should present no more difficulty than an ordinary put. The only time a stymie should present a difficulty to the golfer is when the intervening ball is much nearer to the hole than to the ball which is stymied, so that the force required to get over the obstacle is so much that the player, after landing on the far side of the stymie, has too much power in his ball to give it a chance to settle in the hole, but even such a stymie as this may, if the ground be suitable, be overcome by lofting one's ball so as to drop on the hither side of the stymie, bound over it on its first bound, and continue on its way to the hole. This, probably, is one of the most difficult ways of negotiating a stymie; but as showing that it is eminently a matter of practical golf, I may say that I was illustrating the shot one day to a man who had practically just started golf. I showed him how to obtain the shot, and he did it at his first attempt. I advised him not to try again that day. Braid continues: I need not say that the pitching method is only practicable--and then it is generally the only shot that is practicable--when both balls are near the hole, and are so situated in relation to each other and to the hole that the ball can reach the latter as the result of such a stroke as enabled it to clear the opponent's ball. Braid is, I think, referring to a clean pitch into the hole, although the photograph leaves this open to doubt. The pitching method is practicable when one is stymied in almost any position on the green, provided always, as I have said, that one has any chance whatever of pulling up in time to get into the hole after having got over the stymie. Let me give an example:--Supposing my ball were fifteen yards from the hole, that the green was absolutely level, and that I had a stymie ten inches or ten feet in front of me. I should not hesitate for a moment to use the shot which I have described as the best stymie stroke in the game. The ball in front of me, so far from being an obstruction, or in any way whatever putting me off, would, if anything, serve as a good line to the hole. I am aware that to many golfers who do not know this stroke, and comparatively few do, this will sound like exaggeration. I am prepared at any time to demonstrate the practical nature of what I am writing to any one of my readers who cannot obtain the results which I get with this stroke. At the time that I introduced this stroke there was much controversy about it, and it was claimed that it was not a new stroke, but that it was exactly the same as the stroke played by all golfers when stymied. This, however, is quite an error. Speaking of the stymie shot, James Braid says ... it is just an ordinary chip up, with a clean and quick rise, the fact being remembered that the green must not be damaged. To spare the latter the swing back should be low down and near to the surface, which will check the tendency to dig. The thing that will ensure the success of the shot, so far as the quick and clean rise is concerned--and often enough success depends entirely upon that--is the follow-through. Generally, if the club is taken through easily and cleanly, all will be well. It is obvious from this description that the stroke in Braid's mind is totally different from my stymie stroke. With the stroke as I play it, it is an absolute impossibility to "dig" into the green. One has no need to have any anxiety whatever about the green, for as the club travels parallel with the surface of the green all the time, it is obvious that no damage can ensue. If there is any deflection whatever from the straight line, it would be at the moment of impact, but even here it stands to reason that there is practically no deflection whatever; for even in a stroke played, relatively speaking, so slowly as is this shot, any alteration of the line of the stroke after it has once been decided upon, is quite improbable, but the dominant idea in the player's mind must be to insert the front edge of his mashie between the ball and the grass, and above everything to keep his follow-through as straight and as low along the surface of the green as was his swing back. It is this straight and low follow-through which gives the ball its "quick and clean rise," as Braid calls it. Curiously enough, the follow-through which Braid shows for his stymie shot, wherein the head of the club is raised from the green, will not give anything like so quick a rise or such delicacy of touch as will the stroke played in the manner which I have described, and, above everything, with the very low follow-through insisted upon by me. [Illustration: PLATE IV. HARRY VARDON At the top of his swing in the drive. This is a fine illustration of Vardon's perfect management of his weight, which is mainly on his left foot. Observe carefully the wrists, which are in the best possible position to develop power.] I may mention that George Duncan never uses any other stroke than this when playing a short stymie. Indeed, he went so far as to say, when I was having him photographed for my illustrations in _Modern Golf_, that it was useless to take any exposures of the ordinary stymie shot, for the stroke introduced and described by me had practically put it out of the game. Speaking of cutting round a stymie, James Braid says: "Whichever way I wish to make the ball curl, either round the other ball from the left-hand side, or from the right, I hit my own with the toe of the club, drawing the club towards me in the former case so as to make a slice, and holding the face of it at an angle--toe nearer the hole than the heel--in the latter, in order to produce a hook." And he adds: "You cannot do anything by hitting the ball with the heel of your putter," to which I would rejoin, nor can you do anything by hitting the ball with the toe of your putter, that you cannot do better by hitting it absolutely in the middle, which is the only proper part wherewith to hit a golf ball. In the illustrations Braid is shown cutting the put with an aluminium club. One has no more chance of cutting round a stymie with a club of this nature than one would have with a bar of soap, for the simple reason that on account of the breadth of its sole--for if it be not an aluminium club, it is at least shaped on the same lines--it is impossible to get the face of the club sufficiently underneath the ball for the loft to get to work so as to impart that side roll which is of the essence of cutting round. Braid says at page 171: "But remember that you can never get any work on the ball if the green is stiff." Now if this is so, I should like to know what use there is in attempting to put with drag? I quite agree with Braid that it is practically impossible to get any work whatever on the ball with the club he is shown using. With such a club it would be still more difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to obtain any appreciable drag, but if, as Braid says, "you can never get any work on the ball when the green is stiff," how can he advise one to attempt to put with drag on a stiff green? To my mind this is absolutely bad and misleading advice. In my chapter on the "Construction of Clubs" it will be seen that I advocate a short putter for short puts. In _Advanced Golf_ James Braid has some interesting things to say about gripping low down. He says: Many golfers grip very low down, even half-way between the leather and the head. If their putting when done this way is first class, nobody can say anything to them, but if it is not first class it may be pointed out to them that the system is absolutely bad. It may be allowed to pass for holing-out purposes; but for a putt of any length it cannot be good, for the club is not swung in the ordinary easy manner by which distance can be so accurately gauged. The ball is more or less poked along. When a man putts in this way he is putting largely by instinct, and even though he may generally putt well, his work on the greens cannot be thoroughly reliable. No putting is so good and consistently effective as is that which is done with a gentle even swing, which can be regulated to a nicety, and such putting is only possible when there is enough shaft left below the grip to swing with. I am quite in accord with what James Braid says about this method of putting, and I do not for one moment think that the short grip should be used for approach puts, but I am sure the nearer one gets to the hole the closer one should get down to the ball. Braid deals further on with the question of shortening one's putter. He says: As to the length of the shaft, many players, because they find that they always grip their putters a foot or so from the end of it, proceed in due course to have the best part of that foot cut off, or in purchasing a new putter they have the shaft cut very short. Are they quite satisfied that it is not better to have a fair amount of shaft projecting up above the place where they grip when that place is very low down? The answer to this is that in many cases the wood which projects above the grip is very much in the way of true putting. Any golfer who is foolish enough to cut anything like a foot off any club without any compensation to the head in the way of balance must be expected to pay the penalty for his ignorance, and anyone having a club constructed for him on such a principle, or, rather, want of principle, will inevitably pay for it. Braid goes on to say: Often enough no consideration is given to this point; it is not imagined that the shaft above the grip can serve any useful purpose. Yet it is constantly found that a putter cut down is not the same putter as it was before, not so good, and has not the same balance; and, again, many players must have been surprised sometimes, when doing some half-serious putting practice with a cleek, iron, or driving mashie, each club with its long shaft, to find out what wonderfully accurate work could be done in this way. The inference from all experience, having theoretical principle to back it, is that the top or spare part of the shaft acts as a kind of balance when the putter is gripped low down, and tends materially to a more delicate touch and to true hitting of the ball. A very little reflection will lead the reader to believe that this is so, and in some cases it may lead him towards a revision of his present methods. Personally, I should not think that even "a very little reflection" would be necessary to induce anyone to believe that the top part of the shaft acts "as a kind of balance" when the putter is gripped low down, but it is quite obvious that it is possible to build a putter, let us say, for the sake of example, two-thirds of the length of an ordinary putter, which is just as perfectly balanced as the long club. This is not any question of theory--it is a matter of absolutely proved and tried practice in golf. One may have a perfect putter which will be ruined by taking a few inches off the shaft. The balance of that putter is probably irrevocably destroyed, unless, perchance, the owner is lucky in adding weight to the head in some way, but dealing with a putter like this is tricky work for one who does not understand it. The main point in connection with this matter of Braid's, which I have quoted, is that he gives a kind of qualified approval to the idea of the short putter for short puts. Personally, I think it is the soundest of sound golf, and I am inclined to think that before many years we shall see the shorter clubs used in their proper place when their value is more clearly understood. Vardon has some very interesting things to say in his book, _The Complete Golfer_, on "Complicated Putts," while dealing with what he calls "one of the most difficult of all putts--that in which there is a more or less pronounced slope from one side or the other, or a mixture of the two." As he truly says, "In this case it would obviously be fatal to putt straight at the hole." He continues: "I have found that most beginners err in being afraid of allowing sufficiently for the slope"; and I have found that nine champions of ten make exactly the same error. It is as bad a fault at golf as it is at bowls to be "narrow," by which, in golf, is meant not to allow enough for the slope of the green, for it is obvious that if one is narrow one does not give the hole a chance any more than one does when one is short; so we may add to the stock maxim in putting "Never up, never in," another one, which is just as sound, "Never be narrow." Vardon goes fully into the general principles underlying these complicated puts, but as I have already indicated, this is unquestionably a matter which can only be settled by practice on the green; but he also goes into the question of the manner in which the stroke should be played, and here we have a subject which legitimately comes within the scope of this work. He continues: But there are times when a little artifice may be resorted to, particularly in the matter of applying a little cut to the ball. There is a good deal of billiards in putting, and the cut stroke on the green is essentially one which the billiard player will delight to practise, but I warn all those who are not already expert at cutting with the putter to make themselves masters of the stroke in private practice before they attempt it in a match, because it is by no means easy to acquire. The chief difficulty which the golf student will encounter in attempting it will be to put the cut on as he desires, and at the same time to play the ball with the proper strength and keep on the proper line. It is easy enough to cut the ball, but it is most difficult, at first at all events, to cut it and putt it properly at the same time. For the application of cut, turn the toe of the putter slightly outwards and away from the hole, and see that the face of the club is kept to this angle all the way through the stroke. Swing just a trifle away from the straight line outwards, and the moment you come back on to the ball draw the club sharply across it. It is evident that this movement, when properly executed, will give to the ball a rotary motion, which on a perfectly level green would tend to make it run slightly off to the right of the straight line along which it was aimed. There are one or two points in this statement which are of very great importance. Vardon says: "For the application of cut turn the toe slightly outwards and away from the hole, and see that the face of the club is kept to this angle all the way through the stroke." This is absolutely unsound golf, for Vardon is advising his reader to play the put with the toe of the putter slightly outwards and away from the hole. It stands to reason that following this advice will put the face of the club in such a position that at the moment of impact it will be impossible for it to be at a right angle to the intended line of run to the hole, and this rule is, for all purposes of practical golf, invariable. It is obvious that coming on to the ball in the manner suggested must tend to push it away to the right--that is to say, it would have a strong tendency to go away to the right from the very moment of impact, which is not what is generally wanted in a good put; also playing the put in this manner tends quite naturally to decrease the amount of cut put on it. The idea that cut mashie shots and cut puts are played in this manner has arisen from the fact that very frequently the golfer addresses the ball with the toe of his club laid back a little, but by the time he has come on to the ball again he has corrected this. In many cases, if it were not for laying the toe of the club back a little in this manner, golfers would be inclined, although as a matter of strict and accurate golf they should not be, to drag the ball across towards the left of the hole. Vardon says: "Swing just a trifle away from the straight line outwards, and the moment you come back on to the ball draw the club sharply across it." Now here again we see this outstanding error of practically every man who ever put pen to paper to write about golf, which is that in producing the cut, whether it be in a put or a sliced drive, something is done intentionally to the ball during the period in which the ball and the club are in contact. This is absolutely wrong. I have explained before that the cut put, and indeed all cut strokes at golf, are produced by the club swinging across the intended line of flight or run at the moment of impact, and the amount of cut depends entirely upon the angle and the speed at which the club head is travelling across the intended line of flight or run. It is obvious that the amount of cut must also, to a certain extent, depend on the amount of loft of the club, for the greater the loft of the club the greater assistance will the golfer who is applying the cut obtain from the weight of the ball. Vardon goes on to say: "It is evident that this movement, when properly executed, will give to the ball a rotary motion, which on a perfectly level green would tend to make it run slightly off to the right of the straight line along which it was aimed"; but as I have already shown, the unfortunate part of it is that a put so played would not go down the straight line which every golfer desires that his put shall go on; nor indeed on anything like it. Also it is a delusion that it is possible with any of the ordinary putters to obtain a cut of a sufficiently pronounced degree to remain on the ball, especially on the bramble balls, for any appreciable distance. Vardon supposes a case of a steep but even slope all the way from the ball to the hole, and he gives instructions as to how to put across this slope with cut so as to hold the ball up against the slope. He says: But we may borrow from the slope in another way than by running straight up it and straight down again. If we put cut on the ball, it will of itself be fighting against the hill the whole way, and though if the angle is at all pronounced it may not be able to contend against it without any extra borrow, much less will be required than in the case of the simple putt up the hill and down again. In the first place, I may remark that we do not generally borrow from a slope "by running straight up it and straight down again." The path of the ball is generally, almost from the time it is hit, a curve, and a gradual curve, in which one sees to it that the ball is at its farthest from the straight line to the hole somewhere about midway to the hole. But this idea of putting cut on the ball with a putter, which is sufficient to hold the ball up against the hill for any appreciable distance, is practically a delusion. I can easily understand that if Vardon plays the cut put as he himself directs it to be played, that he thinks that cut administered to a ball by an ordinary putter may have a very great effect in holding the ball up against the side of a hill for a considerable distance, but this really is not so. Putting, however, as Vardon instructs one to put for obtaining cut, would in itself punch the ball up against the slope of the hill, and I can easily believe that anybody who plays the put like this, thinking that he is obtaining cut by so doing, will be under the impression that cut is a very useful thing for holding the ball up against the slope in this manner, whereas he is in effect simply punching the ball up against the slope--in other words, he is playing a put, which if the green were perfectly level, would be yards off his line to the hole and to the right of it. Vardon goes on to say: Now it must be borne in mind that it is a purely artificial force, as it were, that keeps the ball from running down the slope, and as soon as the run on the ball is being exhausted and the spin at the same time, the tendency will be, not for the ball to run gradually down the slope--as it did in the case of the simple putt without cut--but to surrender to it completely and run almost straight down. There is a fundamental error here, for Vardon states that practically the spin on the put and the run on the ball will be exhausted at the same time, but it is an utter impossibility to calculate with any exactness whatever as to what happens in such a case. Vardon knows no more about it than any other golfer, and all that any golfer knows about this is extremely little, so that to advise anyone to attempt to hold his ball up against a slope by the application of cut with any ordinary putter, particularly a broad-soled putter, is to invite him to play his shot blindfolded. Vardon does not mention the length of the put which he considers it possible to play with this cut, but in his diagram he shows a put which would conceivably be quite a long put, let us say for the sake of argument fifteen or sixteen feet, but the theory would be just as bad if it were much less. He says: Our plan of campaign is now indicated. Instead of going a long way up the hill out of our straight line and having a very vague idea of what is going to be the end of it all, we will neutralise the end of the slope as far as possible by using the cut and aim to a point much lower down the hill--how much lower can only be determined with knowledge of the particular circumstances, and after the golfer has thoroughly practised the stroke and knows what he can do with it. And instead of settling on a point half-way along the line of the putt as the highest that the ball shall reach, this summit of the ascent will now be very much nearer the hole, quite close to it in fact. We putt up to this point with all the spin we can get on the ball, and when it reaches it, the forward motion and the rotation die away at the same time, and the ball drops away down the hill, and, as we hope, into the hole that is waiting for it close by. Vardon may well say "as we hope," for the put described by him has no more chance of being brought off on a putting-green than Vardon has of winning another open championship from an aeroplane. To speak of putting a ball in this manner, and treating it with such magic that when it gets up by the hole the forward motion and the rotation die away at the same time, is not practical golf, but absolute moonshine, for it would be an utter impossibility to persuade any golf ball which has ever been made to receive from any known form of golf club sufficient cut to make it behave in the manner described. The theory of the thing on paper is to a very great extent right, with the exception that the cut described would require to be obtained by a club with a much greater loft than any ordinary putter; but it is evident that putting with putters such as those which Braid or Vardon use, it would be an utter impossibility to get cut on the ball which would stay with the ball during a long put and exert much influence in holding the ball up against any appreciable slope, for with these putters, which have not much loft, it is evident that any spin whatever which is imparted to them by drawing the putter across the line of run at the moment of impact will be mainly about a vertical axis which is, in effect, the spin of a top. It is evident that as the ball progresses across the green there will be a very strong effort indeed on the part of the ball, following its friction on the green, to wear down this vertical motion and convert it into the ordinary roll of a naturally hit put. Even when one is putting with a highly lofted club and with a tremendous amount of drag on a perfectly flat green, the drag goes off the ball in a wonderfully short space of time, and here, of course, one is using a spin which is analogous to the drag of the billiard player, for it is pure back-spin which is fighting in the same plane the forward roll of the golf ball. Therefore it is reasonable to suppose, and indeed it is undoubted that the ball would be more likely to retain this pure back-spin for a much longer time than would the ball with the side-spin imparted by the putter, for the spin which is imparted by the putter does not directly fight the forward progress of the ball as it is spinning across the plane of the roll which the ball desires to take, whereas, as I have before pointed out, the ball played with drag is absolutely fighting the forward roll of the golf ball. It therefore would for a very short distance skid over the putting-green, but those who only theorise about these matters have a ridiculously exaggerated idea of the influence of drag on the golf ball. I have made it very plain, and I cannot emphasise the matter too strongly, that any attempt whatever in long puts to use drag or cut of any kind is to be deprecated. There is another matter which Vardon refers to that I should like to notice here. He says: One of the problems which strike most fear into the heart of the golfer is when his line from the ball to the hole runs straight down a steep slope and there is some considerable distance for the ball to travel along a fast green. The difficulty in such a case is to preserve any control over the ball after it has left the club, and to make it stop anywhere near the hole if the green is really so fast and steep as almost to impart motion of itself. In a case of this sort I think it generally pays best to hit the ball very nearly upon the toe of the putter, at the same time making a short, quick twitch or draw of the club across the ball towards the feet. Little forward motion will be imparted in this manner, but there will be a tendency to half lift the ball from the green at the beginning of its journey, and it will continue its way to the hole with a lot of drag upon it. It is obvious that this stroke, to be played properly, will need much practice in the first place, and judgment afterwards, and I can do little more than state the principle upon which it should be made. I need hardly do more here than repeat what I have said in the case of the other puts. Any attempt to jump a ball at the beginning of the put on a steep, fast green is about as bad a method of starting it as one could possibly imagine. There is nothing for it but the smooth, steady roll. Few greens, of course, are so steep that the ball will run off them unless it has been very violently played, so the ordinary principles of putting still hold good here--there is one way to play that put, and that is not from the toe, but from the centre, of the club, and as straight as may be for the hole, having due regard to the slope or slopes of the green. Of course, as I have before indicated, if one is very near to the hole, certainly not more than two to three feet at the utmost, one may be excused for putting straight at the hole with drag, because a ball can be made to carry its drag for about this distance. CHAPTER IV THE FALLACIES OF GOLF The fallacies of golf, as it has been written, are so numerous and so grave that it would be impossible to deal with them fully in a chapter, so I must here content myself with dealing generally with them, and specifically with a few of the minor mistakes which are so assiduously circulated by authors of works on golf. I shall take them as they come, in their natural order. We shall thus have to deal with them as follows: slow back, the distribution of weight, the sweep, the power of the left hand and arm, the gradually increasing pace of the sweep, the action of the wrists, and the follow-through. We have then to consider, in the first place, the oft-repeated and much-abused instruction to go "slow back." The rhythm of many a swing is utterly spoilt by this advice, for the simple reason that, generally speaking, it is tremendously overdone. Anyone who has ever seen George Duncan's swing could surely be excused for thinking that slow back must be a delusion. It is not, however, given to everybody to be able to swing with the rapidity and accuracy which characterise Duncan's wonderful drive. In fact, the most that can be said in favour of going slowly back is that all that is necessary in the way of slowness is that the player shall not take his club up to the top of his swing at such a rate that in his recovery at the top of the swing he will have any unnecessary force to overcome before he begins his downward stroke. It stands to reason that there must be at the top of the swing a moment wherein the club is absolutely stationary. The whole object of slow back is to ensure that at this moment, which is undoubtedly a critical portion of the swing, there shall be no undue conflict of the force which brought the club head up to the top of the swing and that force which the golfer then exerts to start the club on its downward journey. When this has been said, practically all that need be said about slow back has been said. It is almost a certainty that slow back, as one of what Vardon calls the parrot cries of the links, has done more to unsettle the drives of those who follow it, and the tempers of those who follow them, than any other of the blindly followed fetiches of golf. Let it be understood then, once and for all, that undue slowness is almost as great a vice as undue quickness. What the player must, in every case, strive after is the happy medium. It is an absolute impossibility to preserve the rhythm of a swing that goes up with the painful slowness and studied deliberation which we so frequently see as the precursor of a tremendous foozle. Incorporated in this overdone injunction, "slow back," we have the idea of swinging the club away from the ball. In various places we are told plainly that the club is not to be lifted away from the ball, but that it must be swung back, whereas, of course, there can be no doubt whatever that the club is lifted back, and is started on its journey by the wrists. It is obvious that no swing can be started from the lowest point in an arc. If, for example, we take the pendulum of a clock which is hanging motionless, it will be impossible to swing it one way or the other without lifting it. Equally obvious is it that the golf club must be lifted away from the ball. "As you go up, so you come down" is another revered fallacy. We are clearly, and probably rightly, instructed, when driving, to take the club away from the ball in the line to the hole produced through the ball. We do this going back comparatively slowly until we are compelled to leave the line, or rather the plane, of the ball's flight. So at the moment of making our first divergence from the straight swing back, we import into our arc a sudden and pronounced curve. On the return journey, the downward swing, we travel all the way at express speed. He would indeed be credulous and unanalytical who could believe that the arc of the downward swing coincides with that of the upward, when the upward swing is carried out according to the generally published theory, which, of course, it generally is not. The theory is only good in so far as it goes to inculcate the idea of remaining in the line to the hole both before and after impact as long as possible. The next fallacy which we have to deal with is the matter of the distribution of weight in the drive. Practically every book that has been published misinforms the golfer on this point, which is a matter of fundamental importance in the game; in fact, it is of such great importance that I shall not deal with it fully here, but shall reserve it for my next chapter wherein I shall give the views of the leading exponents of the game on this all-important subject, and shall then show wherein I differ from them. Let us consider that we have now arrived at the top of the swing. Every author of a golf book insists upon the fact that the drive at golf is a sweep and not a hit. James Braid, in chapter viii. of _How to Play Golf_, writing of "The Downward Swing," says: The chief thing to bear in mind is that there must be, in the case of play with the driver and the brassie, no attempt to _hit_ the ball, which must be simply swept from the tee and carried forward in the even and rapid swing of the club. The drive in golf differs from almost every other stroke in every game in which the propulsion of a ball is the object. In the ordinary sense of the word, implying a sudden and sharp impact, it is not a "hit" when it is properly done. The impact in the golf drive has been measured by one of our most eminent physicists to occupy one ten-thousandth of a second. I think we may take this as "implying a sudden and sharp impact." Braid goes on to say, "when the ball is so 'hit' and the club stops very soon afterwards, the result is that very little length, comparatively, will be obtained, and that, moreover, there will be a very small amount of control over the direction of the ball." This might be right, but it seems almost unnecessary to point out that when a ball has been struck at the amazing speed which such a brief contact indicates, there is extremely little probability that the club will stop "very soon afterwards"--in fact, it would be almost a matter of impossibility to induce a club which had been used for delivering a blow at the rate which this brief time indicates, to stop very shortly afterwards. The head of a golf club at the moment of impact with the golf ball is travelling so rapidly that a camera timed to take photographs at the rate of one twelve-hundred-and-fiftieth of a second's exposure, gets for the club head and shaft merely a vague swish of light, while the ball itself, if it is caught at all, appears merely to be a section of a sperm candle, so rapid is its motion. I am speaking now of a photograph taken at this extremely rapid rate when the photographer is facing the golfer who is making the stroke, but so rapid is the departure of the ball from the club that even when the photographer is standing in a straight line directly behind the player, the ball still presents the appearance of a white bar. It should then be sufficiently obvious to anyone that so far as regards the stroke "implying a sudden and sharp impact," the golf stroke, probably of all strokes played in athletics, is, at the moment of impact, incomparably the most rapid. It has, therefore, always seemed to me a matter for wonder to read that this stroke is a sweep and not a hit. Braid here says one thing which is of outstanding importance as exploding another well-known fallacy. It is as follows: While it is, of course, in the highest degree necessary that the ball should be taken in exactly the right place on the club and in the right manner, this will have to be done by the proper regulation of all the other parts of the swing, and any effort to direct the club on to it in a particular manner just as the ball is being reached, cannot be attended by success. This is so important that I must pause here to emphasise it, because we are frequently told, and even Braid himself, as I shall show later on, has made the same mistake, that certain things are done during impact, by the intention of the player during that brief period, in order to influence the flight of the ball. There can be no greater fallacy in golf than this. No human being is capable of thinking of anything which he can do in this minute fraction of time, nor even if he could think of what he wished to do, would it be possible for his muscles to respond to the command issued by his mind. To emphasise this, I must quote from the same book and the same page again. Braid says: If the ball is taken by the toe or heel of the club, or is topped, or if the club gets too much under it, the remedy for these faults is not to be found in a more deliberate directing of the club on to the ball just as the two are about to come into contact, but in the better and more exact regulation of the swing the whole way through up to this point. That is the important part in connection with this statement of Braid's. Many a person ruins a stroke, as, for instance, in endeavouring to turn over the face of the putter during the moment of impact, through following, in complete ignorance, the teaching of those who should know better, and they then blame themselves for their want of timing in trying to execute an impossibility, whereas the remedy is, as Braid says, not in trying to do anything during the moment of impact "but in the better and more exact regulation of the swing the whole way through up to this point." Braid is here speaking of the drive, but what applies to the drive applies to every stroke in the game, with practically equal force. He continues: The object of these remarks is merely to emphasise again, in the best place, that the despatching of the ball from the tee by the driver, in the downward swing, is merely an incident of the whole business. "Merely an incident of the whole business." It is impossible to emphasise this point too much. The speed of the drive at golf is so great that the path of the club's head has been predetermined long before it reaches the ball, so that, as I have frequently pointed out in the same words which Braid uses in this book, the contact between the head of the club and the ball may be looked upon as merely an incident in the travel of the club in that arc which it describes. The outstanding truth of this statement will be more apparent when we come to deal with the master strokes of the game. Braid's remarks here are so interesting that I must quote him again: The player, in making the down movement, must not be so particular to see while doing it that he hits the ball properly, as that he makes the swing properly and finishes it well, for--and this signifies the truth of what I have been saying--the success of the drive is not only made by what has gone before, but it is also due largely to the course taken by the club after the ball has been hit. In this paragraph Braid is making a fallacious statement. It will be quite obvious to a very mean understanding that nothing which the club does after it has hit the ball and sent it on its way, can have any possible effect upon the ball, and, therefore, that the success of the drive cannot possibly in any way be "due largely to the course taken by the club after the ball has been hit." The success of the stroke must, of course, be due entirely to the course taken by the club head prior to and at the moment of impact. What Braid would mean to express, no doubt, is that if the stroke has been perfectly played, it is practically a certainty that what takes place after the ball has gone, will be executed in good form. I have frequently seen misguided players practising their follow-through without swinging properly, whereas it is, of course, obvious that a follow-through is of no earthly importance whatever except as the natural result of a well-played stroke; and provided that the first half of the stroke was properly produced, it is as certain as anything can be that the second half will be almost equally good, but it is certain that nothing which the club does after contact with the ball has ceased can possibly influence the flight or run of the ball. It is, for instance, obvious that if a man has played a good straight drive clean down the middle of the fair-way, his follow-through cannot be the follow-through of a slice, because the pace at which he struck that ball must make his club head go out down the line after the ball. Similarly, if a man has played a sliced stroke, it stands to reason that after the ball had left his club, his club head could not, by any possible stretch of imagination, follow down a straight line to the hole. These things are so obvious to anyone who is acquainted with the simplest principles of mechanics that it is strange to see them stated in the fallacious manner in which Braid puts them forth. Braid here says: The initiative in bringing down the club is taken by the left wrist, and the club is then brought forward rapidly and with an even acceleration of pace until the club head is about a couple of feet from the ball. Now here we see that Braid subscribes to the idea of "the even acceleration of pace," but it will be remembered that in a previous chapter I quoted him as saying that there must be no idea of gaining speed gradually; that one must be "hard at it from the very top, and the harder you start the greater will be the momentum of the club when the ball is reached." Here there is no notion whatever of even acceleration of pace. It is to get the most one can from the absolute instant of starting, but notwithstanding this, Braid tells us on page 57 of _How to Play Golf_: "When the ball has been swept from the tee, the arms should, to a certain extent, be flung out after it." We observe here that Braid speaks of the ball as having been "swept from the tee," notwithstanding that in _Advanced Golf_ at page 58 we read: "But when he has got all his movements right, when his timing is correct, and when he has absolute confidence that all is well, the harder he _hits_, the better." I have italicised the word "hits." Now here we have the practical golf of the drive, and I cannot do better, in disposing of the fetich of the sweep, than re-echo Braid's words that for a golfer who wants to get a good drive, when he has everything else right, "the harder he hits the better." As a matter of simple practical golf, provided always that a golfer executes his stroke in good form, it is impossible for him to hit too hard. This amazing fallacy of the sweep ruins innumerable drives, and renders many a golfer, who would possibly otherwise play a decent game, merely an object of ridicule to his more fortunate fellow-players who know that the golf drive is a hit--a very palpable hit--and not in any sense of the word a sweep. Taylor also subscribes to the fetich of the sweep. At page 186 of _Taylor on Golf_ he says: In making a stroke in golf the beginner must feel sure that the correct method of playing is not the making of a hit--as such a performance is understood--but the effort of making a sweep. This is an all-important thing, and unless a player thoroughly understands that he must play in this style I cannot say I think the chance of his ultimate success is a very great one; it is an absolute necessity this sweep, and I cannot lay too much stress upon it. He continues: As a more practical illustration of my meaning, I will suppose that the player is preparing to drive. His position is correct, he is at the exact distance from the ball. All that is then necessary is that with a swinging stroke he should sweep the ball off the tee. But, if in place of accomplishing this sweep, the ball is _hit_ off the tee--well, that may be a game, but it certainly does not come under the heading of golf. Now we have already seen that James Braid in _Advanced Golf_, which was published after _How to Play Golf_, has abandoned the idea that the golf drive is a sweep. Taylor is wonderfully emphatic about the sweep, but I think it will not require much to convert any golfer, who is in doubt about the matter, to my views, for the comparative results obtained will speak for themselves. Moreover, if there is any one man more than another who is a living refutation of the sweep notion that man is J. H. Taylor. It is impossible to watch him driving, and to know the power which he gets from his magnificent forearm _hit_, without being absolutely convinced that the true nature of the golf drive is a hit and not a sweep. I do not find that Vardon subscribes to this idea of the sweep so definitely as does Taylor, and as did Braid in _How to Play Golf_, but he does unquestionably subscribe to the notion of the club gradually gathering speed in its downward course, for he says at page 69 of _The Complete Golfer_: The club should gradually gain in speed from the moment of the turn until it is in contact with the ball, so that at the moment of impact its head is travelling at its fastest pace. This, of course, in itself is correct, but there should be no conscious effort of gradually increasing the pace. As Braid says, "one must be 'hard at it' right from the beginning." The gradual and even acceleration of pace must unquestionably be left to take care of itself, and it has no more right to cumber the golfer's mind than has the idea when he is throwing a stone that his hand should be moving at its fastest when the stone leaves it. [Illustration: PLATE V. J. H. TAYLOR At the top of his swing in the drive. Note here the position of Taylor's wrists. This is a matter of the utmost importance. Taylor is at times inclined to get a little on to his right leg, but probably here the weight is at least equally distributed, if not mainly on the left.] One of the most pronounced and harmful golfing fallacies is what I call "the fetich of the left." All of the leading writers and players do their best to instil into the minds of their pupils the idea that the left hand is the more important. This is a fallacy of the most pronounced and harmful nature, but it is of such great importance to the game that I shall not deal with it particularly here, but shall reserve it for a future chapter. We now have to deal with the question of gradually increasing the pace in the drive. I have already, to a certain extent, dealt with this matter. Nearly all writers make a strong point of this fallacy. James Braid at page 54 of _How to Play Golf_ says: The initiative in bringing down the club is taken by the left wrist, and the club is then brought forward rapidly, and with an even acceleration of pace until the club head is about a couple of feet from the ball. Here it will be seen clearly that Braid gives the idea that the player is, during the course of the downward swing, to exercise some conscious regulation of the increase of the speed of the head of the club. Braid then goes on to say: So far, the movement will largely have been an arm movement, but at this point there should be some tightening-up of the wrists, and the club will be gripped a little more tightly. Anyone attempting to follow this advice is merely courting disaster. To dream of altering the grip, or of consciously attempting in any way to alter the character of the swing, or to introduce into the swing any new element of grip, touch, control, or anything else whatever, must be fatal to accuracy. Braid is much sounder on this matter in _Advanced Golf_ where he makes no assertion of this nature, but tells the golfer that he must not bother himself with any idea of gradually increasing his pace. This is what Braid says. It is worth repeating: Nevertheless, when commencing the downward swing, do so in no gentle, half-hearted manner, such as is often associated with the idea of gaining speed gradually, which is what we are told the club must do when coming down from the top on to the ball. It is obvious that speed will be gained gradually since the club could not possibly be started off on its quickest rate. The longer the force applied to the down swing, the greater do the speed and the momentum become, but this gradual increase is independent of the golfer, and he should, as far as possible, be unconscious of it. What he has to concern himself with is not getting his speed gradually, but getting as much of it as he possibly can right from the top. No gentle starts, but hard at it from the very top, and the harder you start the greater will be the momentum of the club when the ball is reached. That, I take it, is absolutely sound advice, for herein there is no stupid restriction whatever, nor should there be, for the golfer, from the time his club leaves the ball till it gets back to it, should have nothing whatever wherewith to cumber his mind but the one idea, and that is to _hit_ the ball. Braid is surely wide of the mark when he says "but this gradual increase is independent of the golfer, and he should, as far as possible, be unconscious of it." Firstly, it seems to me that this gradual increase is entirely dependent on the golfer, and secondly, that he should be extremely conscious of it, and the necessity for the production of it; but this is one of the many things in golf which, when once it is thoroughly learned, becomes so much a matter of second nature that the golfer does it instinctively. He knows perfectly well that he _will_ gradually increase his pace until he hits the ball, but he will not have it in his mind that he _has_ to do so. All this is bound to be in the hit. The man who drives the nail does not worry himself about gradually increasing the pace of the hammer head until it encounters the head of the nail. He knows he is doing it, but he does not worry himself about it as the golfer does about his similar operation. If the golfer would remember that nothing matters much except to hit the ball hard and truly, and would disregard a lot of the absolute nonsense about the domination of either one hand or the other, the gradual acceleration of speed, and many other items of a similar nature, he would find that his game would be infinitely improved. I could quote pages from leading authors dwelling upon this matter of the gradual increase of speed, but I shall content myself with the passage which I have here quoted from James Braid, together with the remarks that I have made in former portions of this book, and may make in later chapters. Braid, in _Advanced Golf_, is sufficiently emphatic about this matter, and I think we may take it that in _Advanced Golf_ he has given up the idea expressed in his smaller and less important work _How to Play Golf_, that one should trouble oneself with the even acceleration of speed. Whether he has or not, it is an absolute certainty that any idea of consciously regulating the speed of the club's head in the drive, will result in a very serious loss of distance, for it will be found an utter impossibility for anyone so to regulate the speed of the club without seriously detracting from the rate at which the head is moving through the air, and as every golfer knows, or should know, the essence of the golf stroke is, that the club shall be travelling at the highest possible speed when it strikes the ball. I am, of course, now speaking with regard to the drive, and obtaining the greatest distance possible, for that is generally the object of the drive. The point which must be impressed upon the golfer is, that from the moment he starts his downward swing until he hits the ball, he has nothing whatever to think of except hitting that ball. Everything which takes place from the top of the swing to the moment of impact should practically be done naturally, instinctively, sub-consciously--any way you like, except by the exercise of thought during that process as especially applied to any particular portion of the action, for it is proved beyond doubt that the human mind is not capable of thinking out in rotation each portion of the golf drive as it should be played, during the time in which it is being played. Probably there is more ignorance about the action of the wrists in golf than about any other portion of the golf stroke, yet this is a matter of the utmost importance, a matter of such grave importance that I must in due course deal with it more fully and examine the statements of the leading writers on the subject. It is laid down clearly and distinctly by nearly all golf writers and teachers that the golfing swing must be rhythmical, that there must be no jerking, no interruption of the even nature of the swing--in fact, we have seen that according to many of them the stroke is a sweep and not a hit, yet we are told distinctly that at the moment of impact a snap of the wrists is introduced. This must tend, of course, to introduce a tremendous amount of inaccuracy in the stroke at a most critical time, and it is therefore a matter worthy of the closest investigation. We have already dealt with the fallacy of the sweep. It is a curious thing that although the leading golfers and authors pin their faith to the sweep as being the correct explanation of the drive in golf, yet nearly all of them, when it comes to a question of the stroke with the iron clubs, say that it is a hit. Now the stroke with the iron clubs is identical with the stroke with the wooden clubs, with the exception, of course, in many cases, that it has not gone back so far; but the action of the wrists is, or should be, the same. The club head travels, stroke for stroke, relatively in exactly the same arc; the beginning of the stroke and finish of the stroke is the same, and all the other laws, _mutatis mutandis_, apply. It would, indeed, be hardly too much to say that there is at golf only one stroke, and that every other stroke is a portion of that stroke, that stroke being, of course, the drive. If we take the drive as the supreme stroke in golf, and examine the nature of the stroke, we shall find that in that stroke is included practically every stroke in the game. That being so, it seems to me extremely hard to differentiate between a cleek shot and a drive--in fact, in so far as regards the production of the shot it is impossible to differentiate between them. If the one is a hit, the other is, and as a matter of fact, every stroke in golf, with the possible exception of the put, is a hit. While we are speaking of hits and fallacies, it will not be out of place to devote a little attention to a point of extreme importance, and at the same time one which is very much neglected in most books dealing with the game. It is the ambition of many a golfer to get what he imagines to be "the true St. Andrews swing." They try this in numberless cases, where, from the stiffness of their joints and their build generally, it is impossible in the nature of things that they can obtain a very full swing. It is bad enough in these cases, for I speak now of people who have taken to the game when their frames have become so set that it is practically an impossibility for them to obtain anything in the nature of a full swing, but the attempt to obtain a long swing is not, however, confined to those who have taken to the game late in life, although it is with them naturally a greater error than it is with those who started the game when their limbs were more supple and their frames more easily adapted to the stroke. If I allow myself to take my natural swing, I can nearly always see the head of the club at the top of my swing, and at the finish it is hanging nearly as far over the right shoulder as it was at the top of the swing over the left shoulder. There can be no doubt that with a swing like this, when one can control it sufficiently, one gets a very long ball, and there is a very delightful feeling in getting a perfect drive with such a swing, but from the very nature of the stroke it stands to reason that it must be less accurate than a much shorter and less showy effort. Harry Vardon, in _The Complete Golfer_, asks: "Why is it that they like to swing so much and waste so much power, unmindful of the fact that the shorter the swing the greater the accuracy?" There can be no doubt whatever that in the very full swing, such as I have described, there is a waste of power and a sacrifice of accuracy. The rule which is true of the put, "Keep the head of the club in the line to the hole as long as you can, both before and after impact," is, _mutatis mutandis_, just as applicable to the drive. Vardon continues: Many people are inclined to ask why, instead of playing a half shot with the cleek, the iron is not taken and a full stroke made with it, which is the way that a large proportion of good golfers would employ for reaching the green from the same distance. For some reason, which I cannot explain, there seems to be an enormous number of players who prefer a full shot with any club to a half shot with another, the result being the same or practically so. This is a curious remark to come from a golfer of the ability of Harry Vardon. I should have thought that the reason is sufficiently obvious. In playing a full shot the ordinary golfer feels that he has simply to get the most that his club is capable of. He therefore has no necessity to exercise any conscious muscular restraint. He plays the shot and trusts the club for his regulation of distance, but on the other hand, in playing a half shot he knows that he must exercise a good deal of judgment in applying his strength. It seems to me that there can be very little doubt that this is the reason why most golfers prefer the full shot. However that may be, it is beyond doubt that the desire, as Vardon puts it, "to swing so much" is the root cause of a vast amount of very bad golf. "The shorter the swing, the greater the accuracy." This statement is as true of one's wooden clubs as it is of the iron. It should be printed as a text and hung in every golf club-house in the world, for there can be very little doubt that if the value of this advice were thoroughly realised, it would make golf pleasanter and better for every one. The blind worship of the full swing has been carried to a lamentable extent, and golfers who devote any thought to their game are beginning to understand that beyond a reasonable swing back, the surplus is so much waste energy, and, which is more important still, simply imports into the stroke a very much greater risk of error. Many years ago I had a very remarkable illustration of the value of the short swing. A club mate of mine who was an adept at most games, and a champion at lawn-tennis and billiards, took it into his head to play golf. He was in the habit of thinking for himself. Of course, directly he started to learn golf, every one wished to make him tie himself into the usual knots, but he refused to be influenced by other people's ideas. He was content to work out his own salvation. He had watched many of the unfortunate would-be golfers contorting themselves in their efforts to reproduce what they took to be "a true St. Andrews swing," but determined that he would not follow their example. He had conceived the idea that a drive was only an exaggerated put, and he made up his mind that he would proceed to exaggerate his put by degrees until he had reached the limit of his drive, and had found that no further swinging back would give him extra distance. He found that he got no farther with his drive when he carried his club right round to what is known as the full swing, than he did when his club head came from about the same height as his lawn-tennis racket did in playing the game which he knew so well. When he had ascertained this he resolutely refused to increase the length of his swing. His club mates laughed at him and told him that it was not golf, that he was playing cricket, and many other pleasant little things like this. It had no effect whatever on him, for he knew that he was producing the stroke, in so far as he played it, exactly according to the best-known methods of the leading golfers of the world. He was content, in this respect, to follow known and accepted methods, but he would not in any way adopt the prevalent idea of a long swing. Of course, he was laughed at and told that it was extremely bad form, but before long he "had the scalps" of his detractors. Then they were unable to say much about his golf, and he had very much the best of the argument when within a remarkably short space of time he won the championship of his Province. He proved quite conclusively to his own satisfaction, and to the great chagrin of many of the other players, the truth of Vardon's statement, "The shorter the swing the greater the accuracy." There can be very little doubt that for those who take to golf late in life, especially if they have not played other games, the orthodox swing is a trap. A very great number of them get the swing, but not the ball. Many of them are, I am afraid, under the impression that the swing is of more importance than getting the ball away. Needless to say, they do not improve very much. For those who take to golf late in life, I am sure that the great principle which makes for length and direction in any ball game that is, or ever was played, namely, keep in the line of your shot as long as you can both before and after impact, will be found as sound to-day as it always has been. Probably it will be found, and before very long too, that what is true for the late beginner is equally true for the greatest experts. As a matter of fact, some of our leading professionals are beginning to realise this already, particularly with regard to their iron play. There are several very important points in connection with the short swing--points which, I believe, are of very great advantage to the golfer when once he has thoroughly grasped them. It is obvious that the shorter the swing is, the less necessity will there be for disturbing the position of one's feet. This naturally means that there is less likelihood of any undue swaying. Secondly, the shorter swing is naturally much more upright than the orthodox swing, and it comes more natural to a player to hit downwards at his ball when using it. The first point which we have made is that the shorter swing produces less disturbance of the feet, because it is generally more upright than a corresponding length of the orthodox swing. In the flat swing there is less need to move the feet than there is in the upright swing. It is in the latter that one feels _soonest_ the necessity for lifting the heel of the left foot, but in the short swing there is not the same necessity for balancing and pivoting on the toes as there is in the orthodox drive, for the swing back is not extended enough to require it. It should be apparent then that with the short swing much of the complexity of the golf drive is taken away. I must make this a little clearer: practically all the golf books tell us that the left heel must come away from the earth when the arms seem to draw it. Anyone who follows this out in practice will find that it is impossible to preserve the rhythm of his swing. As a matter of practical golf the left heel must come away from the earth as soon as the head of the club leaves the ball. The motions are practically simultaneous. This matter of the management of the feet is probably the greatest contributing cause to the complexity of the golf drive, and the many erroneous descriptions of it which are given by our leading players. The principal reason for this is that it is the latitude given to the body by this shifting of the heels which accounts for the wrong transference of the weight to the right foot, and the equally wrong _lurching_ on the left foot. One would not, of course, for a moment advocate that the golfer's heels should be immovable, although James Braid does maintain, quite wrongly, I think, that the position of the feet at the moment of impact should be exactly the same as at the moment of address--that is, that the heels should be firmly planted on the ground. Although he says this, the instantaneous photographs of him in the act of driving show conclusively that he does not carry his theory into practice. Many of our greatest golfers are beginning now to see that the firmer the foundation, the more fixed and immovable the base, the steadier must be the superstructure--to wit, the chest and shoulders--and therefore the more constant will be the centre, if I may use the word in a general sense, of the swing. The importance of preserving this "centre" cannot be overestimated, for golf is a game which demands a wonderful degree of mechanical accuracy, and it is only by observing the best mechanical principles that the best results can be obtained. In the ordinary drive of the ordinary golfer there is usually an excessive amount of foot and ankle work, and, generally speaking, this foot and ankle work is not carried out in the best possible manner. There is, as a matter of fact, imported into the drive far too great an opportunity for the player to move his weight about. He takes full advantage of this, and the usual result is that he transfers his weight, when driving, to his right leg, which, as we shall see later on, is a very bad fault for the golfer to acquire. In the shorter swing there is much less temptation for the golfer to make the errors which are usually attendant on faulty footwork. The other point of importance which I have mentioned in connection with the short swing, is that it comes much more naturally to the player to hit downwards. Probably not one golfer in a hundred realises that the vast majority of his strokes are made in a manner wholly opposed to the best science of golf. They are, generally speaking, _hit upwards_, whereas the most perfect golf drive should be hit downwards, and this statement is, in perhaps a less degree, true of nearly all golf strokes which are not played on the green. The best way to get any ordinary ball into the air is to hit it upwards, but this general rule does not apply to the golf ball, for it is always stationary and is generally lying on turf. However, few players will trust the loft of the club to perform its natural function. They seem to forget that each club has been made with a loft of such a nature that, given the ball is struck fairly and properly, the loft may be relied on to do its share of the work. Consequently, as they will not trust the club to get the ball up, they hit upwards, and so, to a very great extent, minimise the amount of back-spin which might come from the loft, were the club travelling in a horizontal line at the moment of impact. It is very much harder, however, to hit upwards with a short swing, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that there is a much greater tendency to hit the ball before the club head has got to the lowest point in its swing. We must emphasise this point, for it is of great importance, as back-spin is of the essence of the modern game, and particularly of the modern drive. If, therefore, we can show that the short swing tends more naturally to produce back-spin than does the full St. Andrews swing, and at the same time to give greater accuracy as regards direction, it need hardly be stated that it will not be long before we have the scientific players giving the stroke the place to which it is undoubtedly entitled in the game of golf. CHAPTER V THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEIGHT The distribution of weight is of fundamental importance in the game of golf. If one has not a perfectly clear and correct conception of the manner in which one should manage one's weight, it is an absolute certainty that there can be no rhythm in the swing. One often sees references to the centre of the circle described by the head of the club in the golf swing. It will be perfectly apparent on giving the matter but little thought that the head of the golf club does not describe a circle, but it is convenient to use the term "centre of the circle" when referring to the arc which is described by the head of the club. The all-important matter of the distribution of weight has been dealt with by the greatest players in the world. Let us see what Taylor, Braid, and Vardon have to say about this subject, for it is no exaggeration to say that this is a matter which goes to the very root of golf. If one teaches the distribution of weight incorrectly, it does not matter what else one teaches correctly, for the person who is reared on a wrong conception of the manner in which his weight should be distributed, can never play golf as it should be played. It is as impossible for such a person to play real golf as it would be for a durable building to be erected on rotten foundations. Now let us see what the greatest players have to say about this. Vardon, at page 68 of _The Complete Golfer_, says: The movements of the feet and legs are important. In addressing the ball you stand with both feet flat and squarely placed on the ground, the weight equally divided between them, and the legs so slightly bent at the knee-joints as to make the bending scarcely noticeable. This position is maintained during the upward movement of the club until the arms begin to pull at the body. The easiest and most natural thing to do then, and the one which suggests itself, is to raise the heel of the left foot and begin to pivot on the left toe, which allows the arms to proceed with their uplifting process without let or hindrance. Do not begin to pivot on this left toe ostentatiously, or because you feel you ought to do so, but only when you know that the time has come, and you want to, and do it only to such an extent that the club can reach the full extent of the swing without any difficulty. While this is happening it follows that the weight of the body is being gradually thrown on to the right leg, which gradually stiffens, until at the top of the swing it is quite rigid, the left being at the same time in a state of comparative freedom, slightly bent in towards the right, with only just enough pressure on the toe to keep it in position. That is what Vardon has to say about this important matter. At page 53 of _Great Golfers_, speaking of the "Downward Swing," Vardon further says: In commencing the downward swing, I try to feel that both hands and wrists are still working together. The wrists start bringing the club down, and at the same moment, the left knee commences to resume its original position. The head during this time has been kept quite still, the body alone pivoting from the hips. It is obvious that if the pivoting is done _at the hips_ it will be impossible to get the weight on the right leg at the top of the swing without some contortion of the body, yet we read at page 70 of _The Complete Golfer_ that "the weight is being gradually moved back again from the right leg to the left." Thus is the old fatal idea persisted in to the undoing of thousands of golfers. I have already referred to the wonderful spine-jumping and rotating which is described in _The Mystery of Golf_. Many might not understand the jargon of anatomical terms used in this fearful and wonderful idea, so I shall add here the author's corroboration of my interpretation of his notion. At page 167 he says: "The pivot upon which the spinal column rotates is shifted from the head of the right thigh-bone to that of the left." I have always been under the impression that the spinal column is very firmly embedded on the os sacrum--that, in fact, the latter is practically a portion of the spinal column, and that it is fixed into the pelvic region in a manner which renders it highly inconvenient for it to attempt any saltatory or rotatory pranks. We are, however, told that the pivot on which the spinal column rotates "shifts from the right leg to the left leg." If the spine were "rotating," which of course it cannot do in the golf stroke, on any "pivot," which, equally of course, it does not, that "pivot" must be the immovable os sacrum. What then does all this nonsense mean? James Braid, at page 56 of _Advanced Golf_, says: At the top of the swing, although nearly all the weight will be on the right foot, the player must feel a distinct pressure on the left one, that is to say, it must still be doing a small share in the work of supporting the body. Taylor, in _Taylor on Golf_, at page 207, says: Then, as the club comes back in the swing, the weight should be shifted by degrees, quietly and gradually, until when the club has reached its topmost point the whole weight of the body is supported by the right leg, the left foot at this time being turned, and the left knee bent in towards the right leg. Next, as the club is taken back to the horizontal position behind the head, the shoulders should be swung round, although the head must be allowed to remain in the same position with the eyes looking over the left shoulder. At page 30 of _Practical Golf_ Mr. Walter J. Travis says: In the upward swing it will be noticed that the body has been turned very freely with the natural transference of weight almost entirely to the right foot, and that the left foot has been pulled up and around on the toe. Without such aid the downward stroke would be lacking in pith. To get the shoulders into the stroke they must first come round in conjunction with the lower part of one's anatomy, smoothly and freely revolving on an axis which may be represented by an imaginary line drawn from the head straight down the back. Otherwise, the arms alone, unassisted to any appreciable extent, are called upon to do the work with material loss of distance. At page 88 of _Golf_ in the Badminton Series, Mr. Horace G. Hutchinson says: Now as the club came to the horizontal behind the head, the body will have been allowed to turn, gently, with its weight upon the right foot. We here have the opinions of five golfers, whose words should undoubtedly carry very great weight. The sum total of their considered opinion is that in the drive at golf the weight at the top of the swing must be on the right leg. I have, however, no hesitation in saying that this idea is fundamentally unsound and calculated to prove a very serious hindrance to anyone attempting to follow it. So far from its being true that the weight of the body is supported by the right foot at the top of the swing, I must say that entirely the opposite is true, and that at the top of the swing the weight of the body is borne by the left foot and leg in any drive of perfect rhythm. This may possibly be going a little too far, so we shall, in the meantime, content ourselves with _absolutely denying_ that the weight at the top of the swing goes on to the _right_ leg, and with _insisting_ that at the top of a perfectly executed swing _the main portion of the weight must be borne by the left foot and leg_. In so positively making this statement I am confronted by a mass of authority which would deter many people from essaying to disprove such a well-rooted delusion in connection with the game, but I think that before we have finished with this subject we shall be able to show very good reason for doubting the statements of these eminent players. There is no possible doubt as to the rooted nature of this belief in the minds of these players. James Braid, in fact, emphasises it in some places. He says in _How to Play Golf_: When the swing is well started, that is to say, when the club has been taken a matter of about a couple of feet from the ball, it will become impossible, or at least inconvenient and uncomfortable to keep the feet so firmly planted on the ground as they were when the address was made. It is the left one that wants to move, and consequently at this stage you must allow it to pivot. By this is meant that the heel is raised slightly, and the foot turns over until only the ball of it rests on the ground. Many players pivot on the toe, but I think this is not so safe, and does not preserve the balance so well. When this pivoting begins, the weight is being taken off the left leg and transferred almost entirely to the right, and at the same moment the left knee turns in towards the right toe. The right leg then stiffens a little and the right heel is more firmly than ever planted on the ground. It seems to me that these famous golfers are confronted by a mechanical problem in this matter. The veriest tyro at golf is familiar with the axiom that it is absolutely necessary for him to keep his head still. Many authors tell one that the swing is conducted as though the upper portion of the body moved on an axis consisting of the spine. All golfers, authors, and professionals, who know anything about the game, will tell one that the habit of swaying, which means moving the head and body away from the hole, is fatal to accuracy. Harry Vardon, at page 67, says: "In the upward movement of the club the body must pivot from the waist alone and there must be no swaying, not even to the extent of an inch." A little further down on the same page, we read: "In addressing the ball you stand with both feet flat and securely placed on the ground, the weight equally divided between them." Now it seems fairly obvious that if one starts the golf drive with the weight practically evenly distributed between the right foot and the left foot, and seeing that it is an axiom of golf that one must not move one's head, it is impossible for one to get the weight of the body on to the right foot and leg without absolutely contorting one's frame. Let us make this clearer still. We have our golfer set at his ball, his address perfect, and his weight evenly distributed between his two feet. As he knows that it is wrong for him to move his head, we can, without interfering with his drive in the slightest degree, stretch tightly a wire at a right angle to the line of flight to the hole and pass it across within a quarter of an inch of his neck, below his right ear. The position of this wire will not in any way hamper the golfer in his drive, but in order to fulfil the instructions which are laid down with the utmost persistence by every golf book, that it is of fundamental importance to keep the head absolutely still, it will be necessary for our golfer to play his drive without allowing his head or neck to touch this wire; but if he can do this, and at the same time get the weight of his body, at the top of his swing, on to his right leg, as advised by Taylor, Braid, and Vardon, and by Messrs. Hutchinson and Travis, without making himself both grotesque and uncomfortable, he will indeed have performed an unparalleled feat in the history of golf, for, to put the matter quite shortly, it is nonsense to suppose that it can be done. The thing is mechanically impossible. If a man starts with his weight equally distributed between his legs, and then uses his spine or any other imaginary pivot to turn his body upon in the upward swing, it will be impossible for him to shift his weight so that it goes back on to his right leg. I am not, of course, allowing for a person who has an adjustable spine, such as that described by Mr. Arnold Haultain in _The Mystery of Golf_, which rotates, according to the author, first on one thigh bone and then on another. This spine is of such a remarkable nature that I must devote, later on, a little time to considering its vagaries. At present I am, however, dealing with a matter of practical golf and simple mechanics, about which there is absolutely no mystery but a vast amount of misconception. When I first stated in _Modern Golf_, which, so far as I am aware, was the first book wherein this fundamental truth was laid down, that the left was the foot which bore the greater burden, it was regarded as revolutionary teaching, but there is not a professional golfer of any reputation whatever who now dares to teach that at the top of the swing the weight is to be put on the right. There is, however, no harm in fortifying oneself with the opinion of at least one of the triumvirate expressed elsewhere. Personally, I think that the mechanical proposition is so extremely simple and incontrovertible, as I have stated it, that it is unnecessary to go further, but such is the veneration of the golfer for tradition that as a matter of duty to the game I shall leave no stone unturned, not only to scotch, but absolutely to kill, this mischievous idea which is so injurious to the game. In _Great Golfers_, Harry Vardon says, speaking of his address and stance: "I stand firmly, with the weight rather on the right leg." At page 50 of the same book he says, speaking of the top of the swing: "There is distinct pressure of the left toe and very little more weight should be felt on the right leg than there was when the ball was addressed." We see clearly here that Vardon's statement in _Great Golfers_ that at the top of the swing "very little more weight should be felt on the right leg than there was when the ball was addressed" does not agree with his statement in _The Complete Golfer_ wherein he states that "the weight of the body is being gradually thrown on to the right leg." The unfortunate part about this contradiction is that _Great Golfers_ was published before _The Complete Golfer_, so that we are bound to take it as Vardon's more mature and considered opinion that the weight at the top of the stroke is thrown mainly on the right leg. [Illustration: PLATE VI. HARRY VARDON The finish of his drive, showing how the weight goes forward on to the left foot.] This leaves us apparently as we were, but seeing the contradiction in Vardon's statement, we may with advantage turn to action photographs of him taken whilst actually playing the stroke. Here we see most clearly in such photographs as those shown on pages 86 and 87 of _Great Golfers_, that the body, instead of going away from the hole, has, if anything, gone forward. This is sufficiently marked in the photographs which I am now referring to, but in _Fry's Magazine_ for the month of March 1909 there appeared a remarkable series of photographs showing ten drives by Harry Vardon. These photographs are, unquestionably, of very great value to the game, for they show beyond any shadow of doubt whatever, that Vardon's weight is never, at any portion of his drive, mainly on his right leg. The first photograph showing him at the top of his swing is a wonderful illustration of the fact that at the top of the swing in golf the main portion of the weight goes forward on to the left foot. Before leaving this portion of our consideration of the distribution of weight, I must refer again to the description given of this matter in _The Mystery of Golf_. The author says: The whole body must turn on the pivot of the head of the right thigh bone working in the cotyloidal cavity of the "os innominatum" or pelvic bone, the head, right knee, and right foot, remaining fixed, with the eyes riveted on the ball. In the upward swing the vertebral column rotates upon the head of the right femur, the right knee being fixed; and as the club head nears the ball, the fulcrum is rapidly changed from the right to the left hip, the spine now rotating on the left thigh bone, the left knee being fixed; and the velocity is accelerated by the arms and wrists in order to add the force of the muscles to the weight of the body, thus gaining the greatest impetus possible. Not every professional instructor has succeeded in putting before his pupil the correct stroke in golf in this anatomical exposition. For which we may be devoutly thankful, for if ever there was written an absolutely ridiculous thing about golf which could transcend in stupidity this description, I should like to see it. As a matter of fact, the statement does not merit serious notice, but the book is published by a reputable firm of publishers, and no doubt has been read by some people who do not know sufficient for themselves to be able to analyse the alleged analysis of the author. Let us now subject his analysis to a little of the analysing process. We are told that "the whole body must turn on the pivot of the head of the right thigh bone working in the cotyloidal cavity of the 'os innominatum' or pelvic bone." This is merely another way of saying that the right leg and foot is supporting the whole weight of the body, although the head must remain fixed. We have already considered the similar statements expressed in _The Mystery of Golf_, and by much more important people in the golfing world than the author of this book, so we need not labour this point, but he goes on to reduce his directions to the most ludicrous absurdity. We are told that in the upward swing the vertebral column rotates upon the head of the right femur. Of course, I am not personally acquainted with Mr. Haultain, and he may be speaking from his own practice, but assuming for the sake of argument that he is a normally constructed man, the base of his vertebral column never gets anywhere near his right femur, nor is it possible for anybody's vertebral column to rotate unless the person is rotating with it, which one is inclined to think would prove rather detrimental to the drive at golf if indulged in between the stance and address and impact. As though we had not already had sufficient fun for our money, we are told that "as the club head nears the ball the fulcrum is rapidly changed from the right to the left hip, the spine now rotating on the left thigh bone." So far as one can judge from our author's description he must have been in the habit of playing golf amongst a race of men who have adjustable spines, the tail end of which they are able to wag from one side of the pelvic bone to the other. Personally, I have yet to meet golfers of this description. One feels inclined to ask the author of this remarkable statement what is happening to the os coccyx whilst one is wagging one's spine about in this remarkable manner. This statement is about the funniest thing which has ever been written in golf, and it has absolutely no relation whatever to practical golf. It is merely an imaginative and absolutely incorrect exposition of the golf drive, not only from a golfing, but from an anatomical, point of view; and it is to me an absolute wonder how anyone, even one who labels himself "a duffer," can attach his name to such obviously inaccurate and foolish statements. One really would be inclined to be much more severe than one is in dealing with such a book were it not for the amusement which one has derived from a perusal of such fairy tales as a rotating spine which, during the course of the golf drive, jumps from one thigh bone to the other, steeplechasing the pelvic bone as it performs this remarkable feat. I have referred in other places to the looseness of Mr. Haultain's descriptions in all matters of practical golf. At page 89 he confirms one's impression, if confirmation were required, that his idea of the fundamental principle of the golf swing is as ill-formed as are his notions of anatomy, for he says: "The left knee must be loose at the beginning and firm at the finish." At no time during a stroke in golf, of any description whatever, should there be any looseness of the body. During the production of the golf stroke the body is practically full of tension and attention. It is the greatest mistake possible to imagine that because one portion of the body is doing the work, any other portion may "slack." One who makes this statement has not a glimmering of the beginning of the real game of golf. I can readily believe that to such an one golf is a "mystery." The left knee is in harness from the moment the ball is addressed until long after it has been driven, and it is a certainty that the left knee has far more work to do than has the right, so for anyone to cultivate an idea that the left knee may, at any time during the production of the golfing stroke, "be loose," is a very grave error. While we are considering the matter of the distribution of weight, it will be advisable for us to devote our attention to the disposition of the weight at the moment of impact. Speaking of the management of the weight at this critical time, Vardon says: When the ball has been struck, and the follow-through is being accomplished, there are two rules, hitherto held sacred, which may at last be broken. With the direction and force of the swing your chest is naturally turned round until it is facing the flag, and your body now abandons all restraint, and to a certain extent throws itself, as it were, after the ball. There is a great art in timing this body movement exactly. If it takes place the fiftieth part of a second too soon the stroke will be entirely ruined; if it comes too late it will be quite ineffectual and will only result in making the golfer feel uneasy, and as if something had gone wrong. When made at the proper instant it adds a good piece of distance to the drive, and that instant, as explained, is just when the club is following through. It is evident from this statement, that Vardon is under the impression that the timing of this body movement should be so performed as to come in when the club is following through. I have shown before that the follow-through of a stroke is of no importance whatever except as the result of a perfectly executed first half of the stroke, if one may so describe it. It must be obvious to anyone who knows but little either of golf or mechanics that nothing which the body or the club does after contact between the ball and the club has ceased can have any influence whatever upon the flight of the ball, either as to distance or direction. Practically everything which takes place after the ball has left the club is the natural result of what has been done before impact. This cannot be too forcibly impressed upon golfers, for it is not at all uncommon to find men deliberately stating that the follow-through exerts a tremendous influence on the stroke. It should be perfectly manifest that this cannot be so. It is no doubt of very great importance to have a good follow-through, but the good follow-through must be the result of a good stroke previously played, otherwise it will be worthless. Harry Vardon states that this timing of the body movement takes place immediately after impact, for that is "just when the club is following through." He has himself provided the best possible refutation of this obviously erroneous statement. The timing of the body on to the ball in the manner mentioned by him practically commences, in every drive of perfect rhythm as are so many of Vardon's, from the moment the stroke starts, for the body weight which is put into the golf drive comes largely from the half turn of the shoulders and upper portions of the body from the hips in the downward swing. This half turn and the slight forward movement of the hips are practically one and the same. If they are not, something has gone wrong with the drive. Absolute evidence of the correctness of this statement is provided by Vardon himself in _Fry's Magazine_ for March 1909. Here we see the remarkable series of ten drives by Vardon which I have already referred to. The first photograph shows most clearly that at the top of the swing the main portion of his weight is on his left foot. As a matter of carrying golf to the extreme of scientific calculation it is quite probable that there is much more than Vardon's physical weight on his left leg, for the rapid upward swing of his club is suddenly arrested when considerably nearer the hole than his left shoulder, so that the leverage of the head of the club will have thrown more weight than that which the left actually bears on it as its share of Vardon's avoirdupois. This, of course, is undoubted as a matter of practical mechanics, but it is not of sufficient importance to enter into fully in any way here. It is, however, of importance for us to consider the photographs which follow, for here we see quite clearly that very early in the downward swing Vardon raises his right heel and bends his left knee slightly forward, and in the third, fourth, and fifth photographs we see very clearly that he is executing that turn of his body which carries his weight forward on to the ball in a very marked degree. This point is very clearly brought out in the instantaneous photographs of both Vardon's driving, and in that of George Duncan's. It is positively futile to say that the timing of the body weight in the follow-through is done when the club is following through, because it is obvious that this would not be "at the proper instant," and that it could not, by any stretch of imagination, add "a good piece of distance to the drive." It is curious to note in this connection that on page 53 of _Great Golfers_ Harry Vardon says: Almost simultaneously with the impact, the right knee slightly bends in the direction of the hole, and allows the wrists and forearms to take the club right out in the direction of the line of flight, dragging the arms after them as far as they will comfortably go, when the club head immediately leaves the line of flight and the right foot turns on the toe. This allows the body to turn from the hips and face the hole, the club finishing over the left shoulder. Here it will be seen that Vardon brings the timing of this very important forward movement back a little to "almost simultaneously with the impact." Now this phrase may mean immediately prior to, or immediately after, impact, and there can be no possible doubt which it is. It must be _prior_ to impact if it is to exert any beneficial effect whatever upon the stroke. To add any distance to the drive, it is obvious that what was done in the way of timing the body on to the ball must have been done _prior to impact_, and merely continued after the ball had gone away, so that the finish was perfectly natural. Now Vardon shows quite clearly in his drive that in his follow-through his weight goes forward until it is practically all on his left leg. So, for the matter of that, do the instantaneous photographs of nearly every famous golfer, but some of them have a very peculiar misconception of the disposition of weight at the moment of impact. Let us, for instance, see what James Braid has to say about the matter at page 53 of _Advanced Golf_. Dealing with this all-important moment, he says: I would draw the reader's very careful attention to the sectional photographs that are given on a separate page, and which in this form show the various workings of the different parts of the body while the swing is in progress as they could not be shown in any other way. They have all been prepared from photographs of myself, taken for the special purpose of this book. In some cases, in order to show more completely the progress of the different movements from the top of the swing to the finish, the position at the moment of striking is included. Theoretically, that ought to be exactly the same as the position at the address: and even in practice it will be found to be as nearly identical as possible, in the case of good driving, that is. Therefore, for the sake of precision, the third photograph in each series of four is a simple repetition of the first, and is not a special photograph. I may mention that this is a common idea of illustrating a golf stroke. The author of the book shows the stance and address. He then shows the top of the swing, and after that the finish, and he thinks that he has then done his duty by his reader. As a matter of fact, these are all positions in the swing where there is practically "nothing doing" as the American puts it. To illustrate the various movements in the drive, I took for _Modern Golf_, and used, eighteen different positions, and there was not one too many. It is quite impossible to illustrate the drive in golf by three positions; and it is absolutely erroneous to attempt to illustrate the moment of impact by a repetition of the photograph taken for stance and address. From the golfing point of view it is almost impossible to imagine two positions which are so entirely dissimilar. From the point of view of a mere photographer there may be some slight similarity, as indeed there is in all photographs of golfers, but to compare stance and address with the position at the moment of impact with the ball, is mere futility. Let us quote Braid's remarks with regard to stance and address: When in position and ready for play, both the legs and the arms of the player should be just a trifle relaxed--just so much as to get rid of any feeling of stiffness, and to allow of the most complete freedom of movement. The slackening may be a little more pronounced in the case of the arms than with the legs, as much more freedom is required of them subsequently. They should fall easily and comfortably to the sides, and the general feeling of the player at this stage should be one of flexibility and power. Everything is now in readiness for making the stroke, and the player prepares to hit the ball.... While he is doing this he will feel the desire to indulge in a preliminary waggle of the club just to see that his arms are in working order, waving the club backwards and forwards once or twice over the ball.... Obviously there is no rule in such matters, and the player can only be enjoined to make himself comfortable in the best way he can. Now we see here that the main idea of the player at the moment of address is to make himself comfortable--in other words, to get into as natural a position as he possibly can in order to execute his stroke. The whole idea of the stance and address is to get into a perfectly natural position, and one that is quite comfortable and best calculated to enable one to produce a correct stroke. We see clearly that this is what Braid considers to be necessary at the moment of address. Let us turn now to _Advanced Golf_ at page 61, which we have already quoted. Braid, at that page and on the preceding pages, explains clearly that the whole idea of the golf stroke is supreme tension, and that at the moment of impact the tension is greatest. He says: "Then comes the moment of impact. Crack! Everything is let loose, and round comes the body immediately the ball is struck and goes slightly forward until the player is facing the line of flight." Is it possible to imagine two more diametrically opposed conditions of the human frame than those which I have described in Braid's own words? Yet we find this fine player producing, for the guidance of golfers as to what takes place at the moment of impact, the same photograph which he shows them for stance and address! Moreover, Braid himself clearly shows in his action photographs that such a statement as this is quite wrong. If we had any doubt at all about the matter, we might examine the photographs of Braid himself, which show clearly that the positions taken up by him when addressing the ball and when hitting it, are, as might easily be believed, widely different, for at the moment of impact there is the supreme tension and power which he advises as being a necessity for the production of a long drive. It is true that James Braid's feet, particularly his right foot, do not move from the ground so much as do those of Harry Vardon or George Duncan; but it is nevertheless true that the movement of his legs, arms, and shoulders show, at the moment of impact, a position totally different from that taken up by him during his stance and address. It might seem that these things are not of sufficient importance to warrant the critical analysis to which I am subjecting them, but there can be no doubt that there are a vast number of people to whom golf is of infinitely more importance than political economy, and to these it is a matter of most vital importance that they should know what they are doing and what they ought to do at this critical period; and in dealing with the books which have been produced in connection with the game of golf they have such a mass of contradictory and fallacious teaching to wade through, that it is small wonder that they are, as a rule, utterly befogged as to the proper principles upon which to proceed. Let us, for instance, examine these two statements with regard to the follow-through. At page 55 of _How to Play Golf_, in his chapter on "Finishing the Stroke," James Braid says: The second that the ball is hit, and not before, the player should begin to turn on his right toe, and to allow a little bend of the right knee, so as to allow the right shoulder to come round until the body faces the line of flight of the ball. When this is done properly the weight will be thrown on to the left foot, and the whole body will be thrown slightly forward. The whole of this movement needs very careful timing, because it is a very common fault with some players to let the body get in too soon, and in such cases the stroke is always ruined. Examine the photographs. Let us now turn to page 62 of _Advanced Golf_. Here we read: As for the follow-through, there is very little that can be said here, which is not already perfectly understood, if it is not always produced. After impact, and the release of all tension, body and arms are allowed to swing forward in the direction of the flight of the ball, and I would allow the right knee to give a little in order to remove all restraint. But the weight must not be entirely taken off the right foot. That foot must still be felt to be pressing firmly on the turf, showing that although the weight has been changed from one place to another, the proper balance has not been lost. Braid here says that the weight must not be entirely taken off the right foot. Well, to all intents and purposes, it is entirely taken off the right foot, as will be shown by photographs of any of the leading players in the world at the finish of the stroke, and, indeed, of James Braid himself. Braid says: "Examine the photographs," and I have examined them. At pages 57 and 59 of _How to Play Golf_ Braid is shown finishing a full drive or brassy shot. Here, without any possible doubt, his weight is all on his left foot. At page 61 of _Advanced Golf_ there are some photographs of Braid's boots and trousers from the knee downwards, entitled "Leg action in driving." One of these is entitled "Finish." Here it will be seen that the whole of the weight is unmistakably on the left leg. If one looks at the instantaneous photographs of James Braid in this book and in _Great Golfers_ one will see quite clearly that in all finishes his weight goes unmistakably on to his left leg. Braid makes a very wonderful statement in _Great Golfers_ at page 175. Writing there of the downward swing, he says: "My body does not commence to turn till the club head is about two feet from the ball--namely, at the point when the wrists come into the stroke." As a matter of fact James Braid's body begins to turn almost simultaneously with the beginning of the downward stroke, and as another matter of practical golf the wrists also come in at the very beginning of the stroke. With this latter point I shall, however, deal later on. Let me here emphasise the fact that the body turn must commence very early in the stroke, as indeed is quite natural. It is obvious that if anyone were to postpone the turning of the body until the club head "is about two feet from the ball" the rhythm of the stroke would be utterly destroyed. In this matter I am contradicting Braid flatly about his own practice. Therefore, I must refer any reader who doubts the accuracy of my statement, and Braid himself, if he cares to challenge it, to _Fry's Magazine_ for May 1909, wherein are shown eight drives by James Braid. No. 1 shows Braid at the top of his swing; No. 2 shows him before his club head has travelled a foot, and even in this short distance we see that his body has already turned very considerably. Any attempt whatever to follow out what Braid says here and to postpone the turn of the body until the club head is two feet from the ball, must prove disastrous. Braid continues on the same page: At this moment the left knee turns rather quickly, as at the moment of striking, I am firm on both feet; the quickness of the action makes it difficult to follow with the eye, but I am convinced this is what happens. Immediately after impact I commence turning on the right toe, bending the right knee slightly. This allows the right shoulder to come round till the body is facing the hole. It is most essential that this should be done, and then no thought will be given as to how the club will finish, as the speed at which the club head is travelling will naturally take it well through. Here we have, at least, very important corroboration of the fact that one need not worry about the follow-through if the first portion of the stroke has been correctly played. Braid says that at the moment of striking "the player is quite firm on both his feet and faces directly to the ball, just as he did when he was addressing it before he began the upward swing. Anyone who thinks out the theory of the swing for himself will see that it is obviously intended that at the moment of impact the player shall be just as he was when he addressed the ball, which is the position which will afford him most driving power and accuracy." This statement is so amazing that I must give definite instructions as to where to find it. It is on page 54 of _How to Play Golf_, and I think it proves conclusively that the idea which Braid is endeavouring to impart to his pupils and readers is entirely wrong, and is not the method which he himself follows in practice. Confirmation of my opinion can be obtained from a study of the third picture in the series of drives by James Braid in the May number of _Fry's Magazine_ for 1909, which I have just referred to. Here we see clearly that the positions, from a golfing point of view, are utterly dissimilar, as indeed is most natural. Braid states that immediately after impact he commences "turning on the right toe, bending the right knee slightly." I think it will be found that even with James Braid, who certainly uses his legs in a somewhat different manner from many of the leading professionals, the right foot begins to lift before impact with the ball. I am inclined to think that both Braid and Taylor are more flat-footed at the moment of impact than most of the other professional golfers; but there can be little doubt that the body is swung into the blow before impact, otherwise it would be a matter of practical impossibility for them to obtain the length which they do; while it is a certainty that for the ordinary golfer it would be fatal to attempt to keep his weight in any way whatever on his right leg at the finish of his drive. This rooted fallacy with regard to the distribution of weight so that at the top of the swing it shall be on the right foot, has obtained its hold in a very peculiar manner. At the top of the swing the right leg is practically perfectly straight, and, naturally, as the foot is firmly planted on the ground and therefore held at both the heel and the toe while the leg has turned with the body, there is a very considerable amount of torsional or twisting strain on the leg. This torsional strain, added to the fact that the leg is perfectly straight, has led to the idea that a great deal of the weight is on the right leg. This idea has been confirmed to a very great degree by the manner of contact of the left foot with the earth. At the top of the swing the golfer pivots on the left foot, practically from the ball of the big toe to the end thereof, or on that portion of his boot representing this space. This naturally makes his contact with the earth _appear light_. These two causes, taken together, have produced the fallacy with regard to having the weight on the right foot and leg at the top of the swing. In the one case it is a physical cause, namely, the stiffness and torsional strain on the right leg, and in the other case it is a visual deception. It stands to reason that, provided the two surfaces will bear the strain, as much weight could be borne on a point as on a surface immeasurably greater, but in the second case there would be a greater _appearance_ of weight. This is exactly what has happened with regard to the golf drive. It is executed extremely quickly, and those who have attempted to explain it have not been able to follow the motions with sufficient rapidity and intelligence, nor have they been able to explain them accurately either from a mechanical or anatomical point of view. Until we can get some golfer who can pass the test suggested by me, and play his stroke without touching the wire strained within a quarter of an inch of his neck, after having taken his stance with his weight evenly distributed between his legs, and at the same time play it without contortion with his weight on his right leg, we may take it that this tremendous fallacy with regard to the distribution of weight at the top of the swing has been exploded. CHAPTER VI THE POWER OF THE LEFT The fetich of the left is, amongst golfers, only second, if indeed it is second in its injurious nature, to the idea that the weight should be put on the right foot at the top of the swing. It is very hard indeed to trace the origin of the idea that the left hand and arm is of more importance in the golf stroke than the right, but that it is a very rooted idea there can be no doubt whatever. To those who are not acquainted with the literature of golf and the remarkable ideas which many golfers have of the nature of their game, it would seem almost superfluous to go very fully into this matter, for one would think that it is sufficiently obvious that the right hand and arm are the dominant factors in producing the golf stroke. It is, however, useless to deny that there is a large body of opinion, backed by most influential authority, in favour of the left hand and arm being more important than the right. Let us see, before we go any further in the matter, what the leading professionals have to say about it. Harry Vardon, it is true, does not explicitly state that the right hand is the more important, but by implication he does assert so right throughout _The Complete Golfer_. Let me quote a few of his remarks with regard to the left hand. On page 61 Vardon says: The grip with the first finger and thumb of my right hand is exceedingly firm, and the pressure of the little finger on the knuckle of the left hand is very decided. In the same way it is the thumb and first finger of the left hand that have most of the gripping work to do. Again, the palm of the right hand presses hard against the thumb of the left. In the upward swing this pressure is gradually decreased, until when the club reaches the turning point there is no longer any such pressure; indeed, at this point the palm and the thumb are barely in contact. We see here clearly that, as indeed Vardon has stated elsewhere, at the top of the swing the grip of the right has opened up until it may almost in a measure be said to have ceased to direct operations. Vardon continues: This release is a natural one, and will or should come naturally to the player for the purpose of allowing the head of the club to swing well and freely back. But the grip of the thumb and first finger of the right hand, as well as that of the little finger upon the knuckle of the first finger of the left hand, is still as firm as at the beginning. From this it will be seen that the grip at each side of the hand is apparently as firm as it was at the beginning of the stroke, but in some mysterious manner it has eased up in between the forefinger and the little finger. We need not, however, go any further into that matter at the present time, but we may continue the consideration of Vardon's statement here. He goes on to say: "As the club head is swung back again towards the ball, the palm of the right hand and the thumb of the left gradually come together again. Both the relaxing and the retightening are done with the most perfect graduation, so that there shall be no jerk to take the club off the straight line. The easing begins when the hands are about shoulder high and the club shaft is perpendicular, because it is at this time that the club begins to pull, and if it were not let out in the manner explained, the result would certainly be a half shot or very little more than that, for a full and perfect swing would be an impossibility. This relaxation of the palm also serves to give more freedom to the wrist at the top of the swing just when that freedom is desirable." We might, for a moment, leave this statement, and turn to page 126. Speaking here of the approach shot with the mashie Vardon says: "This is one of the few shots in golf in which the right hand is called upon to do most of the work, and that it may be encouraged to do so the hold with the left hand should be slightly relaxed"; and again at page 147 in dealing with putting Vardon says: "But in this part of the game it is quite clear that the right hand has more work to do than the left." In these statements it is quite evident that Vardon wishes to express the idea that, generally speaking, the left hand is in command of the stroke. Reverting for a moment, and before I proceed to consider what the other authorities have to say on this subject, to Vardon's remark that "This is one of the few shots in golf in which the right hand is called upon to do most of the work," I may say that Vardon does not, in the whole of _The Complete Golfer_, explicitly describe any one stroke wherein he shows that the left hand "is called upon to do most of the work," nor, for the matter of that, does any other professional golfer or author, although the statement is common to nearly all books on the game. James Braid, on page 55 of _How to Play Golf_, says: A word about the varying pressure of the grip with each hand. In the address the left hand should just be squeezing the handle of the club, but not so tightly as if one were afraid of losing it. The right hand should hold the club a little more loosely. The left hand should hold firmly all the way through. The right will open a little at the top of the swing to allow the club to move easily, but it should automatically tighten itself in the downward swing. Here again we see the idea that the left is in charge, because although we are told that in the address the left hand should "just be squeezing" the club, yet we are told clearly and definitely that "the left hand should hold firmly all the way through." It is somewhat difficult to reconcile these directions, and it is obvious that if the right is going to "open a little at the top of the swing" the club will certainly move easily--in fact it will move so easily that the accuracy of the stroke will be very considerably interfered with. Let us for a moment turn to _Advanced Golf_. There, James Braid, speaking of the top of the swing, says: "Now for the return journey. Here at the top, arms, wrists, body--all are in their highest state of tension." Let me pause here for a moment to ask how it is possible for "arms, wrists, body" all to be "in their highest state of tension," if the right hand is to "open a little at the top of the swing to allow the club to move easily"; and how is it possible for the right hand to "automatically tighten itself in the downward swing" if it was already in its "highest state of tension" when it was at the top of the swing? It will be apparent that it is utterly impossible for the arms and wrists to be tighter than they are when they are "in their highest state of tension." Therefore, we must take it that James Braid's advice at page 55 of _How to Play Golf_ is over-ridden by his advice at page 57 of _Advanced Golf_, for I think that we are entitled to consider that _Advanced Golf_ represents Braid's last word with regard to the science of golf. Quoting still from the same passage, page 57 of _Advanced Golf_, Braid says: "Every muscle and joint in the human golfing machinery is wound up to the highest point." It is impossible to get away from that. We are told that at the beginning of the downward swing "every muscle and joint in the human golfing machinery is wound up to the highest point." Now the student of golf who desires to start his swing on a firm and sure foundation must mark this statement well. I repeat it for the third time: "Every muscle and joint in the human golfing machinery is wound up to the highest point," and let it be remembered that Braid is now speaking _of the start of the downward swing_. We will now turn to _Taylor on Golf_. At page 193 Taylor says: My contention is simply this: that the grasp of the right hand upon the club must be sufficiently firm in itself to hold it steady and true, but it must not be allowed on any account to over-power the left. The idea is that the latter arm must exercise a predominant influence in every stroke that may be played. As regards my own position in the matter, my grip with either hand is very firm, yet I should hesitate before I told every golfer to go and do likewise. Here we see that Taylor distinctly says that "the idea is that the latter arm (_i.e._ the left) must exercise the predominant influence in every stroke that may be played," and although he says explicitly that his own grip with both hands is very firm, he puts the utterly false idea of the predominance of the left into the minds of those who are influenced by his teaching. Taylor, at page 107 of _Great Golfers_, says in dealing with the "Downward Swing": The club is brought down principally by the left wrist, the right doing very little until the hands are opposite the right leg, when it begins to assert itself, bringing the full face of the club to the ball. It is almost unnecessary to say, especially in view of Taylor's statement that he holds very firmly with both hands, that he does not carry out this dangerous teaching. Harry Vardon says to attempt it is fatal, and I am pleased to add my corroboration. This amazing fallacy is wonderfully deeply rooted. A friend of mine some time ago was in trouble about his iron shots. He consulted a professional, who endeavoured to cure him by telling him when playing his stroke to hold so lightly with his right hand that at any time during the stroke he could slide it up and down the shaft. Oh no! He is not a duffer, nor is he mentally unbalanced. He is merely a professional golfer who plays for England and suffers from the hallucination handed on to him by more famous players than he. What could be stronger than this? Let me quote Taylor again. At page 90 of _Taylor on Golf_ he says: The right hand is naturally the stronger of the two--much more powerful in the average man than the left--and the learner is just as naturally prone to use it. But in the game of golf he must keep in front of him at all times the fact that the left hand should fill the position of guide, and it must have the predominating influence over the stroke. That this is rather unnatural I am perfectly willing to admit. Its being unnatural is the basis of its great difficulty, but it is a difficulty that must needs be grappled with and overcome by any man who desires to play the game as it should be played. But Taylor will not give in to this idea himself! Is not this wonderful? Harry Vardon says of the grip that one should "remember that the grip with _both_ hands should be firm. That with the right hand should not be slack as one is so often told." This is valuable corroboration, for it must be remembered that Vardon only subscribes to the fetich of the left _by implication_. Nowhere, I think, can we convict him of actually preaching it. Now let us turn to the volume on _Golf_ in the Badminton Library contributed by Mr. Horace G. Hutchinson. At page 85 Mr. Hutchinson says: Since, as will be shown later on, the club has to turn in the right hand at a certain point in the swing, it should be held lightly in the fingers, rather than in the palm, with that hand. In the left hand it should be held well home in the palm, and it is not to stir from this position throughout the swing. It is the left hand, mainly, that communicates the power of the swing; the chief function of the right hand is as a guide in direction. At page 87 Mr. Hutchinson continues: So much, then, for the grip. Now, when the club, in the course of its swing away from the ball, is beginning to rise from the ground, and is reaching the horizontal with its head pointing to the player's left, it should be allowed to turn naturally in the right hand until it is resting upon the web between the forefinger and the thumb. We see here that this distinguished amateur is an out and out adherent of the fallacy of the left. He tells us distinctly that it is the "left hand, mainly, that communicates the power of the swing, and that the chief function of the right hand is as a guide in direction," but notwithstanding the fact that "the chief function of the right hand is as a guide in direction," we see that at the top of the stroke it turns loosely in the hand until it is "resting upon the web between the forefinger and the thumb." [Illustration: PLATE VII. HARRY VARDON The finish of the drive--a little later than in Plate VI., showing the weight completely on the left foot.] Of course, in the circumstances, it will be very hard indeed for us to follow out James Braid's idea of everything at this point being in supreme tension, but it is interesting to see what Mr. Hutchinson thinks about the matter. We have here the opinions of the three most distinguished professionals in the world, backed by that of one of the distinguished amateurs in the game, a man who has distinguished himself both by his play and his writing. In the face of this weight of authority it may seem rash to venture to state plainly and explicitly that as a matter of practical golf the right hand and arm is the dominant partner, and that it is the duty of every normal golfer to have this idea firmly implanted in his mind when he settles down to his address. As the right is the dominant partner in the golf drive, so must the predominance of the right be the dominant idea in one's mind, but the domination of the right must not be abused, as we shall show later on. It is, of course, proper for a golfer to have clearly fixed in his mind the fact that the right is the more important member of the two, but when he has once got that fact carefully and well stowed away in his mind, it will be no more trouble to him than it is at present to every normal person to use his knife in his right hand with which to cut his meat, for it is an absolutely natural proceeding. The trouble with the fetich of the left is that not only is it a perfectly unnatural proceeding, but it is also, on that account, something extra for the golfer to cumber his mind with during his swing. If he plays his stroke naturally and without any thought of the mismade maxims of unpractical persons, he will inevitably let the right hand and arm take charge of the stroke, but the right will not at any time endeavour to do more than its proper share, and therefore the left will be given every chance to do a fair amount of the work. It is the interference with Nature by putting the left forward into a place which it has no right to occupy, which ruins so many golf strokes. Let us now turn to _The Complete Golfer_. Here, at page 60, Harry Vardon says: We must now consider the degree of tightness of the grip by either hand, for this is an important matter. Some teachers of golf, and various books of instruction, inform us that we should grasp the club firmly with the left hand and only lightly with the right, leaving the former to do the bulk of the work and the other merely to guide the operations. It is astonishing with what persistency this error has been repeated, for error I truly believe it is. Ask any really first-class player with what comparative tightness he holds the club in his right and left hands, and I am confident that in nearly every case he will declare that he holds it, nearly, if not quite, as tightly with the right hand as with the left. Personally, I grip quite as firmly with the right hand as with the other one. When the other way is adopted--the left hand being tight and the right hand simply watching it, as it were--there is an irresistible tendency for the latter to tighten up suddenly at some part of the upward or downward swing, and, as surely as there is a ball on the tee, when it does so there will be mischief. If we sum up the advice of Vardon and Taylor, and of Braid as shown in his latest work _Advanced Golf_, we see clearly that although they subscribe to the idea of the predominance of the power of the left hand and arm, they do not themselves carry it out in practice. Taylor says that his grip with both hands is very firm, yet he should hesitate before recommending other people to follow his methods. I think we may take it for granted that a method which has resulted in four open championships may be considered good enough to follow. Vardon, as we have seen, only subscribes to this notion inferentially, and nobody could be more emphatic than he is with regard to the distribution of force in the grip. His words "Ask any really first-class player with what comparative tightness he holds the club in his right and left hands, and I am confident that in nearly every case he will declare that he holds it, nearly, if not quite, as tightly with the right hand as with the left," present the case exactly. Any man who plays golf properly will find it impossible to tell you how he distributes the force of his grip on his club, and what proportion of power the grip of the left bears to the right. As a matter of fact, the man who plays golf properly has no time to think of such nonsense as this. This is a matter which is regulated for him by common sense and nature. The trouble steps in when he is advised to interfere with the ordinary course of Nature, and to put the left hand in a position of authority which it has no right whatever to try to exercise. I say advisedly "try" to exercise, because it never can exercise the power which it is supposed to have. It stands to reason, therefore, that any attempt whatever to make it exercise a power superior to the more powerful arm must result in interfering with the proper functions of the hand and arm which should be naturally in command of the stroke. We have seen that James Braid in _Advanced Golf_ has quite altered the opinions which he expresses in _How to Play Golf_, and he also agrees that at the top of the swing, and until the stroke is played, it is right to grip the club as hard as one can with both hands--in fact, he says as plainly as it is possible for anyone to say anything, that during the whole of the downward swing the muscles are in a state of supreme tension, and fortunately he does not repeat the common error, the error which he himself makes in _How to Play Golf_, of advising the player to encumber his mind with any idea of regulating the increase of speed of the club head. Vardon puts the matter splendidly when he says: Personally, I grip quite as firmly with the right hand as with the other one. When the other way is adopted--the left hand being tight and the right hand simply watching it, as it were--there is an irresistible tendency for the latter to tighten up suddenly at some part of the upward or downward swing, and, as surely as there is a ball on the tee, when it does so there will be mischief. This is such an important statement that I must, in passing, emphasise it, although I hope to deal with it again later on, for Vardon here strikes a deadly blow to the absurd nonsense which most books lay down about regulating the grip during the upward and downward swing. As Vardon truly says, any attempt to apportion the respective power of the grip of the left and right during the golf swing must inevitably result in disaster, for there will unquestionably be, as he well remarks, a pronounced tendency to tighten up at some part of the swing in a jerky manner. The only way to guard against this is to be, as James Braid says in _Advanced Golf_, in a state of supreme tension from the moment the downward swing starts. It must be remembered that Vardon himself advocates easing up with the grip of the right at the top of the swing, although he says that he grips as firmly with the right as the left. It stands to reason that if Vardon does ease up with his right at the top of the swing, he must during his downward stroke restore the balance of power. It seems perfectly clear that in doing this there is a very great danger of what he describes as an "irresistible tendency for the latter," that is the right hand, "to tighten up suddenly." I cannot see that, because Vardon starts with his grip equally firm with each hand, and then relaxes the firmness of his grip with his right hand at the top of the stroke, trusting to regain his firmness by the time he has reached the ball again, he removes from his swing the danger of the sudden tightening-up which he shows will threaten the swing of anyone who attempts to let the left hand have the predominant grip. It seems to me perfectly clear that this danger must be even in Vardon's downward swing, but we know quite well that Vardon, as a stroke player, is a genius, and that even if it is not a danger for him, it would be for ninety-five of every hundred golfers. The truth is, with regard to the golf grip, although none of the leading professionals or authors are courageous enough to state it, that for the ordinary golfer--aye, and even for the extraordinary golfer--there is only one way to apportion the force of the left and right in the grip, and that is _not to think about it at all when one is doing it_, but to grip very firmly with both hands, and leave any apportionment of force which may be necessary to Nature, and the golfer who follows this advice and instruction will find that Nature can attend to it infinitely better than he can. In golf we frequently find that one fallacy is built up on another, and it is quite an open question if the fallacy of the power of the left hand and arm is not founded on another fallacy, namely, the fallacy of the present overlapping grip. Now this sounds like rank heresy, and I may as well say at once that I am not prepared to assert that the present overlapping grip is a fallacy, but it is at least open to argument if it is the best grip which can be taken of a golf club. There is no such thing as standing still in golf or any other game--either we are progressing or we are going backwards. In golf, notwithstanding the vast amount of false teaching which is published, we are unquestionably advancing. It must not be thought from this that it is of no importance that most of the matter which is published about golf is entirely misleading, for that is not so. This misleading matter is followed by an enormous army of golfers who are not able to think out the matter for themselves, but there are a very great number of golfers who absolutely disregard the published tuition of the greatest experts in the world and play golf as it should be played, and in no case is this more pronounced than in the persons of leading professional golfers, for they write one thing, but do absolutely the other themselves. In the old days, when Vardon and all the other champions used the two-handed grip, it would have been rank folly for any person other than Vardon to have asserted that it was better to get the grip of the right hand off the club, as the overlapping grip does to a very great extent, but this grip was tried by Vardon, and it very soon became almost universal. However, I think we are justified in asking if this grip is undoubtedly the best that it is possible for us to get. Before the overlapping grip became fashionable both hands had their full grip on the shaft of the club, and in those days men played great golf, and there are many of them who still play great golf with the same hold, which they have refused to alter. At page 194 of _Taylor on Golf_, speaking of the grip, Taylor says: To sum up the matter, I should describe the orthodox manner of gripping with the right in the following words: The fingers must close around the club in such a way that provision is made for the thumb to cover and cross the shaft, the first joints of the fingers, providing this is done, being just in sight. Nothing more or nothing less. This is the grip generally accepted as being orthodox, and the one generally favoured by the majority of those who decide to follow up the game properly. But, as is the case with everything which is favoured by any considerable number of enthusiasts, there are those who, untrammelled by tradition, break away and hold the club differently, with one hand at least. Take, as for instance, the case of Mr. John Ball, jun. This gentleman--one of the leading golfers of the day--holds the club firmly, not to say tightly, in the palm of his right hand. Well, he has discovered that this does not detrimentally affect his play, so I presume that may be taken as a satisfactory proof that the orthodox way may sometimes be departed from. Then, after Mr. Ball, I might mention the name of Mr. Edward Blackwell. He is almost certainly the most consistently good long driver we possess now, and his unorthodox method of grip with the right hand has not affected his play. Taylor, of course, uses the overlapping grip, which is to-day the orthodox grip. Taylor speaks here of "those who, untrammelled by tradition, break away and hold the club differently, with one hand at least," but it seems to me that the two golfers quoted are not those who are breaking away from the traditional hold. Rather does it seem to me that it is we of the orthodox grip of to-day who have broken away from the best traditions of golf, and taking best and best of those who have adopted the modern grip and those who have maintained the old grip, there is practically "nothing in it." Looking at the grip of men like Mr. H. H. Hilton, Mr. John Ball, and Mr. Edward Blackwell, it would, I think, to-day, require a person almost bereft of intelligence to imagine for one moment that the power of the stroke in the play of these golfers is obtained from their left arms and hands, and I do not suppose for a single moment that any one of these players would dream of asserting that he gets his length or direction from the left arm. We are now confronted with the fact that one at least of these players with the two-handed grip is at practically no disadvantage against the best golfers in the world, and we must take it for granted in the face of what we have said, that his power of stroke and his command thereof is obtained from his right hand and arm. Now that being so, let us say for the sake of argument that he desires to improve his play by bringing the action of his wrists into greater harmony by adopting the overlapping grip. Surely one is confronted with this question--should one overlap the left hand with the right, or should one overlap the right with the left. In the present overlap the left hand takes the first grip of the club, and the right hand overlaps it, and in so doing is taken, to a very great extent, off the shaft of the club. The question now arises, Should not one first take one's grip with the right hand, the dominant hand, the guiding hand, and the hand which is operated by the stronger arm, and having got this grip, proceed to overlap with the left, always allowing, of course, for the necessary insertion of the thumb of the left between the shaft and the palm of the right hand? This may sound revolutionary, but I assure my readers that it is not one half so revolutionary as the change from the old two-handed grip to the present overlapping grip, for in that change the right hand was, to a very great extent, deprived of its pride of place. I think there is very little doubt that a player who became accustomed to the right-handed grip with the left overlap, would find that he produced a better game than he was able to do with the present overlapping grip. The fact is that we are inclined to take a much too complimentary and optimistic view of our exploits. Golf has now come to such a pass that it is played almost perfectly by a few of the best players, so that we have come to consider a five by a leading player as a serious lapse; but we must not judge the great body of golfers by the perfect players. These men would probably play very well under any conditions which could exist in the game. We have to consider the greatest good of the greatest number--in other words, the object of our search is to ascertain and understand perfectly what is the best way, and although I am stating this proposition with regard to the golf grip quite tentatively, and am laying it down as a subject for argument, I have very little doubt indeed that it will be found in the future that the right-handed grip is the best grip for playing golf. I think there is very little doubt that the most important change in the next decade will be in the right hand and arm coming into their kingdom. It need not be thought that this will happen in a day, or a month, or a year. For very many years the great game of golf was played, and was well and truly played by men who never dreamed of putting part of one hand beneath the other--who would have scouted the overlapping grip and the levering of the right hand off the shaft as sacrilege--but some one introduced the idea, because it brought the wrists closer together so that they worked more in harmony than with the old grip. Harry Vardon tried it and found it good, and it went into the game of golf and the history thereof. And to see Vardon use it, one might well say, "What more can you want?"; but that is not argument. Probably the one who asked that question would have asked the same question had he seen Vardon playing when he was using the old grip, when one wrist was fighting the other; so we must not be deterred from our speculation, from peering into the future. Of course, the essence of the overlapping grip is that it reduces the conflict of the wrists, and so conduces to greater accuracy and to less interference with the rhythm of the swing. It stands to reason that in the old days of the two-handed grip this conflict was worse than it would be now, for then the fetich of the left had not been weakened, and it was a distressful thing to have a hefty left in possession of the end of one's shaft and interfering with the proper functions of the right in an unwarrantable manner. Scientific golfers have, however, now come to the conclusion that the right hand and arm are the dominant partners in the production of the golf stroke, although there are many of the old school who still pathetically retain and exhibit their allegiance to the old tradition of the left being the master. If we have established the fact that the right is the dominant factor in the production of the drive, it seems to me that it follows quite naturally that the place of honour on the shaft should be allotted to it, and that it should be allowed the full grip, and not as it is at present, pushed off the shaft so that the grip of the dominant hand is practically reduced to that of the thumb and the first and second fingers. If this point is conceded the right hand obtains the full benefit of its undoubtedly superior power, for it obtains a firm and natural grip, whereas the present overlapping grip is a most unnatural hold and a difficult one for beginners to acquire, although very few players who have once used it return to the old grip. Not only is the proposed grip more solid and natural, and productive of greater power and accuracy than the present overlapping grip, but it unquestionably carries the main idea of the overlapping grip to its logical conclusion, as it reduces the stroke much more to a one-wrist shot than does the present grip. There will always be found many people who are prepared to condemn utterly anything which they do not understand. Some of these are sure to exercise themselves on this subject, so I shall give them some additional food for thought. Some time ago, a golfer who was capable of removing Mr. John Ball from the Amateur Championship Competition, lost his left thumb at the second joint. After his misfortune he took to driving a much longer ball than he had been in the habit of doing before his accident. Now there must have been some reason for this. The only one which I can suggest is that his accident put the right hand more into its proper and natural place on the shaft than it had been before. Curiosity led me to try to reproduce this grip as much as possible. I used the ordinary overlapping grip, with the exception that I allowed my thumb to remain out and to rest on the back of my right hand in a line with the knuckle of the little finger. I was astonished to find how closely it seemed to bring the wrists together. The injured golfer would probably have the ideal golf grip if he overlapped his right with his left forefinger instead of using the ordinary overlap, for he would have a perfectly free and full right-hand grip, no interference by the thumb of the left hand, and a natural overlap with the left forefinger on the little finger of the right hand. There is surely food for thought in these considerations, and I am sure that many who take to golf late in life could do much better with this grip and the short swing than they do with the grip which is most in vogue, and with much striving after an exaggerated swing. It is not wise for us to think that there is nothing to discover or to improve on in the grip. There is in this suggestion much room for experiment and argument, and unless I am very much mistaken we shall, in the future, see the relative position of the hands on the shaft altered. I may here refer again to the remarks made on the power of the left by Mr. Horace Hutchinson. It will be remembered that he said: Since, as will be shown later on, the club has to turn in the right hand at a certain point in the swing, it should be held lightly in the fingers, rather than in the palm, with that hand. In the left hand it should be held well home in the palm, and it is not to stir from this position throughout the swing. It is the left hand, mainly, that communicates the power of the swing; the chief function of the right hand is as a guide in direction. Notwithstanding Mr. Horace Hutchinson's statement with regard to the function of the right hand, there is given on page 86 of the Badminton _Golf_ an illustration entitled "At the top of the swing (as it should be)." Here we see a player in about as ineffective a position for producing a drive as one could possibly imagine, for the right elbow is considerably above the player's head and is pointing skyward. It would be an impossibility from such a position to obtain either adequate guidance or power from the right hand, and it is a matter of astonishment to find the name of such a fine player and good judge of the game as Mr. Horace Hutchinson attached to an illustration which must always be a classical illustration of "The top of the swing (as it should _not_ be)." We may here for the time being disregard the fundamentally unsound position of the right arm, for Mr. Horace Hutchinson has apparently altered his mind since, as we find him in _Great Golfers_ photographed at the top of his swing with the right elbow in an entirely different position. We see there clearly that he had come to realise the importance of keeping his elbow well down and as much as possible in the plane of force indicated by the swing and the shaft of the golf club. These photographs are very interesting. Mr. Horace Hutchinson says that the golf club "should be held well home in the [left] palm, and it is not to stir from this position throughout the swing," yet at the top of Mr. Horace Hutchinson's swing illustrated on page 296 of _Great Golfers_ we see clearly that at the top of his swing the club is barely held in the fingers of the left hand--as a matter of fact the forefinger of the left hand is raised and the club is merely resting in the three other fingers, which appear to be curved on to the club and hardly exerting any pressure whatever. It is abundantly clear from this photograph that Mr. Hutchinson, who is the most pronounced adherent to the fetich of the left, is driving his ball with a grip which is, to all intents and purposes, a right-handed stroke. This photograph was taken in action and at the rate of about one twelve-hundred-and-fiftieth of a second, so that there cannot be much doubt as to the fact that Mr. Horace Hutchinson is merely another exemplification of the fact that the golfers who write for the public tell them one thing, while they themselves practise another. Before concluding this chapter on the power of the left, I may mention that Mr. H. H. Hilton in Mr. John L. Low's book _Concerning Golf_, subscribes to the idea of attempting to regulate the force of the grips taken by the hands. He says on page 78 of that book: When the main object of a shot is to obtain length, hold tight with the left hand. The left hand will then do most of the work in taking up the club. The right hand comes in on the down swing to add force to the shot, and all parts of the player's anatomy cohering together, the impetus will carry his shoulders round, and unless he arbitrarily checks the motion, he will finish his shot with his arms and club thrown forcibly away from him; in short, he will have followed through. It will be seen that this fine player distinctly advises a stronger grip with the left than with the right hand when one's object is distance. In the drive the object, of course, generally is distance, and we are distinctly advised by Mr. Hilton to play our stroke in a manner which Harry Vardon has clearly laid down as almost certain to lead to irretrievable disaster, for starting with a firm grip with our left, which we are to put practically in command of the club on the upward swing, we are then to bring the right into play "on the down swing to add force to the shot." It will be clearly seen here that Mr. Hilton is under the impression that the left is performing the more important portion of the work, for he speaks of the right hand as coming in to add force to the shot, whereas, in fact, the main portion of the force is provided by the right, and if there is any question of either hand and arm _adding_ force to the shot, that will be done by the left hand and arm, and not by the right. I do not think it is necessary for me to go any further in order to show how deeply rooted and how widespread is this delusion about the power of the left. It is another one of those pernicious fallacies which absolutely strike at the root of the game of the great body of golfers, and it is impossible for one to take too much trouble in discrediting it to such an extent that it will soon be recognised as not being practical golf. I can hardly close this chapter better than by a quotation from a letter received by me from the professional of an American club as far afield as San Antonio, Texas. He writes: It has taken me years of persistent effort to bury the many prejudices against the proper use of the right arm, but they must go, and I am glad to see you voiced sentiments strong enough to make men stop and think over the situation. Let us hope they will act. CHAPTER VII THE FUNCTION OF THE EYES One of the commonest of the many excuses advanced for missing one's drive is, "I lifted my eye." If the player only knew it he could lift his eye with impunity. That is not what matters. It was lifting his head which caused the trouble. "Keep your eye on the ball" is, without question, the soundest of sound golf maxims, but it is both abused and misused. We need not waste time arguing the question as to whether or not keeping one's eye on the ball at the moment of impact is absolutely essential to success in driving. Every golfer knows that for all purposes of practical golf one absolutely must keep one's eye on the ball, and that to do any other thing with the eyes at the moment of striking the ball is, to put it mildly, quite inconvenient. The trouble in connection with lifting one's eye is that one's eyes are in one's head. The seat of the machinery which works the golf drive is in the same place. If one relaxes for a moment the mental effort which has to be made whilst the golf stroke is being executed, the eyes quite naturally wander in the direction in which the ball is about to go. That in itself would not be so bad. The eyes unfortunately do not wander without carrying the head with them. The head is attached to the portion of the body where, roughly speaking, the centre of the swing is situated. Immediately the head moves, the centre of the circle, if it may for purposes of illustration be so called, is affected. Hopeless inaccuracy is the result. It is a matter of the most vital importance in golf that the eyes must not move. Keeping the eyes in the one position from the moment when one has finally addressed the ball until the moment of impact practically ensures the proper management of one's weight; for it stands to reason that if the eyes do not move it is impossible for the head to move, and if the head does not move it will be impossible to sway, and therefore to get the weight on to the right leg at the top of the swing, as do so many golfers who follow the misleading directions given with regard to the distribution of weight in the golf drive. Keeping one's head perfectly still is a matter of far greater importance than keeping one's eye on the ball; for it will be obvious that it is quite possible for a golfer, after having taken his address, to keep his eye on the ball until he has driven it, but he may in the meantime have lifted his head three or four inches. Lifting his head three or four inches will not have caused him to take his eye off the ball for an instant, but it will have been sufficient to have ruined his drive. Therefore, we see that the really important thing is to keep one's head and eyes in the same position for the impact as they were at the moment of address. When I say the same position it is manifest that there will be a fractional alteration, but it must be the aim of the scientific golfer to have his eyes, at the moment of impact, almost exactly in the same position as they were at the moment of address. Keeping one's eyes steady in this manner means, as has already been pointed out, that one preserves the centre, if it may be so called, of the swing much better than if one allows one's weight to move from one leg to the other. Preserving the centre of the swing in this manner means that the rhythm of the swing must be very much better than if it has a moving "centre." A moving centre must import into the stroke of any golfer far greater inaccuracy than there would be if his centre had remained constant, as it will do if he keeps his head in the same place. Some time ago a good professional golfer asserted that the well-known maxim "Keep your eye on the ball" was a delusion, and that it was possible to play perfectly good golf blindfolded, provided one had first taken one's stance and judged one's swing at the ball. In due course a match was arranged between this professional, blindfolded, and an amateur, and the professional was very badly beaten, as he did not, I believe, win a single hole. This result naturally tended to discredit his ideas very considerably. As a matter of practical golf, what he wished to establish is perfectly correct. Although "Keep your eye on the ball" is the soundest of sound practical golf, it is to a very large extent preached in a manner which is in itself entirely fallacious--for two reasons: Firstly, the player is told that it is absolutely essential to his stroke that he must keep his eye on the ball up to the moment of impact, and not only must he keep it there until the moment of impact, but that he should keep on gazing at the turf where the ball had lain after the ball has gone on its way. Now our professional golfer, who essayed the task of playing blindfolded golf, was perfectly correct in stating that it is not necessary to keep one's eye on the ball in playing golf, for the simple reason that the eye has fulfilled its function and has gone out of business, so far as regards that stroke, long before the head of the club has come into contact with the ball. It is this fact which makes us so prone to lift our eyes, and with them our heads, which of course is fatal to good golf. I go so far as to say that if Vardon in his drive could be automatically blindfolded when his club was two feet from his ball, and that he could accustom himself to keeping his head still after he was blindfolded, it would not affect his drive in the slightest degree, for the very simple and all-sufficient reason that the eye has finished its function in connection with the golf stroke for a very considerable period before impact takes place. It has assisted the golfer to take his proper stance and address, and has aided him in judging his distance, but the arc of the golf stroke is practically settled almost from the instant that it starts on its downward path. The duration of impact in a drive at golf has been measured by the most competent authority to be one ten-thousandth of a second. Photographs of the impact of the golf club with the golf ball taken at the one twelve-hundred-and-fiftieth of a second, are merely blurs. There is no clear definition of the club whatever. We can see from this that the rate of speed at which the golf club is travelling is extreme, even had we not the scientific measurement of the exact amount of time consumed during the contact. It will be obvious to a very ordinary understanding that when a club is travelling at this terrific pace it would be impossible for anyone to impart into the line of travel of the club head a new direction at, say, two feet from the ball, without ruining both the force and the direction of the ball. Therefore, it is evident that if one could close one's eyes when the club head was two feet from the ball and still keep one's head in exactly the same position, the impact would be practically not affected at all. This is the undoubted fact in so far as regards the work of the eye. It fulfils its duty very early in the stroke; but although the explanation of the function of the eye is so incorrectly given, still "Keep your eye on the ball" is, and ever will be, a sound golfing maxim, for it is not given to golfing man to be able to lift his eye and at the same time to keep his mind concentrated on his stroke, and to keep his head in the same place as it was in when he addressed his ball. Therefore, although it is not so absolutely necessary to keep one's eye on the ball as is generally laid down, it is expedient to preach to the fullest extent and to insist on what Harry Vardon calls "the parrot cry of the links." Most writers who deal with the matter of keeping one's eye on the ball are not satisfied with exhorting the player to keep his eye on the ball until after the moment of impact; they go further still and insist upon the fact that he must continue to gaze at the piece of turf whereon the ball lay, long after the ball has departed to the hole. This, again, is an absolute fallacy. It is only excusable on the principle that the greater includes the less, and that by insisting on one gazing at the turf long after the ball has sped on its way, one may be able to make the player do what he should do, and that is just to keep his eye on the ball until the moment of impact, for if we follow the advice given by many notable men of continuing to gaze at the turf after the ball has been driven, there can be no doubt whatever that we do much to spoil the rhythm and effectiveness of the drive. To preserve these we have been told that the head must be kept immovable throughout the golf drive, and that one must keep one's eye on the ball until it has been driven, and on the place where it was after it has been driven. However, following Vardon's explanation of the drive and taking what we know of this stroke ourselves, it will be remembered that at the moment of impact, "simultaneously," Vardon says, the body moves down the line of flight to the hole. It follows, therefore, that if one continues turf-gazing after one has hit the ball, that one's body is going on its way towards the hole whilst one's head is being held backward in the opposite direction to the travel of the body. This is absolutely bad golf, and Vardon does not do this himself. The truth with regard to the proper management of the eye in the golf stroke is that it should move simultaneously with the ball, for if there be any attempt whatever to drive the ball and to keep the head in the same position as it was at the moment of address, this will inevitably result in preventing the right shoulder getting through and the body following it as it ought to do, for a rigid head and neck will prevent any follow-through. Vardon is very explicit about the value of timing the body so that it goes forward down the line of flight towards the hole at the moment the stroke is made. He shows us, as a matter of fact, that this forward movement is practically simultaneous with the impact of the club on the ball. It will be obvious, then, to anyone, that this turf-gazing after one has hit the ball, which is recommended by the leading authorities of the game, is absolutely bad golf, for it must inevitably interfere with the follow-through. At page 174 of _The Complete Golfer_ Vardon says: Keep your eye on the ball until you have hit it, but no longer. You cannot follow through properly with a long shot if your eye remains fastened on the ground. Hit the ball and then let your eye pick it up in its flight as quickly as possible. Of course this needs skilful timing and management, but precision will soon become habitual. It was by the merest chance that I saw this passage after I had written my chapter on "The Function of the Eyes," although I am now incorporating it herein. I am very glad to have Vardon's authority to back me up in discrediting the silly idea about turf-studying; but although I have him with me I cannot hold him guiltless of spreading the error, for he has been photographed _repeatedly_ illustrating it in a style which he never uses in actual play. This may be seen in the series of photographs in _Fry's Magazine_ already referred to, and also at pages 89 and 97 of _Great Golfers_, wherein this great player is shown in positions which in actual play he would not understand how to get into; but people who know no better, and have not the real power of comparative analysis and close thinking, are led away and suffer for this kind of foolishness merely because it is associated with a great name. [Illustration: PLATE VIII. EDWARD RAY This plate shows the champion's tremendous finish in the drive. Ray, at the top of his stroke, gets much of his weight on his right foot, but does not advise others to do so.] In connection with this matter of the function of the eye there is an interesting point which I have not seen mentioned in any golf book--a point which makes it, if anything, more necessary for one to insist upon the vast importance of the maxim "Keep your eye on the ball," although it is fallaciously preached both before and after impact. This point is that there is just before impact a very considerable portion of the travel of the head of the golf club during which the ball is practically never seen by the golfer. This is what I may call the golfer's "blind spot." It exists in practically all ball games where the ball is struck by a bat or other implement of that kind. Its existence, of course, is well known in cricket. I have played lawn-tennis for twenty years, and I do not believe that I have at any time during that period seen my racket hit the ball when actually playing. I have seen it do it when I have made up my mind to watch the ball and forget other matters, but in actual play one does not do this. One plays the stroke with the utmost naturalness. The ball is coming towards one and one gauges the distance and strikes. One knows that whatever happens one's stroke is made for good or ill, and there is in many strokes a blind spot of fully six to nine inches in length. I have had some wonderful photographs of this blind spot wherein it is shown most clearly that the lawn-tennis player is looking right away from his ball long before he has struck it. I think it is beyond question that this same blind spot exists in golf. I have no doubt whatever that, perfect player as he is, there is in Harry Vardon's stroke a blind spot of at least five inches. Few people who have not studied this question can realise the incredible rapidity with which the head of a golf club travels. I am well aware that there are many photographs of Harry Vardon in existence, which show him carefully studying the turf after the ball has gone on its way. I am also well aware that these photographs were taken to illustrate the fact that he does engage in turf-studying after the ball has gone on its way. I am also well aware that in actual play he does nothing of the kind, and that his beautiful, free, and natural finish is as different from the stiff and constrained photographs shown when he does not lift his head, as chalk is from cheese. I have watched Harry Vardon many and many a time, and I am absolutely certain that in his natural play he has no thought whatever in his mind of gazing at the turf after his ball has gone away. There is nothing whatever to be gained by doing so, and there is much to be lost. Any attempt whatever to anchor the head by gazing at the turf after the ball has gone away, and then afterwards to allow it to resume its place, together with the shoulders, in the swing of the follow-through, is mere futility, and must result in absolutely spoiling the rhythm of the swing and a proper follow-through. There is no player in the world who could be taken as a finer example than Harry Vardon, of the fact that in the golf swing and at the moment of impact there must be no restraint whatever on the movement of the shoulders and the head. They must work together with the club head and the ball. If they do not all move at the same time something is out of gear. In the game of blindfolded golf which I have referred to, the professional player took his stance, addressed his ball, and was then blindfolded with a handkerchief, an operation which naturally took some considerable time, but even as it was, he played some astonishingly good shots even when his whole swing was blindfolded. He should have had a pair of spectacles lined with cotton wadding or some similar material and fastened with an elastic band, which could have been lifted up whilst he was taking his address and closed down the moment he was ready to make his stroke. This would have given him a better chance to demonstrate what he desired to, which, as I have already said, was in itself practically sound. I have spoken of Harry Vardon's blind spot, and I have said that it is a matter of five inches. As a matter of fact it may quite well often be double that; but it seems to me perfectly plain that nothing whatever that Vardon can do when his club is within a foot of the ball, so long as he keeps his head steady or still, is likely to alter the path of the club head--I am speaking now, of course, of any normal golf stroke. This consideration of the matter brings us back to the statement which I have made time and time again, and in which I am supported by James Braid, that once the golf stroke is commenced, the fact of it connecting with the ball is merely an incident in the path of the club head; and that after the club head has proceeded a certain distance on the way to the ball it is beyond the power of the player to alter the character of that stroke, for his force has been irretrievably directed, in so far as regards that particular stroke, in a particular manner. Speaking of the position of the head in driving, Taylor says: The head is maintained in exactly the same position as the arms are brought down again, and so it remains until the ball has been swept from the tee. The arms and body for all practical purposes go through the same action, but in the reverse way as in the upward swing, the body being held in a similar position, but with the head turned and eyes looking over the right shoulder at the finish of the stroke. During the progress of this downward movement the weight of the body is again transferred, passing from the right leg to the left, until when the finish arrives the whole of the weight has been placed upon the left foot, while the right has assumed the position previously held by its neighbour. We see here in a very marked degree the fallacy of the distribution of the weight so that at the top of the swing the greater portion of it is on the right leg; for Taylor, although he tells us that "the head is maintained in exactly the same position," says that "during the progress of this downward movement the weight of the body is again transferred, passing from the right leg to the left." It is a very natural question for us to ask, "How can all this shifting of the body be going on if the head is to be kept perfectly still?" As a matter of fact it is a physical impossibility; and it is also obvious that it would be impossible to keep the head still, rigidly fixed, as we are told it should be, at the moment of impact, and yet to get a true follow-through. Let us read a little farther on, and we see that Taylor says: "If the ball has been struck there must be no semblance of checking or snatching at the club. The player must not check himself or allow premonitory symptoms of a check to make themselves felt even in the slightest degree. He must allow the club head to follow the line of flight of the ball as straight and as far as is possible." It stands to reason that if one's head remains fixed for an instant after the impact of the club with the ball, that instant the club head must feel the tendency to be drawn out of the straight line to the hole, and the follow-through down the line to the hole, which is so properly insisted on by all great golfers, is ruined. Taylor continues: "The arms must be thrown forward freely and naturally, and as a consequence the right shoulder must be allowed to swing forward too." This should effectually dispose of the idea of holding the head still after the ball has left the ground, for the simple reason that if the head and neck be held still, it will be a matter of utter impossibility for the right shoulder to go through and down the line to the hole as it should. I must emphasise this matter a little more strongly by Taylor's own words, for it is of very great importance in the golf drive. Continuing, he says, in reference to the fact that the arms must be allowed to go forward freely and naturally and that therefore the right shoulder must be allowed to swing forward: By doing this the involuntary checking of the swing is rendered impossible; but if arms and shoulders were to be held tightly under control and as rigid as steel, the stroke would be finished as soon as the head of the club had been brought into contact with the ball. Every stroke in golf must be played freely, every muscle of the body must be allowed to do its full share of the necessary work. That is undoubtedly so; but if one arbitrarily fixes the position of one's head as a stationary point in the golf swing after the ball has gone on its journey, one prevents the right leg doing its share of the work in shifting the weight forward down the line towards the hole, and therefore one, to a very great extent, ruins one's follow-through. This is a point which, in my mind, is of very great importance to the drive, and it is, in so far as regards the function of the eyes, one of the most pronounced fallacies of the many fallacious statements with which unfortunate golfers are loaded. This blind spot which I have referred to, exists, as I have already said, in practically every game wherein the ball is struck with an implement. It is found in lacrosse, racquets, tennis, cricket, lawn-tennis, polo, base-ball, hockey, ping-pong, and even in billiards; but the probability is that the farther the striking surface of the club or other implement is from the eye, the less is the blind spot; and this is very fortunate for the golfer, for his margin of error is so small that it is of great importance to him to reduce this blind spot to a negligible quantity. But on the other hand, as a matter of scientific and accurate golf, he will make nearly as great a mistake in his golf if, in his endeavour to follow out the well-known and useful maxim, "Keep your eye on the ball," he acquires the habit of turf-gazing after the ball has gone on its way to the hole. I have before had occasion to refer to the book entitled _The Mystery of Golf_, and I have already, in part, touched upon some of the author's curious ideas with regard to the analysis of the golfing stroke. At page 159 he tells us that "the arms do not judge distance (save when we are actually touching something) nor does the body, nor does the head. The judging is done by the eyes." I am afraid that we cannot deny that the judging is, in all cases, done by the eye, because it is obvious that if we had not the use of our eyes, we should not be able to see the ball; but the author seems to overlook the somewhat important fact that although the arms do not judge distance, yet they _measure_ it, and this matter of measurement is a matter of extreme importance, as is exemplified in the case of play out of a bunker where one has to measure the distance without grounding the club. On the same page the author says: "If the eyes look up before the ball is hit, the muscles do not receive the proper orders to hit, and the most important part of the stroke is done blindly. That is my theory"; and a most remarkable theory it is too. The muscles received their proper orders to hit at the moment the stroke was begun, and lifting the eyes a moment before impact would not affect the stroke if the head remained in the same position. Lifting the eyes is in nearly every case, as I have already pointed out, an action following on lifting the mind. The mind has been allowed to come off the stroke because the player's mental picture of the stroke has been completed long before the physical act. In other words, he has got ahead of his stroke. Then his head comes up, which of course is fatal to good golf. It is a very remarkable circumstance that the attempted analysis by the author of _The Mystery of Golf_ shows clearly that he has entered upon his task with but a very faint idea of sport generally, and he is in this respect much handicapped in his efforts. Let us consider what he has to say with regard to lifting the eye in golf. We read on page 164: I have sometimes thought that there are two simple and especial reasons for this difficulty of keeping one's eye on the ball: first, because there is nothing to stimulate the attention; second, because one has to attend so long. In cricket, tennis, racquets, as I have shown, the stimulus is extreme; by consequence, your eye follows the ball like a hawk. In billiards there is no stimulus, but you rarely, if ever, take your eye off your ball in billiards. Why? I think because (1) the ball is so near to the eye--and, therefore, the stimulus strong; (2) because the period of time requisite for the stroke is so short. In golf there is no stimulus and the period is always long: you have to look at your ball for more than the whole period of the upward and downward swings. This remarkable statement shows very clearly, as I have before said, that the author is not practically acquainted with games generally, for lifting the eye is common in practically every game where a ball is used. And it is amazing to find anyone attempting to analyse such a stroke as the golf stroke and at the same time making the statement that "you rarely, if ever, take your eye off your ball in billiards"; and he proceeds to give reasons why one rarely takes one's eye off one's ball in billiards, whereas the game of billiards is an outstanding illustration of the fact that one does take one's eye off the ball. To a very great extent one plays one's stroke at billiards with a most pronounced blind spot every time, in that, just prior to the moment of striking the cue ball, one always looks at the object ball and practically one never sees one's cue on to one's own ball. Also, it is open to doubt if the golf stroke takes, on the average, from the time the club leaves the ball in its upward swing until the moment of impact, any longer than the billiard player takes in playing his stroke. If it does, the difference is not a matter which need enter into any practical comparison of the strokes. The curious thing is that in the game instanced by the author as possessing the greater stimulus, that is those games wherein the ball is moving, as in cricket, tennis, racquets, the tendency to lift the eye from the ball is much more pronounced than in those games where the ball is stationary, and this, I think, is by no means unnatural. The operation of the eye is incredibly swift. It catches the flight of the oncoming ball and one plays the stroke to meet it. In playing a stroke at a moving ball, it stands to reason that one has, all other things being equal, less time between the beginning of the stroke and impact than one would have in executing a similar blow where the ball is stationary, for here we have merely the pace of one moving object to deal with, whereas we have in the other case the pace of the two moving objects added together. It seems to me clear, therefore, that the eye has been able to ascertain much more rapidly what will happen in the case of the two moving objects, and having decided definitely that the stroke must be played in a certain way, the mind has given to the muscles the necessary orders, and the eye has then gone out of business so far as regards that particular stroke, and we get the astonishing result that we find famous players at lawn-tennis playing their strokes with a blind spot of, in many cases, as much as nine inches. This is beyond the region of doubt, and can be proved to demonstration by numerous photographs, so it will be seen that even if there were anything whatever in the suggested comparisons, they are fundamentally unsound in their premises, and therefore absolutely useless for any purposes of practical golf. We are told at page 166: "If you _don't_ keep your eye on the ball, your stroke is cut short the moment you take your eye off." This is obviously an error. Let us imagine that the golfer has played his stroke perfectly accurately up to within three inches of his ball and then takes his eye away from it, will any practical golfer believe that if he keeps his head still the fact of moving his eye is going to alter that stroke in any way whatever? I think not. Again we are informed at page 167 that: "It is at all events indisputable that any photograph showing a good follow-through shows the player looking at the spot where the ball was, after the ball had left it; proving that he was really looking at the ball when he hit." Personally, I may say that I have never yet seen a photograph of a good follow-through which did show the player looking at the spot where the ball was after the ball had left it, for photographs of that nature which I have seen showed most clearly that if one desires to absolutely prevent oneself from following through, one of the best methods of doing it is to cultivate the habit of studying the turf after the ball has gone on its way to the hole. In this we know that we have Vardon entirely with us. His corroboration is valuable for the point is of great and practical importance to the game. CHAPTER VIII THE MASTER STROKE In his chapter on "Special Strokes with Wooden Clubs" Vardon discusses the question of the master stroke in golf. At page 86 of _The Complete Golfer_ he says: Which, then, is the master stroke? I say that it is the ball struck by any club to which a big pull or slice is intentionally applied for the accomplishment of a specific purpose which could not be achieved in any other way, and nothing more exemplifies the curious waywardness of this game of ours than the fact that the stroke which is the confounding and torture of the beginner who does it constantly, he knows not why, but always to his detriment, should later on at times be the most coveted shot of all and should then be the most difficult of accomplishment. I call it the master shot, because to accomplish it with any certainty and perfection, it is so difficult, even to the experienced golfer, because it calls for the most absolute command over the club and every nerve and sinew of the body, and the courageous heart of the true sportsman whom no difficulty may daunt, and because, when properly done, it is a splendid thing to see, and for a certainty results in material gain to the man who played it. Here we have a very definite statement by one of the greatest stroke players in the world, that the master stroke at golf is "the ball struck by any club to which a big pull or slice is intentionally applied for the accomplishment of a specific purpose which could not be achieved in any other way." It is to me a most extraordinary thing to find a golfer of the ability of Harry Vardon classing the pull and the slice as practically equal in order of merit. Anyone who is acquainted with golf must know that the pull is an infinitely more difficult stroke to play correctly than the slice. The slice is a stroke which is comparatively easy, but no one can truthfully say the same thing of the pull. Before we proceed to a consideration of the question of the master stroke, it will be interesting to quote what Taylor has to say on the subject. At page 88 of _Taylor on Golf_ he says: Still it is not advisable, neither do I look upon it as being golf in the truest sense of the word, for the knack of pulling or slicing to be cultivated, as I am afraid it is by a great many players. No compromise should be made with a fault. Here we see that what Harry Vardon regards as the master strokes of the game, are looked upon by Taylor as faults. I may say at the outset that I am not inclined to agree with Vardon at all in this matter of the master stroke in golf. If there is one stroke which stands out above and beyond all others in its demand for accuracy, and a perfect knowledge of the method of applying spin, also a supreme ability perfectly to apply that knowledge, it is the stroke which is commonly called a "wind-cheater"; that is to say a long low ball which flies very close to the earth for the greater portion of its journey, and rises towards the end of its flight to its greatest height. Although this ball is called the wind-cheater, it is just as effective and just as useful on a perfectly still day as it is against a howling gale, for this stroke is, in my opinion, without any doubt whatever, the master stroke in golf, and if a man has this stroke he should be very willing to allow anybody else to have all the pulls and slices in golf. The supreme importance of this stroke is so pronounced that I have always wondered at the comparatively unimportant position which has been given to it in every book on golf, with the exception of my own works. Pulling and slicing, as golfing shots, may be said to be practically unnecessary if a man has full command of the plain drive without back-spin and the wind-cheater. Very frequently when a man is called upon to pull or to slice, it is to remedy a previous error, and there can be no doubt that with the pull and the slice it is an utter impossibility to keep on the line in the same manner as can one who uses back-spin in the drive. The secret of the greatest golf of the future lies, in my opinion, in the proper application of back-spin in the drive. I do not intend here to go fully into the effect of spin on the flight of the ball, as I shall do that at length in my chapter on "The Flight of the Golf Ball." Suffice it to say that the tremendous advantage of the ball with back-spin is, that being hit as the club is descending, and the hands at the time of impact with the ball being a little in front of the ball, the loft of the club is, to a certain extent, minimised, so that the ball is, in effect, struck with a club which has much less loft than would be the case if it were driven in the ordinary manner. This means that for the first part of the carry, the flight of the ball is very low, and as the club was not at the lowest portion of the swing when it struck the ball, the wind-cheater acquires a large amount of back-spin which asserts itself later on, and causes the ball to reach the highest point in its trajectory towards the end of its flight. One of the greatest of the many merits of this ball is that the method of producing it almost commands a follow-through down the intended line of flight. This in itself tends to give better direction than any of the ordinary golf strokes. The pull and the slice, as is well known, curve very much in their flight, and especially in a wind. It is utterly impossible for the best golfer in the world to say within twenty yards as regards direction, and that, of course, means much more than twenty yards--in fact, practically double that--where the ball will come to rest; but this is not so with the wind-cheater, for although the ball has been sent on its way with a very heavy back-spin, so much of it has been exhausted in lifting the ball at the end of its flight, that by the time the ball strikes the earth there is little, if any, retarding power in the back-spin, so that the ball is frequently a very good runner. I must, however, devote a little attention here to the method of production of the pull and the slice. There is a wonderful amount of misconception about these strokes, even in the minds of the greatest golfers. Let me, before I proceed to examine what Harry Vardon has to say about the production of the pull, state the general principles upon which the production of all spin is produced. Spin is imparted to a golf ball, as we shall see more clearly later on, merely by the fact that the face of the club, instead of following through after the ball in the intended line of flight, crosses the line of flight at a more or less acute angle; for the slice the club head comes from the far side of the line of flight across towards the player's side of the line of flight; for the pull the process is reversed, and the club head, coming from the player's side, swings right out across the line of flight; in the wind-cheater the club passes downwards along the intended line of flight. There is, of course, no such thing in practical golf as top-spin, so we need not consider that. There is one other important point which I must mention here. At the moment of impact the face of the club must be, to all intents and purposes, at a right angle to the intended line of flight. For instance, in a slice, any attempt to produce the slice by laying back the toe of the club, or any tricks of this nature, must result in disaster. It is impossible for the person playing the stroke _to time_ anything to be done by him _during impact_, and it stands to reason that nothing will affect the ball except what takes place during impact. This, then, resolves the stroke into the fact that the contact between the ball and the club is, as I have frequently insisted, and, as we have seen, James Braid declares, merely an incident in the travel of the club's head in the arc which it is describing. Although I have said that the face of the club must be at a right angle to the line of flight of the ball, this is not exactly correct, although it is so for all purposes of practical golf. The reason I say that it is not correct, is that practically every well played slice starts off on the line to the hole a little to the left of the true line of flight, so that it is probable that at the moment of impact the face of the club is not at a dead right angle to the initial portion of the flight of the ball. However, it is unquestionably necessary that the face of the club should be as nearly as possible at a right angle to the intended line of flight at the moment that the impact takes place. If this point is not attended to as carefully in the pull and the slice as it is in other strokes, the result must be inaccuracy of direction, and very pronounced inaccuracy too. Let us now turn to Harry Vardon's directions as to how to play the pull. He says: Now there is the pulled ball to consider, for surely there are times when the making of such a shot is eminently desirable. Resort to a slice may be unsatisfactory, or it may be entirely impossible, and one important factor in this question is that the pulled ball is always much longer than the other--in fact, it has always so much length in it that many players in driving in the ordinary way from the tee, and desiring only to go straight down the course, systematically play for a pull and make allowances for it in their direction. He then gives instructions for the stance, and proceeds: The obvious result of this stance is that the handle of the club is in front of the ball, and this circumstance must be accentuated by the hands being held even slightly more forward than for an ordinary drive. Now they are held forward in front of the head of the club. In the grip there is another point of difference. It is necessary that in the making of this stroke the right hand should do more work than the left, and therefore the club should be held rather more loosely by the left hand than by its partner. We may pause for a moment here to remark that this is another one of those very noticeable instances wherein Vardon infers that it is usual for the left to do more work than the right, and we may also note that he here gives advice which he has in other portions of his book condemned--that is, attempting to hold more loosely with one hand than with the other, for it is obvious that if, as he has told us will be the case, we attempt to give the right hand a watching brief over the left, the right will come in too suddenly at some portion of the swing, and it is also equally obvious that if we follow out Vardon's advice here and allow the left to hold the watching brief, it will similarly misconduct itself. I must emphasise again, before I pass on, the very pronounced inference which Vardon here makes that, generally speaking, the left is the dominant partner. Vardon then continues: "The latter," that is the right hand, "will duly take advantage of this slackness," that is the slackness of the left hand, "and will get in just the little extra work that is wanted of it. In the upward swing carry the club head just along the line which it would take for an ordinary drive." This, I may say, is remarkable advice, for it is well known that in playing the pull the club head begins to move away from the ball, inwards, the moment it is lifted from the ground. This, of course, is natural, for generally speaking, the club goes back to the ball in the way in which it comes up, and as the ball is played by an outward glancing blow, it stands to reason that it will not be taken back straight from the ball as Vardon states here. That, however, is by the way. Let us now continue with what Vardon has to say: The result of all this arrangement, and particularly of the slackness of the left hand and comparative tightness of the right, is that there is a tendency in the downward swing for the face of the club to turn over to some extent, that is, for the top edge of it to be overlapping the bottom edge. This is exactly what is wanted, for, in fact, it is quite necessary that at the moment of impact the right hand should be beginning to turn over in this manner, and if the stroke is to be a success the golfer must see that it does so, but the movement must be made quite smoothly and naturally, for anything in the nature of a jab, such as is common when too desperate efforts are made to turn over an unwilling club, would certainly prove fatal. We have here Vardon's description of how to obtain a pulled ball which he regards as one of the master strokes of the game, but his conception of this stroke is absolutely erroneous. We are told by Vardon that in making this stroke "in the upward swing" we are to carry the club head just along the line which it would take for an ordinary drive. Now, at page 88, Vardon refers to "the inflexible rule that as the club head goes up so will it come down." It is now established beyond any doubt whatever that the pull is played by an outwardly glancing blow, the converse of the inwardly glancing blow of the slice, but if to obtain a pull we are to follow Vardon's advice and take the club straight back away from the ball, how are we going to come back by the same track as we went up, which is straight down the line of flight, and at the same time to obtain an outwardly glancing blow? The thing is a manifest impossibility, and, as a matter of fact, is not practical golf. This idea of turning over the wrists at the moment of impact is an utterly erroneous notion which I must deal with somewhat more fully. I shall show that James Braid originally had this idea himself, but that he has now, in all probability, abandoned it. It is evident that Vardon has but a hazy idea of the correct method of production of the pull, although, as we well know, he is a master of the art of producing this stroke. At page 92 of _The Complete Golfer_ he gives his description of the manner in which he thinks one of the master strokes of the game is produced. I must quote him again fully, for it is necessary to do this in order that my readers may follow the trend of his mind: It is necessary that in the making of this stroke the right hand should do more work than the left, and therefore the club should be held rather more loosely by the left hand than by its partner. The latter will duly take advantage of this slackness, and will get in just the little extra work that is wanted of it. In the upward swing carry the club head just along the line which it would take for an ordinary drive. The result of all this arrangement, and particularly the slackness of the left hand and comparative tightness of the right is, that there is a tendency in the downward swing for the face of the club to turn over to some extent, that is for the top edge of it to be overlapping the bottom edge. This is exactly what is wanted, for, in fact, it is quite necessary that at the moment of impact the right hand should be beginning to turn over in this manner, and if the stroke is to be a success the golfer must see that it does so. It will be seen from this quotation that Vardon is under the impression that in playing the pull the club goes straight back from the ball in the same manner as it would be taken were one playing an ordinary drive. We notice, too, that he commits himself to the statement, that it is necessary that the top edge of the face of the club should be practically overlapping the bottom at the moment of impact. This, in effect, means that the club is actually deprived of its loft at the moment of impact. It will be apparent to anyone who understands very little about the ordinary principles of mechanics that it would be an impossibility to play an effective shot in this manner. Indeed it would be impossible to raise the ball from the ground, and any attempt whatever to give this turn over of the wrists at the moment of impact would inevitably result in a very large proportion of foundered balls. It must be remembered that Vardon is advising the player to consciously attempt to regulate the loft of his club during an impact which lasts for no more than the ten-thousandth of a second. Golf is at all times a game calling for a remarkable degree of mechanical accuracy, but it is obviously asking, even of the most perfect player, far too much when we request that he shall, by the action of his hands and wrists, regulate the loft of his club in an impact which lasts for such an extremely short time. We must remember that if the shot were played as Vardon describes it, the loft of the club face is continually changing during, let us say, the foot before it gets to the ball and the foot after it has passed it. The whole idea of the stroke in golf, in so far as regards loft, ought to be that at the moment of impact the player has nothing whatever to do with the loft, his duty being confined to hitting the ball in a certain way and allowing the loft to do its own work, and to take the angle at which it will naturally come down, but any attempt consciously to regulate the loft of the club during impact, especially on the lines laid down by Vardon, must inevitably result in disaster. Vardon tells us that at the moment of impact it is necessary that the club face should be turning so that it will be practically overlapping at least the moment after the ball is struck. His error is by no means an uncommon one. The same thing exists in lawn-tennis in the lifting drive, where about ninety per cent of the players who try the lifting drive under the impression that it is got by a turn over of the wrist, do the turn too soon and founder the ball--in other words, put it into the net. If the pull were to be played in the way Vardon describes it, the result would be exactly the same. The ball would simply be topped or absolutely foundered. I cannot emphasise too strongly the fact that this turn over of the wrists in the pull has nothing whatever to do with the production of the stroke, although Vardon says that it has. This turn over of the wrists will, if it precedes the moment of impact, ruin the stroke. It must come naturally long after the ball has gone on its way, and it must come not by any voluntary or conscious effort on the part of the player, but as the natural result of the correctly played first portion of the stroke. In my chapter on "The Flight of the Ball," I shall go more fully into the mechanical principles of the production of the pull. It will be sufficient for me to say here that the pull is produced by an upward, outward, glancing blow, but there must be no attempt whatever to alter the loft of the club at the moment of impact. In so flatly contradicting such a master of stroke play as Harry Vardon, it may be as well for me to fortify myself by evidence taken from the work and photographs of another famous golfer who was himself originally under the impression that the pull was obtained in this manner, but who has apparently since abandoned this idea. I feel sure that for the great majority of players who know anything whatever of elementary mechanics, it will be unnecessary for me to do this, but there is a vast number of players who are not well acquainted with even simple mechanical problems, and it is for these that I take the trouble to bring forward James Braid to give evidence against this idea of turning over the wrist at the moment of impact. We must remember that Braid himself has stated in _How to Play Golf_ that the striking of the ball is merely an incident in the travel of the club's head, and we must remember that this book _How to Play Golf_ was written long after the quotation which I am now about to give from _Great Golfers_ at page 175. There James Braid tells us that "in playing for a _pulled ball_ the right wrist turns over at the moment of impact." This is emphatic enough, and Braid here commits himself to the same statement as Vardon does, that is to say, that the right wrist turns over _at the moment of impact_. This is what I absolutely deny. It is natural to suppose that Braid's book, _Advanced Golf_, contains the author's last word with regard to the science of playing the pulled ball, one of the balls, let us remember, which Harry Vardon considers the master stroke in the game. Let us therefore turn to Braid's illustration of playing for a pull in the four photographs following page 78. Braid here fortunately illustrates the actual moment of impact in the pull, and it will be seen on examining his club that it is apparently perfectly soled, that is to say that the club is lying as truly and flatly as it is at the moment of address. This is very important and quite incontrovertible as being Braid's considered opinion, because this stroke is a posed photograph for the purpose of illustrating the impact in the pull. We see quite clearly from this photograph that there is absolutely no turning over of the wrists, but that on the contrary, the right hand is, if anything, well back on the shaft, and showing no sign whatever, as I have already said--not even a symptom--of beginning to turn over. Nor, as a matter of fact, should it do so. The club does not begin to turn over in the manner described until it has reached practically the full extent of its outward swing on the far side of the line of flight. This photograph is, in itself, quite sufficient evidence to show us that Braid has abandoned his idea with regard to the necessity for turning over the right wrist at the moment of impact in the pull, but it is instructive to note that there is in the whole of _Advanced Golf_ not one word about turning over the wrists at the moment, of impact in the pull, so that we may take it as definitely settled that James Braid has, since the publication of _Great Golfers_, found out his error in this matter, for, against his one sentence in _Great Golfers_ that "in playing for a _pulled ball_ the right wrist turns over at the moment of impact," we have not only his statement in _How to Play Golf_ that the impact is a mere incident in the travel of the club head, but the still more eloquent fact that in _Advanced Golf_ he says no word whatever in support of this theory, and that he most expressly and emphatically by his own photographs contradicts the idea. We need not consider what Taylor has to say in connection with the production of the pull, for we see clearly that his idea of both the slice and the pull is that they are merely errors in golf and not to be encouraged. Let us turn now to a consideration of the slice. The same misconception which is so prominently shown by nearly every writer about golf with regard to the pull obtains also in connection with the slice. This is clearly shown by James Braid in _Great Golfers_, for following the quotation which I have already given with regard to the pulled ball, he says: "But for a sliced ball I cut a little across the ball, the wrist action being the reverse of that for a pull, viz., the right hand is rather under than over." [Illustration: PLATE IX. JAMES BRAID Here, in spite of what Braid says, it will be seen that his weight at the finish goes almost entirely on to the left foot.] Braid tells us that for a pulled ball he turns his right wrist over _at the moment of impact_. Well, as the wrist action for the slice is the reverse of this, it follows that _at the moment of impact_ he turns his right wrist under. This is a very common misconception. It is one which is held by an astonishing number of practical players. Mr. Walter J. Travis in his book on _Practical Golf_ repeatedly makes the error of thinking that this turn under of the wrist has any effect whatever on the stroke, but it is just as great an error to think that this turn under of the wrist has anything to do with the production of the slice, as it is to think that the turning over of the wrist has anything whatever to do with the pull. Both of these actions quite naturally _follow_ the correct production of the strokes referred to. The slice is an inwardly glancing blow, if anything, with a suspicion of downward action, whereas, as I have already explained, the pull is an outward, upward, glancing blow. There must be no attempt whatever to turn the right wrist under or downward at the moment of playing the slice, as Braid says he does in _Great Golfers_, although I have not been able to find the same statement in _Advanced Golf_, where we should naturally expect to see it if Braid still has this idea. The curious thing is that in James Braid's illustrations in _Advanced Golf_ for playing a slice the right hand is much further forward on the club than it is in those showing the grip for the pull; in fact were it not that the stance shows clearly that the photographs are correctly marked, one would be much inclined to think that they had been wrongly entitled. In playing for the slice, Braid's hand is well over the club, whereas in the pull it is almost underneath it. In _Advanced Golf_ this grip for a slice is extremely pronounced, in fact very much more so than in his illustrations of the stance and address for this stroke which he gives in his book _How to Play Golf_. The popular misconception about the slice is well instanced by what Harry Vardon has to say in connection with the cut mashie approach. He says at page 129 of _The Complete Golfer_: It is also most important that at the instant when ball and club come into contact the blade should be drawn quickly towards the left foot. To do this properly requires not only much dexterity, but most accurate timing, and first attempts are likely to be very clumsy and disappointing, but many of the difficulties will disappear with practice, and when at last some kind of proficiency has been obtained, it will be found that the ball answers in the most obedient manner to the call that is made upon it. It will come down so dead upon the green that it may be chipped up in the air until it is almost directly over the spot at which it is desired to place it. I have no hesitation whatever in saying that this is absolutely bad golf. In all cases where cut is applied to the golf ball there must be no attempt whatever to introduce anything into the stroke during the period of contact between the ball and the club. I am here dealing with Vardon's statement with regard to the mashie approach, but it is apparent that all cut shots are, in effect, slices, and if one gets the idea into one's mind that the slice is obtained by anything which is done consciously during impact and timed by the player to be done in that space of time, it must militate severely against one's chance of producing a successful shot. A little farther down on the same page Vardon says: At the moment of impact the arms should be nearly full length and stiff, and the wrists as stiff as it is possible to make them. I said that the drawing of the blade towards the left foot would have to be done quickly because obviously there is very little time to lose; but it must be done smoothly and evenly, without a jerk, which would upset the whole swing, and if it is begun the smallest fraction of a second too soon the ball will be taken by the toe of the club, and the consequences will not be satisfactory. I have returned to make this the last word about the cut, because it is the essence of the stroke and it calls for what a young player might well regard as an almost hopeless nicety of perfection. Here it is quite evident that Vardon thinks that the cut on a mashie approach is played by something imported into the stroke _during impact_, whereas the truth is that the club in a good shot properly played never alters from the line of the arc mapped out by the mind from the very beginning of the stroke. Vardon says that the cut "must be applied smoothly and evenly without a jerk, which would upset the whole swing." It is obvious that if the head of the club has travelled in a certain line down to within a fraction of an inch of the ball, and is then suddenly pulled across the ball, _there must be a jerk_. This, however, is not what happens when the stroke is well played. The club face simply passes across the intended line of flight of the ball with the front edge of the sole approximately at a right angle to such intended line of flight, but the club head proceeds across the line in an uninterrupted arc. If what Vardon, Mr. Travis, and many other people lay down, were correct, a drawing of the stroke would show the club head proceeding to the ball in a curve, then a sudden jump inwards towards the player with a continuation approximating to the follow-through of the first half of the stroke, but it is almost needless to say that nothing of this kind takes place either in this modified slice or the true slice at golf, which we shall have to deal with more particularly later on. Speaking of this shot--the cut mashie stroke--Vardon says: "It will come so dead upon the green that it may be chipped up into the air until it is almost perfectly over the spot at which it is desired to place it." This may be so. I have played the shot myself repeatedly, and I have repeatedly seen perhaps the greatest master in the world of the cut mashie approach, to wit J. H. Taylor, playing this shot, and there cannot be any doubt whatever that this particular class of mashie approach nearly always gives the ball a considerable run from left to right. This, indeed, is perfectly natural, for one goes right in underneath the ball and gives it a tremendous side roll tending to make it swerve in the air from left to right, and when it strikes the green, to run in the same direction. So pronounced indeed is the swerve and run of this ball that I have seen J. H. Taylor playing at Mid-Surrey when the green was practically completely obstructed by a large tree, play this shot so that it curved round the tree on to the edge of the green and then ran in almost to the pin. The shot which stops so dead at the hole, as Harry Vardon mentions, must of necessity have much more in the nature of back cut which produces back-spin than has the ball played by the stroke which he describes. Vardon refers to the pull and the slice as being the master strokes in golf. I have already said that if I had to pick any one stroke which could be called the master stroke in golf, it would be the wind-cheater, and it is open to question if the long plain drive is not entitled to greater respect than either the pull or the slice. Be that as it may, there is in my mind very little doubt about the respective merits of the wind-cheater and the other strokes referred to. The wind-cheater is the ball which is produced with a large amount of back-spin. Harry Vardon describes it at page 105, and he explains that in order to make the push shot perfectly "the sight should be directed to the centre of the ball, and the club should be brought directly on to it (exactly on the spot marked on the diagram, page 170)." I may remark here that the spot shown on the ball at page 170 of _The Complete Golfer_ for a push shot is absolutely above the centre of mass of the ball, and that at page 106 Harry Vardon gives a diagram of "The push shot with the cleek." In this diagram he shows that the face of the cleek at the moment of impact is perpendicular. It is quite certain that even if one could hit the ball above the centre of its mass with a perpendicular face, it would be impossible to get the ball off the ground in this manner. The push shot with the cleek must be played with loft on the club, and indeed it does not matter what club is used for this shot, there must be _loft_ on the face of the club _at the moment of impact_ if one is to obtain a satisfactory result, and not only must there be loft on the face of the club, but it is a certainty that the impact of the club with the ball must be _below_ the centre of the ball's mass, and not as Vardon shows it at page 170 of _The Complete Golfer_, above it. Vardon, for playing this push shot, uses a cleek with a shorter handle and with more loft than his ordinary cleek. This, indeed, is quite natural, for the shot is, in the nature of it, a very straight up and down shot in the line to the hole, and also as it is desirable that the ball shall be hit by the club before the club head has reached the lowest point in its swing, Vardon naturally has his hands forward of the ball at the moment of impact. This, of course, to a certain extent, counteracts the loft of the cleek, but in no case does it counteract it to the extent shown by Vardon in the diagram at page 106 of _The Complete Golfer_, for were the blow made as shown by these diagrams, it would be a mechanical impossibility to obtain the result described by Vardon. The reason for keeping the hands forward of the ball is, as I have indicated, that the club head may make impact with the ball before it has reached the bottom of its swing, and Vardon's reason for playing with a club of greater loft than is usually employed is that this greater loft helps to make up for the fact that his hands are forward of the ball at the moment of impact. Playing this stroke with an ordinary cleek would rob the cleek of so much of its loft that the probability is that the flight of the ball would in its initial stages be too low to give a satisfactory result. Vardon says at page 106: "The diagram on this page shows the passage of the club through the ball as it were, exactly," but the trouble is that it does not show the passage of the club through the ball "as it were, exactly," because at the moment of impact with the ball the club must have sufficient loft on its face to lift the ball, and, moreover, the face of the club must make its first contact at a point at most as high as the centre of the ball, but preferably much lower, so that the force of the blow has an opportunity of exerting itself upwardly through the centre of the ball's mass. Vardon plays this shot perfectly, but he does not describe it as well as he plays it. He says at page 106 of _The Complete Golfer_: I may remark that personally I play not only my half cleek stroke, but all my cleek strokes in this way, so much am I devoted to the qualities of flight which are thereby imparted to the ball, and though I do not insist that others should do likewise in all cases, I am certainly of opinion that they are missing something when they do not learn to play the half shot in this manner. The greatest danger they have to fear is that in their too conscious efforts to keep the club clear of the ground until after impact, they will overdo it and simply top the ball, when, of course, there will be no flight at all. There can be no doubt that this stroke is an extremely valuable one, particularly with the cleek, and it is a stroke which will well repay anyone for the time spent in practising it. There is, indeed, as Vardon says, a great danger of the player topping the ball if he tries to keep too far away from the ground until after the impact, but he must at all costs get out of his mind the idea of hitting the ball where Vardon says it should be hit, viz. above the centre of the ball's mass. This never was golf. It is not golf now, and it never will be golf. It is almost incredible, but is a fact, that a golf journalist who presumed to say that he knew what was "at the back of his (Harry Vardon's) head" stated in an article in a sporting magazine in London, that this push shot, one of Vardon's most beautiful and accurate strokes, is obtained by thumping the ball on to the earth--in fact that the stroke is almost what one might term a "bump ball," to use the cricket term. Any idea more abhorrent to the true golfer than the notion of producing his finest cleek shots and approach shots by banging the ball on to the earth can hardly be imagined, nor anything more incorrect. The wind-cheater is an invaluable stroke, but there can be no doubt that it is a stroke calling for a very considerable degree of skill in order to play it perfectly, or indeed very well, and in connection with this matter there was a very peculiar but entirely mistaken idea that for the production of this stroke it was necessary at the moment of impact to turn over both wrists. This idea obtained for years, and notwithstanding my repeated explanations, the deeply rooted notion was persevered in and used in such a manner by many players that it seriously interfered with their game. Some of the criticism which I had to put up with at the time that I was instructing golfers in these matters was very remarkable. I must give one instance which seems almost incredible. I had explained in the pages of _Golf Illustrated_, the leading golfing journal of London, how the pull is produced, and I had therein indicated as clearly and decidedly as I now do that it was impossible to produce the pull by the method indicated by Harry Vardon. Mr. A. C. M. Croome, the well-known international player, solemnly asserted in the _Morning Post_ that he had himself seen Harry Vardon produce the shot in the manner which I said was an impossibility, and that in effect an ounce of practice was worth a pound of theory. I took the trouble to explain that a cinematograph with about 400 pictures, or perhaps a good many less per second, was sufficient to deceive an ordinary man into thinking that he saw a continuous picture. I explained that the camera which took the photographs for my purpose was timed to give an exposure of one twelve-hundred-and-fiftieth of a second, and that this was, therefore, at least three times as rapid as the machine which deceives an ordinary man into thinking that he sees a single picture, but notwithstanding that the camera was so tremendously rapid in its exposure, the golf club beats it to such an extent that at the moment of impact the club is represented by a swish of light or movement on the plate, and the ball immediately after impact is represented by something resembling a section of a sperm candle. So extremely rapid is its flight that it is impossible to obtain even by so short an exposure anything resembling clear definition. I showed clearly that an implement which was moving so fast as to absolutely beat the machine which was three times as fast as the machine which deceived the human being, was not likely to be able to be followed accurately by the human eye unaided in any way whatever. Still, that was the kind of criticism which I had to undergo. I was told exactly the same thing when I explained that in the push shot there must be no attempt whatever to turn over the wrists at the moment of impact, that in this shot as in all other strokes at golf, there must be no attempt whatever made to interfere with, or alter, during impact, the angle of the loft taken at the time of address, for any such attempt as this must end in trouble. It was some years after this controversy that Mr. A. C. M. Croome produced a column in the _Morning Post_ entitled "Justice," in which he referred to the matter as follows: MR. VAILE RIGHT It is common talk that Sherlock has improved a great deal since he migrated from Oxford to Stoke Poges, and for once common talk is right. His driving, at least when the ground is hard, is distinctly longer than it used to be, but the increased length has not been purchased at the expense of steadiness. The ball still flies from his wooden clubs along a line ruled straight to the hole. Even more valuable to him than the gain in length is the acquisition of all that range of shots which, if correctly played, leave the striker posed with his arms straight out and the back of his right hand uppermost. A few years ago I, in common with many other misguided golfers, believed that the movement of the right hand was the cause, not the consequence, of correct execution. Consequently a large percentage of the shots attempted to be played in this way went anywhere but to the desired place. We turned the key in the lock too soon. So far as I know Mr. P. A. Vaile was the first publicist to set forth the truth. I have differed from him on many points and found myself unable to follow the more abstruse of his treatises. It is a pleasure to acknowledge a debt to him, and it is a heavy debt, for a misconception of the work done by the right hand in holding the ball up against a left hand wind is fraught with disastrous consequences. Sherlock was performing this feat most exactly on Tuesday and hitting the ball monstrous far with his irons forbye. I was very pleased to see this statement by Mr. Croome, for several reasons. It was a sportsmanlike acknowledgment of error, and a fine instance of what I call "the detached mind," which is extremely rare in England. The majority of controversialists are too much taken up with the personal aspect of the controversy, to remember that the controversy if it is worth entering upon, must always be of more importance than the controversialists, but beyond this, it is always of importance, especially for one who is in the habit of writing golf, to know the game to the core, for such an one can do much to spread a correct knowledge of the game, and this misconception of the action of the wrists has been responsible for millions of foundered shots. I cannot help thinking, however, that in Mr. Croome's generous acknowledgment of error, he was, to a certain extent, committing another error, for when he spoke of "all that range of shots, which if correctly played, leave the striker posed with his arms right out and the back of his right hand uppermost" he referred naturally to balls which have been played in the main with back-spin, but a little later on he proceeded to say: It is a pleasure to acknowledge a debt to him, and it is a heavy debt, for a misconception of the work done by the right hand in holding the ball up against a left hand wind is fraught with disastrous consequences. Here it will be evident that Mr. Croome is referring to a pulled ball, but at no time when one has obtained a pulled ball by a stroke properly played, will the finish be such as that described by Mr. Croome. The finish described by him is the characteristic finish of the wind-cheater type of ball, but, notwithstanding this, the point is that Mr. Croome has acknowledged the error with regard to the turn over of the wrists; as he very well puts it, "we turned the key in the lock too soon." That very succinctly summarises the matter, and it will be sufficient for our purpose in this chapter. I must quote again a passage in Mr. Croome's article. He says: "Even more valuable to him than the gain in length is the acquisition of all that range of shots which, if correctly played, leave the striker posed with his arms straight out and the back of the right hand uppermost." This is a somewhat curious sentence. As a matter of fact, anyone who acquires this range of shots will acquire with it extra distance, for the finish, as I have already stated, but cannot state too often or too emphatically, is the characteristic finish of the wind-cheater--a ball which carries the beneficial back-spin of golf, the secret at once of length and direction. CHAPTER IX THE ACTION OF THE WRISTS There is no doubt that a proper wrist action in the drive is of very great importance, and it is just as undoubted that the real secret of wrist action has been enshrouded in mystery by anyone who has in any way attempted to deal with it. Indeed, so great a master of the game as James Braid, absolutely confesses that he does not know where the wrists come in during the drive. As Braid has already stated that it is almost impossible to teach putting, it really looks as though there is quite a considerable gap in golf which must be left to his pupils' imagination, but this is not really so. These great golfers really know golf and teach it much better than their published works would lead one to believe, and as a matter of fact in very many instances the matter which I am criticising so plainly is, I believe, not their own. I cannot believe that much of the ridiculous nonsense which is published in association with the greatest names of the world would be upheld by them in an ordinary lesson--in other words, I am firmly convinced that they suffer in the interpretation by persons whose knowledge of golf is extremely limited. It will, however, be interesting to see what the great golfers have to say with regard to wrist work. Let us turn first to Harry Vardon at page 70 of _The Complete Golfer_. There he says: Now pay attention to the wrists. They should be held fairly tightly. If the club is held tightly the wrists will be tight, and _vice versa_. When the wrists are tight there is little play in them and more is demanded of the arms. I do not believe in the long ball coming from the wrists. In defiance of principles which are accepted in many quarters, I will go so far as to say that, except in putting, there is no pure wrist shot in golf. Some players attempt to play their short approach with their wrists as they have been told to do. These men are likely to remain at long handicaps for a long time. Similarly there is a kind of superstition that the elect among drivers get in some peculiar kind of "snap"--a momentary forward pushing movement--with their wrists at the time of impact, and that it is this wrist work at the critical period which gives the grand length to their drives, those extra twenty or thirty yards which make the stroke look so splendid, so uncommon, and which make the next shot so much easier. Generally speaking, the wrists, when held firmly, will take very good care of themselves; but there is a tendency, particularly when the two V-grip is used to allow the right hand to take charge of affairs at the time the ball is struck, and the result is that the right wrist, as the swing is completed, gradually gets on to the top of the shaft instead of remaining in its proper place. There are several important statements in this paragraph. Vardon says, "I do not believe in the long ball coming from the wrists," and I say that there is no doubt whatever that in the ordinary acceptation of the term the long ball no more comes from the wrists than it does from the feet, for as Vardon indicates here, in a drive of perfect rhythm there is no such thing as getting the wrists into the work at, or about, the moment of impact, as is so frequently advocated by authors who preach what they do not themselves practise. Vardon says that "except in putting there is no pure wrist shot in golf." I have already shown that not even in putting is there such a thing as a pure wrist shot in golf, unless, indeed, the player should be playing with a putter which has an absolutely perpendicular shaft. In this case, and in this only, is it possible to play a pure wrist shot in golf if one follows out correctly the instructions which are recognised as being the soundest guide in good putting. Before quoting from James Braid in _Advanced Golf_ I must draw particular attention to what Vardon has said about the "snap" of the wrists at the moment of impact. He says that "there is a kind of superstition that the elect among drivers get in some peculiar kind of 'snap'--a momentary forward pushing movement--with their wrists at the time of impact, and that it is this wrist work at the critical period which gives the grand length to their drives." It is surely not to be wondered at that this, as Vardon terms it, "superstition" exists, when we read in a book such as _Advanced Golf_, which was published several years after Vardon's _Complete Golfer_, statements to this effect: Then comes the moment of impact. Crack! Everything is let loose, and round comes the body immediately the ball is struck, and goes slightly forward until the player is facing the line of flight. The right shoulder must not come round too soon in the downward swing but must go fairly well forward after the ball is hit. If the tension has been properly held all this will come quite easily and naturally; the time for the tension is over and now it is allowed its sudden and complete expansion and quick collapse. That is the whole secret of the thing--the bursting of the tension at the proper moment--and really there is very little to be said in enlargement of the idea. At this moment the action of the wrists is all-important, but it cannot be described. Where exactly the wrists begin to do their proper work I have never been able to determine exactly, for the work is almost instantaneously brief. Neither can one say precisely how they work except for the suggestion that has already been made. It seems, however, that they start when the club head is a matter of some eighteen inches from the ball, and that for a distance of a yard in the arc that it is describing they have it almost to themselves, and impart a whip-like snap to the movement, not only giving a great extra force to the stroke, but, by keeping the club head for a moment in the straight line of the intended flight of the ball, doing much towards the ensuring of the proper direction. It seems to be a sort of flick--in some respects very much the same kind of action as when a man is boring a corkscrew into the cork of a bottle. He turns his right wrist back; for a moment it is under high tension, and then he lets it loose with a short, sudden snap. Unless the wrists are in their proper place as described, at the top of the swing, it is impossible to get them to do this work when the time comes. There is nowhere for them to spring back from. Here it will be seen that in a work of James Braid which is entitled _Advanced Golf_ and which was published several years after Harry Vardon's _Complete Golfer_ and by the same firm, we have advice and information given to us which is diametrically opposed to the ideas of Harry Vardon. There can be no doubt whatever that Vardon's opinion with regard to this matter is much sounder than Braid's, and in order that I may assist anybody who is in doubt as to which opinion to be influenced by, I shall analyse Braid's statement. We must, before we begin to consider Braid's advice, remember that he himself admits that he does not know where the wrists come in. This reminds me of an incident which occurred a short time ago. An unfortunate golfer who had an idea that a golf ball should be hit in much the same manner as a cricket ball, or any other common sort of ball, came to me in my office one day and asked me to show him what was wrong with his swing. I put down a ball for him on a captive machine, handed him a golf club and said: "Let me see you hit it?" He proceeded to hit it, but the instant his club head moved away from the ball it was apparent to me that he had not a rudimentary idea of the golf stroke. His left wrist began to turn outwards instead of inwards and downwards. I showed him at once how wrong he was in the fundamental principles of the golfing stroke, for, as is quite usual, he had no idea whatever of the proper distribution of his weight, having been taught by his professional that it must, at the top of the swing, be on his right leg. But the main point to which I want to draw attention is contained in his plaintive remark to me: "Yes, that is all right now you show it to me, and I can feel that it is better, but it is when I come to play the ball and have to remember all these things that I make a mess of it." My reply to him was: "My dear fellow, the man who understands how to teach golf does not teach you how to remember all these things. He teaches you how to forget them--in other words, he so instructs you that everything you do between the moment that you address the ball and the time that you hit it, is done practically without any strain on your mind whatever. It is done by habit or second nature. Anyone who teaches you in such a manner that you have to remember each of the things which you think go to make up a perfect drive _while you are making that drive_ is no use whatever to you as a teacher," and he was immensely relieved even at the bare idea of this revolutionary teaching. Nevertheless, in effect, this is the only true and scientific tuition for the golfing drive. We want to make the golfer handle his club in such a manner that all these things which the ordinary book tells him about as being necessary to be done and to be considered seriatim, fall into their places as naturally as one foot comes after another in a walk. To do this we have, unquestionably, to go through an enormous amount of elimination of utterly false doctrine, and the quotation I have just given from _Advanced Golf_ is an excellent illustration of what a true teacher has to do in the way of beating down and clearing away harmful doctrine. Here we have published with the authority of a great player like James Braid, and in absolute opposition to the advice of an equally great player, Harry Vardon, a statement to the effect that the wrists come into the drive and influence the stroke for eighteen inches before and after impact. We are told that "at this moment the motion of the wrists is all-important, but it cannot be described." We need not wonder that the action of the wrists cannot be described, for at the moment referred to by James Braid, there is, as a matter of practical golf and undoubted fact, no wrist action whatever. If one had any doubt whatever about this, one would only have to look at Braid's photographs in _Advanced Golf_ showing how he plays for a pull and a slice respectively. In both of these strokes Braid uses identically similar photographs to show his stance and address. Personally, as I have already stated, I consider that he is, from a golfing point of view, utterly wrong in doing such a thing, for there can be no doubt that the positions are extremely different. Indeed, it would be quite ridiculous to suppose that they were not so, but taking these photographs as Braid's mental picture of what he does at the moment of impact, we see there clearly that the wrists are, at the moment of impact, in exactly the same position as they were at the moment of address. Taking this in conjunction with the fact that Braid says in the extract which I have just quoted "Where exactly the wrists begin to do their proper work I have never been able to determine exactly, for the work is almost instantaneously brief," we are quite justified in coming to the conclusion that Braid himself does not, in this critical portion of the swing, use any wrist work whatever. Now Braid says that he has never been able to determine exactly where the wrists begin to do their proper work, so I must explain for his benefit, and for the benefit of the great body of golfers, where the wrists really begin to do their work, and where they do the most important part of their work, and that is absolutely at the beginning of the downward stroke. It is here that the wrists have the greatest life and "snap" in them, for the weight of the club and the strain of the development of the initial velocity fall across the wrist-joints in that position which gives them their greatest resistance--that is, in the way in which the wrists bend least; but it must not be forgotten that although the wrist bends least sideways, still, the bend that the wrist is capable of in that direction provides a tremendous amount of strength. This is particularly evident in all games which are played with rackets. I must here give an illustration of the power that is obtained in this position. I have before referred to Mr. Horace Hutchinson's illustration of the proper position at the top of the drive which he gives in the Badminton volume on _Golf_. Here the player is shown with the right elbow pointing skywards, and the left, if anything, too much out the other way. An unfortunate golfer who had tried to put these principles into execution came into my office one day, and told me that he could get no length whatever in his drive. I handed him a club and said: "Let me see you swing?" At the top of his swing he got into this position which is now considered the classical illustration of how it should not be done, and after I had allowed him to swing several times from this position I said to him: "Now swing again, but stop at the top of your swing." He stopped at the top of his swing, and I then went and stood behind him almost in a line with his right shoulder and the hole and about a club's length from him, and I addressed him as follows: "Will you kindly forget for the moment that that thing which you have in your hands is a golf club, and will you also consider, ridiculous as it may seem, that for the nonce my head is a block of wood, and that you have in your hands now an axe instead of a golf club, with which you desire to split my head in two. Would you now, if you had to strike this block of wood, use your arms as you are doing?" "Why, no," came the answer instantly. "I should do this," and down dropped both elbows underneath the club. Then I said to this searcher after the truth: "I do not think I shall ever again have to tell you where to put your elbows," and he answered, apparently overwhelmed by my supernatural cleverness: "That is a wonderful illustration. I never thought of it like that before." I am giving this as an illustration of the vagueness with which people treat an utterly simple proposition such as this. This man was a chartered accountant, and really, in his way, a particularly clever fellow, but he was overwhelmed with admiration because I was able to show him that with his golfing club he was doing, or trying to do, a thing which no one but an idiot would have dreamed of trying to do with a hammer or an axe. This is the kind of thing for which we have to thank the people who write vague generalities about things which they do not understand. Let us analyse this most important pronouncement of Braid's a little further. He continues: Neither can one say precisely how they work, except for the suggestion that has already been made. It seems, however, that they start when the club head is a matter of some eighteen inches from the ball, and that for a distance of a yard in the arc that it is describing they have it almost to themselves and impart a whip-like snap to the movement, not only giving a great extra force to the stroke, but, by keeping the club head for a moment in the straight line of the intended flight of the ball, doing much towards the ensuring of the proper direction. The real truth of this matter is that there is no portion of the arc of the drive wherein the wrists exert less influence, or are _so completely out of business_ as they are in that portion of the drive wherein James Braid _says they are predominant_. The wrists have a tremendous amount to do with the development of the speed of the stroke, but particularly in the initial stage of the downward stroke. This will be most clearly seen by a study of George Duncan's wrist action at plate 64 of _Modern Golf_, wherein the wrists are shown turning over when the club has gone about half-way on its downward swing. Of course, they begin to turn over much sooner than this, but the truth is that the turn-over of the wrist or, more correctly speaking, the roll of the forearms in the downward swing is such a wonderfully gradual and natural process that it would be utterly impossible for anyone to say at what particular period in the downward swing it happens, and if anyone can say, or, rather, does say, at what particular period the wrists come in to the downward stroke, he is not only an ignorant golfer, but an enemy to golf, for it is a matter which cannot be described except to say that the wrist action begins absolutely with the beginning of the stroke, and is then a continuous and natural turn until the club gets very close to the ball, by which time there is practically nothing left for the wrists to do, as the club has reverted to the position in which it was at the moment of address, or perhaps I should say that it ought to have reverted to that position, as indeed, in so far as regards the club itself, is properly shown by James Braid in his photographs of stance and address and impact. We have now to deal with the space of eighteen inches in the follow-through, wherein James Braid asserts the wrists still have it all to themselves. This eighteen inches is in all properly executed straight drives, and by straight drives, I mean drives which are not intentionally pulled or sliced, taken up by a clean follow-through down the line of flight after the ball, and this follow-through is, of course, associated with the forward movement of the body on to the left leg which is so well and clearly shown in the instantaneous photographs of James Braid and Harry Vardon, but is, by Braid in _Advanced Golf_, stated to be inadvisable in his text, but clearly shown as advisable in his photographs. There can be no doubt whatever that any attempt to introduce into the drive for eighteen inches before and after impact, anything whatever in the nature of a "whip-like snap" would absolutely ruin the rhythm of the swing, for it is evident that the introduction of a "whip-like snap" into something which we have been told is "a sweep," would absolutely upset the general character of that "sweep." It is impossible to have a sweep, and in that sweep to sweep the ball away and at the same time to get the ball away by a "whip-like snap." Either we have the sweep or we have the whip-like snap, admitting for the sake of argument that either of these statements is correct, which is not the fact, as the ball is hit away and neither "swept" nor got away with a "whip-like snap," but the would-be learner is presented with this mass of confused thought, instead of having nothing whatever to think of with regard to hitting the ball more than he would have in his mind if he stood still in the road and tried to smite an acorn with his walking-stick. Let me make this matter perfectly plain. We will consider that the beginner has taken his stance and addressed his ball perfectly. Let him now take his club back from the ball in the manner which the text-books describe for an ordinary drive. Let him swing it thus back from the ball for a foot and let him swing it back against that ball and for a foot on the way to the hole. Let him do this once, twice, ten times, a hundred times, aye a thousand times, if so many be necessary for him to get absolutely and firmly settled in his mind the fact that this swing of one foot back and one foot forward is almost an exact replica of what happens every time he hits a good straight drive in actual play; that it is approximately a correct sample of the club action in that section of the swing back, downward swing, impact, and follow-through. This idea, and this idea only, is what the golfer must have in his mind, and when he has got this into his mind he will see clearly that the whole importance of using the wrists properly in golf is to get them to do their chief work in the early development of the power of the golf drive, but that by the time the ball is reached by the club head they have absolutely gone out of business and do not again come into operation until in the natural order of things they turn the club over, and pull it off the line of flight to the hole in the follow-through. [Illustration: PLATE X. HARRY VARDON Finish of a drive, showing Vardon's perfect management of his weight.] Braid is wonderfully hazy in this matter. He continues: "It seems to be a sort of flick, in some respects very much the same kind of action as when a man is boring a corkscrew into the cork of a bottle. He turns his right wrist back; for a moment it is under high tension and then he lets it loose with a short sudden snap." This really is very sad. We are repeatedly told that the golf stroke is a swing or a sweep, and that it must be of an even character from beginning to end, and yet we have James Braid in _Advanced Golf_ telling us that the impact in the drive "seems to be a sort of flick." Well, all I can say is that I wish any golfer who goes into the flicking business much joy and great improvement, but I have not much hope that he will get it until he finds out that flicking is no portion of the game of golf. Braid's idea of this most important portion of the drive is most remarkable. His haziness in connection with the matter extends even to his illustration. He says that this wrist action is "in some respects very much the same kind of action as when a man is boring a corkscrew into the cork of a bottle. He turns his wrist right back; for a moment it is under high tension and then he lets it loose with a short sudden snap." This is, mechanically, a marvellous statement. I do not profess to be a great authority on the subject of corkscrews, bottles--or their contents, but even in this respect I may confess to being a trifle more than theoretical, and I may say that I have inserted many a corkscrew into many a cork, but I have never yet used a corkscrew wherein I turned my wrist over as the right wrist turns over in the downward swing of the golf club. As a matter of fact, I never inserted a corkscrew into a cork where I did not turn my wrist from left to right. All the tension in putting a corkscrew into a cork is on the backward journey, or that which corresponds to the upward swing in golf. There is no tension whatever on the return, or that portion of the screwing process which corresponds to the downward swing in golf, whereas in golf the main portion of tension is in the downward swing; but I believe Braid is a teetotaller, so we may forgive him if in this respect his theory is unsound, and I think we can say that although he may be entirely theoretical in this, his theory is, in this instance, not more unsound than it is in regard to what he professes to describe as the wrist action in the golf drive. Braid says that "unless the wrists are in their proper place, as described, at the top of the swing, it is impossible to get them to do this work when the time comes. There is nowhere for them to spring back from." This is correct and absolutely sound; the wrists must, unquestionably, be in their right place at the top of the swing, the right place being, as I have already indicated, and as indeed practically every respectable book on golf, with the exception of the Badminton volume, shows, underneath the shaft of the club at the top of the swing, but it is quite wrong to speak of any such thing as there being no place "for them to spring back from." There must be no "spring." It is more a question of swinging than springing, although, as my readers know, I am opposed even to the idea of a swing in the golfing stroke. The stroke in golf is one of the finest hits in the whole realm of athletics, and I object entirely to it being called a swing or a sweep, or anything but that which it is legitimately entitled to be called. Braid says at page 62: "After impact and the release of all tension, body and arms are allowed to swing forward in the direction of the flight of the ball." This sentence gives us pause. We have seen, according to Braid, that for the space of a yard, that is for eighteen inches before and after impact in the drive, the wrists come into the swing and do something with a "whip-like snap"--something that is a sort of a "flick." We see that this "whip-like snap," and this "sort of a flick," are kept up for eighteen inches after impact, but we are told a little farther on that at the moment of impact "everything is let loose, and round comes the body immediately the ball is struck." How is it possible to imagine this kind of thing taking place within a swing of perfect rhythm? It is evident that Braid has a very rooted notion about this wrist movement. I must quote again from him, this time from _How to Play Golf_. On page 54 he says: The initiative in bringing down the club is taken by the left wrist, and the club is then brought forward rapidly and with an even acceleration of pace until the club head is about a couple of feet from the ball. So far the movement will largely have been an arm movement, but at this point there should be some tightening-up of the wrists, and the club will be gripped a little more tightly. This will probably come about naturally, and though some authorities have expressed different opinions, I am certainly one of those who believe that the work done by the wrists at this point has a lot to do with the making of the drive. Personally, I believe that Braid is wrong in speaking about the initiative in bringing down the club being taken by the left wrist. I believe that the left wrist has no more to do with it than the right wrist, and I do not believe that one practical golfer in a hundred could tell which wrist he uses, and the chances are that if he could tell he would not be a very good golfer, for these are things with which a golfer has no right to cumber his mind. They are things which can quite well be left to Nature. It is an act of supreme folly for the ordinary man to think in the slightest degree of apportioning to either hand the share of its work in the drive. That absolutely must never be on his mind when beginning his stroke. Braid here emphasises his idea that the wrists come into the golf drive at about two feet from the ball. In _Advanced Golf_ he says eighteen inches. In this matter I must unhesitatingly be with Harry Vardon, and if I had not Harry Vardon's support,--if I stood against the authority of the world of golfers--I should still be just as positive as I am with the important corroboration which Vardon gives me, for there can be no doubt that as a matter of practical golf, there is no portion of the stroke in golf wherein the wrists are more quiescent than in the impact. I must not be misunderstood when I say this. It is obvious that the wrists at the moment of impact will be braced to receive the shock of the blow, but the speed of the blow has been developed long before impact, and the wrists have approximately resumed their normal position as at the moment of address. Although Harry Vardon is so positive in combating the notion of the wrists coming into the drive at the moment of impact, I find him at page 53 of _Great Golfers_ saying, when writing of the downward swing with the driver and brassy: In commencing the downward swing I try to feel that both hands and wrists are still working together. The wrists start bringing the club down, and, at the same moment, the left knee commences to resume its original position. The head during this time has been kept quite still, the body alone pivoting from the hips. When the left knee has turned, I find I am standing firmly on both feet and the arms are in position as in the upward swing, before the left knee started to bend. From this point the speed of the wrists seems to increase, and the impact is thus made with the club head travelling at its highest velocity. I would here draw attention to the fact that Harry Vardon says: "The wrists start bringing the club down." This, I consider, is very important. I have already referred to Braid's statement about the left wrist taking the initiative. It is of very great importance for the golfer or would-be golfer to know that the left wrist has not any right whatever to claim precedence of the right wrist at this critical moment in the development of the power in the drive. The other point in this extract to which I desire to draw attention is that Vardon says, speaking of a point in the swing which he describes, and which is practically the same spot wherein Braid says the wrists exert their influence, that is to say, two feet from the ball: "From this point the speed of the wrists seems to increase, and the impact is thus made with the club travelling at its highest velocity." It is quite possible--in fact, it is nearly certain that the speed of the wrists will increase from that point, and that the impact will be made with the club travelling at its highest velocity, but in describing it in this manner Vardon is very nearly guilty of falling into the same error as James Braid has; for this reason, that he is directing the mind to the speed of the wrists at a critical portion of the stroke, whereas there is only one point whose speed has to be considered, and that is the point that does the business, which is the centre, if one may call it so, of the face of the golf club, and it stands to reason that if this is coming down at an ever-increasing speed, what Vardon says of this point would be as true of any other point in the downward swing, but it is bad golf to direct the attention of the student or the golfer to the speed of his connecting link instead of to the business end of the club, at any period during his swing. The golfer's mind must be centred on his ball and his club head. Taylor, so far as I remember, does not fall into this very grave error, but he, in common with most of the great professionals, is under the impression that the wrists are largely used at the moment of impact to influence the stroke. This is one of the gravest errors in golf. Speaking of lofting a stymie Taylor says: "Then, exactly as the club strikes the ball, the wrists must be turned in an upward direction smartly. The result of this is that the ball is lofted over the other, and if hit properly it will run on and go out of sight as intended." It is a very curious thing that nearly every author or great golfer thinks that in lofting a stymie the best way is to turn the wrists upwards, whereas in fact, and in practical golf, absolutely the best and most certain way of lofting a stymie is to turn neither the wrists, nor, as naturally follows, the face of the club, upwards, at the moment of impact. That must always tend, in a stroke of very great delicacy, which is a natural characteristic of many stymies, to put too much power into propulsion instead of elevation. The best stymie stroke which can be played, is played without lifting the mashie or the niblick by so much as a fraction of an inch after the ball has been hit. I have illustrated this stroke very fully, both by diagram and photograph in _Modern Golf_, and it is unquestionably superior in every way to the ordinary method of playing a stymie. Let us now glance at the Badminton _Golf_ and see what Mr. Horace Hutchinson has to say with regard to this wrist action. At page 90 we read: Now as the club comes near the ball, the wrists, which were turned upward when the club was raised, will need to be brought back, down again. It is a perfectly natural movement, but where many beginners go wrong with it is that they are too apt to make this wrist-turn too soon in the swing, and thereby lose its force altogether. The wrists should be turned again, just as the club is meeting the ball--otherwise the stroke, to all seeming perhaps a fairly hit one, will have very little power. It is quite evident that Mr. Hutchinson is an adherent of the "whip-like snap" and the "flick" theory at the moment of impact, for he tells us that the wrists must be turned again just as the club is meeting the ball. I need not deal fully with this statement, for I have already sufficiently analysed the same idea which is held by James Braid. The only difference is that Mr. Horace Hutchinson's is very much worse than Braid's, in that he thinks the turn-over of the wrists should be executed at the moment of impact, which of course would import into the golf stroke a very much greater risk of error than already does exist in it, and it is unnecessary for me to assure golfers that there is already quite sufficient chance of error without our endeavouring to add to it in any way whatever. But I should like to pause to raise one question. Mr. Hutchinson, like nearly every other writer on golf, is a disciple of one of the most pronounced fallacies in the game, viz.: "As you go up, so you come down," naturally, of course, all things being reversed. Let us then consider this point. We are informed by Mr. Horace Hutchinson that the wrists should be turned again just as the club is meeting the ball. Following our hoary fallacy of "As you go up, so you come down" I presume from this that immediately the club leaves the ball, the wrists begin to turn backwards. This would indeed give us a peculiar start for our drive. From an anatomical point of view I think there is very little doubt whatever that the wrists have finished their distinctive function much earlier in the production of the golf stroke than is generally thought to be the case, and what is commonly miscalled wrist action is, in effect, merely the natural roll of the forearm, as it is, I believe, called, at any rate in the case of the left arm, its supination. There can be no doubt that in the majority of cases where writers refer to wrist action, they are confusing the natural turn of the forearms with wrist action. Before closing this chapter I may perhaps be excused if I refer again to that remarkable volume _The Mystery of Golf_. At page 167 we are told: At the bottom of the swing, therefore, the club head is, or should be, moving in a straight line. Probably it is when the greatest acceleration in the velocity of the club, and the strongest wrist action in the swing of the arms occur in this straight portion of the stroke, that the follow-through is most efficacious. For one who essays to explain the mystery of golf, this is a very marvellous statement. Probably at no portion whatever of the golf stroke is the club head proceeding in a straight line. It may be taken for an absolutely settled fact that it is always proceeding in an arc. Also it is quite clear that the author is making the sad mistake, which has been made by so many other people, of thinking that the wrist action is most in evidence immediately before and after the period of impact. Most of the leading golfers fall into the error of stating that cut is obtained by something which is done by the wrists at the moment of impact, but this is unquestionably an error. I have dealt with that already in other places so fully that I think that it will not be necessary for me to do more here than to state that in all good shots the cut is decided upon practically the moment the club begins its downward journey, for the amount of cut which is administered to any ball depends entirely upon the speed, and the angle at which the club head passes across the intended line of flight of the ball, provided always, of course, that the club is properly applied. CHAPTER X THE FLIGHT OF THE GOLF BALL The flight of the ball, and particularly of the golf ball, exercises a strange fascination for many people to whom the phenomena of flight exhibited by a spinning ball travelling through the air, are not of the slightest practical importance. That is to say, there is an immense number of people who take merely a scientific, and one might almost say an artistic interest in the effects produced by the combined influence of spin and propulsion. Scientific men have been for many years well aware of the causes which produce the swerve of a ball in the air. By swerve I mean, of course, a curve in the flight of the ball which is due to other causes than gravitation, and in the word swerve I do not include the drift of a ball which has been perfectly cleanly hit, but which, in the course of its carry, has been influenced by a cross wind. This does not legitimately come under the heading of swerve. It is more correctly described as drift, and will be dealt with in due course. In the _Badminton Magazine_ of March 1896, the late Professor Tait published an article on "Long Driving." Professor Tait was a practical golfer and a very learned and scientific man. He proved most clearly that a golf ball could not be driven beyond a certain distance. He proved this absolutely and conclusively by mathematics, but, so the story runs, his son, the famous Freddie Tait, proved next day with his driver, that his father's calculations were entirely wrong, for he is alleged to have driven a golf ball over thirty yards farther than the limit which his learned parent had shown to be obtainable. Naturally, Professor Tait had to reconsider his statements, and he then arrived at the conclusion that there must have been in the drive of his son, which had upset his calculations, some force which he had not taken into consideration. He soon came to the conclusion that this was back-spin, and he dealt with this matter of back-spin, which is a matter of extreme importance to golf, in a most erudite article, which is much too advanced for the ordinary golfer, so I shall content myself here with referring to just a few of the most important points in connection with it. It is necessary that I should, in dealing with the flight of the ball, give those of my readers who are not already acquainted with the simple principles of swerve, some idea of what it is which causes the spinning ball to leave the line of flight that it would have taken if it had been driven practically without spin. The explanation is very simple. If a ball is proceeding through the air, and spinning, the side which is spinning _towards the hole_ gets more friction than the other side which is spinning _away from the hole_. It is well known that a projectile seeks the line of least resistance in its passage through the air. It follows that the greater friction on the _forward spinning_ half causes the ball to edge over towards the side which is spinning away from the hole. This, in a very few words, is the whole secret of swerve. Professor Tait stated in his article that Newton was well aware of this fact some 230 years before the publication of the professor's article, and that he remarked when speaking of a spinning tennis ball with a circular as well as a progressive motion communicated to it by the stroke, "that the parts on that side where the motions conspire must press and beat the contiguous air more violently, and there excite a reluctancy and reaction of the air proportionately greater." This really is an extremely simple matter and a very simple explanation. I have taken care to explain it so simply, for swerve is, by a very great number of people, looked upon as an abstruse problem--in fact, my book on _Swerve, or the Flight of the Ball_, is catalogued as a treatise on applied mathematics, instead of, as I intended it to be, simply a practical application of the ascertained facts to the behaviour of the ball in the air. Professor Tait's article has enjoyed a wonderful vogue. Although it was published nearly twenty years ago it is quite frequently quoted at the present time. There are, however, in it some errors which one would not have expected to have found in such a scientific article. Speaking of the golf ball shortly after it has left the club, Professor Tait said: It has a definite speed, in a definite direction, and it _may_ have also a definite amount of rotation about some definite axis. The existence of rotation is manifested at once by the strange effects it produces on the curvature of the path so that the ball may skew to right or left; soar upwards as if in defiance of gravity, or plunge headlong downwards instead of slowly and reluctantly yielding to that steady and persistent pull. There is, in this statement of Professor Tait's, a fundamental error in so far as regards the flight of the ball. He said: "The existence of rotation is manifested at once by the strange effects it produces on the curvature of the path." This is incorrect from a scientific point of view, and it is also badly stated. The existence of rotation is not manifested "at once"; in very many cases, practically in all, the ball proceeds for quite a long distance before the effect of rotation is seen. This is more particularly so when it is a matter of back-spin, but it is equally true of the pulled ball or the sliced ball. Both of these proceed for a considerable distance before the effect of spin is noticeable. In fact it is well known to all golfers that the spin begins to get to work as the velocity of the ball decreases. Also it seems as though it is incorrect to refer to the strange effects it (rotation) produces on the curvature of the path, for it is the rotation itself which produces the curvature. Professor Tait then said: The most cursory observation shows that a ball is hardly ever sent on its course without some spin, so that we may take the fact for granted, even if we cannot fully explain the mode of its production. And the main object of this article is to show that long carry essentially involves under-spin. I shall deal with these two statements later on. Professor Tait said: To find that his magnificent carry was due merely to what is virtually a toeing operation--performed no doubt in a vertical and not in a horizontal plane, is too much for the self-exalting golfer! The fact, however, is indisputable. When we fasten one end of a long untwisted tape to the ball and the other to the ground and then induce a good player to drive the ball (perpendicularly to the tape) into a stiff clay face a yard or two off, we find that the tape is _always_ twisted in such a way as to show under-spin; no doubt to different amounts by different players, but proving that the ball makes usually from about one to three turns in six feet, say from forty to a hundred and twenty turns per second, this is clearly a circumstance not to be overlooked. It is wonderful how easily a scientific man, as Professor Tait was, can be led astray when he sets out to find the thing he has imagined. Professor Tait, by a footnote to his article in the _Badminton Magazine_, to my mind entirely discounts the value of his experiments. His footnote is so important that I must quote it fully. He says: In my laboratory experiments, players could not be expected to do _full_ justice to their powers. They had to strike as nearly as possible in the centre, a ten-inch disc of clay, the ball being teed about six feet in front of it. Besides this pre-occupation, there was always more or less concern about the possible consequence of rebound, should the small target be altogether missed. It will be apparent even to anyone who is not possessed of a scientific or analytical mind that Professor Tait _compelled_ his players to endeavour to play their strokes in such a manner that the ball had to travel down a line decided on by Professor Tait. I do not know at what height Professor Tait placed his clay disc from the earth, but it is evident that if he put it very low down it would involve the playing by the golfer of a stroke which would naturally produce back-spin, and in any case the trajectory was arbitrarily fixed. In experimenting with such a stroke as this, and in such a manner as this, it should be evident that there should have been no restriction whatever as to the player's trajectory. If it was decided that it was necessary to catch the ball in a clay disc, that disc should have been so large that it was impossible for the golfer's ball to escape it. It should not have been necessary for the golfer _to aim_ at the disc. The mere fact of his aiming at the disc and the ball being teed so near as six feet to the disc, all tended to produce the shot which would give the results which Professor Tait was looking for, but that does not prove that the ordinary stroke at golf is produced in a similar manner, and I do not for one moment believe that it is. In speaking of _the stroke proper_ Professor Tait said: The club and the ball practically share this scene between them; but the player's right hand, and the resistance of the air, take _some_ little part in it. It is a very brief one, lasting for an instant only, in the sense of something like one ten-thousandth of a second. We may note here that Professor Tait said: "_The right hand and the resistance of the air_ take _some_ little part in it." One would be inclined to think from this that Professor Tait was, as indeed was probably the case, an adherent of the fetich of the left, for there can be no doubt that in "the stroke proper" the right hand does much more than take "_some_" little part in it. I think that Professor Tait is wrong in his idea that under-spin, or, as I prefer to call it, back-spin, is essential to a long carry. I firmly believe that a ball which is hit with practically no spin whatever, can have a very long carry. However, as the paper which I am now about to consider follows in many ways very closely on the lines of Professor Tait's article, I shall leave this matter for consideration when I am dealing with that paper. The paper which I am now referring to is one which was read at the weekly evening meeting of the Royal Institution of Great Britain on Friday, 18th March 1910, by Professor Sir J. J. Thomson, M.A., LL.D., D.S.C., F.R.S., M.R.I., O.M.; Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics, Cambridge; Professor of Physics, Royal Institution, London; Professor of Natural Philosophy, Royal Institution, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, 1906. The title of this paper was "The Dynamics of a Golf Ball." It will be observed that neither the Institution under the auspices of which this lecture was delivered, nor the lecturer, is inconsiderable. Professor Thomson is, without doubt, a very distinguished physicist, and we must therefore receive anything he writes with a certain amount of respect. There are, however, in this paper, so many remarkable statements that it is necessary for me to deal with it quite fully. Professor Thomson tells us very early in the lecture that Newton was well aware of the cause of swerve which I have already set out, some 250 years ago, and that he remarked that in a spinning tennis ball the "parts on that side where the motions conspire, must press and beat the contiguous air more violently, and there excite a reluctancy and reaction of the air proportionately greater." Professor Thomson says at the beginning of his lecture: There are so many dynamical problems connected with golf that a discussion of the whole of them would occupy far more time than is at my disposal this evening. I shall not attempt to deal with the many important questions which arise when we consider the impact of the club with the ball, but shall confine myself to the consideration of the flight of the ball after it has left the club. I may say here that Professor Thomson, although he announces his intention of doing this, is later on in his paper, as we shall see, tempted into considering the questions of impact, and, in my opinion, making several grave errors therein. We may, however, in the meantime, pass this by. Professor Thomson continues: This problem is in any case a very interesting one, which would be even more interesting if we could accept the explanations of the behaviour of the ball given by some contributors to the very voluminous literature which has collected around the game. If this were correct, I should have to bring before you this evening a new dynamics and announce that matter when made up into golf balls obeys laws of an entirely different character from those governing its action when in any other condition. This, at the outset, is an extremely remarkable statement to come from so eminent a physicist, for I may say that Professor Thomson, after making a remark of this nature, proceeds to explain the phenomena of swerve on exactly the same links which I have set out fully and explicitly in my book _Swerve, or the Flight of the Ball_. That, however, is a matter of small importance. It may be that Professor Thomson has not had the opportunity of perusing this book. It may indeed be that Professor Thomson has been unfortunate enough only to have read articles wherein an erroneous explanation of the well-known phenomena of the flight of the ball is given. Be that as it may, there can be no doubt that the explanation which has been given of the causes of swerve has been adequate and accurate, and there would not have been any necessity whatever for Professor Thomson to bring before the learned Institution whose fellows listened to his address "a new dynamics." It would have been sufficient if he had correctly explained the phenomena of the flight and run of a golf ball according to the well-recognised laws which govern the flight and run of all balls. This, however, he quite failed to do. Professor Thomson says: "If we could send off the ball from the club as we might from a catapult, without spin, its behaviour would be regular, but uninteresting." It is quite possible to send a golf ball off a club without spin. It is just as possible, from a practical point of view, to send a golf ball away without spin from the face of a driver as it is from the pouch of a catapult. The catapult is a machine, and it is a certainty that it can be made to propel a golf ball without any initial spin whatever. A machine can be made to drive a golf ball with just as little spin, and as a matter of practical golf, by far the greater number of golf balls are driven without appreciable spin--that is to say, without spin which has any definite action on the flight of the ball. The learned lecturer says: "A golf ball when it leaves a club is only in rare cases devoid of spin." It is impossible to prove or disprove this statement, for practically no ball goes through the air with the same point always in front. We may see this quite clearly if we care to mark a lawn-tennis ball, and to hit it perfectly truly, and slowly, so that it goes almost as a lob across the net. We shall see even then that the marked part of the ball moves from one place to another. In fact, even if a golf ball were driven by a machine which did not impart to it any initial spin, it is almost a certainty that that ball would not have proceeded far before it had acquired sufficient motion to justify one in technically calling it spin. Spin, however, is a delightfully indefinite word, but this much one may at least say, and it is, in effect, a contradiction of Sir J. J. Thomson's assertion, namely that in the vast majority of balls hit with golf clubs, especially by skilled players, the effect of spin on the stroke _unless designedly applied_, which is comparatively rare, is practically negligible. Professor Thomson says that ... a golf ball, when it leaves the club, is only in rare cases devoid of spin, and it is spin which gives the interest, variety, and vivacity to the flight of the ball; it is spin which accounts for the behaviour of a sliced or pulled ball; it is spin which makes the ball soar or "douk," or execute those wild flourishes which give the impression that the ball is endowed with an artistic temperament and performs these eccentricities, as an acrobat might throw in an extra somersault or two for the fun of the thing. This view, however, gives an entirely wrong impression of the temperament of a golf ball, which is, in reality, the most prosaic of things, knowing while in the air only one rule of conduct which it obeys with an intelligent conscientiousness, that of always following its nose. This rule is the key to the behaviour of all balls when in the air, whether they are golf balls, base-balls, cricket balls, or tennis balls. The idea of a spherical object having a nose is so unscientific and so inexact that it is not necessary for me to dwell very strongly on it here, and I should not do so were it not that this looseness of description is of considerable importance in dealing with Professor Thomson's ideas. He continues: Let us, before entering into the reasons for this rule, trace out some of its consequences. By the nose on the ball we mean the point on the ball furthest in front. It will be obvious to my readers that this description is scientifically extremely inaccurate, for if we take a line through the ball from the point of contact with the club to the point on the ball farthest in front, which Professor Thomson calls its nose, we shall find that the flight of that ball will always be in that same line produced, whereas in the spinning ball it is nothing of the sort. The whole trouble here is that Professor Thomson wants to have the "nose," as he calls it, of the ball, both a fixed and a moving point. This, obviously, is most unscientific. If the nose of the ball is the point that is farthest in front, I cannot say too emphatically that it stands to reason that the ball in flight will go straight out after that point, but the fact is that the point in front is continually changing; moreover, the fact that the ball goes the way it is spinning is not explained by any tendency of the ball to wander that way on account of the spin irrespective of the friction of the air. It will thus be seen that Professor Thomson's explanation in this matter is incorrect and misleading. This is about the most unscientific explanation which could be given of this matter, and it is one which is calculated to mislead people who would otherwise understand the matter quite clearly, so we shall drop Professor Thomson's idea of giving the ball a "nose" which is always in the front of it, but which is also supposed to be continually travelling sideways. It is obvious that Professor Thomson cannot have it both ways. It is very clear indeed that Professor Thomson is not well acquainted with the method of applying spin to balls which are used in playing games. He says: A lawn-tennis player avails himself of the effect of spin when he puts "top-spin" on his drives, _i.e._ hits the ball on the top so as to make it spin about a horizontal axis, the nose of the ball travelling downwards as in figure 4; this makes the ball fall more quickly than it otherwise would, and thus tends to prevent it going out of the court. I have played lawn-tennis for more than twenty years, and I am the author of three books on the game, one of which is supposed to be the standard work on the subject, and I can assure Professor Thomson that no lawn-tennis player would dream of doing anything so silly as to hit a lawn-tennis ball "on the top" in an attempt to obtain "top-spin." The scientific method of obtaining top-spin is to hit the lawn-tennis ball on what Professor Thomson, if he were driving the ball over the net to me, would call its nose--that is to say, I should hit the ball on the spot which was farthest from Professor Thomson. I should hit it there with a racket whose face was practically vertical, but I should hit it an upward, forwardly glancing blow which would impart, as Professor Thomson expresses it, "spin about a horizontal axis to the ball." Professor Thomson goes so far as to show by diagram the travel of a ball which has been hit so as to impart top-spin to it, but even in this diagram he is absolutely wrong, for he shows that immediately the ball has been hit with top-spin it begins to fall, but this is not so. In lawn-tennis the ball travels for a long distance before the spin begins to assert itself, and to overcome the force of the blow which set up the spin. Professor Tait makes this same error in his article on "Long Driving," and it is quite evident to me that Professor Thomson is following, in many respects, the errors of his eminent predecessor. Professor Thomson also says: Excellent examples of the effect of spin on the flight of a ball in the air are afforded in the game of base-ball. An expert pitcher, by putting on the proper spin, can make the ball curve either to the right or the left, upwards or downwards; for the side-way curves the spin must be about a vertical axis; for the upward or downward ones, about a horizontal axis. There are no particular laws with regard to the curves of a base-ball. The same laws regulate the curves in the air of every ball from a ping-pong ball to a cricket ball, and Professor Thomson, in saying that "for the side-way curves the spin must be about a vertical axis," is absolutely wrong. Every lawn-tennis player who knows anything whatever about the American service, will know that Professor Thomson is utterly wrong in this respect, for the whole essence of the swerve and break of the American service, which has a large amount of side-swerve, is that the axis of rotation shall be approximately at an angle of fifty degrees, and any expert base-ball pitcher will know quite well that he can get his side-curve much better if he will, instead of keeping his axis of rotation perfectly vertical, tilt it a little so that it will have the assistance of gravitation at the end of its flight instead of fighting gravitation, as it must do if he trusts entirely to horizontal spin about a vertical axis for his swerve. Professor Thomson says: If the ball were spinning about an axis along the line of flight, the axis of spin would pass through the nose of the ball, and the spin would not affect the motion of the nose; the ball, following its nose, would thus move on without deviation. The spin which Professor Thomson is describing here is that which a rifle bullet has during its flight, for it is obvious that the rifle bullet is spinning "about an axis along the line of flight," and that the axis of spin does pass through the nose of the bullet, but we know quite well that in the flight of a rifle bullet there is a very considerable amount of what is called drift. It is, of course, an impossibility to impart to a golf ball during the drive any such spin as that of the rifle bullet, although in cut mashie strokes, and in cutting round a stymie, we do produce a spin which is, in effect, the same spin, but this is the question which Professor Thomson should set himself to answer. He states distinctly that a ball with this spin would not swerve. If this is so, can Professor Thomson explain to us why the rifle bullet drifts? As a matter of fact, a ball with this spin _would_ swerve, but not to anything like the same extent as would a ball with one of the well-recognised spins which are used for the purpose of obtaining swerve. [Illustration: PLATE XI. JAMES BRAID Finish of drive, showing clearly how Braid's weight goes on to the left leg.] Professor Thomson proceeded to prove by the most elaborate experiments the truth of those matters stated by Newton centuries ago, but it will not be necessary for me to follow him in these, because these principles have been recognised for ages past. It is curious to note that in the reference to Newton, who was aware of this principle of swerve so long ago, we are shown that Newton himself did not quite grasp the method of production of the stroke, although he analysed the result in a perfectly sound manner. Writing to Oldenburg in 1671 about the Dispersion of Light, he said in the course of his letter: "I remembered that I had often seen a tennis ball struck with an oblique racket describe such a curved line." The effect of striking a tennis ball with an oblique racket is, generally speaking, to push it away to one side. The curve, to be of a sufficiently pronounced nature to be visible, must be produced by the passage of the racket across the intended line of flight of the ball. This matter of the different pressure on one side of the ball from that on the other is very simple when one thoroughly grasps it. Professor Thomson gives in his paper an illustration which may perhaps make the matter clearer to some people than the explanation which is generally given. He says: It may perhaps make the explanation of this difference of pressure easier if we take a somewhat commonplace example of a similar fact. Instead of a golf ball let us consider the case of an Atlantic liner, and, to imitate the rotation of the ball, let us suppose that the passengers are taking their morning walk on the promenade deck, all circulating round the same way. When they are on one side of the boat they have to face the wind, on the other side they have the wind at their backs. Now, when they face the wind, the pressure of the wind against them is greater than if they were at rest, and this increased pressure is exerted in all directions and so acts against the part of the ship adjacent to the deck; when they are moving with their backs to the wind, the pressure against their backs is not so great as when they were still, so the pressure acting against this side of the ship will not be so great. Thus the rotation of the passengers will increase the pressure on the side of the ship when they are facing the wind, and diminish it on the other side. This case is quite analogous to that of the golf ball. Even in this simple illustration it seems to me that Professor Thomson is wrong, for he is pre-supposing that which he does not state--a head wind. It is quite obvious that these passengers might have to face a wind coming from the stern of the ship, and in this case the analogy between the passengers circulating round the deck of a ship, and his golf ball would receive a serious blow. In stating a matter which is of sufficient importance to be dealt with before such a learned body as the Royal Institution of Great Britain, it is well to be accurate. If Professor Thomson had stated that his Atlantic liner was going into a head wind, or, for the matter of that, even proceeding in a dead calm, his analogy might have been correct, but it is obvious that he has left out of consideration a following wind of greater speed than that at which the liner is travelling. Professor Thomson has not added anything to the information which we already possessed with regard to the effect of back-spin on a ball; rather has he, as I shall show when dealing with the question of impact with the ball, clouded the issue. At page 12 of his remarkable lecture he says: "So far I have been considering under-spin. Let us now illustrate slicing and pulling; in these cases the ball is spinning about a vertical axis." We here have a very definite statement that in slicing and pulling the ball is spinning about a vertical axis, but it is not doing so. Professor Thomson has "an electromagnet and a red hot piece of platinum with a spot of barium oxide upon it. The platinum is connected with an electric battery which causes negatively electrified particles to fly off the barium and travel down the glass tube in which the platinum strip is contained; nearly all the air has been exhausted from this tube. These particles are luminous, so that the path they take is very easily observed." These particles, I may explain, take, in Professor Thomson's mind, the place of golf balls, and by an electromagnet he shows us exactly what golf balls do, but it seems to me that if Professor Thomson is not absolutely clear what is happening to the sliced ball and the pulled ball, there is a very great chance that, like Professor Tait, he may induce his particles to do the thing that he wishes them to do, and not the thing that a real golf ball with a real pull or a real slice would do. This, as a matter of fact, is exactly what Professor Thomson does, for, as I shall show quite simply and in such a manner as absolutely to convince the merest tyro at golf, Professor Thomson is utterly wrong when he states that in the slice and the pull the ball is spinning about a vertical axis. I shall not need any diagrams or figures to bring this home to anyone who is possessed of the most rudimentary knowledge of mechanics. It should be quite evident to anyone that to produce spin about a vertical axis it would be necessary to have a club with a vertical face, or to strike a blow with the face of the club so held that at the moment of impact the face of the club was vertical. Now this does not happen with the slice at golf, for the very good reason that if one so applied one's club, the ball would not rise from the earth. The club which produces the slice is always lofted in a greater or less degree, and quite often the natural loft is increased by the player designedly laying the face back during the stroke. It is evident that in the impact with the driver or brassy, the ball, especially the modern rubber-cored ball, flattens on to the face of the club and remains there whilst the club is travelling across the line of flight. This naturally imparts to the ball a roll--in other words, as the club cuts across the ball it rolls it for a short distance on its face. It is obvious that this rolling process will, to a greater or less extent, give to the ball a spin about an axis which is approximately the same as that of the loft on the face of the club. Therefore, it is clear that in all sliced balls the axis of spin will be inclined backward. It seems likely, also, that as the axis of spin is inclined backward and the ball is rising, there will be some additional friction at the bottom of it which would not be there in the case of a ball without spin. This probably helps to produce the sudden rise of the slice. In all good cut shots with lofted clubs, the angle of the axis of spin is to a very great extent regulated by the amount of loft on the face of the club. Professor Thomson's error with regard to the slice being about a vertical axis is beyond question, but his error in saying that the axis of rotation of the pull and the slice is identical, is, from a golfing point of view, simply irretrievable. Print is a very awkward thing--_it stays_. The merest tyro at golf knows quite well that the pulled ball and the sliced ball behave during flight and after landing on the ground in a totally different manner from each other. If Professor Thomson knows so much, it should unquestionably be evident to so distinguished a scientist that there must be a very considerable difference in the rotation of these balls. The slice, as is well known, rises quickly from the ground, flies high, and is not, generally speaking, a good runner. The pull, on the other hand, flies low and runs well on landing. It is not merely sufficient to contradict Professor Sir J. J. Thomson in these matters, so I shall explain fully the reason for the difference in the flight and run of the slice and the pull. The slice is played as the club head is returning across the line of flight, and therefore is more in the nature of a chop than is the pull. Frequently the spin that is imparted to the ball is the resultant of the downward and inwardly glancing blow. This not only leaves the axis of rotation inclined backward, but sometimes inclined also slightly away from the player, but it is obvious that even if the ball had, as Professor Thomson thinks it has, rotation about a vertical axis, which is the rotation of a top, such rotation would, on landing, tend to prevent the ball running, for, as is well known, every spinning thing strives hard to remain in the plane of its rotation, but the slice is more obstinate still than this, for the axis of rotation being inclined backward, frequently at the end of the flight, coincides with the line of flight of the ball, so that the ball is spinning about an axis which, to adopt Professor Thomson's term, runs through its "nose." This means that the slice frequently pitches in the same manner as might a rifle bullet if falling on its "nose," and the effect is, to a very great extent, the same. The ball tries to stay where it lands. Let us now consider the flight and run of the pull. The pull is played by an upward, outward, glancing blow. The ball is hit by the club as it is going across the line of flight away from the player and this imparts to the ball a spin around an axis which lies inward towards the player. This means that the pull goes away to the right, and then swerves back again towards the middle of the course if properly played, and upon landing runs very freely. The reason for this run has not been clearly understood by many, and it is quite evident that Professor Thomson does not know of it, so I shall give an extremely plain illustration. Nearly every boy has at some time played with a chameleon top, or some other top of the same species, that is to say, a disc top. Every boy who has played with such a top will be familiar with the fact that when the spin is dying away from the top, it rolls about until one edge of it touches the earth or whatever it is spinning on. Immediately this happens the top runs away as carried by the spin. That is about the simplest illustration which it is possible to give of the plane of spin of the pulled ball during its flight and of its run after it has touched the earth, but from this very simple explanation it will be perfectly obvious to anyone who gives the matter the least consideration that not only is the axis of rotation of the pull and the slice dissimilar, but as a matter of fact the rotation of the pull and the slice is almost diametrically opposed the one to the other. Professor Thomson says: Let us now consider the effect of a cross wind. Suppose the wind is blowing from left to right, then, if the ball is pulled, it will be rotating in the direction shown in figure 26 (from right to left); the rules we found for the effect of rotation on the difference of pressure on the two sides of a ball in a blast of air show that in this case the pressure on the front half of the ball will be greater than that on the rear half, and thus tend to stop the flight of the ball. If, however, the spin was that for a slice, the pressure on the rear half would be greater than the pressure in front, so that the difference in pressure would tend to push on the ball and make it travel further than it otherwise would. I have not given this aspect of the question a great amount of thought, but it seems obvious that in playing for a slice in the circumstances mentioned by Professor Thomson, it is extremely unlikely that the greater pressure would be, as he says, on the rear half. If, indeed, this were so the slice would, in my opinion, not take effect; also on account of the tremendous speed of the golf ball it seems to me utterly improbable that in any ordinary wind which one encounters on a golf links it would be possible to obtain on the rear half of a golf ball a greater pressure than that on the forward spinning half, or, to be more accurate, quarter of the ball. I cannot help thinking that Professor Thomson in saying that in such a case as this the greater pressure would be on the rear half of the ball is falling into an error, for it seems to me that he is overlooking the tendency of the ball to set up for itself something in the nature of a vacuum which will undoubtedly tend to protect the rear portion of the ball from the force which must assail it in front during its passage through the air. Professor Thomson says that "the moral of this is that if the wind is coming from the left we should play up into the wind and slice the ball, while if it is coming from the right we should play up into it and pull the ball." That is Professor Thomson's theory. I shall give my readers the benefit of my practice, which is that whenever there is a cross wind of any description whatever, hit the ball as straight as it is possible for you to do it, right down the middle of the course from the tee to the hole, and forget all about pulls or slices. On a windy day avoid anything whatever in the nature of side-spin because once you have applied it to a ball you never know where that ball is going to end, and if you want any confirmation for this practice you may get it from Harry Vardon in _The Complete Golfer_, for there can be very little doubt that a side wind has nothing like the effect on the ball that golfers seem to imagine, provided always, of course, that the ball be hit cleanly and without appreciable spin. It is not given to one golfer in a thousand to know how to use the pull and slice to obtain assistance from the wind and also to be capable of executing the strokes. As a matter of practical golf these strokes should, for at least ninety-five per cent of golfers, be rigidly eschewed. At the beginning of Professor Thomson's article he said: I shall not attempt to deal with the many important questions which arise when we consider the impact of the club with the ball, but confine myself to the consideration of the flight of the ball after it has left the club. It would, indeed, have been well if Professor Thomson had carried out his expressed intention of leaving this matter alone, for in dealing with it he has shown most conclusively that he has no practical grip of the question which he has attempted to deal with. At page 15 of his article he says: I have not time for more than a few words as to how the ball acquires the spin from the club, but if you grasp the principle that the action between the club and the ball depends only on their _relative_ motion, and that it is the same whether we have the ball fixed and move the club, or have the club fixed and project the ball against it, the main features are very easily understood. I can readily believe that this statement of Professor Thomson's is absolutely accurate. The only thing which troubles me about it is that I think the person of ordinary intellect will find it absolutely impossible to "grasp the principle" which Professor Thomson lays down. If we have the club fixed and project the ball against it, we know quite well that the ball will rebound from the club, but if we are to have the ball fixed and move the club against it, nothing will happen unless we move the club fast enough, in which case we should simply smash the club. This is a most amazing illustration of looseness of thought--such an astonishing illustration that I should not have believed Professor Thomson capable of it if it had not been published broadcast to the world with his authority. Of course, I know perfectly well what Professor Thomson means to say, but I have not to deal with that, and as a matter of fact what he means to say is quite wrong, but it will be sufficient for me to show that what he _does_ say is wrong. Professor Thomson then goes on to say: Suppose Fig. 27 represents the section of the head of a lofted club moving horizontally forward from right to left, the effect of the impact will be the same as if the club were at rest and the ball were shot against it horizontally from left to right. Here Professor Thomson shows that he is quite under a misapprehension as to the production of the golf stroke. He pre-supposes that the club is moving in a horizontal direction at the moment it hits the ball. In a vast majority of instances, probably in about ninety per cent of cases, the club is not moving in a horizontal direction--in fact, it would be hardly too much to say that it never moves in a horizontal direction. It is nearly always moving either upwards or downwards in a curve at the moment it strikes the ball, so that it stands to reason, especially when the club face is travelling upwards, which is what it does in the great majority of cases, that the blow is never delivered horizontally, but is always struck more or less upward through the ball's centre of mass. Practical teachers of golf know how extremely hard it is to induce the beginner, and for the matter of that many people who are far beyond beginners, to trust the loft of the club to raise the ball from the earth; so many players never get out of the habit of attempting to hit upwards. It stands to reason that if the blow in golf were delivered as with a billiard cue, any blow struck in that manner, provided the face of the club had sufficient loft, would tend to produce back-spin, but practically no blow in golf is struck in the manner described by Professor Thomson; nor is the beneficial back-spin of golf obtained in this manner, in fact the loft of the club has comparatively little to do with producing the back-spin which so materially assists the length of the carry. There can, of course, be no doubt that loft does assist a person in producing this back-spin, or, as Professor Thomson calls it, under-spin, but to nothing like the extent which is imagined by the worthy Professor. The beneficial back-spin of golf is obtained by striking the golf ball before the head of the club has reached the lowest point in its swing; in other words, the back-spin is put on a golf ball by downward cut--by the very reverse to that cut which is put on a ball when a man tops it badly. In the one case it is up cut, or, as it is called in lawn-tennis, top, which is a misleading term which has led many people, besides Sir J. J. Thomson, astray, and in the other case it is downward cut, which is exactly similar in its effect to the chop at lawn-tennis. Professor Thomson, for the purpose of illustrating the fact that the golf ball obtains the beneficial spin, which influences its carry so materially, from the loft of the club, shows us a club face with a loft much greater than that of a niblick, and proceeds to demonstrate from this loft, which it is unnecessary to tell a golfer does not exist on any club which is used for driving, that the ball acquires its back-spin from the loft of the face of the club. I have already referred to the Professor's fundamental fallacy that the golf stroke is delivered in a horizontal line--in effect that the force of the blow proceeds horizontally, but he is guilty of another very great error from the point of view of practical golf when he shows a club such as he has done, in order to explain how the beneficial back-spin of golf is obtained. Such a club as he shows might be useful for getting out of a bunker, but it certainly would be of no use whatever in practical golf for driving. As every golfer knows, the face of the driver is, comparatively speaking, very upright, and firing a ball at a wall built at the same angle as the loft of a driver would certainly not produce on that ball much in the way of back-spin. The idea of a modern golf ball which flattens very considerably on the face of the club, rolling up the face of a driver on account of its loft, is too ridiculous to be considered seriously by a practical golfer. The trouble is that Professor Thomson always takes for his hypothesis something which does not exist in golf, so that in the great majority of cases it does not really matter to us what he proves. As a matter of fact, there is in golf only one horizontal stroke, and that is the stymie stroke introduced into the game by me, and which I have hereinbefore fully described. This stroke shows us conclusively how the power goes mostly into elevation instead of into propulsion. It is an absolute answer, if one were required, to Professor Thomson's theories. Professor Thomson's error is of such a fundamental nature that I must quote his sentence again in giving my readers the full paragraph wherein he exposes the delusion under which he is suffering. He says: Suppose Fig. 27 represents the section of the head of a lofted club moving horizontally forward from right to left, the effect of the impact will be the same as if the club were at rest and the ball were shot against it horizontally from left to right. Evidently, however, in this case the ball would tend to roll up the face, and would thus get spin about a horizontal axis in the direction shown in the figure; this is under-spin and produces the upward force which tends to increase the carry of the ball. This is the rock upon which Professor Thomson has split. He is under the impression that the beneficial back-spin of golf is obtained by loft, whereas it is perfectly possible to obtain the beneficial back-spin of golf with a club having a vertical face, and being at the moment of impact in a vertical plane, but in order to do this it would be necessary that the ball should be teed very high, as indeed one of the most famous professionals in the world is in the habit of doing when he is playing for a low ball against the wind. When in _Modern Golf_ I stated that a high tee for a low ball was practical golf, it was considered revolutionary, if not incorrect, doctrine, but players now understand that by using the high tee for a low ball they are enabled to cut down beyond the ball more than they could do if the ball were lying on the earth, and that they are, in this manner, enabled to obtain much more of the back-spin which gives the ball its extra carry, and also to play it with less loft. This is a very serious error for a man of Professor Thomson's attainments to make, and indeed it is to me a wonder how he could possibly make the mistake of thinking that the force in the blow at golf is administered horizontally. This is one of the worst errors which he has made, but the idea that the back-spin of golf is obtained mainly by the loft of the club is utterly unsound and pernicious. It is so unsound, and the correct understanding of the method of producing this stroke is so important to golf, especially to the golf of the future, that I must explain fully how this stroke is obtained. I have already shown that it is played by a downward glancing blow which hits the ball before the club reaches the lowest point in its swing, and I have already shown the delusion under which many players labour, even including so eminent a player as Harry Vardon, that the ball is struck down on to the earth. Although the ball is struck a descending blow, there is in the blow much more of the forward motion than the downward, so that all the ordinary principles with regard to getting the ball up into the air, apply with equal force to this stroke as to any other, and it is a matter of prime importance that the ball must be struck below the centre of its mass--that the loft of the club must get in underneath what is popularly called the middle of the ball. If this does not take place the ball will not rise from the earth, and to show as Harry Vardon does, at page 170 of _The Complete Golfer_, that the ball must be struck at or above the centre of its mass, and with, as he indicates at page 106, a vertical face, is utterly unsound golf. I cannot emphasise too strongly that in this miscalled push shot, which is answerable for all back-spin, the loft must be allowed to do its work in the ordinary manner, otherwise the stroke will be a failure. Having now made it perfectly clear how this stroke is obtained, I must explain a little more clearly the wonderful character of this ball which is without any doubt whatever, in my mind, the king of golf strokes in so far as regards obtaining distance and accuracy and direction. On account of the downward glancing blow the ball has been struck, it leaves the club with a very great amount of back-spin. The hands are always forward of the ball at the moment of impact in this stroke when it is properly played. It stands to reason that this, to a certain extent, decreases the loft of the club with which the stroke is played. The result is that the ball goes away on the first portion of its journey with a very low flight, keeping very close indeed to the earth. All the time it is doing this, however, the ball, as we know, is spinning backwards, which means that the lower portion of the ball is spinning towards the hole, and that it is on the lower portion of the ball that the motions of progression and revolution conspire. It is equally obvious that on the upper portion of the ball the progression through the air is at the same rate, but in so far as regards its frictional-producing result on the air, it is lessened by the fact that the upper portion of the ball is revolving or spinning backwardly towards the player. The result of this is that the ball is getting much more friction on the lower portion than it is on the top, but as speed can always dominate spin, this is not very apparent until about two-thirds of the carry. As the speed of the ball begins to decrease, the friction of the spin gets a better grip on the air, and the result is that with the continual rubbing of the air on the lower portion of the ball, it is forced upward and so it continues until the lifting power of the combined propulsion and revolution is exhausted. By this time the ball has arrived at the highest point of its trajectory and it then begins in the natural order of things to fall towards the earth. It is obvious that by this time much of the back-spin will have been exhausted, but there still remains a considerable amount of rotation, and as the ball begins to fall towards the earth this back-spin which has hitherto been used for forcing the ball upwards into the air, still exerts its influence, and as it is travelling towards the earth the remnant of the back-spin exerts its influence to extend the carry of the ball, because the main frictional portion of the ball has, to a certain extent, on account of the dropping of the ball, been altered and shifted probably a little more towards the lower side of the ball. The result of all this is that by the time this ball, in a well played drive, comes to earth, most of the beneficial back-spin which obtained for it its long flight, will have been exhausted, and that portion which remains and has not been exhausted will, in all probability, be killed on impact, for the ball pitches on one point, and naturally the top portion tends to throw forward so that the ball will run along the course. It stands to reason that it would require an enormous amount of back-spin to stay with the ball during the period of its low flight, to lift the ball then to the highest point in its trajectory near the end of its carry, to stay with it still in its descent, and then to be strong enough to resist the shock of landing so as to check the run of the ball. The result is that on account of the low trajectory of this ball and of the phenomena explained by me, it is frequently, when well played, and particularly in dry weather, a good runner, so that we see that in this ball we have practically the ideal golf drive; a drive with which no other can compare; a drive which is as good, although it is called the wind-cheater, for a still day as in a gale. From this explanation it will be seen what a poor chance anyone would have who follows Professor Thomson's ideas of obtaining the beneficial back-spin of golf from the loft of the club and a horizontal blow. Professor Thomson gives some illustrations of the pull and the slice. In two of his figures he shows horizontal blows being produced in a straight line with the line of flight. Both of these, I may say, are absolutely impossible in golf. He shows a slice in Fig. 29 which would be much more likely to result in a pull, and he shows a pull in Fig. 31 which would almost certainly result in a slice even if the shots were possible, which, as he shows them, they are not. Professor Thomson shows by diagram an ordinary slice which he says is produced by "such a motion as would be produced if the arms were pulled in at the end of the stroke." This in itself is an utterly loose definition. What Professor Thomson evidently means is if the arms were pulled in during the stroke or at the moment of impact, but as I have shown the slice is not produced by the arms being pulled in at the moment of impact. It is produced by the club head travelling across the ball at an angle to the intended line of flight of the ball. Professor Thomson shows the slice in this case by diagram, and correctly, but he says that if the club were fixed rigidly and the ball were fired at the club down the same line as the club made in its previous stroke, the ball would come off the club in exactly the same manner as when it was hit by the club, but in this he is making a very grave error, as I think I shall be able to show. I shall quote Professor Thomson with regard to this matter. His proposition is so simple that although I give his indicating letters it will not be necessary for me to reproduce his diagram. He says: Suppose, now, the face of the club is not square to its direction of motion, but that looking down on the club its line of motion when it strikes the ball is along P Q (Fig. 28), such a motion as would be produced if the arms were pulled in at the end of the stroke, the effect of the impact now will be the same as if the club were at rest and the ball projected along R S, the ball will endeavour to roll along the face away from the striker; it will spin in the direction shown in the figure about a vertical axis. This, as we have seen, is the spin which produces a slice. This, as we have already seen, is not the spin which produces a slice, but we need not waste any further time going into that matter. We can, however, deal with what Professor Thomson meant to say when he wrote ... but if you grasp the principle that the action between the club and the ball depends only on their _relative_ motion, and that it is the same whether we have the ball fixed and move the club or have the club fixed and project the ball against it, the main features are very easily understood. For the purpose of analysing what Professor Thomson evidently meant when he wrote this, let us take the ordinary case of a slice. We all know now quite well that a slice is produced by a glancing blow coming inwardly across the intended line of flight, and Professor Thomson tells us it is exactly the same thing whether we hit the ball with the club or fire the ball against the club. Let us see how this works out in the slice. We will consider, for the sake of argument, that the slice has been produced by a stroke which has come across the intended line of flight at an angle of 30 degrees. We shall now fasten our club rigidly and fire the golf ball out of a catapult against its face so that it hits it dead in the centre, and so that it travels down a line at an angle of 30 degrees to the face. Now most of us know enough elementary mechanics to know that in hitting a still object such as the face of the golf club, the ball will come off it at the same angle at which it hit it--in other words that the angle of reflection is the same as the angle of incidence, allowing always, of course, for the slight alteration which will be made by the loft of the club. In this case, of course, we have one object which is absolutely still, and all the motion during impact is confined to the ball. Now let us consider the impact in the slice. In this case the club strikes the ball a violent blow. The ball, to a very great extent, flattens on the face of the club, and both the ball and the club travel together for a certain distance across the direct line of flight to the hole, and during the time that they are thus travelling together the club is imparting spin to the ball and influencing its direction, so that instead of the ball doing anything whatever in the nature of spinning off the face of the club at a natural angle, it is driving, during its initial stages, very straightly for a long distance before the spin begins to take effect. It seems to me that the slice may be taken as a very good illustration showing that what Professor Thomson meant to explain is quite incorrect from a golfing point of view. It is quite evident that before we could accept as authoritative the explanations which have been given by Professor Thomson of these somewhat abstruse problems, it would be necessary for us to have, as he puts it, "a new dynamics." I have already dealt very fully both in England and America with this remarkable lecture by Professor Thomson. I have criticised it in the leading reviews and magazines of the world, and the authoritative golfing paper of England--_Golf Illustrated_--in a leader, invited Professor Thomson to make good his assertions, but he has not been able to do so. One can understand fallacious matter being published under the names of professional golfers when one knows quite well that the majority of the work is done by journalists hired for the purpose, but it is almost impossible to understand how such utterly false doctrine could be put out by so eminent a man, and under the auspices of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. The flight of the ball has always been a fascinating and for most people a very mysterious subject, but except in one or two matters there is no mystery whatever about the flight of the golf ball, but even amongst practical golfers there is an amazing lack of accurate information. For instance, we find Mr. Walter J. Travis, in _Practical Golf_ at page 139, saying: With a very rapid swing, the force or energy stored up in the gutta ball is greater than in the Haskell. The latter, by reason of its greater comparative resiliency does not remain in contact with the club head quite so long, and therefore does not receive the full benefit of the greater velocity of the stroke in the same proportion as the less resilient gutta. It flies off the face too quickly to get the full measure of energy imparted by a very swift stroke. This responsiveness or resiliency, however, asserts itself in a greater and more compensating degree in the case of the shorter driver. It makes up, in his case, for the lack of speed, and he finds his distance very sensibly increased. This is a remarkable error for a golfer like Mr. Travis to make. It is abundantly plain that the rubber-cored ball stays on the face of the club much longer than the old gutta-percha ball did. Provided that there were such things in the world as incompressible balls, the impact in the drive would be of the least possible duration with them, but the more compressible the ball becomes the longer it will dwell on the face of the golf club. That the rubber-cored ball does dwell for a greater period on the face of the club is responsible, to a great extent, for the fact that the modern ball swerves much more when sliced or pulled than did the old guttie in similar circumstances, and the reason seems to be that on account of the fact that the ball stays longer on the face of the club during the time that the club is going across the intended line of flight, it is able to impart to the ball a much greater spin. This spin, as we know, exerts its influence principally towards the end of the ball's flight, and in all probability it gets to work now approximately at the same place where the spin in the old gutta-percha ball began to assert itself, but probably a little further in the carry. We all know that once the spin has begun to assert itself so as to make the ball swerve, its deflection from the line, particularly with a suitable wind, is extremely rapid, and we all know equally well that the carry of the rubber-cored ball is much longer than that of the old gutta-percha. It stands to reason that the ball having a much greater distance wherein to swerve will execute a correspondingly larger swerve than it would if its carry were shorter. We find some amazing statements made by authors who profess to deal with golf. For instance at page 167 of _The Mystery of Golf_, we are informed that ... another important thing about the follow-through, surely, is this. As Mr. Travis has pointed out, such is the resiliency of the rubber ball that club and ball are in contact for an appreciable period of time--the impact, that is, is not instantaneous. It is highly probable that the trajectory of the ball is largely influenced by this period of contact. If you follow through your club head travels in precisely the same line as the ball, and the flight of the ball is by this rendered straighter, steadier, and longer. This, truly, is a wonderful instance of analytical thought by one who is attempting to explain the mystery of golf. He has come to the conclusion that "it is highly probable that the trajectory of the ball is largely influenced by this period of contact." I have seen many goals kicked at Rugby football, and have kicked a few myself, and I am almost sure that in every case when a goal was scored the boot had a good deal to do with the direction. Marvellous _analysis_ this! We may, however, discard these wonderful efforts of analysis and deal with the remark made by the author that "if you follow through, your club head travels in precisely the same line as the ball," for this is absolutely incorrect in the case of many strokes wherein one desires to influence the flight of the ball by applying spin. For instance, at practically no time of its travel, no matter how good the stroke is and how perfect one's follow-through, is the club head in the slice or the pull "in precisely the same line as the ball." This is merely one of hundreds of instances of confused thought for which the poor golfer has to suffer. I have before referred to the idea of pulling and slicing to counteract wind. It is astonishing how deeply rooted this idea is. At page 53 of _Concerning Golf_ Mr. John L. Low says: "There is no shot which produces such straight results as the sliced shot against a right hand breeze," to which I reply that there is no shot which gives such straight results as the straight shot in itself without slice or pull of any description whatever, and that as a matter of fact it is practically impossible to calculate within twenty yards, and that means double the distance, where one will land if one starts pulling and slicing in a cross wind. [Illustration: PLATE XII. GEORGE DUNCAN A characteristic stroke, showing Duncan's perfect finish in the drive.] This is a matter of such importance that I must quote Harry Vardon in support of my statement. He says at page 92 of _The Complete Golfer_: Now, however, that this question is raised, I feel it desirable to say, without any hesitation, that the majority of golfers possess vastly exaggerated notions of the effect of strong cross winds on the flight of their ball. They greatly over-estimate the capabilities of a breeze. To judge by their observations on the tee, one concludes that a wind from the left is often sufficient to carry the ball away at an angle of 45 degrees, and indeed sometimes when it does take such an exasperating course and finishes on the journey some fifty yards away from the point from which it was desired to despatch it, there is an impatient exclamation from the disappointed golfer, "Confound this wind! Who on earth can play in a hurricane!" or words to that effect. Now I have quite satisfied myself that only a very strong wind indeed will carry a properly driven ball more than a very few yards out of its course, and in proof of this I may say that it is very seldom when I have to deal with a cross wind that I do anything but play straight at the hole without any pulling or slicing or making allowances in any way. If golfers will only bring themselves to ignore the wind, then it, in turn, will almost entirely ignore their straight ball. When you find your ball at rest the afore-mentioned forty or fifty yards from the point which you desired to send it, make up your mind, however unpleasant it may be to do so, that the trouble is due to an unintentional pull or slice, and you may get what consolation you can from the fact that the slightest of these variations from the ordinary drive is seized upon with delight by any wind, and its features exaggerated to an enormous extent. It is quite possible therefore that a slice which would have taken the ball only twenty yards from the line when there was no wind, will take it forty yards away with the kind assistance of its friend and ally. These are, unquestionably, words of wisdom. There can be no doubt whatever that the straight ball is the ball all the time in golf, and it is absolutely certain that what Vardon says about the effect of the wind on the golf ball is true. Wind has remarkably little effect on the golf ball which is driven without spin. I have had no doubt on this subject for at least seventeen years. I had my lesson in one ball during the course of a match played over my home links in New Zealand. One of the holes was on top of a volcanic mountain at a place where New Zealand is only a few miles wide, and there was a howling gale raging from ocean to ocean right across the island. I can remember as if it were yesterday, the champion of New Zealand, as he was then, playing this hole. He drove a very high and perfectly straight ball from tee to green, and the ball travelled to all appearances as directly as if there had been no wind whatever, whereas had there been the least slice on the ball it would have been picked up by the wind and carried away into the crater which lay sixty or a hundred yards off the course. Speaking of Mr. Low reminds me that he makes some extraordinary statements with regard to spin. At page 35 of _Concerning Golf_ he says: "I have said that a ball with left to right spin swings in the air towards the left in exactly the opposite direction from a sliced ball and from contrary causes." It is obvious that this is wrong, for the spin of the slice is from left to right, and of course, as every one knows, that spin makes the ball swerve towards the right, which is the swerve of the slice. At page 32 Mr. Low makes the same error. He says there: "Now a pulled ball comes round to the left because the sphere is rotating from left to right, or in the direction contrary to the hands of a watch." This, of course, is a contradiction, for the hands of a watch as we look at them do rotate from left to right, but in any case Mr. Low's explanation is quite incorrect, because the spin of the ball is not in a direction contrary to the hands of a watch laid face upwards on the ground, as Mr. Low affirms. Mr. Low says at page 31: Every child nowadays seems to know how to slice a ball; you have only to ask the question and the answer will come quickly enough, "Oh, draw the hands in when you are hitting," or, in other words, spin the ball in the direction of the hands of a watch laid face upwards on the ground. The ball advancing with this spin finds it is resisted most strongly by the atmosphere on its left side, and therefore goes towards the right in the direction of least resistance. The converse is the case with a pulled ball in the sense of a ball which curves in the air from right to left. We have already shown in dealing with Professor Thomson's article that this statement is quite incorrect. In passing I may also refer to the fact that Mr. Low's idea of the production of the slice, viz. by drawing the hands in when one is hitting, is also wrong. There is no drawing in of the hands at the moment of impact in the properly played slice. It is the drawing in, if we may use the term, of the head of the club in its travel across the intended line of flight, but not anything which is done intentionally during impact. However, that is by the way. Mr. Low is evidently under the impression, as was Professor Thomson, that the spin of the ball in the slice is about a vertical axis. This is an error in itself, as we have shown, but it is not nearly so bad an error as it is to say that the pull is the converse of the slice in this respect, for, as we have seen, if the ball were merely spinning about a vertical axis it could not possibly have the running powers which it possesses, to say nothing of its low flight. Although Mr. Low has got somewhat mixed in describing his rotation, it is evident from his reference to the hands of the clock that his ideas are correct in so far as regards the general direction of spin, but where he is at fault is in stating the axis of rotation of his ball. If we accept Mr. Low's statement about the axis of rotation we shall have the pulled ball, when it lands, striking the earth with a spin equivalent to a sleeping top, but that is not what we want in the pulled ball, for neither would it give us the low trajectory which we desire so much, nor would it give us, on landing, the running which we desire, if anything, still more. The spin which we desire to produce and which we must have in our minds to produce when we are playing the stroke, is such a spin as will give us, when the ball lands, approximately the spin of a disc top as it falls to earth when its spin is nearly exhausted. I am speaking now, of course, not of the question of degree, but of the plane of spin. We must have our ball spinning in such a plane that when it touches the earth it will behave in the same manner as the disc top does when its side comes into contact with the floor. In dealing with "The Science of the Stroke," James Braid in _Advanced Golf_ goes into an analysis of the effect of spin on flight. He says early in the chapter: At the present time most players know how they ought to be standing, and what the exact movements of their arms, wrists, and body should be in order to swing the club in the right way and make the ball travel as far as possible, but they do not all know, and in few cases one suspects have ever troubled to think, what is the process by which these movements, when properly executed, bring about the desired effect. I do not know how Braid can truthfully say that at the present time most players know how they ought to be standing, when we are confronted with the fact that his own book, _Advanced Golf_, and practically every book which has been published on the game, tells the unfortunate golfer to stand as he ought not to be standing instead of giving him the simple truth and sound golf, and it is incomprehensible to me how Braid can say that they know "what the exact movements of their arms, wrists, and body should be in order to swing the club in the right way," when he himself has confessed in _Advanced Golf_ that, particularly with regard to the wrists, which unquestionably have a most important function to fulfil in the golf drive, he absolutely does not know where they come in. It is useless in a work on _Advanced Golf_ to assume on the part of one's readers a knowledge superior to that which the author of the book himself has given as his own limitations. Braid says: They have the cause and also the effect, but they do not often see the connection between the two. Of course, the ball in a ball game moves always according to scientific laws, but it has seemed to those who have studied these matters that the scientific problems involved in the flight of the golf ball are more intricate, but at the same time more interesting, than in many other cases. Of course this is quite stupid, because, as I have frequently explained, there is no special set of mechanical laws for golf--or the golf ball. The golf ball follows in all respects exactly the same laws as those which govern the flight and run of any other ball. The only difference in connection with the golf ball is that it is probably the most unscientifically constructed ball in the world of sport. Braid continues: The chief matter of this kind that it is desirable the golfer should understand is that concerning the character and effect of the spin that is given to the golf ball when it leaves the club. This spin is at the root of all the difficulties and all the delights of the game, and yet there are some players--one might even say many--who do not even know that their ball spins at all as they hit it from the tee. I may pause here to note that James Braid says that spin is at the root of all the difficulties and all the delights of golf. This is in many respects quite an exaggeration, but I am giving it exactly as he says it, for the simple reason that it emphasises the fact which I have always insisted on, that a proper knowledge of the application of spin to the golf ball is essential for one who would attain to the greatest success or who would obtain the greatest enjoyment from the game. Braid quotes the work of the late Professor Tait very extensively. Referring to the most important subject of back-spin, he says: It appears to be the proper regulation of the under-spin given to the ball when applying it from the tee and through the green, at all events when length is what is most required, that makes success, and it is in this way that players of inferior physical power must make up for their deficiency and drive long balls. I may say at once that any idea whatever of the proper regulation of back-spin in the drive is, from the point of view of practical golf, merely nonsense. In so far as regards obtaining extra distance by driving a low ball with back-spin, whose properties I have already fully described, there is nothing whatever to be done but to get back-spin and as much of it as one possibly can. The golfer has yet to be born who in driving can obtain too much back-spin. Braid says: It is in the long drive that the principles of spin are most interesting and important, but it must be remembered also that they are very prominent in their action upon the flight of the ball in the case of many other shots, and the peculiarities of different trajectories can generally be traced to this cause after a very little thought by one who has a knowledge of the scientific side of the matter, as explained by Professor Tait. This is particularly the case with high lofted approach shots. One may remark here, perhaps, that there is no more unsuitable stroke in which to study the peculiarity of the application of back-spin to the trajectory of the ball than in the high lofted approach shots, for it is in such shots as these practically an impossibility, if one may so express it, to locate the influence of the spin on the flight of the ball. It is quite a different thing in the wind-cheater class of stroke where one sees the ball travelling low across the turf and can absolutely mark the place where the back-spin begins to get to work and give the ball its upward tendency towards the end of the drive, and, when the velocity of the ball has become sufficiently reduced, to allow the back-spin to exert its lifting power. I now come to a matter which is of very great importance in the application of back-spin to the ball. It is quite evident to me that Braid is falling into the same error as that which was originally made by Professor Tait, and followed fifteen years later by Professor Sir J. J. Thomson. On page 226 he says: Therefore the great authority concluded that good driving lies not merely in powerful hitting, but "in the proper apportionment of quite good hitting with such a knack as gives the right amount of under-spin to the ball"; and one of his calculations was to the effect that, in certain circumstances, a man who imparted under-spin to his ball when driving it might get a carry of about thirty yards more than that obtained by another man who hit as hard but made no under-spin. There would, of course, be a great difference in the comparative trajectories of the two balls. In the case of the short one there is no resistance to gravity, and consequently, in order to get any sort of flight at all, the ball must be directed upwards when it is hit from the tee, or, to use a scientific term, there must be "initial elevation." This may be only very slight, but it is quite distinguishable, and in fact a player, who is only at the beginning of his practice, and has little knowledge of the principles of the game, will generally be found trying to hit his ball in an upward direction, and by that means will make it travel farther than it would have done otherwise. On the other hand, the ball that is properly driven by a good player is not only not consciously aimed upwards, but, according to Professor Tait, is not hit upwards. For some distance after it has left the tee it follows a line nearly parallel with the ground, and eventually rises as the result of the under-spin which is forcing it upwards all the time. We may pause here to consider a few of the statements in this remarkable passage. I may say again that the idea of driving a ball with the "proper apportionment of quite good hitting with such a knack as gives the right amount of under-spin to the ball" is simply a wild guess at what takes place during the execution of a correct drive with back-spin. The proper playing of this stroke is a matter of very considerable difficulty, and it is practically a certainty that no golfer has ever lived or ever will live who could regulate his back-spin in the drive to any appreciable extent; all that he ever thinks of doing--all that he is ever likely to do--is to obtain his back-spin, _and as much of it as he can_. It is, of course, quite wrong to say that in the ball hit without back-spin there is "no resistance to gravity," for if there were no resistance to gravity the ball would be on the earth. However, we know quite well what is meant, although, when we are dealing with a matter which is absolutely a matter of science, we do not expect such loose statements as these. I should probably have passed this remark, but for the fact that it is emphasised by the statement that in order to get any sort of flight at all the ball must be directed upwards when it is hit from the tee, which again, as a matter of practical golf, is what nine of ten golfers do, although we are told that "a player who is only at the beginning of his practice, and has little knowledge of the principles of the game, will generally be found trying to hit his ball in an upward direction." It is astonishing how few players, even of quite a good class, are content to leave the question of elevation entirely to the club. It probably would be no exaggeration to say that quite ninety per cent of the players make an attempt, however extremely slight it may be, to assist the club in lifting the ball from the earth. According to the best theory in golf, this is quite wrong, for the blow should be at least in a horizontal direction, which practically it never is, and preferably in the line of the arc formed by the club head in its travel through the air on its downward path. The latter case, of course, would produce back-spin, and a considerable amount of it. The former would probably produce slight back-spin, but a very slight amount. However, the very great majority of golfing hits are at the moment of impact proceeding upwardly, and it is this fact which puts any idea whatever of the unconscious application of back-spin by the ordinary golfer quite beyond serious consideration. The amount of back-spin which is unconsciously applied to the golf ball is practically negligible. We see that, according to Professor Tait, the ball which is properly driven by a good player is not only not consciously aimed upwards, but that it is actually not hit upwards. Indeed we are told that for some distance after it has left the tee it follows a line nearly parallel with the ground and eventually rises as the result of the under-spin that is forcing it upwards all the time. This statement is not in accordance with the experience of practical golfers. It is evident that Professor Tait was under the impression, in which, as I have stated before and now emphasise, he has been followed by Professor Sir J. J. Thomson, that the beneficial back-spin in golf is obtained by the loft of the club. There can be no doubt whatever that if a golf ball were struck a blow by a golf club having any considerable degree of loft and proceeding at the moment of impact in a straight line, the result would be to impart some degree of back-spin, but this is not what happens in practical golf. At no portion of the travel of the head of the club in the golf drive is it proceeding in a horizontal direction, and in the vast majority of cases, at the moment of impact, even with the very best of stroke players, the club is going upward. If this were not so it would be impossible for many of our greatest drivers to get the trajectories they do with the comparatively straight-faced clubs which they use. Braid quotes an experiment which was made by Professor Tait in the course of his investigations with regard to the qualities of under-spin. It appears that the Professor laid a ball to the string of a crossbow, the string being just below the middle of the ball, so that when it was let go it would impart a certain amount of under-spin to it. When he shot the ball in this way he made it fly straight to a mark that was thirty yards distant; but when he shot it a second time, pulling the string to the same extent and laying it to the middle of the ball so that no under-spin would be given to it, the ball fell eight feet short of the same mark. It is impossible to accept such a rough and crude experiment as this as evidence in any way whatever of the influence of back-spin in the drive; rather it would seem to show beyond a shadow of doubt that the extra carry was obtained because the power of propulsion was applied to the ball at a lower portion, and therefore tended to give it a greater trajectory. It should be obvious that this result would be obtained even disregarding the question of back-spin, which in such an extremely short flight as thirty yards would certainly not have any opportunity whatever to make such a difference in the length of carry as that suggested. It is, however, when we come to deal with questions of practical golf that we find that the ideas of the late Professor Tait will not bear looking into. Braid says: However, it is well to bear in mind one thing that the Professor said, "The pace which the player can give the club head at the moment of impact depends to a very considerable extent on the relative motion of his two hands (to which is due the 'nip') during the immediately preceding two-hundredth of a second, while the amount of beneficial spin is seriously diminished by even a trifling upward concavity of the path of the head during the ten-thousandth of a second occupied by the blow." Here we have plain evidence of the fact that Professor Tait is under the impression that there is some particular snap which he calls "nip" imported into the stroke immediately before impact. We have already dealt fully with this matter. We remember what Vardon has said in condemning the idea, and we know that Braid himself has confessed that he knows nothing about the matter, so it will not seem disrespectful if we come to the conclusion that we can disregard this vague statement about the "nip" in the blow. We can then proceed to notice the really important remark made that "the amount of beneficial spin is seriously diminished by even a trifling upward concavity of the path of the head during the ten-thousandth of a second occupied by the blow." It seems to me that this last statement is absolutely accurate, and it is the thing which I have always contended for in dealing with the practical side of golf driving, as contradistinguished from the purely theoretical, which has been put before us by Professor Tait, and following him, by Professor Sir J. J. Thomson. It will be observed that Professor Tait said that the amount of beneficial spin is "seriously diminished by even a trifling upward concavity of the path of the head during the ten-thousandth of a second occupied by the blow." Some of my readers may remember that when I was dealing with Professor Sir J. J. Thomson's lecture before the Royal Society in an article which appeared in _The English Review_ in February 1911, I stated that what actually did happen was that there took place in practically every drive at golf exactly this "trifling upward concavity of the path of the head during the ten-thousandth of a second occupied by the blow," and that therefore the amount of beneficial back-spin obtained from the loft of the club was practically negligible. It is quite clear that Professor Tait was under the impression that back-spin was got from the loft of the club proceeding in a horizontal direction, but it is well known now to golfers who give the science of the game any attention whatever, that back-spin is not obtained in this manner, and that back-spin so obtained would be practically ineffectual as an aid to distance, for the loft of the driver and the brassy is not sufficient, even if the golf drive were played in the manner suggested, to produce any considerable amount of back-spin. As we have already seen, the beneficial back-spin in the golf drive is obtained by the club striking the ball _long before the beginning_ of the "upward concavity of the path of the head," that is to say, in its arc _as it is proceeding downwards_ to the lowest point in the swing from which it then starts that "upward concavity." I have emphasised and re-emphasised this matter, for it is evident that when famous men like Professors Tait and Thomson start out with an absolutely erroneous idea, an idea which is _fundamentally_ wrong, it is quite natural for less gifted men to be led astray. Braid says, and it must be remembered that this is in _Advanced Golf_ (page 229): "So far as I know, it cannot be stated in accurate scientific terms and figures, and by lines drawn on paper, what is the proper scientific swing in order to get the best drive." This seems to me, especially in a book like this, to be a wonderful statement, particularly when we are dealing with the scientific results arrived at by men of the greatest eminence, results which I may say have been known for more than two hundred and fifty years. There is no doubt whatever which is the best way to swing in order to get the best drive, and it can be explained in scientific language and shown by diagram and by figures, and in fact it has been so shown again and again. Braid says: What golfers have done, therefore, in the past has been to find out gradually which is the best way in which to hit the ball in order to make it travel far, and thus they have groped their way to the stances and swings which, if the truth were known, would probably be set out by science as the best possible ones for the purpose. This very well expresses what has taken place. The golfers have "groped their way" to what they have found out, without a glimmering of the scientific reasons for doing it, and the consequence is that, as they got their practice first, and were not informed of what they were doing by that theory which is the best of all theory, the concentrated essence of the practice of experts, they have signally failed to impart their science to those who have come after them. At page 229 Braid says: However, there are certain things that the player should know about his drive when it is right, and which he should aim at producing, and they have been very well set forth by Professor Tait as the result of his investigations into the trajectories of golf balls hit under varying conditions of club-force, wind, and so forth. One of the first things to say, and this is really important in estimating their chances of making certain carries that are constantly set to them in the course of their play, is that some golfers have a delusion to the effect that the ball is at its highest point in the middle of its flight--that is to say, they think that just about half-way between the point from which it was hit and the point at which it will touch the ground again, the ball is at its highest, and after that commences to fall again. In this belief when they have, say, a 140 yards' carry to make, they will reckon that their ball must then be coming down very fast towards the turf, having been at its highest, some 50 or 60 yards before. They may think in such circumstances that they ought to hit up a little more and try to hit harder to make up for doing so. They would be wrong entirely, and that because they did not know what the under-spin was that they gave to the ball, or what effect it had on its flight. Thus in the case just quoted, assuming that the ball had a total carry of from 150 to 160 yards, it would be at its highest point when it had travelled about 130 yards, and there would be no occasion to hit up, unless the object to be carried were very high. It is obvious that in such a case as that given no practical golfer would in any way whatever consider the question of the _amount_ of back-spin on his ball, for he would know that he has no possibility whatever of gauging its effect in the air in such a shot, and he will leave that to regulate itself and to act when the ball strikes the earth. It is unquestionable that theoretically this may be done, and it is well known that I am a strong advocate of the use of back-spin, but in the case quoted by Braid there is nothing whatever to show that the ball has been played in such a manner as to produce an appreciable quantity of serviceable back-spin, or that such a method of play is necessary or advisable. Braid continues: The fact is that a well-driven ball that has a total carry--that is, from the tee to the point where it touches the turf again, and not the distance of the obstacle that it clears--of about 165 yards, under normal conditions of wind and weather, is at its highest about 135 yards from the point where it was struck, and after that it begins to fall rapidly. This is chiefly the result of the under-spin which is given to it when it is struck by the driver in the proper way, and it shows the importance of under-spin to the golfer, for if there were none, then all our courses would have to be shortened, hazards brought closer to the tee, and the principles upon which the game is played would have to be altered in many respects. If there were no under-spin, then the ball would have no help against the force of gravity, and the result would be that the highest point of its flight would be half-way between the point from which it was driven and that at which it alighted. We see here again strong evidence of the fact that Braid is under the same impression as Professor Tait, and that is that the back-spin of golf is obtained from the loft of the club, whereas the loft of the club has one function, and that is to raise the ball from the earth, and there will be no particular necessity to alter our courses, for in ordinary every-day golf, back-spin is practically not used, except when it is intentionally applied by the golfer by means of the stroke suitable for its production. Braid gives a series of diagrams taken from Professor Tait's lecture which illustrate various trajectories of golf balls driven in varying circumstances. Many of these are so entirely theoretical that I need not consider them, but in referring to one of them Braid says: The ball which has travelled farthest, or rather the one that has been given most carry, is that which has been hit in the right way, and to which has therefore been imparted the right amount of under-spin. This is, in fact, the ideal trajectory of a well-driven ball. It starts low, rises very slowly and gradually, the line of flight bending upwards slightly, and does not come down too quickly after the vertex has been reached. This is, on the whole, a sound but very general description of an accurately played wind-cheater, but the remarkable thing is that although Braid expresses himself in such terms of admiration for this particular ball he does not anywhere in _Advanced Golf_ show us how to produce the stroke which gives this beneficial back-spin. This surely is a very great oversight. Nor so far as I have been able to see does he explain clearly how the beneficial back-spin of golf is obtained. Braid shows clearly by his quotation from Professor Tait's article that in the Professor's mind was the deep-rooted idea that it was possible to drive golf balls by a stroke delivered at the moment of impact in the same manner as is a blow from a billiard cue, but, needless to say, this is in the golf drive utterly impracticable. Professor Tait, in his paper, used a considerable number of diagrams to show that too much back-spin is bad in the drive, but as I have already pointed out, although this is very well in mere theory, it does not work out in the slightest degree in golf. It is easy to take light balloons and give them back-spin and show that it influences their trajectories to such an extent that they will go behind the point where they were struck, but a golf ball is a very small, hard, and heavy thing, and by the time that its back-spin begins to exert its influence in a marked manner on its flight it has travelled a considerable distance and the rate of spin will have materially diminished, so that no golfer need ever be afraid of applying too much back-spin to his drive. Braid proceeds: Of course, as already indicated, the golfer does not know, and in one sense does not care exactly how much under-spin he gives to his ball when he drives it, only being aware that he has given too much or too little according to results, and knowing also that in either case excess or otherwise was due to faulty stance or swing--most frequently this--or both. In the present case of this high trajectory, the exact amount of under-spin given to the ball is half as much again as that given to the properly driven ball, and under the same normal conditions these would be the relative flights of the two balls. Now it is obvious that if Professor Tait was under the impression that the beneficial back-spin of golf was obtained merely from the horizontal blow delivered through the centre of the ball's mass, so that the ball took some slight spin by its roll up the face of the club, he had no very accurate idea of the rate of spin of that ball at the moment it left the face of the club, so that any attempt whatever on his part to measure the respective rates of spin of the different flight of these balls must be received with very great caution. As a matter of fact the rate of spin of the golf ball at the moment it leaves the club in a well-played drive with back-spin would be immeasurably faster than anything supposed by Professor Tait, who based his calculations on the ball obtaining this back-spin _from the loft of the club_, which is undoubtedly a grave error, and Braid wholly subscribes to this error, which is not to be wondered at, for Professor Sir J. J. Thomson, one of the most eminent scientists, has fallen into the same trap. Professors Tait and Thomson and James Braid talk much about the possibility of obtaining too much back-spin in the drive. This is scarcely theoretically possible in golf, and it is practically impossible. I will give an example taken from practical golf which will, I believe, quite convince any golfer that the possibility of obtaining too much back-spin in the drive need never be considered. Let us imagine a very badly sliced ball. By a badly sliced ball I do not necessarily mean an extremely quick slice where the ball leaves the line of flight to the hole quite suddenly, nor do I mean a ball pushed away to the right of the line to the hole; what I do mean is a ball which has been so sliced that it takes a tremendous curve from left to right, beginning to develop that slice in a pronounced manner at, say, half to two-thirds of its carry, which is quite bad enough for a slice. We frequently see in such a case, particularly on a windy day, and even on a still one, the great power which the spin has to deflect the ball from the line to the hole. It must be remembered that in this curve the spin is assisted by gravity--the ball is falling much of the time as it is being edged away--and even then it will be apparent that it is easy to get much greater spin in the slice than it is in the wind-cheater, for the simple reason that in the slice one has an unrestricted cut across the ball, whereas one has not this opportunity with the wind-cheater, for one hits the ground immediately one passes the ball. Now although it is possible to apply an infinitely greater cut to the slice than one can possibly do to the wind-cheater, the deflection from the line, except on a very windy day, is, comparatively speaking, gradual. That is to say that if, for the sake of argument, the trajectory of the slice could be turned upwards there would be no possibility whatever of the ball showing such a thing as a curl backwards towards the hole, which is shown by Professor Tait and, following him, by Professor Thomson. This is clearly so in any slice which is not an extremely exaggerated specimen, so it stands to reason that in the wind-cheater, where one's opportunity for applying cut is so restricted, and where the ball in its effort to climb upwards has to fight the direct pull of gravity, there is no possible chance of applying too much back-spin to the ball. At page 239 Braid says: "It may be of interest to mention that Professor Tait found that a well-driven ball turns once in every 2-1/2 feet at the beginning of its journey." If Professor Tait found that a golf ball, obtaining this back-spin in the way in which he thought it did, turns "once in every 2-1/2 feet at the beginning of its journey," he would probably have found, if he had realised how back-spin really is obtained, that the number of revolutions at the moment that the ball is leaving the club are at least three or four times as many as he asserted. It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the fact that this would mean a lifting capacity infinitely beyond anything that Professors Tait and Thomson ever ascribed to back-spin in the drive. Braid continues: We have so far only been considering the effect of the spinning of the ball in the case of long shots with wooden clubs. As a matter of fact, and as suggested at the outset, it has also very great influence on the play in the case of the shorter shots with iron clubs, as may be understood after a very little consideration of the circumstances. It is the excessive under-spin that is given to the ball by the angle at which the face of the club is laid back, and the peculiar way in which the stroke is played, that make the ball rise so quickly and so high in the case of a short pitched approach, and then make it stop comparatively dead when it comes to the ground again. It is obvious here that Braid is under the impression that the loft of the club is largely responsible for the back-spin in the approach shots, but this is quite an error, for not one player in a hundred does apply back-spin to his lofted approaches unless he has been specially taught how to do it, for, curiously enough, the more lofted the club is, the greater chance is there that the player will at the moment of impact impart into his stroke that little bit of "upward concavity" which Professor Tait says, and truly says, is the enemy of back-spin. The fact is that very little under-spin, or, as I always prefer to call it, back-spin, is obtained from the loft of the club unless the blow is delivered as the club is travelling downward. That is the whole essence of the secret of back-spin, but it is not mentioned by Professors Tait or Thomson, or by James Braid. Any attempt whatever to obtain back-spin from the loft of the club will be practically useless. It must be obtained by the method of playing the shot, and the only way to obtain it effectually is to hit the ball before the club has arrived at the lowest point in its swing. By this means, and this means alone, is it possible to obtain the beneficial back-spin of golf, and I cannot say too often or too emphatically that anyone who trusts to the loft of the club to produce back-spin will be disappointed. Braid seems to have a glimmering of this, for he says: However much a club were laid back it would be impossible to play these shots properly if no under-spin were given to the ball, and it seems to be a great advantage of having the faces of iron clubs grooved or dotted that it helps the club to grasp the ball thoroughly while this under-spin is being imparted to it, so that the full amount is given to it, and none is wasted through the ball slipping on the face. This is unquestionably sound mechanics. But even here, although Braid is so close to the heart of the matter--although he says, as I have shown repeatedly in many places, that "however much a club were laid back it would be impossible to play these shots properly if no under-spin were given to the ball," thus stating explicitly that something more remains to be done to produce back-spin than merely to hit the ball with a lofted club,--he does not get really to the essence of the stroke and show that it must be played by the club _as it is descending_. There is a very important matter which Braid refers to in this chapter on the science of the stroke. Speaking of the follow-through and the impact, he says: One or two other calculations that were made by Professor Tait may be briefly mentioned at the close of this chapter, each of them seeming to convey an idea to the golfer. The first is, that owing to the speed at which the ball leaves the club, the total length of time during which ball and club are in contact with each other is between one five thousandth and one ten thousandth of a second, and the total length of that part of the swing when the two are together--the length of impact--is half an inch. It has been pointed out that it by no means follows from this that because the time and space of impact are so short that follow-through is of no real account, after all, in the making of the drive. When the follow-through is properly performed it shows that the work was properly done during that half an inch of the swing that was all-important. If the follow-through were short and wrong it would indicate that the work during the impact was wrong too. What it comes to is this, that it is impossible for any man to swing his club round with so much force and regulate exactly what he will do, and be conscious of the fact that he is doing it as he regulated, during such a short space of time as from one five thousandth to one ten thousandth of a second. That is quite clear. What the golfer has to do, then, is to make sure that his swing is right at the beginning, that is, in the back-swing and the down-swing, and also in the follow-through. He knows from instruction and experience that if all these things are properly done the ball will go off well; and what it amounts to is that the beginning being right and the end being right, control being exercised over each, the middle is right also, though in this case there is no control over it. This quotation emphasises strongly the fact which I have always insisted on, that the matter of impact with the golf ball is an incident in the travel of the head of the club, and that it is practically impossible for the player to consciously perform anything which will affect the flight of the golf ball during impact. Braid has insisted upon this in other places, and it should quite settle any idea which many people have, of juggling with the golf ball during impact, but it is a remarkable thing to see James Braid claiming that at the moment of impact there is "no control over" the swing although there is both in the downward swing and the follow-through! I need not criticise this. The point, however, which I wish to refer to here specifically is in connection with the follow-through. Braid says, finally: What the golfer has to do, then, is to make sure that his swing is right at the beginning, that is, in the back-swing and the down-swing, and also in the follow-through. He knows from instruction and experience that if all these things are properly done the ball will go off well; and what it amounts to is that the beginning being right and the end being right, control being exercised over each, the middle is right also, though in this case there is no control over it. This, it seems to me, is a very bad presentment of the case. Although we admit that the impact is merely an incident in the travel of the club head, it is the most important incident, and it is on that incident that the mind should be concentrated, so that the idea of cumbering one's mind with any thought of the follow-through is very bad golf. The only portion of the stroke which should be on the player's mind at all is that which leads up to impact, for it is obvious that if that has been correctly performed, one need not trouble much about the follow-through, as that will come quite naturally. Also we will observe that Braid says here "control being exercised over each." This, of course, includes the follow-through over which Braid now speaks of exercising control, but it will be fresh in our minds that in describing the moment of impact, he says "Crack! everything is let go," and that really is what should happen after impact has taken place. There should be no thought whatever of the follow-through. That should produce itself, if one may so express it, and the player who encumbers his mind by any thought whatever as to how his club is going to end is simply adding another anxiety to his game. [Illustration: PLATE XIII. J. SHERLOCK This plate shows Sherlock's stance and address in his favourite iron-shot. He addresses the ball so that it is nearly opposite his right heel.] Braid explained most graphically how the follow-through should be allowed to take care of itself, so that I cannot understand why he should now endeavour to split his pupils' mental idea of the golf stroke into halves with the golf ball in between. This is surely a bad conception of the stroke, and one which is likely to lead the pupil into grave error, for it shifts his mind forward on to the finish of the stroke, whereas it has no business to be anywhere else but on the ball. Before concluding this chapter I must refer to what Braid has to say with regard to a topped stroke. At page 238 he says: A final thing to remember in connection with this question of the rotation of the ball is, that when the ball is what we call topped, the stroke is applied in such a way that a motion exactly the reverse of under-spin is applied to it, that is to say, the front part of the ball is made to move in a downward direction. On the principle already explained, there is then an extra air-pressure upon that ball from the top, pressing it down, so that even if the ball that is topped is somehow got up into the air from the tee, as happens, it cannot stay there long, but comes down very suddenly--"ducks," as it is called. However, a ball that ducks for this reason nevertheless gets some benefit from this over-spin when it does come down, for the spin acts in just the same way as "top" does in the case of a billiard stroke, that is to say, it makes the ball run more. If there were no rough grass and no bunkers between the tee and the hole this over-spin might be an exceedingly useful thing, and the principles upon which the game of golf is played might be entirely different from what they are; but as there is rough in front of the tee, and generally a bunker at no great distance from it, topping and over-spin are more frequently fatal than not, the ball coming to grief either in the rough or the bunker. This quotation makes it quite evident, I think, that James Braid is not very well acquainted with the principles which govern the flight and run of the golf ball. If this were his "knowledge" which we are considering, I should be more loath to deal with it so plainly as I am doing, but as he expressly states that he is indebted to another for much of his "knowledge" on this subject I have no hesitation whatever in criticising it and showing that it is absolutely impracticable from a golfing point of view. It is not too much to say that top-spin has absolutely no place in golf, for it is there utterly useless, and would be so were golf links like billiard tables, for no ball with top on it can travel any appreciable distance through the air, and to speak of a ball being driven with top is simply to show one's utter ignorance of the game, for even if there were no rough grass and no bunkers between the tee and the hole, this over-spin could never be "an exceedingly useful thing," nor could it ever, by the greatest stretch of one's imagination, alter the principles upon which the game of golf is played, for no stroke in golf could ever supplant the drive with back-spin. It is nonsense such as this which does much harm to the game. To speak of the possibility of over-spin being such that the "principles upon which the game of golf is played might be entirely different from what they are if the course had no rough grass and no bunkers" is one of the greatest absurdities which I have ever seen put in any book, and when one finds matter of this sort in a book called _Advanced Golf_, it calls for the severest possible criticism. The nearest approach to top-spin which exists in golf is the spin of the pull, and there because the axis of spin is turned over to a certain extent, we get the beneficial run at the end of the drive, but anyone who knows the first principles of the flight and run of the ball would know that if the golfer in his drive obtained pure top instead of this much modified over-spin, his drive would be entirely ruined, for the thing which produces the low flight of the ball is that the ball does its ducking sideways, if we may so express it, and the chances are that quite frequently the shock of landing alters the plane of its spin, so that it is converted into pure running, but this latter point, of course, is a matter which we can only theorise about and regard as almost proved from the nature of the run of the ball on many occasions. We need not here bother about top-spin. The only place where top (not top-spin) is of any use in golf, so far as I can remember, is on the putting-green, and there it is unquestionably useful, and it is not used so much as it should be. The point of outstanding importance, which I venture to think is made fairly clear by this chapter on the flight of the ball, is that the beneficial back-spin of golf is by far the most important spin which it is possible for a golfer to apply to his ball, and that that spin is not obtained in the manner stated by Professor Tait and, after him, by Professor Thomson, but is obtained by the method which I have indicated, viz. by a downward glancing blow, and, so far as regards this statement, we have the corroboration of James Braid to the extent that he says that "no matter what the loft is upon the club, it is impossible to obtain by loft alone the back-spin which one requires in golf." It may seem that I have been unnecessarily emphatic in dealing with this question, but as a matter of practical golf it is absolutely impossible to lay too much stress upon the value of a complete understanding of the method of obtaining this most valuable and serviceable spin, and unless a player most perfectly understands the theory of the stroke, it is the greatest certainty possible that he will waste many years of his life endeavouring to acquire the practice, whereas if he knows perfectly well what he is trying to do, he may acquire it in as many months as he would otherwise waste years in not getting it. CHAPTER XI THE GOLF BALL It is remarkable, when one considers the vast number of scientific men who play golf, how little attention has been directed by them to the form and make of the golf ball. Many golfers are under the impression that the golf ball which is now used represents the limit of man's inventive genius. Probably the leading maker of the best feather ball in the days before the gutta-percha ball was known would have thought the same. As a matter of ascertained fact the vast majority of golf balls which are made to-day are imperfect in a variety of ways. There can be no doubt whatever that the ball which is marked by what are commonly called pimples, or bramble marking, is a most imperfect production. If one were to suggest to a billiard player that it would improve the run of the balls if they were covered with little excrescences similar to those which are on many golf balls, he would be pitied or maltreated, yet Mid-Surrey greens are not many removes from a billiard table, and putting is quite half the game of golf, as I think has been remarked by a great number of people, but is nevertheless not sufficiently considered by golfers, especially in the matter of choosing golf balls. It is not necessary, in considering the question of the golf ball, to bore people, as is usually done, with the history of the evolution of the golf ball, from the time when prehistoric men used a knuckle bone or something like that, right down through the feather ball period up to the present time. It will not be necessary for me to go back any further than the period of the gutta-percha ball. Most golfers will remember that the guttie was not a perfectly smooth ball; it was marked with grooved lines running round it. These crossed each other at various angles, producing, generally speaking, squares, although, naturally, some of the markings, where the lines did not cross at right angles, were irregular, but the principle of the marking was by indentation. The bramble marking, or marking by excrescence, is an idea which has obtained a hold more recently, and it is certain, from a practical and scientific point of view, that it is a very imperfect marking. It is a curious thing that in golf, where a very great amount of accuracy is demanded, particularly when one is playing a short put on a fiery green, the ball should be, so far as I am aware, the only ball which is deliberately constructed on principles which if applied to a billiard ball would make the ball what billiard players call "foul," that is, a ball which runs untruly. It is unquestionable that sufficient thought has not been given to this matter. Very few people understand that it is practically impossible to place a ball with bramble markings on a perfectly true surface so that it will remain in the exact place where it was put, even if it were deposited on this spot by mechanical means. It is not hard to understand that this is natural when we remember that a golf ball which is marked by the excrescences called pimples or brambles comes to rest on a tripod of excrescences, and indeed it sometimes requires to find a base of four of these excrescences before it settles down. Any thinking golfer will be able to understand very easily that this must make for instability, and he will see clearly what it means when a ball is rolling very slowly. Let us imagine, for instance, that a golfer is playing an approach put of twenty yards. It is evident that while the main force of the blow is behind the ball it will enable it to overcome much of the untrueness of the ball, but it is equally apparent that as the force is dying away at the critical time when one wishes the ball to run truly on its course to the hole, it is most prone to waver. It is at times like this that the golfer blames the "beastly green," whereas if he knew as much as he should about the make of a golf ball he would know that he had only himself to thank for playing with such an extremely imperfect thing as the golf ball which is marked by excrescences. It is of course clear that on a putting-green the ball with excrescences sinks into the turf, and whilst it is running with any considerable force behind it, it makes for itself what may be termed a trough to run in, which is equivalent in depth practically to the hole which the ball would make when lying at rest on the green. This is the only thing which saves the ball marked with excrescences from being a much worse failure than it is. It is, however, when one comes to put with it over a hard, keen, or bare green that its wonderful imperfection is shown. Many golfers, on account of the fact that an ordinary putting-green does assist this imperfect ball to this extent, are inclined to maintain that the ball is sufficient for the needs of golf. They forget, of course, that a ball with these excrescences must necessarily be more inaccurate off the face of the putter than would be a ball marked by indentation, for when a ball is marked by indentation, either of the dimple pattern, which has come into vogue more recently, or of the lines which were used in the old days, it undoubtedly will run more truly than if marked by excrescences, for the reason that the indentation is bridged in such a manner that it is not felt to the same extent as is an excrescence. I may illustrate this by applying the marking of an old guttie to a billiard ball. Let us consider for a moment that the billiard ball has been marked by having lines sawn in it similar to those on a gutta-percha ball; these lines would not affect the trueness of the running of a billiard ball to a very great extent. But let us, on the other hand, imagine that instead of lines being sunk in the ball, these lines had been put in a network on the ball, so that they were raised from the surface of the billiard ball. It is obvious that such a ball would be absolutely impossible, and it would be an extremely foul-running ball. There is another point to be considered in connection with this matter of marking by indentation or by excrescences. It would be almost a matter of impossibility to stand a ball marked by excrescences so that it balanced on the point of one of the pimples. On the other hand it would be perfectly natural for a ball marked by a dimple of corresponding diameter to the base of the pimple, to come to rest on the "ring" formed by that dimple. We have already seen that the ball marked by excrescences requires three or four of those excrescences to rest on before it becomes stationary. Roughly, therefore, the instability of the ball marked by excrescences is at least three times as great as that of the ball marked by indentation, and if we contrast the ball marked by excrescences with the ball marked by the old gutta-percha marking, the difference would probably be very much greater against the bramble marking. We have already seen that the putting-green assists, to a certain extent, to make up for the defects of the ball with bramble marking, but it must not be forgotten that although the putting-green does this, the greater tendency to instability is there the whole time, and must put the golfer who uses the bramble-marked ball at a disadvantage. Putting, especially near the hole, is a very delicate operation, and it is apparent that in many cases the blow will be delivered on the point of one of these excrescences. It is equally apparent that in many cases that excrescence will not be in such a line with regard to the putter that the force of the blow will pass clean through the centre thereof, and also through the centre of the ball's mass in a line to the hole. When it does not do this it is certain that there is an element of inaccuracy introduced into the put (particularly the short put) which the wise golfer will not have in his stroke, for not only is the ball with excrescences more inaccurate off the face of the putter, but it is, particularly for short puts and on keen greens, much more inaccurate in its run than is the ball which is marked by indentations. This question of hitting one of the pimples of the golf ball might be considered to be theoretical, but it is a matter of the most absolutely practical golf, and I have seen the force of it exemplified not only in golf, but in lawn-tennis. I must give here a very interesting illustration of the point which I am making. Some time ago a lawn-tennis racket was produced which had a knot at the intersection of the strings. The idea of this knot was that it would enable the racket to get a better grip on the ball, and so to produce a much greater spin. This, to a certain extent, was correct. There was no doubt that the racket did get a very good grip on the ball, although personally, as a matter of practical lawn-tennis, I never regarded the invention very seriously; but it was useful in emphasising the point which I am now making with regard to the marking by excrescences of the golf ball. It was found that when one attempted to play delicate volleys with this racket that it was impossible to regulate the direction, for the simple reason that the ball, on many occasions, was struck by one of the knots on the racket, and this frequently spoilt the direction of the stroke. What happened with that racket and the lawn-tennis ball is what is happening every day on hundreds of greens with the golf balls which are marked by excrescences, and the golfer who is wise will have nothing whatever to do with any ball which is marked otherwise than by indentations. It was in the year 1908 that I first put forward these ideas in an article in _The Evening Standard and St. James's Gazette_. I had written many articles which were of much greater importance to the game from the scientific point of view, but this particular article eclipsed them all in interest. I had started the idea that the golf ball should be made much smoother than it was at that time, and for four months the controversy as to the merits of the rough ball or the smoother raged. I caused the leading manufacturers of golf balls to be interviewed. The manager of Messrs. A. G. Spalding & Bros., the well-known manufacturers, gave it as his opinion that the idea was perfectly ridiculous. He was quite convinced that the rough ball was the better ball. The manager of another company was of opinion that the smoother ball would not drive straight. Many of them traced this to the fact that a smooth ball would not fly straight, but we were not concerned with the question as to whether the smooth ball would fly straight or not; golfers, generally, are well aware of the fact, and even in 1908 were well aware of the fact, that a perfectly smooth ball will not fly straight. The whole point of the discussion was to ascertain if it would not be better to have a much smoother ball than that with the bramble marking. I was interested in having the opinion of the golf ball manufacturers, for I have never thought that they have dealt with the matter in a scientific manner. It seemed to me that the evolution of the marking of the golf ball had been entirely haphazard, and it is, I believe, still in the same condition, but it certainly shows some signs of improving. In order to put the matter beyond doubt I asked Mr. Rupert Ayres, of the famous firm of F. H. Ayres, Ltd., to have made for me a golf ball with an extremely fine marking; in fact I gave instructions for the ball to be marked with what I considered the least possible indentations which were likely to be serviceable. Mr. Ayres took a very great amount of trouble in connection with this matter, and he produced for me a ball similar, in all respects, to that which I wanted, with the slight exception that the marking was finer than I had desired. The result was that when the ball was painted the interstices were filled up to a very considerable extent, so much so indeed that I doubted if the ball was sufficiently marked to ensure its flying correctly. I tried this ball at Hanger Hill, both personally and by submitting it to a considerable number of drives by George Duncan, and it always gave unsatisfactory results--indeed its flight was so remarkable that it might well have been christened "the butterfly." It zigzagged and soared and ducked in a most remarkable, and to a very great extent, inexplicable manner. I knew, of course, that what I had to do was to increase the indentations a little in depth, for my object was to obtain the mean between no marking whatever and the ridiculously exaggerated marking by excrescences which is now so common, and my experiments were not in the direction of obtaining any marking whatever by excrescences, for I was following on the lines which were accidentally discovered by those who found that the old feather balls, and particularly the gutta-percha balls, flew better after they had been indented by the golf clubs. My idea, therefore, was, starting from the least possible indentation, to proceed by marking the ball more deeply and yet more deeply until I found that it would fly as accurately as a ball marked by excrescences. Mr. Ayres helped me in my experiments with remarkable patience and ability. I found that there are a hundred and one different markings, all of which are practically of equal service in so far as regards affecting the flight of the ball, but in every case I came to the conclusion that the marking by indentation is the best. This led me to get Mr. Ayres to produce for me a ball which he ultimately put on the market under my name, which was marked in identically the same manner as the old guttie. I believe "The Vaile" was the first rubber-cored ball with the old guttie marking to be placed on the market, and this marking was found to be satisfactory in every respect. The ball, as indeed one might imagine, both flew and ran perfectly, but it was met by golfers with a strange objection. They said it was too much like the old guttie. Personally, I did not care what they said about it. I had not caused the ball to be made from any commercial interest I had in the matter. It had been stated that a ball marked like this would not be so good for golf as a ball marked with excrescences. I had proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the ball was better for golf than the ball which was marked by excrescences, and I was content to leave it at that, although as a matter of fact later on Messrs. Ayres did produce for me a ball with a more distinctive marking which gave us equally good results in so far as regards flight and run, but which I did not like nearly so well as the old guttie marking. At the time this ball was produced I stated emphatically that I believed that the result of the agitation and discussion would be to knock the pimples off the golf ball. This statement was, of course, ridiculed by the makers of golf balls, and quite wisely too, for they had tens of thousands of pimply golf balls which they had to dispose of, and it was not their business to agree with my ideas of altering the make of the golf ball until they had disposed of their stock. They have, however, now no prejudice whatever in the matter, and the leading manufacturers both here and in America are pushing balls which are marked by indentation. They certainly were a long time after my manufacturers in realising the importance of the principle, but they are now endeavouring to make up for lost time. One firm, Messrs. A. G. Spalding & Bros., is pushing three balls as their leading lines. These are the Glory Dimple, the Midget Dimple, and the Domino Dimple. All these balls are what are now called dimple balls, and they meet with great favour in many quarters, although there are still a number of golfers who swear by the bramble-marking. During the course of this long controversy I suggested that it would be a good idea if the balls which were marked by excrescences and those which were marked by indentations were subjected to a test by being mechanically propelled. Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, the famous wild-fowler and author of _The Projectile Throwing Engines of the Ancients_, wrote to me and very kindly volunteered to carry out the experiment if I would send him the balls I wished him to test. I naturally accepted his very kind offer, and sent him a variety of golf balls to be tested. Sir Ralph is the possessor of some very remarkable catapults built on the principles of the old Roman engines of war, and with these he conducted a series of experiments, which were so interesting that they deserve to be permanently recorded for the benefit of future generations. His conclusions were published in two articles which occupied about three columns of _The Times_, and they are of such an instructive nature that I propose to quote somewhat fully from them. Sir Ralph showed quite clearly that in a very great number of cases the centre of gravity of the ball is untrue. Quite a number of golfers would think that it is not a matter of very great importance if the centre of gravity of a golf ball is untrue. Anyone who thinks this may speedily undeceive himself by a small experiment suggested by Sir Ralph. Let him cut a hole in the side of a golf ball, insert a piece of lead or half a dozen shot and fill the hole up with wax or soap and then put with that ball. He will be astonished to find what a peculiar course it takes. Of course, not many golf balls are loaded like this, but it is beyond any doubt whatever that in many cases the gutta-percha covering of the rubber-core is of very uneven thickness. This in itself and quite apart from the defect of marking by excrescences which I have already referred to, is sufficient to account for the very bad running of many golf balls. I may say, too, that I believe this untrueness of the centre of gravity is responsible for the double swerve which one frequently sees in a truly hit golf ball. A swerve which is obtained from the application of spin to the golf ball, almost invariably is continuous and in the one direction, but I have frequently seen well-hit drives by the most famous players swerve to the right, back again to the left and resume their original course. This has happened with such perfect regularity in many cases that there must unquestionably be a definite reason for it, apart from rotation applied by contact with the club, and the only explanation which I can give of it in any way at all is that it is caused by an untrue centre. The shape, resiliency, and centre of gravity of the golf ball are of vital importance to the player, but the golfer accepts all these matters with a blind faith which is touching in the extreme. A golfer should not accept from a golf ball manufacturer a ball which is not truly spherical, or one which does not fly truly when truly hit, but as a matter of fact almost fifty per cent of the golf balls supplied by the leading makers come within this category. One may take fifty golf balls of any specific sort, and test these for shape, centre of gravity, and weight, and it is an even chance that twenty-five of them will be quite different from the other twenty-five. It is very easy indeed to test the rubber-cored balls as regards the correctness of their centre of gravity. Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey found that none of the rubber-cored balls was correct as to its centre of gravity, though some were much more incorrect than others, and he found that not one of them was truly spherical in shape. I may say that in a large number of cases I have verified his experiments. Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's method of testing them for correctness of centre of gravity is so simple that I may give it here for the benefit of any player who desires to see that he is getting a ball which will serve him truly in so far as regards this important particular. Sir Ralph placed the ball which he desired to test in a basin of water and waited until it came to rest. When the ball had come to rest, there was naturally a small portion of it protruding from the water. Sir Ralph marked the centre of this spot with a pencil dot and he found that however carelessly he put the same ball into the water, however much it was rolled about, that the portion of the ball marked with the pencil dot always came upwards out of the water again, and that the actual spot with the pencil mark on it always came to exactly the same place. It was evident from this that the centre of gravity of the balls tested in this manner was considerably untrue. Sir Ralph found, as might be expected, that the old guttie ball was much truer as regards its centre of gravity than the rubber-cored balls. He tested the gutta-percha ball and the miniature ball which would not float in plain water, in a solution of salt and water. The experiments which he conducted in connection with these balls were really quite exhaustive. He found that with some of the balls, especially the smaller ones, the dot appeared in two seconds, while some of the others took from four to six seconds to come upward. He arrived at a comparative idea of the error in centre of gravity by placing the dot downwards in the water, and then noting with a stop-watch the time occupied by it in appearing out of the water on top of the ball. He thus took the time in each case from the moment of release to the moment that the pencil dot again came uppermost, and by these means he obtained as accurately as he could with a stop-watch the comparative error of one ball with another in regard to its centre of gravity. The testing of the balls for true spherical shape was, of course, easy, and was done by means of callipers. It can be done either by callipers or by a parallel vice which may be opened just wide enough to allow a ball to be passed between its jaws. If one has not a vice or callipers available, it is, of course, easy to cut a circle in a piece of cardboard and gradually increase the size of the circle until a ball will just get through. The circle, of course, must be made truly, but this can easily be done by a pin and a string if compasses are not available. Of course, it would be advisable in testing a golf ball through a ring such as this to obtain in the first case a ball which is as near a true sphere as any rubber-cored ball can be. This may be done by fixing any two objects in a similar position to that suggested for the jaws of a vice, as for instance the opening of a drawer. One may open a drawer and fix the drawer firmly so that the ball can just pass in at the opening. Once this is done, it is almost as effectual as either callipers or the jaws of a vice. Sir Ralph found that the gutties were as near true spheres as possible, and also that these balls showed very slight error in centre of gravity. This, of course, from the solidity of the matter and their original formation in the mould might naturally have been expected, for in the nature of the modern ball it stands to reason that its centre of gravity could never be so consistent as that of a ball which is made entirely in the one piece as was the old gutta-percha ball. Sir Ralph has some remarkable projectile engines which gave him exceptional facilities for testing the flight of the golf balls which I sent him. He has one engine which weighs about two tons and is capable of casting a stone ball of twelve pounds a distance of a quarter of a mile. The catapult which he used for the purpose is a small reproduction of this big engine. His small model of this engine weighs about forty pounds and will pitch a golf ball from 180 to 200 yards, the distance of course depending upon the amount of tension used and the angle of elevation. The power of the engine is obtained from twisted cord, and the arm of the machine used by Sir Ralph is two feet eight inches long, and is provided with a cup at its upper end to hold the ball. It is so arranged that the balls can be thrown any intermediate distance required up to 200 yards, and at any elevation. Sir Ralph conducted experiments with balls thrown by the catapult, and also with balls hit away by it in a manner similar to a golf club, and, as might be expected, no spin whatever was imparted to the ball. It was thrown in a straight line every time with unvarying accuracy, and there was not the slightest sign whatever of slice, pull, or cut. This, of course, is exactly what one who knows the principle of the catapult would expect. Sir Ralph found, however, that the accuracy of flight of the ball was very remarkable, and he gives as an instance the fact that a ball which had been marked as having a particularly accurate flight was pitched twenty times in succession within a few feet of a stick stuck in the ground 180 yards from the machine. It is interesting to note the weights of the balls used in these experiments. They varied from 22 drachms to 23 drachms avoirdupois, and their diameters from 53 to 54 thirty-seconds of an inch. The guttie ball used by Sir Ralph weighed 24-1/2 drachms, and one of the miniature balls 24 drachms 6 grains. Sir Ralph threw a dozen balls of various makes from his small engine at a mark 160 yards distant, and he threw each ball twenty times before another was tried. He employed a fore-caddie to mark the indentations each ball made where it fell. A peg was put in at the spot where each ball landed, and these distances were all subsequently measured, and the records kept for purposes of comparison. After this had been done with one ball the same was done with another, and it is almost unnecessary to say that the angle of elevation and the force used in each case was the same. Sir Ralph found that in propelling the balls with the wind there was very little difference in the length of carry or the steadiness of the flight, though, as might have been expected, the guttie beat all of them in distance, being six times in its first series of twenty throws a few yards farther than the longest carry made by any of the other balls. This, of course, was quite natural, for the old guttie was heavier, harder, a more correct sphere and more correctly marked than the ball which is now in common use. Therefore it was quite reasonable to expect that it would go farther when propelled from the catapult. It is, of course, just as easy to understand that this superiority would not exist when the ball was struck with a golf club, for then the question of resiliency comes into the matter. It is interesting to note that Sir Ralph found that the miniature golf ball more nearly approximated to the guttie than to the rubber-cored balls. The miniature being harder and heavier than the other rubber-cores, when thrown by the engine gave the longest flight of all the rubber-cores, although it did not get so far as the guttie. Its superiority, however, when struck from the engine in a manner as nearly as possible resembling the blow with a golf club, was non-existent, and its carry was then found to be the shortest of all the rubber-cores, and the guttie ball was, when hit away by the machine, shorter yet than the miniature golf ball. Sir Ralph found, as I had confidently asserted would be the case, that against the wind the balls with the roughest markings always carried the shortest distance, and that they tended to rise too much in their flight. This was most apparent at about two-thirds of the carry. Sir Ralph found that there was a distinct difference in this matter of soaring between the very roughly marked balls and those which were a little less so. He proved to demonstration the fact which I had confidently maintained, that the less roughly marked balls, owing to the small amount of air friction which they set up, and naturally in consequence thereof, their lower parabola, always carried farther against the wind. I have referred elsewhere to Harry Vardon's remark about not attempting to regulate the flight of the ball in a cross wind, or indeed, for the matter of that, in any other wind by applying spin to it. Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's experiment put this matter beyond a shadow of doubt, so that we may be absolutely certain that the idea of trying to slice against a wind to get a straight ball, or to pull into a wind to get an extra run, is for ninety-five per cent of players not practical golf. Sir Ralph found that with a fresh side wind from the left, all the balls, except the guttie, landed from eight to twelve yards to the right of the mark at a range of 130 yards. He states emphatically that in this case it was clearly shown that the more roughly marked balls consistently showed the greatest deviation from the correct line of flight. We have, however, gained a very strong argument in favour of the ball with the less pronounced marking. Sir Ralph also discovered another thing which is of very great importance indeed to the practical golfer, but a thing which is not considered in the slightest degree by one golfer in ten thousand, and that is that the balls which were most untrue in regard to their centre of gravity, not only always dropped the farthest to the right, that is, were most affected by the cross wind, but that they also ran at a more acute angle in the same direction after contact with the ground. Thus we see that in 130 yards the most roughly-marked ball in a cross wind is deflected twelve yards. We see also that this ball was the one which was most incorrect as regards its centre of gravity. We therefore have a specimen of the worst ball which could be used for this purpose being carried twelve yards off its line, and we may reasonably take this to be the extreme of error for that distance. It is easy to understand when we consider such an illustration as this what a tremendous handicap the golfer is suffering from when he uses the ball which allows the wind to get such a grip of it as the bramble-marked ball does, and moreover one with a centre of gravity which is so bad that it assists the work of the wind in carrying the ball away as it does, and not only assists the wind to this extent, but even carries its vices to the extent of still further fighting against the player by exaggerating its error when it lands by running away from the line. These are all bad enough, but we must remember that there is also to be considered the error which is unquestionably a matter to be reckoned with, which inevitably takes place when the ball marked by excrescences is struck by a club. I had sent Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey the ball which I had had made for experimental purposes with very slight marking, and he was good enough to experiment with this for me. He says of it: "This ball was quite smooth, as smooth indeed as a billiard ball, the idea being that having no markings on its outside it would not present so frictional a surface to the air in its flight, as a ball with markings, and that being without this it would also be very accurate from the putter. I tried this smooth ball from the engine, and it 'ducked' every time in an extraordinary manner, its length of carry being seldom more than eighty yards." Sir Ralph is most accurate, generally speaking, but he is in error by stating that this ball is as smooth as a billiard ball. The ball which I sent Sir Ralph was called by me "The Ruff," merely as a distinctive name, for it was the nearest approach to a perfectly smooth ball that I could make. It is evident from Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's description of it that it is, as compared with the golf balls now in use, very smooth, but it is pitted all over with remarkably small indentations so that it appears to be chased, but, as I explained, the paint to a certain extent covered up the interstices so as to prevent the ball giving me the test which I expected to get from it. It is, however, not accurate to say that this ball is perfectly smooth. It is obvious that from this I was trying to work to the mean which I felt perfectly certain existed between the old golf ball, whose erratic flight was well known, and the modern golf ball with its exaggerated marking. Sir Ralph thought that the form of this ball might not, for some unknown reason, suit a projectile engine. He continues: ... and as I could not drive it further than about eighty yards with a golf club, I engaged the well-known professional, Edward Ray, to play a round of the green with this ball at Ganton. As Ray is an exceptionally long and accurate player with driver and cleek I felt the ball would have a fair chance of going, if it could go. From the first tee the ball did not carry a hundred yards, though, to all appearances, struck clean and hard. I thought that for once in a way Ray had missed his drive, but as the same thing occurred from every tee and through the green for the next six holes, there was no disputing that a smooth ball was quite useless for golf. I then proceeded to nick the ball slightly with the point of a knife, spacing the small raised nicks about one-third of an inch apart, the ball being still a very smooth one in comparison to any of the usual kinds. After this slight alteration the ball flew splendidly, whether off wood or iron clubs, neither too high nor too low, but quite straight, and with the very slight rise towards the end of its carry that is the essence of perfect flight in a golf ball, some of the carries when measured from the tee being well over two hundred yards. Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey continues that when he returned home he shot this ball from the small engine, and it then several times out-distanced the best records made by any of the balls previously tested. After this he chipped up many more little raised nicks on the same smooth ball as a further experiment, but he then found that this not only reduced its length of flight by several yards, but also caused it to soar too much upwards when projected against a head wind as is the case with the ordinary rough-marked golf ball. It will be seen here that Sir Ralph continued with the ball sent by me to him, the experiment, which I had started, as it was my intention to proceed from a ball as nearly as could be, smooth, towards the present exaggerated ball, by the least possible steps, so that the moment that I had arrived at a ball so marked that it would not give me any extra carry, I should desist at once. Sir Ralph's summing up is as follows. He says: "From such practical tests it is evident that the surface of a golf ball is far too rough, and that it would fly with more accuracy and farther, especially with a head or a side wind, had it much less numerous and prominent markings on its cover." This is exactly what I contended for in my original article on the subject, and it is exactly what has to be realised by the makers of the golf ball of the future. Many of the balls which are now being produced with the dimple marking are moving in the right direction, but they still have the grave errors of bad centre of gravity and excessive marking. When these two matters have been adjusted we shall have a very much better ball. It will be interesting now to refer to the results which Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey obtained when he fitted his catapult with an arm provided with an enlarged head similar in shape to the head of a golf driver. Sir Ralph says: This striking arm hit the ball away just as it is hit by a golf club. The ball I suspended by gossamer silk from the projecting beam of a little gallows fixed over the engine, and so positioned that the enlarged upper end of the arm struck the ball fair and true and with its full force and at the same angle every time. I was not present when Sir Ralph made these experiments. He, however, was kind enough to send me a copy of his most interesting work entitled _The Projectile Throwing Engines of the Ancients_. This book gives many illustrations of the catapults used by the Romans and others. I find it somewhat difficult to follow Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey when he says: "This striking arm hit the ball away just as it is hit by a golf club," for it seems to me that as the ball was suspended above the striking face of the club which was fixed to the upper end of the arm, that the arc described by the arm of the catapult would be exactly opposite to that described by the head of the golf club, and it is of course conceivable that this would in some way affect the carry of golf balls struck by the machine in this manner. I need not, however, go into that here, for whatever the results obtained by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey were each ball was hit in exactly the same manner, and therefore we have, in so far as regards distance and the effect of the side wind, fairly accurate comparative tests. Sir Ralph says: "Though I could not obtain the same length of carry by making the engine strike the ball as I could when the ball was thrown by it--not by about fifteen yards--yet the individual results in distance and in deviation with a side wind exactly corresponded with the behaviour of the various balls when they were thrown and when carries of from 180 to 200 yards were obtained from them." Sir Ralph found that in this experiment the carry of the guttie was invariably about eighteen yards shorter than that of the ordinary rubber-cored balls. He therefore carried out an interesting experiment by fixing a pad of rubber on the face of the head of the arm, and the guttie, when struck by this, travelled as far as any of the balls. He found, as I have previously indicated, that of the rubber-cored balls the small one carried the shortest distance when struck by the engine, and he found also that its length of flight was not increased by using the rubber pad. This, of course, is what we might have expected. There is one very interesting matter which Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey notes. He says: "Another curious thing, the ball with the most untrue centre of gravity usually made one, and occasionally even two, swerves in the air when hit against the wind, though this eccentricity in its line of flight was less noticeable when it was thrown from the engine." This is a very interesting statement to anyone who devotes attention to the flight of the ball, and it goes very far indeed to confirm my own impression that the double swerve of the golf ball which I have noticed so frequently, is produced by defective centre of gravity. [Illustration: PLATE XIV. J. SHERLOCK Top of swing in iron-shot. Note the position of the ball, and the upright swing of the club.] These experiments are of very great value, and should be carefully noted by golf ball makers, but Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey was not content with testing the golf balls for their flight. After having put in several days doing this, and having fired fully 500 shots, he continued his experiments with these balls with the object of ascertaining their relative merits on the putting-green. He says: I obtained a piece of lead three-quarters of an inch thick, two inches wide, and three feet long, in which I cut a straight and smooth groove one inch wide. One end of this piece of lead I rested on the cushion at the baulk end of a billiard table, and directed its other end towards the spot on which the red ball is placed in the game of billiards. The forward end of the grooved lead I tapered off so that a ball ran evenly and smoothly from the groove on to the table without any drop or deviation as it left the piece of lead, which from its weight, when once set, could not change its position. I now placed a thimble on the spot at the far end of the table and rolled an accurately-turned wooden ball the same size as a golf ball down the sloping groove. After a little adjustment of the lead piece its line of fire was correct, and I was able to knock the thimble off the spot fifty times in succession. The ball travelled with sufficient speed just to reach the cushion beyond the thimble when the latter was moved aside, and the shot at the thimble nicely represented a slow put of eight feet in length. This is a most interesting way of testing the golf ball. I may say that I have myself carried out experiments on similar lines, and that the results which I obtained practically confirm the accuracy of those which Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey got. He found that on testing various golf balls the results were widely different. He tried each ball several times in a series of twenty tries at the thimble. He found that individually they seldom hit it more than three or four times in a series, and that some of the balls, particularly those which he had found to be incorrect so far as regards their centre of gravity, rolled away from the thimble as much as two feet to the right or left, and that they sometimes actually went into the corner pockets of the table. This would seem to be incredible, but I can vouch for the accuracy of Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's statements. It is an amazing thing to think of, but it is perfectly true, that the modern golf ball is so badly constructed that in a straight roll down the middle of the table such as that described by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, the ball will absolutely roll as far off the line as the corner pockets, and indeed sometimes farther even than this. That is what the golfer has to contend with when he tries to put with a bramble ball on a golf green, but, of course, as he does not know it, he blames himself for an off day, or the green for being "beastly," but he never by any chance whatever gives a thought to his horribly defective golf ball. Sir Ralph says that the guttie was a notable exception to the inaccuracy of the rubber cores. He found that in its different series of twenty tries it often struck the thimble from fourteen to fifteen times, and when it missed was usually within an inch of the mark. This shows clearly the wonderful difference which I have already emphasised between marking by indentation and marking by excrescence. Sir Ralph also emphasises a point to which I had already directed attention as to the ball marked by excrescences running truly when hit hard. It is when the ball has no great propulsive force behind it that its inherent vice is most surely shown. Sir Ralph says: Any of the balls if played fairly hard from a cue could be made to strike the thimble every time; but then such a hard hit ball would go far beyond the hole in golf, and probably overrun the putting green! The smooth billiard-table cloth may be taken to represent the hard, bare and fast putting green of a dry summer. That is a very fair comparison, with the exception that the hard, bare and fast putting-green of a dry summer would present infinitely greater inaccuracies to the already sufficiently inaccurate golf ball than would the billiard table. Let the unthinking golfer ruminate a little on this subject, and the day is not far distant when we shall never see such a thing as an excrescence on a golf ball. Sir Ralph was very ingenious and thorough in his experiments. He desired to obtain the nearest possible approximation which he could to a natural putting-green, so he stretched a strip of rough green baize on the billiard table and tested the balls on this. He made a chalk mark on which to place the thimble, and its distance from the lead gutter was the same as in his other experiments. He then found that the balls, with the exception of those which had been marked as having their centre of gravity much out of place, ran with far greater accuracy. Most of them hit the thimble from eight to ten times in their individual series of twenty shots, but the guttie was, as usual, an easy winner. Sir Ralph found that on the billiard table if the balls were played fairly hard from a cue, although too hard for golf, the thimble could be knocked over every time. I consider that these experiments prove beyond a shadow of doubt, as I personally never doubted, that the ordinary bramble-marked golf ball will not run truly unless it has a considerable amount of force behind it, and that for short puts, and particularly on anything like a fast green, it is a most treacherous ball. Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey says: All this goes to prove that, although a ball may be of inaccurate make, it keeps its line to near the end of its course when hit hard along the ground, as for instance, in a long running up approach to the hole from the edge of a putting green. It is also clear that a ball with an incorrect centre of gravity will very seldom run true off the putter if the ground is hard, fast and smooth and the distance it is required to travel is only a few feet. For this reason manufacturers should consider the accuracy of a ball for short puts--accuracy that can only be gained by making it a perfect sphere with its centre of gravity in the exact centre of the ball; for short puts must lose many more matches than short drives. As Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey truly says, with a badly balanced ball the easiest of short puts may fail, especially on a downward slope, though the player rarely suspects that his ball and not his skill is to blame. It is not, as I have already pointed out, only the question of the badly balanced ball which is of such vital importance in short puts, but it is the question of the untrue running of the ball marked by excrescences; also there is the equally important matter, which I have referred to, of the untrueness of the ball marked by excrescences in coming off the face of the putter. I am firmly convinced that there is no more perfect marking for a golf ball than that used for the old guttie ball, that is a marking by indented lines, but even here I believe that equally good results, both in flight and run, would be obtained if the gutta-percha ball were marked in a similar manner but with fewer lines. Some of Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's conclusions are important. He suggests that a golfer should carefully test a ball before using it in an important match, and this is, unquestionably, from a scientific point of view, a very sound and good suggestion. I have already indicated his method of testing a ball for its centre of gravity, and I have shown how the ball may be tested for its spherical shape. There is no necessity to apply any test whatever to the ball in so far as regards its marking. There is one maxim with regard to that--avoid anything in the shape of a golf ball marked by excrescences. Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's advice to golfers with regard to the balls need not be given here in full, valuable as I believe it to be in the main. But there is one matter which is worth repeating. He says: Select a ball with as smooth a cover as you can find, for though all golf balls require to be roughened in order to steady their flight, those most deeply scored travel the shortest distance, and are most affected by a head or side wind. This is very sound and important advice, and it should receive the attention not only of golfers, but of the golf ball manufacturers, for even those balls which are now marked by indentation are, in my opinion, too freely marked, and I am inclined to think that the dimples on the golf balls which are so marked, are, if anything, too large and too frequent. I think it is extremely probable that the balls which are so marked would fly and run better than they do now if they were marked by lines as the old guttie was marked, but with fewer of these lines. Probably if they were marked with one-third of the number of lines which were used on the old guttie, we should have a perfect flying and running ball. Before closing this chapter on the make of the golf ball, it will be interesting to refer once again to the results obtained by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey when throwing the smooth ball from his machine and also when having it driven by Edward Ray. He obtained results similar in all respects to those which George Duncan and I obtained when trying "The Ruff." It is very curious indeed that so far there have not been any definite scientific experiments made to show exactly where the serviceable degree of roughness ends and the prejudicial begins, though much has certainly been done since I started the controversy about the relative merits of a smoother ball. Some golf ball makers have gone so far as to produce a dimple ball with a small pimple in the dimple. This, in effect, reduced the dimple to a ring, and these balls have been found to fly and run very well, but all that has been so far done has been a matter of experiment, of rule of thumb work. I do not think that there is a firm of golf ball makers in England which is in possession of a proper mechanical driver. We are assured that at least one firm in America is in possession of such a machine, but so far as I am aware there is no efficient machine of such a nature in England. This is very remarkable, as with such a machine a firm of golf ball manufacturers could obtain results which would probably give them a big advantage over their competitors. I was quite astonished to see it stated by a firm of golf ball makers the other day that, although they were making a ball marked by indentations, they had come to the conclusion after much experimenting that the bramble pattern was the best for all-round excellence. In the face of the remarkably conclusive experiments conducted by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, whose results I may say bore out up to the hilt everything which I had said about the defective construction of the golf ball, I should like to know how this manufacturer comes to the conclusion that the bramble marking is the best. One point which has not been made very strongly is that it was not necessary for the old balls to be badly knocked about before they would fly well. Comparatively little damage improved the flight of the ball. This, in itself, should be sufficient to convince manufacturers that they are still in many ways marking their balls excessively. It is quite evident that no particular kind of marking is required on the golf ball, although it is conceivable that a certain kind of marking might possess some slight advantage over another. It would be interesting if an exhaustive set of experiments on the lines of those already conducted by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey could be carried out under proper supervision by some eminent scientist or by a leading firm of golf ball makers, or by some prominent paper interested in golf. The matter would undoubtedly be of very great interest to golfers generally, and would probably result in a great improvement of the balls at present on the market. The phenomenon of the uneven flight of the smooth golf ball has never, so far as I am aware, been satisfactorily explained. We all know, of course, that practically nothing which has not a tail flies well. A tail is necessary for an arrow, for an aeroplane, for a bird to steer itself with, and even the rifle bullet would not fly well until it was, in effect, provided with a tail. It has always seemed to me that there was a possibility of an explanation of the defective flight of the smooth golf ball in this fact. It stands to reason that in the passage of the ball through the atmosphere there is a considerable compression of the air in front of the ball, and it is equally obvious that this compressed air is, if we may so express it, flowing backwards over the ball, and therefore running between the bramble markings. Of course, we are aware that it is not really a question of the air flowing backwards, but of the ball driving through the atmosphere, but we have merely to consider what may possibly be the effect of this action. It seems to me that the air, in passing back and round the ball in the manner described, is also in a state of compression until it has passed backwards and, to a slight extent, behind the golf ball, so that we have, if we may so express it, attached to the ball a tail of compressed air which is constantly striving to resume its normal density at a slightly varying distance behind the ball in its passage through the air. If my idea, which is expressed now in an extremely unscientific and popular form, is correct, it would seem that the roughened ball holds more straightly into this tail of compressed air than it would be possible for a smooth ball to do; in other words, it seems to me that there would be a greater possibility of the smooth ball slipping the pressure which would be accentuated on that portion of the ball which Professor Thomson describes as its nose, and it seems feasible, although I do not care to be dogmatic on this point, that if the centre of gravity of the smooth ball were untrue, as indeed the centre of gravity of nearly every smooth ball is, the effect of the pressure of the condensed air on the front of the ball would be much more pronounced with the smooth ball than it would in the case of the ball marked by excrescences or indentations. I am aware that this idea of mine is open to argument, and I do not say for one moment that it is absolutely correct. It is undoubted that there is much uncertainty in the minds of extremely scientific men as to the cause for the uncertain flight of the smooth golf ball. Even so distinguished a scientific inquirer as Professor Sir J. J. Thomson assured me that he did not understand the reason for the erratic behaviour of the smooth ball. There is possibly another explanation, but again I put this forward tentatively. Even when a ball is driven by a golf club without appreciable spin, as indeed most golf balls are, it seems to me quite possible, especially in the case of the balls with defective centres, that before they have gone far on their journey they will proceed to acquire spin on account of the tendency of one side to lag more than the other. It seems, then, that if this spin is set up in the manner which I described, it may, and indeed quite likely will, influence the path of the ball sufficiently to deflect it from the original line of flight, but as this spin has no very great power behind it, it seems quite likely that when it has deflected the ball from the line of flight it may be checked to such an extent that the atmosphere has a chance to get to work on the ball again and produce that which is practically a reverse spin. In this way, and in this way alone, can I see any reason for the double swerve which I have already referred to, in the carry of the golf ball. It must be understood that in the case of double swerve which I am referring to, the deflection from the straight line has always occurred at a point in the carry where one would not expect to see it if it had been occasioned by spin administered by the club, and it is always very much less indeed than the swerve would be if it had been obtained by spin produced by the club. Also there is this other fact against the hypothesis that the swerve is produced by spin imparted at the moment of impact. In the swerve which I am referring to, both the first swerve and the return swerve which takes the ball back again into the line of flight are very slight, and in most cases practically of the same length and degree. If the original deflection from the straight line were due to rotation of the ball acquired at the moment of impact, the swerve and return to the straight line, if there were any such return, would never be so symmetrical as they are. I can quite easily understand the double swerve of a golf ball from spin produced by the contact between the club and the ball, although I must admit that I have never seen a swerve of this nature in golf which I could put down unhesitatingly to spin acquired at the moment of impact. I must, however, when I say this, except one instance. This was in the case of a ball hit with back-spin, and although it is in a sense improper to refer to it as double swerve because it only affected the trajectory and did not alter the plane of the ball's flight in any way, it was, in a sense, a case of double swerve. It was a wind-cheater struck by a very good player at Hanger Hill. The ball flew very low and looked as though it was about to hit a bunker, when suddenly, on account of the tremendous amount of back-spin which the player had put on his ball, it rose with the ordinary rise of the wind-cheater and soared straight away for thirty or forty yards, when it began to tower in the ordinary manner of the wind-cheater. This was such an extraordinary shot that I illustrated it in _Modern Golf_, but I have never, in the course of fifteen years' acquaintance with the game, seen another shot of the same description. There is no doubt whatever that double swerves may be obtained by the axis of rotation of the ball altering during the flight of the ball. I can remember quite clearly at a meeting of the All-England Lawn-tennis Club at Wimbledon, a player informing me quite seriously that a lawn-tennis ball would swerve two ways in the air. At that time I was under the impression that I knew all there was to be known about the flight of the ball. I did not contradict him, but inwardly I pitied him; but at the same time I made up my mind to watch for this phenomenon, little as I expected to see it, for in the course of at least seventeen years' practical acquaintance with the game of lawn-tennis wherein one has a splendid opportunity of observing the action of spin on the ball, I had never seen, or perhaps it would be more correct to say I had never observed, any ball swerve two ways. It was not many days after this that I distinctly saw an American service, delivered by one of the players in the All-England Lawn-tennis Championship, swerve two ways. Since then I have looked for this phenomenon, and I have seen it happen both in lawn-tennis and golf, but I am satisfied that in golf it is not due to spin acquired at the moment of impact, as undoubtedly it is in lawn-tennis. It seems to me that with the lawn-tennis ball, which offers a very large frictional area in proportion to its weight, that it is quite feasible that during its travel, particularly in the American service, it may alter its axis of rotation on account of encountering a heavier bank of air, or for some other reason. It naturally follows that immediately this takes place the arc of the original swerve is interfered with, but in no case have I seen in lawn-tennis, as I have in golf, the original swerve of the ball exactly compensated for by the swerve back into the straight line, which is the peculiarity of the double swerve at golf. There is no doubt that there is a considerable amount of mystery in this matter. It may appear that it is not of much importance to golfers, from a practical point of view, whether it is solved or not, but it is hard indeed to say how useful a proper understanding of the higher science of the game may be in the practice of it; and in the experiments carried out by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey with so much patience and ability we have a very good example of the value to golfers of the scientific investigation and consideration of matters appertaining to the various implements of the game. CHAPTER XII THE CONSTRUCTION OF CLUBS In my last chapter I dealt with the construction of the golf ball. In many respects the golf club is more perfectly made than the golf ball, although it is, of course, hard to compare two objects so entirely dissimilar. In making the comparison I am, however, thinking mainly of the amount of exactness which has been brought to bear on the manufacture of the respective articles in so far as they have developed in accordance with the best of modern thought. It cannot be denied, however, that from a mechanical point of view, the golf club is still a very imperfect implement, for the simple reason that the striking point of the club is not in a line with the handle. This, of course, is, from the point of view of one who desires to obtain the maximum of strength and accuracy, a glaring fault. It has been remedied to a very considerable extent in the Schenectady putter, to which I shall have occasion again to refer. Golf is a very old game, and, as I have shown, it has been simply festooned with the cobwebs of tradition, and in no respect, probably, is this truer than it is in regard to the golf club. Originally, almost every implement made for playing a game by striking a ball was curved or so crooked that the ball was struck off the line of the shaft. The cricket bat was originally a crooked implement, so was the lawn-tennis racket, lacrosse, and even the billiard cue, but these have all been straightened, so that at the moment of impact the ball is in a straight line with the handle or shaft of the striking implement. It would indeed seem exceedingly strange to see a batsman furnished now with a curved bat, but that, in effect, is what we have in golf. It is certain that to obtain the best result from one's strength, it is necessary that the forearm, the ball, and the shaft of the striking implement shall be, at the moment of impact, in one and the same straight line or plane. This is a fundamental rule in athletics which is too much ignored by many players, both at lawn-tennis and in golf. Ignoring this principle in lawn-tennis has cost England her supremacy--not only, indeed, has it cost her her supremacy, but it has relegated her to the back ranks of the world's lawn-tennis players; for instead of having the handle of the racket and the forearm in one and the same straight line at the moment of impact, the English player, both with the forehand and the backhand, introduces between his racket and his forearm a considerable angle. He thus, instead of confining his force to one line, diffuses it over a triangle, and causes the weight of the blow to fall on his wrist in such a way that it offers least resistance. The golf club, although naturally to a less extent, embodies this fundamental error in mechanics, for instead of hitting the ball dead in a line with the shaft, it gets it in the middle of the face which projects from one side of the shaft. A moment's reflection will show that this is a very imperfect method of striking the ball. It will, of course, be said by the slaves of tradition that it is a horribly revolutionary thing to suggest any alteration in the shaft of the golf club, but it must be borne in mind that the golf club has to go through a process of evolution before it will become perfect, also that it has for generations past been going through a process of evolution which has materially altered its structure. Originally the head of the golf club was much longer than it is now. Gradually the head has been shortened so that the point of impact has come nearer to the shaft, and no less an authority than Harry Vardon has said that this tendency is well justified, for one can undoubtedly obtain greater power and accuracy the nearer the blow is brought to the shaft. Following Vardon's reasoning to its logical conclusion, we have very little difficulty in arriving at a decision that we could undoubtedly obtain better results if we struck the ball in a line with the shaft. This seems at first glance a revolutionary idea, but, as a matter of fact, it is nothing new in the game of golf. The old St. Andrews putter, which had a pronounced curve in its shaft, was so built that if the line of the upper half of the shaft were continued it would run practically on to the centre of the face of the club. The lower portion of the shaft curved very considerably. Sometimes, indeed, this curve was spread over almost the full length of the shaft. The object of this curve, which I may say is even now in the handle of all scientifically constructed wooden putters, is to bring the hands in a line with the point of impact at the moment of striking, but in this year of grace, 1912, we find the Royal and Ancient Golf Club barring on its own links, but, as it states now, _nowhere else_, such a well known and proved club as the Schenectady putter. The Schenectady putter is not a centre shafted putter, and in my opinion is open to several grave objections, for it is made with a head shaped on the general principle of the wooden putter, which it resembles more than it does the ordinary metal putter. I have a rooted objection to any putter which has a broad sole, for it is simply importing into the stroke an unnecessary element of error. If the swing is untrue, there is much greater risk of soling with a broad-soled putter than there is when one is using one of the metal putters. I have besides this two other objections to the Schenectady putter. It does not go far enough, in that it is not a centre shafted putter, and therefore the point of impact and the shaft are not in the same straight line; and thirdly, the shaft enters the head of the club some distance back from the face of the club. Some years ago, when in America, I invented and patented the "Vaile" clubs. These are centre shafted clubs and they are built exactly on the principle of the time-hallowed St. Andrews putter. For example, the only difference between the "Vaile" putter and the revered St. Andrews putter in principle is that in my club, instead of spreading the curve over the full length of the handle, I have gathered it all at the neck, and instead of allowing the shaft to run into the head of the club, as in the Schenectady, some distance from the face of the club, I have turned the neck away in a curve to the heel of the club, so that the club is much more like the ordinary golf club than is a putter built on the lines of the Schenectady. The same principle is used in the wooden clubs. Now it is absolutely incontestable that this principle is scientifically more accurate and will deliver a stronger blow than the golf clubs which are at present used. James Braid in 1901 said of this putter: I consider this putter very good for direction, as, the shaft being practically centred, you get the effect of the driver headed putters with inserted shafts, without losing the advantages which the ordinary putter head possesses over the large headed clubs. The principle, from a scientific point of view, is certainly right, and I have no doubt that any player who suffers from bad direction will find this a valuable club. In passing, I may draw attention to the fact that James Braid himself considers that the ordinary putter possesses advantages over the large headed clubs, and I think myself that there is very little doubt that this is so for the vast majority of golfers. Arnaud Massy, in his recent book _Le Golf_, says of my clubs: "Certes, au point de vue scientifique, cette théorie est inattaquable." Notwithstanding the opinion of three such men as Vardon, Braid, and Massy on a matter of practical golf like this, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews has declared that my clubs are illegal on their links, but in response to questions which they have been asked with regard to this matter they assert that the club is barred only on the links of the Royal and Ancient Club! It seems a very great pity that this famous Club should have taken this action with the Schenectady and the Vaile, for it has undoubtedly led, as I pointed out in _The Contemporary Review_ for August 1910, would be the case, to the passing of the great Club as a world power in golf. It is impossible for any club or body of persons to stand in the way of the progress of a great game such as golf, and anybody or any club endeavouring to do so must inevitably, as I clearly indicated at the time, pay the penalty for doing so. I have very little doubt that in the future, and at a by no means distant date, golf will be played with clubs constructed on an infinitely more scientific principle than those which are now used. It is quite plain to anyone who gives the matter a little thought that the longer the head of the club the greater must be the inaccuracy in the stroke. It stands to reason that the inertia at the toe of the club is greater than at the heel, and every fraction of an inch which one goes farther from the shaft must increase the inertia in the head of the club. It follows quite naturally that if one is using a whippy shaft, the tendency must be for the head of the club, especially if it is at all long, to exert a very considerable amount of torsional or twisting strain on the shaft of the club in the downward swing. It has been asserted that this torsional strain, by reason of the recovery of the shaft at the moment of impact, adds something to the force of the drive in golf, but this is quite an error, as at the moment of impact the club is travelling at its fastest. It follows, therefore, that if there is any inertia in the toe of the club, it will be very apparent at the time when the club is travelling at its fastest, and the result is that the torsional strain, instead of providing any beneficial spring at the moment of impact, only tends to lay back the face of the club and contribute materially towards slicing. It will, therefore, be seen that it is very inadvisable to have a long head when one is using a whippy shaft. I may, perhaps, illustrate this question of keeping the impact in a line with the striking implement by instancing the sword cut. Most people have seen at military tournaments the competition known as lemon-cutting. In this event a mounted man gallops past a certain number of lemons suspended on strings, and as he passes he endeavours to sever them with his sword. It will be seen that at the moment when his sword enters the lemons his forearm and the sword are, in both cuts, in the same plane, and it seems so obvious as to need no emphasising that if the line of his blade were even an inch or two off the line of his forearm there would be introduced into his stroke a very great degree of inaccuracy, but although this may be so obvious, it is practically what we are doing every day in golf. If the golf club were made in such a manner that the point of impact was absolutely in a line with the forearms at the moment of impact, tradition, instead of being outraged, would really be honoured. Not long ago a friend of mine came to me and showed me an old driver, saying, "I cannot understand how it is, but I can always get twenty or thirty yards farther with this driver than I can with any other." I took the club and ran my eye down the shaft. I noticed at once that it was warped considerably so that it threw the shaft inwards in such a manner that it resembled very much the shaft of an old St. Andrews putter--in other words, it put the golfer's hands and forearms in a line with the shaft of his club and the shaft of his club in a line with the point of impact at the moment the stroke was played. I pointed out to him that his club was, in effect, a centre-shafted club, and that this was the reason why he was getting a longer and, as he stated, a straighter ball with this club than with any other club he used. While I am on this question of the construction of clubs, I may as well state that under the recent ruling of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club there is not a legal golf club in use in England to-day, for one of the essentials of a legal club now is that the head must be all on one side of the shaft of the club. Passing by, as too technical an objection, the question as to whether a circular object may be said to have a side, we are confronted with the fact that many of the best-known clubs have the shaft inserted in the head. All the socketed clubs technically are illegal, because the head is certainly not all on one side of the shaft. Many cleeks are illegal because the shaft goes through the socket and right through the heel of the club to the sole thereof, so that a considerable portion of the head of the club is on the hither side of the shaft, and every ordinary golf club is so constructed that it is more correct to say that the head of the club, instead of being all on one side of the shaft, is either at the foot of the shaft, or at least that there is, without any doubt, a considerable portion of the head which goes beyond the one side of the club whereon the head is supposed to be. It is a very great mistake indeed to attempt to introduce any standard golf club or to lay down any regulation whatever as to how the golf club shall be made. The good sense and sportsmanlike instincts of the golfer should be sufficient to govern the question of what may and what may not be used. It is an absolute certainty that if any man were to endeavour to use an implement which was not in accordance with the best spirit of the game, he would speedily provide his own punishment, but it is a wonderful thing to find the greatest Club in the world barring on its own links clubs which embody in their formation the well-recognised principles of the most revered implements of the game. The principle which I have referred to of endeavouring to get the point of impact as near to the shaft as possible is being shown also in the hockey stick, which has not now anything like so great a curve in it as it originally had, and the striking-point has been brought much nearer to the shaft. The tennis racket, as distinct from the lawn-tennis racket, has stood for many years as a lob-sided instrument, but about eighteen months ago I was with a tennis player who ordered from Messrs. F. H. Ayres, Ltd., six straight tennis rackets, saying that he believed the soundness of the principle which I am now advocating to be absolutely incontestable and of universal application in ball games. I mention this matter because I believe it is of historical interest, for I do not think that prior to the time mentioned by me, tennis rackets were ever made straight. We all know how, when aiming a stone, playing a billiard ball, firing a gun, shooting an arrow, or pulling a catapult, one instinctively tries to get one's eye into the line of flight of the object to be propelled. It is evident that one can aim better thus. This is denied one in golf, where the ball is practically the smallest played with, to a greater extent than in any other game. It follows that a greater degree of mechanical accuracy is called for in golf than is required in other games. Very few golfers realise that they are deliberately handicapping themselves by playing with the clubs at present used. The weight and leverage of the head of the club is on one side of the shaft, and the angle of error is there. True, it is small, but a very slight initial error in the flight of a golf ball becomes in 200 yards serious, perhaps fatal. The golf club of the future will inevitably follow the march of scientific construction, and fall into line with the straight-handled implements wherewith the ball is struck in a line with the shaft. It is clear that at the moment of impact with a golf club, as they are now constructed, there is a very great tendency for the club to turn in the hands. This is shown very clearly when one happens to hit with the toe of the club a little lower than it ought to be, so that the toe strikes the earth. This is absolutely fatal for the club will be turned in the hand, but it is otherwise if by chance one happens to strike the ground with the heel, for as the force of the club is transmitted in a straight line down the shaft, the blow is very frequently, particularly with iron clubs, not interfered with to any very great extent. It is clear that if the club is centre shafted, greater strength and accuracy are obtained, for the club has an equal weight on each side of the shaft. There is thus no torsional or twisting strain on the shaft as there is at present with every golf club, and, as I have already shown, this torsional strain cannot be considered as a negligible factor in a club. I must repeat, however, that it is an error to think that this torsional strain can, by its recovery, contribute anything to the length of the drive, for the recovery from the torsional strain does not take place until long after the impact has ceased and the ball has gone on its way. This, it seems to me, even from a theoretical point of view, is undoubted, but I have proved by practical experiment that one can obtain a longer ball with a centre-shafted club than one can with an ordinary golf club. There is another matter in connection with the construction of clubs which should receive the attention of manufacturers. We know that the clubs are of varying lengths, descending from the driver to the putter according to the length of the shot which is required of them. The difference between a driver and a mashie is frequently as much as six inches. The difference between a mashie and a putter is roughly, say, three inches. It has always seemed to me that in proportion to the work demanded of it the putter does not continue in the decreasing scale of length as it should, particularly for short puts. Many very fine putters get quite low down to their put and grip the putter a long way down the shaft. It is undeniable that for short puts there is some advantage in this method, but it is open to the objection that it leaves too much of the shaft free above the hands, thus not only destroying the balance of the putter, but risking striking some portion of the player's body with the free end of the shaft. I believe that the putter should, generally speaking, be made much shorter, but, if this is not done for approach puts, I am sure that it would be worth one's while to experiment with a short putter for short puts. I have had such a putter made for me, and I have no hesitation whatever in saying that it is a very valuable club and one that should be better known than it is. It is necessary, of course, to readjust the balance in such a club, but when that has been done, I firmly believe that one is very much more accurate with this club than with an ordinary putter when playing short puts. The putter which I am referring to is, if I remember, little, if any, more than twenty-six inches. While I am on the question of the construction of putters, I may say that I am inclined to think that all these putters which are made with heads such as the Schenectady, the ordinary wooden putter, or those putters with aluminium heads, are a mistake. The sole of the club is too broad, and to use such clubs as these is simply providing a greater chance of error. There is nothing which can be done with one of these large-headed putters which cannot be done as well, or better, by an ordinary metal putter. There are many fearful and wonderful putters on the market at the present time. Lately there has been produced a putter with a very shallow face, which is now being largely used because a man who has won the open championship frequently is using it. For ninety per cent of golfers a putter with a narrow face is a very great mistake, and I believe that in saying ninety per cent I am fixing the percentage low. I do not think that any putter should be built whose face is so narrow that at the moment of striking the ball properly with the putter the top edge of the putter is below the top of the ball. I am firmly of opinion that a putter which is so built that it delivers the main portion of its force below the centre of the ball's mass is absolutely defective. I go even so far as to say that I believe that in a scientifically constructed putter the face should be made much broader than the face of the average putter, and that the weight, instead of being massed at or near the bottom of the putter, should be reversed, and put, if anything, nearer the top. The whole essence of true putting is that the ball shall be rolled up to the hole, and not at any portion of its journey played with drag, or as one is sometimes told to do, slid along the green. Any attempt whatever to put with drag, or by tapping the ball, must cause inaccuracy. I saw, a short time ago, one of the finest golfers in England, Mr. A. Mitchell, lose an important match on the putting-green, or, to be a little more accurate, on quite a number of putting-greens. He was then, and I believe still is, making the same mistake as James Braid made when he was such a bad putter, viz. tapping his puts, and finishing low down on the line after the ball. It is almost impossible for anyone to be a good putter with this stroke, and his chance of being a good putter is rendered remoter still if he attempts to do putting of this nature with a shallow-faced putter. A putter should have very little loft indeed, if any. It is questionable, from a scientific point of view, if the putter should be lofted at all, but in practice a very slight degree of loft is generally used, and there may be something to be said in favour of this slight loft if one is playing the put as it should be played, as nearly as possible by the wrists, for if that is done it stands to reason that the putter with a very slight loft will tend, in, of course, an extremely small degree, but still to such a degree as to be perceptible, to deliver its blow upwardly through the ball's mass, and this naturally tends to give the ball a truer roll off the club than would be the case if the putter were perfectly vertical. If one were using a putter with a vertical face, it seems fairly clear that at the moment of impact, when one is endeavouring to roll the ball forward, it is held simultaneously at two points. There must then, it seems, be some slight dragging on the face of the club and also on the green, but when the putter has some small loft on it and the blow is delivered, to a certain extent, upwardly, the ball will naturally get a truer roll from it, and for this reason perhaps the smallest degree of loft on a putter is advisable. Shallow faces and broad soles in putters have nothing whatever to recommend them, and there is very little doubt that golfers will, in due course, find this out, and will use a putter so made that it will carry the weight where it is most wanted, and that certainly is not at the base of the ball, for, unnecessary as it may seem to mention the fact, the put is the one stroke in golf which we always desire to keep as close to the green as possible. We know quite well that in all other clubs, when we want to get the ball off the ground quickly, we take a club which has its weight thrown into the sole, but as we want exactly the opposite thing on the putting-green, it seems reasonable to think that we should alter the adjustment of our weight when constructing a putter which has any claim whatever to being considered a scientifically made club. I have referred to the defect of the broad sole, and I have in a previous chapter of this book indicated that the perfect put should bear as close a resemblance to the swing of a pendulum as the player can give it. Let us now for a moment imagine that we have as the weight on the pendulum the head of an ordinary metal putter, and let us so adjust this metal head that in the swing of the pendulum it will barely clear a marble slab placed underneath it. Let us now remove the metal putter and substitute in its place such a club as one of the ordinary aluminium-headed clubs, or a Schenectady, and hang this club on the end of the pendulum so that when the pendulum is absolutely vertical the front edge of the sole of the club clears the slab by exactly the same space as the metal putter did when at rest. We shall now find that this club will swing freely back in the same manner as the metal putter did, but we shall get a very striking exemplification of the fact that the breadth of the sole of this club will prevent it swinging forward at all, for the rear portion of the sole will foul the marble slab. This, of course, is sufficient to absolutely prevent a proper follow-through, for even when this happens on a good green the delicacy of the put is such that it is more than likely the stroke will be ruined. This is an illustration of what I mean when I say that the golfer is importing into his game an unnecessary risk when he uses a broad-soled club. It will be seen from the example which I have given that there is an infinitely greater danger of soling with such a club than there is when one is playing with an ordinary metal putter. The same error with regard to breadth of sole is very frequently seen in the mashie. Indeed, the sole of the mashie is so broad and taken back at such an unscientific angle that very frequently the player strikes with the back edge of the sole before the front. It stands to reason that when he does this he is cocking up the front edge of his club, and so robbing himself of a great portion of the loft of the club. Many players lay the face of the mashie back in order to increase the natural loft of the club. In nine cases of ten when they do this, instead of increasing the usefulness of their clubs they diminish it, for they insist then upon the front edge of the face of the mashie striking the ball higher up than would be the case if they played with the club in the ordinary way. [Illustration: PLATE XV. J. SHERLOCK Finish of iron-shot. Note carefully the upright finish following the swing back, and the position of the hands, a characteristic of the finish of this shot. Sherlock gets a lower ball than the ordinary iron-shot.] Most mashies are constructed in a very unscientific manner. It is the function of the mashie to get as far underneath the ball as possible. To do this a mashie should always have its front edge very clearly defined, and almost immediately the sole leaves the front edge it should begin to curve upwardly--in other words, a mashie should practically never have a sole. When the mashie is made like this it is astonishing how much easier and more accurate it makes one's work with the club. Not only does the curving sole to the mashie allow one to get more in underneath the ball and prevent any jar of a square edge behind the front edge of the sole, but if it is a question of taking turf, which involves cutting down behind the ball, one is able to do this with a mashie having the sharp edge and the curved sole such as I describe, much more easily than one could with the flat sole, for the simple reason that one is enabled to pass the ball on the downward stroke much more rapidly than one could possibly do with the broad-soled mashie. It is obvious that in playing a ball with heavy back cut, the essence of obtaining that cut must be the speed at which the mashie passes down behind the ball, and it must be also equally apparent that if one is playing that shot with a club whose sole is as broad as is that of the ordinary mashie, that the pace of the blow must be arrested to a very great extent long before the club has had an opportunity of absolutely clearing the ball. This means that the club is hampered in the execution of its natural duty. While I am on the subject of the construction of the mashie, and particularly with regard to the curving sole, I may mention that I have such a club. It was made for me in accordance with a specification which I furnished, but it did not in any way carry out what I wanted; in fact, my instructions were very much exaggerated, but the moment I saw that club I knew that it would be, for short approaches and for playing stymies, a wonderful club; and so it has proved. It would take a good deal more than its weight in silver to induce me to part with it, for that club led to the making of history in golf--in other words, its construction caused me to see the great advantage which could be got by using it in playing the stymie shot which I have described in a previous chapter, and it was while playing this particular stymie shot that I came to the conclusion that for the usual stymie shot at or about the hole the ordinary mashie is far too long, as in the case of the short putter, because when one tries to get down on the club as low as one really ought to do for playing a shot of the delicacy required in these strokes, one finds that one has too much free shaft above one's hands. If I had any doubt whatever as to the advisability of having a short putter for short puts, I have absolutely none with regard to the benefits which are to be obtained from having a short mashie for playing close stymies, and I may say that at the time of writing I have never handled such a club--I have never seen such a club, nor have I ever heard of such a club, but before this book is published I shall have one. Stymies were once upon a time a perfect terror to me, but with the club which I have referred to, and whose construction was practically an accident, they are no trouble, and I firmly believe that nine stymies of ten would be no trouble to a golfer of ordinary skill if he had the proper club with which to play them, but it seems not unreasonable, when we consider the descending scale of the clubs which I have before referred to, to think that a club which we use frequently to get eighty yards with should not be the most suitable implement for playing a stroke of nine inches to a foot. While I am on the subject of iron clubs, there is another matter which I should like to refer to, and that is that, in my opinion, the communion, if I may use the word, between the club and the ball is not as intimate as it should be. In the lawn-tennis ball and racket one gets a wonderfully firm grip, and it is astonishing with what accuracy one can place a lawn-tennis ball by means of cut, but the vast majority of iron clubs which are used are insufficiently and unscientifically marked. I can remember the time when iron clubs, generally speaking, were innocent of any indentation whatever on their faces. Marking is fairly general now on iron clubs, but it is done in an utterly unscientific manner. It is frequently done by great deep straight lines, and, particularly in the mashie, nearly always by lines which run from heel to toe. Now in the great majority of mashie shots when one is putting on cut one requires lines running in an exactly opposite direction. We do sometimes see, of course, lines on these iron clubs running at right angles to each other, but in nearly every case the marking is too large and too coarse to be of the practical benefit which it ought to be. Quite recently I saw a very skilful golfer playing with rusty clubs, and somebody who did not understand what it meant commented rather strongly on his untidiness. He did not understand until he was told that the idea of the man who was using these clubs in keeping them rusty was that he got a better grip on his ball, and there can be no doubt whatever that this is the case, but a scientific maker of iron clubs would not be satisfied to leave it to his customer to make up for his deficiency by allowing his clubs to become unsightly. He would produce a club marked as nearly as might be in a similar manner to a club which was heavily rusted. I have experimented with various means for establishing a better grip between the club and the ball, and I have, I believe, found an almost perfect medium for establishing effective contact. Let us consider for a moment how little use the cue would be to us at billiards were it not for the medium of contact which is commonly used; to wit, the chalk. Now it is inconvenient, and, moreover, would be ineffective to a great extent, to chalk one's iron clubs in golf, but it is an absolute certainty that something which answers to the chalk should be on the face of every iron used in golf. What that is to be we must leave to the ingenuity of our scientific club makers, but it is an absolute certainty that we shall see a very great improvement in this particular matter within quite a short time. CHAPTER XIII THE LITERATURE OF GOLF It will be readily understood by those who have followed me that I consider that golf has been badly served by those who have essayed to teach it by books. The main, if not indeed the whole, cause of the trouble is the manner in which writer after writer has allowed himself to be influenced by the work of those who have preceded him. This is neither amusing nor instructive. The essence of progress is research. We cannot progress in anything by repeating parrot-like the fallacies of those who have preceded us. I want to make it particularly plain that this book aims at absolutely dispelling the fog and mist, the obscurity and the falseness which now clusters about the game of golf. One dear old chap was explaining to me how he tries to drive. He said, "When I get to the top of the swing I have so many things to remember that I get all of a dither and mess it up hopelessly." Could anyone express it better? About seventy-five per cent of the golfers who follow the usual tuition are "all of a dither." The whole trouble is that they are given too much to think of _during the stroke_. I am certain that the secret of success in golf is to eliminate the necessity for thinking _and theorising_ on the links. This, I contend, can be done by _knowing_, not merely by _reading_, the contents of this book. So strongly do I feel in this matter that I consider that every beginner who desires to succeed at golf should know what is here set out, while every misguided golfer who has been jumping from his right leg to his left, and putting his left hand in command instead of his right, should lose no time in getting the truth and so revolutionising his game. I have stated in my Preface that this book is a challenge. So, in effect, it is. It stands for truth and practical golf, instead of the nonsense which is generally published about one of the greatest and simplest of games. I must here refer to a book entitled _Practical Golf_, published by Mr. Walter J. Travis, the Australian who perfected his golf in America and won the Amateur Championship of England. Mr. Travis' book is very interesting in many ways. He calls it _Practical Golf_, and it ought to be, coming from him, but Mr. Travis falls into nearly all the mistakes of those who have followed the time-worn fetiches of the people who handed down to us "the traditions of golf." I was much astonished at this, for Mr. Travis tells us himself that he worked out his own salvation, at the same time as he remarks that "as a general rule the average professional, while he may be a good player, lacks the faculty of imparting proper information to beginners." This, unquestionably, is true, but one cannot expect too much theory from the professional, who is not, generally speaking, a very well educated man, but from a man in Mr. Travis' position one has a right to expect a fairly good grip of fundamental principles. He says that "All good players work practically on the same basic principles." This is, of course, right. The trouble is that most good golfers, like Mr. Travis, work on the same correct basic principles, but advertise to their unfortunate readers and pupils those which are utterly opposed to their practice. Mr. Travis absolutely subscribes to the fundamental but common error with regard to the distribution of weight. He says at page 30: "In the upward swing it will be noticed that the body has been turned very freely, with the natural transference of weight almost entirely to the right foot." At page 7 he says: "The ease and rapidity with which the weight of the body and arms is transferred from the left leg to the right and back again, joined to wrist action--concerning which reference will later be made--are largely, if not wholly, responsible for long driving." It is obvious from this that Mr. Travis thinks that one's weight ought to be on one's right leg at the top of the swing. It is also obvious that he thinks he throws his weight about from one leg to another when he is playing. It is, notwithstanding this, certain that he tells us, as does every man who writes a book about golf, that the head must be immovable during the operation of driving. We must wait for Mr. Travis to tell us how this conundrum can be solved, as none of the famous golfers of the world have yet been able to do it. If the stance has once been taken with the weight equally distributed between the legs, it is impossible, if the head be kept still, as Mr. Travis and everybody else says it should be, to get the weight on to the right leg at the top of the swing, but it is not impossible to get it on to the left leg, where it should be, and where, indeed, it goes quite naturally. In speaking about the palm grip Mr. Travis says: "This style is more affected by cricketers and base ballers, but it is open to the objection that it introduces a tendency to hit the ball with tautened muscles, and discourages the proper follow-through." Personally, I cannot see that there is any objection whatever to hitting the ball with tautened muscles--in fact, it absolutely must be done in that way, and in no other, or the result will be dire failure. James Braid himself says that at the moment of impact the muscles are in a state of supreme tension, and as a matter of practical golf there can be no doubt whatever that this is so. Mr. Travis also comes into line with the general body of golfing opinion with regard to the fetich of the left. He says on page 14: "As a general rule the left hand should grip somewhat more firmly than the right." I may say that Vardon and Taylor do not agree with Mr. Travis, and the mere idea of putting the left to exert a firmer hold on the shaft is a reversion to primeval fables. Mr. Travis tells us, speaking about the waggle: "Do not on any account in this preliminary address _lift_ the club up. Lifting the club pre-supposes stiffness and rigidity of muscles and the resultant stroke cannot be thoroughly satisfactory." It will be obvious that as the club is at the lowest portion of its arc it is necessary to lift the club. This is done by an easy action of the wrists, and the waggle, of course, then becomes a swing worked almost entirely from the wrists, but it is absolutely essential to lift the club for the ordinary waggle. At page 19 Mr. Travis says: "When the top of the swing is reached, without pausing, bring the arms and body around as swiftly as possible and _swish_ the ball away." We see here that Mr. Travis is also an adherent of the fetich of the sweep, but we must in his case call it the fetich of the "swish." In golf it is now realised that the golf drive is a hit of the very finest order. Mr. Travis says at the same page "Do not seek to artificially raise the left foot on the toe. Strive rather to keep it rooted--the natural turn of the shoulders and body rotating to the right will bring it up and around. Keep the right leg as stiff and as straight as possible. And whatever you do, do not move the head." If one is going to pivot on the left toe in any way whatever, it is fatal to the rhythm of the swing to wait until the arms pull the left heel off the earth. The left heel should leave the earth almost simultaneously with the club leaving the ball. If this is not done it will be impossible to maintain the rhythm of the swing. Mr. Travis shows himself in nearly every case pivoted on the _point_ of his left toe at the top of the swing. This is now universally admitted to be bad form, as one should put the weight on the ball of the toe, and forward from that at the side of the shoe. It is, of course, possible to play the drive practically flat-footed, in which case one's swing will naturally be much flatter than the ordinary swing, but this is not generally done. For those who pivot on the left toe, Mr. Travis' advice to wait for the arms to pull the heel up is, I think, absolutely bad. His advice to keep the right leg stiff and straight is quite good, and, of course, there can be no doubt of the correctness of his advice when he says "do not move the head," but will he tell us how, with a perfectly stiff and straight right leg, and no movement whatever of the head, he is going to transfer his weight to his right leg? for, as he truly says on page 20, "If the head is kept still, no swaying of the body can be indulged in." There is a very remarkable statement on page 20. Mr. Travis says: "Any doubt as to whether the head is moved may easily be satisfied by the player assuming a position with the sun immediately at the back of him, and watching the shadow of the head during the swing. If the head is shown to move, the swing should be persistently practised until this fault is remedied." If I were not now writing practical golf myself, I might suggest putting in a peg on the ground to watch whether one's shadow impinged on this peg or not, but as a matter of practical golf if I considered anything of this nature necessary, I should prefer a string stretched across by my right ear so that swaying would be bound to make me touch it, but as a matter of _intensely practical golf_ neither of these expedients is in the least degree necessary if the player will only get it firmly rooted in his mind that his weight must be on his left leg at the top of his swing, and he will then find that he has no temptation whatever to sway. On page 23 Mr. Travis says: "It is not really the length alone of the downward swing that contributes distance so much as the rapidity with which the club head is moving at, and just after the moment of impact." It is almost unnecessary to draw attention to the fact that what happens "just after the moment of impact" does not much matter to the ball. It is what happens during the impact which is of importance, although it stands to reason that if the speed during impact has been sufficient, just after impact it will still be the same, minus the force expended on the golf ball. Mr. Travis makes a terrible error in _Practical Golf_ when he says, speaking of the downward swing: "Let him resolve to centralise the power of the stroke immediately the ball is reached." This is an idea fatal to good golf. As I have frequently pointed out, and as James Braid in _How to Play Golf_ also emphasises, the meeting between the ball and the club should be _merely an incident_. Any attempt to try to do anything during impact in the drive is futile. Mr. Travis at page 24 makes the same error with regard to the speed of the club after the ball has been hit. He says: "A great deal more depends upon the maintenance of speed after the ball is struck than is commonly supposed. This part of the stroke is known as the follow-through, and plays a very important part in the length of the drive as in straightness." Mr. Travis evidently does not perfectly realise that the follow-through is of no importance whatever except as the natural result of the correctly played first part of the stroke, and the maintenance of speed after the ball has been struck is of no importance provided that the first portion of the stroke has been properly executed and at a sufficient pace. The only importance of the maintenance of speed in any way whatever is that this indicates that the first half has been correctly performed. Mr. Travis seems to be very hazy as to the causes of slicing and pulling. A ball being hit slightly to the right of its centre would not necessarily produce a slice, although it would probably deflect it from its intended line of flight. A slice is produced by the amount of rotation which is imparted to the ball by the glancing blow. He says: "With a pulled ball it is just the opposite--the ball is hit to the left of its centre, that is, nearer the player, producing a spin from right to left." This is not in any way necessary. The ball may be hit absolutely at the point farthest from the hole, and with the club at a perfect right angle to the intended line of flight, but the point which Mr. Travis does not mention is that the club is travelling upward across the intended line of flight and outward from the player. This it is which produces the beneficial spin of the ball in the pull. At page 31, Mr. Travis says: "Every golfing stroke describes a circle, or a segment of a circle." This is an egregious error, for the golf stroke, quite naturally from the method of its production, bears a far greater likeness to an oval than to a circle. Anyone endeavouring to produce the golf stroke as a circle would certainly not get either a very graceful or a very accurate result. Mr. Travis falls into the astonishing error for a man who plays golf so well as he does, of thinking that it is possible to juggle with the golf ball by means of a golf club during impact. Speaking of brassy play, he says: "The lofted face, joined to the slight whipping up of the hands at the proper time--that is after the club meets the ball--will produce the desired result. Don't on any account seek to bring the hands up too quickly, otherwise a top will assuredly result." Mr. Travis here falls into the common error with regard to using the wrists during impact. It will be observed that he avoided it in dealing with the follow-through, but in this matter he makes the usual error. This turning up of the wrists which he refers to comes long after the ball has been hit, and is the natural turn up which follows any slice or any cut played to raise a ball suddenly. At page 41 he makes the same error, for he says: "By striking the ball slightly towards the heel of the club, and immediately after bringing the arms somewhat in and finishing well out, a slight spin is imparted to the ball which causes it to rise more quickly." Here it is clear that he thinks that one may, after impact, do something with the hands to affect the manner in which the ball leaves the club. There could not possibly be any greater fallacy in golf than this. That this is a rooted fallacy of Mr. Travis I shall show later on when I deal with his remarks about bunker play. Mr. Travis says at page 49: "Hitting with the heel of the club meeting the ground after the ball is struck will cause the ball to rise more, and, joined to the spin imparted by drawing in the arms and turning the wrists upward, will produce a very dead ball with hardly any run. The science of the stroke consists in hitting very sharply, and turning the wrists upward immediately after the ball is struck." Here we see the same delusion. The essence of this stroke is purely a matter of practical golf which I have not seen mentioned in any book or essay on golf. When one plays a ball off the heel of one's mashie, it stands to reason that one gets the ball on the very narrowest portion of the blade, and that therefore one hits the ball as far beneath the centre of the ball's mass as it is possible to do--so much so, in fact, that a very considerable portion of the ball overlaps the top of the face of the club. This puts a tremendous amount of undercut or stop on the ball. This is the practical golf of the shot which Mr. Travis is attempting to describe, but his idea of putting cut on it by juggling with it during impact is fatal. In speaking of approach puts, Mr. Travis gives some wonderful advice. He says: "You should aim to hit the ball as if it were your intention to drive it into the ground.... This will cause the ball to jump, due to its contact with the ground immediately after being struck." This is practical golf of a nature which we may very well pass without discussion. I think that there are very few golfers who will desire to bounce the ball off the earth when they can play it off the face of the club. This is Mr. Travis' advice as to how to cut the put. At page 65 he says: "Put cut on the ball by drawing the arms in a trifle just at the moment of striking." The drawing of the arms across the ball is not to be done at the moment of striking. It starts at the beginning of the swing and finishes at the end thereof. This is how cut is put on a put by practical golf. Mr. Travis advises for putting that people should select "a particular blade of grass" on the line to the hole. He then says: "Take your stance and square the face of the putter at perfect right angles to the blade of grass you have picked out." As a matter of practical golf I may remark that blades of grass have a remarkable family likeness. Mr. Travis says: "Close observation of all missed puts discloses the interesting fact that by far the large majority go to the left of the hole, thereby indicating the presence of the pull, due to the arms being slightly drawn in just after striking." This is what is called a sliced put in England, but again as a matter of practical golf I may say that many of these puts are simply misdirected, such misdirection being due to the turning over of the wrists _too soon_ in the action of striking the ball. Unless one determinedly follows through well down the line the natural tendency is to hook one's put across the line, but this does not indicate any pull. It merely indicates, if of frequent occurrence, ignorance or carelessness. Speaking of stymies, Mr. Travis says: "Occasionally you will be confronted with an absolutely dead stymie by having your opponent's ball just on the edge of the cup, your own being so close, say seven inches to a foot away, that it is impossible to negotiate the stroke by either curling around or lofting. In such extremity there is only one way of getting your ball in the hole unaccompanied by your opponent's, and that is by what is technically known in billiards as the follow shot." As a matter of practical golf the stymie stroke introduced by me is far more likely to prove successful in this case than the follow shot, for we are dealing with very tricky things when we try to play billiards with golf balls covered with numerous excrescences or dimples. If the stymie described by Mr. Travis is played by my stroke, it should be got five times out of six, and I very much doubt if Mr. Travis or anybody else could get anything like this with the run through stroke. Writing of "Playing out of hazards," Mr. Travis says: "Then bring it down again on the same line with all the force you can controllably command, consistent with accuracy. As it sinks into the sand its course may then, but not until then, be slightly directed towards the ball." Coming from a practical golfer this is an absolutely amazing statement. The idea of attempting to deflect one's niblick from the line originally mapped out for it as it enters the sand is too amazing and too utterly unsound to merit any further comment or notice, except to say that it would be impossible to deflect the club head from the line of travel mapped out for it at this moment without materially reducing the force of the blow, and when one is hitting into heavy sand, to get underneath the ball and in many cases to get it out of the bunker without even touching it with the club, every pound of force that can be put into the club is necessary. There is another thing which Mr. Travis tells us that certainly is not practical golf, and it does not seem to me to be practical carpentry, but he says at page 126, speaking of the brassy: "The screws which hold the blade sometimes work loose. This trouble may easily be remedied by putting glue in the holes before inserting the screws." One is never too old to learn, and I think that in any future efforts I may make at amateur carpentry, I shall glue my nails! Mr. Travis makes a very remarkable statement at page 139, speaking of the guttie ball as opposed to the Haskell: "The latter, by reason of its greater comparative resiliency does not remain in contact with the club head quite so long, and therefore does not receive the full benefit of the greater velocity of the stroke in the same proportion as the less resilient guttie"; but surely the greater the resiliency of the ball the longer it will remain in contact with the club. It should be obvious that one of the reasons for the greater swerve in the sliced or pulled rubber-cored ball as compared with the guttie, is that on account of the longer period of impact the ball acquires a greater amount of spin. Speaking of the waggle, Mr. Travis is delightfully indefinite. He says "With the club gripped pretty firmly with both hands in the manner already described, it is well to see that the whole machinery is in good working order by waggling the club a few times over the ball, allowing the wrists to turn freely, without, however, relaxing the grip. The waggle should be entirely free from any stiffness, which simply means that the wrists should be brought into active play." This is certainly delightfully vague, and is not, I am afraid, of much use to anyone as a matter of practical golf. The waggle is unquestionably of importance in the game of golf, otherwise it is quite improbable that we should see it employed by so many of the famous players. The curious thing about this waggle is that it seems to be confined to games wherein one plays a stationary ball. The same operation is gone through at billiards with the cue, but is there known as cueing at the ball. With a very great number of players the waggle may be described as moral cowardice--an excuse for putting off the evil moment. Many players convert the waggle into a performance which is both tedious and stupid, and which instead of giving them a better chance of hitting the ball, has a very great chance of absolutely putting them off their stroke. I do not know that I have ever seen the necessity for the waggle explained, nor have I seen the waggle of any of the famous players illustrated. There can, however, be very little question that in the majority of cases the address and waggle is unnecessarily exaggerated and prolonged. In _Modern Golf_ I have illustrated George Duncan's waggle. So far as I am aware, this is the only time that such a thing has been done. Duncan is probably the quickest player living, so that it will not be necessary for us to assume that every one will be satisfied with so little preliminary work as Duncan puts in before hitting the ball. His method of playing is to take his line to the hole as much as he can as he approaches the ball. He then marches straight up to it and takes his stance, at the same time swinging his club head out so that it is roughly on a level with his waist and pointing towards the hole, but being at the same time almost above the line of flight to the hole. He then brings his club back to the ball, and addresses it in the usual way, soling his club close behind the ball. Now he lifts the club practically straight up for six or nine inches and carries it forward of the ball in a gentle curve for about six inches. From here he carries the club head back along the plane of flight produced through the ball as far as it will go without turning his wrists over. The club then is swung easily and naturally back to the ball almost in the same manner as it would come to it in the drive, until it arrives close behind the ball, but about two inches from the turf, when it sinks to rest by dropping straight down behind the ball. It is now soled again as in the original address. This sounds like a somewhat lengthy process, but as a matter of fact it is probably the shortest waggle used by any golf player who is in the front rank. In fact, so rapid is Duncan in his play, that very frequently spectators who are not accustomed to his methods, do not see him play the ball, as they allow for the more deliberate style generally followed by the other leading professionals. In Duncan we have a player who in my opinion is as good a golfer as anyone in the world. We see clearly that he wastes very little time in addressing his ball, either through the green or on the putting-green. On the other hand, we see some men of greater fame than Duncan whose deliberation is tedious in the extreme, although it must be admitted that in so far as regards the waggle in the drive, the great players do not overdo this nearly so much as do amateurs of an inferior class. I am not aware that anybody has yet explained the reason for the waggle. It seems that it is a natural movement, or in some cases a very unnatural movement, which players fall into in endeavouring to readjust their distance from the ball and their position with regard to the line of flight. Very many players who waggle, produce most remarkable flourishes with their club. The club is made to describe curves in the air which it could not possibly do in any other operation at golf than the waggle. The whole object of the waggle seems to be to allow the player to get his eye in, as it is commonly called, at the ball, to loosen his joints, and, which is a point that I have not seen previously made, in a measure to produce in anticipation the motions of his wrists and club immediately before, at, and after impact with the ball. If this view of the object of the waggle be accepted as correct, it is obvious that in nine cases of ten the attempted waggle is force hopelessly wasted--in fact, worse than wasted, for it has been occupied in describing weird geometrical figures in the air, figures which can have no possible reference whatever to the work which the club is expected to do. In Duncan's waggle it will be observed that firstly he swings his club head out down the line towards the hole, and secondly that he carries it back for a considerable distance from the ball in the plane of flight produced through the ball. It will be seen from this that to a great extent he produces in the waggle the same motions as his forearms and wrists go through immediately before, at, and after impact with the ball. On examining the photographs of Duncan's hands in the drive, we find that for the space of nearly two feet before he reaches the ball, and probably for quite that distance after the ball has been struck and he has continued the follow-through, there is no turning over of the wrists--that during this space of roughly three feet, the space wherein James Braid says that the wrists _have it all their own way_, Duncan's wrists are practically quiescent, and that during the whole of this time the club is travelling at almost its maximum speed, but the arms and wrists are doing very little more to it than to withstand the centrifugal force developed in the earlier part of the swing and to keep themselves braced to withstand the shock of impact. These are merely a few instances taken haphazard from a book called _Practical Golf_ by one who is, undoubtedly, in so far as regards his own play, a practical golfer. This does not, however, prevent him from furnishing another and a very striking example of the curious fact that nearly all good golfers teach the game in a manner entirely different from that in which they play it, and that their tuition, if followed out, must result in their followers learning to play in very bad form, and probably also learning much which has to be painfully unlearnt later on when they have discovered the truth. AFTERWORD It would be very easy for me now to begin to explain in the ordinary manner of golf books how the game is played, but to do so would be going outside the scope of this work, and interfering either with the proper functions of the professional, or the proper practice of the intelligent golfer. I have, in this book, taken my readers through all those matters which are of the most vital importance to the game, and practically everything which is contained between the covers of this book may be better studied and digested by the golfer, be he a champion or a beginner, in his arm-chair than on the links. He who wishes to know golf to the core, must know what is in this book, all of which he can thoroughly understand without taking a club in his hands. The whole fault of the false doctrine which has been so plentifully published about golf in the past, is that it has given the unfortunate people who have taken notice of it an incalculable number of things to think about. The truest and best tuition in golf is that which advances by a process of elimination and so proceeds that it gives the learner a minimum number of separate circumstances to think about during his game; in fact, if the tuition has been properly carried out the golfer will have astonishingly little to think of at the moment when he is making his stroke. This is the ideal condition of mind. The remark which the puzzled golfer made to me that when he started on his downward swing he had so many things to think of that he was "all of a dither" expresses marvellously accurately the condition of mind of about ninety per cent of golfers who think they have studied golf. The golfer who studies this book soundly and intelligently will learn what he will learn from no other book on golf, and that is what a vast number of things there are in connection with the golf stroke which it is expedient to forget at the moment one is making it. Let me give an illustration of what I mean. The golfer is told now that at the top of his swing he must get his weight on to his right foot, and that he must keep his head still. The merest attempt to do this produces a conflict at once. Then he is told that his left hand must dominate the right: here is conflict again. But when he learns that in order to keep his head still he must put his weight at the top of his swing on his left foot, the conflict vanishes, he finds that it is natural and easy to do; and he forgets to encumber his mind with the fact that it has to be done, so that it becomes just as habitual with him to put his weight in the right place as it is when he is walking. The same thing applies with regard to the instructions which he has always had drilled into him to allow the left hand and arm to usurp the position of the right. Here again he is distinctly exhorted to encourage these two members to enter into conflict during the stroke. Although I explained to him most clearly that this idea about the left being the more important member of the two is utterly wrong, and that the right is, and always must be, the dominant member in the golf swing, I did not tell him to remember this during the golf swing, and he is indeed a very foolish person if he attempts to remember it. All he has to do is to cut the false doctrine out of his mind, and nature will attend to the rest. So it will be seen that when one has grasped the truth in connection with golf one has advanced by such a process of elimination that there is left for the happy golfer when he addresses his ball very little to think of but hitting that ball. Golf in the past has suffered from the multiplicity of false directions. It is by recognising these for what they are, and by forgetting them that the golfer will ultimately arrive at _The Soul of Golf_. INDEX Accelerating speed, Vardon on, 104 Address and impact similar, Braid on, 137 Address, Braid on, 133 Apportionment of back-spin, 263, 270, 271 Arm roll in stroke, 210 Arms measure distance, 46, 174 As you go up so you come down, 97, 219 Ayres, F. H., Ltd., 289, 324 Ayres, Mr. Rupert, 289-291 Back-spin at impact, rate of, 272 how obtained, 247 Professor Tait's experiment, 225 Professor Thomson's error, 246 Badminton _Golf_, 120, 158, 214, 218 _Badminton Magazine_, 222, 226 Ball, Mr. John, 153, 157 Ball, action of, during impact, 237 brambly, inaccuracy off putter, 287 centre of gravity, 292 centre of gravity, test for, 294 effect of marking, 302 effect of untrue centre, 299 flight parallel with earth, 265 guttie, truth of, 294 Haskell, 253 indented or dimpled, 286 instability of the golf, 284 smooth, flight of, 289, 311 tests, 296 the golf, 283 track of, on green, 286 unscientifically made, 261 Balls, dimpled, 291 Base ball, spin in, 233 Beauty of flight, 3 Billiard balls, excrescences on, 283 Billiards, blind spot in, 175 Blackwell, Mr. Edward, 153 Blindfold golf, 164 Blind spot, 168, 169, 173 Blow in golf horizontal, Professor Tait, 265 upward, 265 Body movement after impact, 167 Braid on distribution of weight, 119, 135 on influence of club after impact, 101 on putting, 50, 55, 58, 77 Braid's putting, 75, 76 uncertainty about wrist work, 208 Bullet, drift of, 235 Catapults, Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's, 296 Cleek, push stroke with, 194 Vardon's push shot with, 194 Clubs, all illegal, 322 construction of, 316 rusty, 333 _Contemporary Review_, 320 Corkscrew action in stroke, Braid on, 213 Croome, Mr. A. C. M., 198, 199 Cross-bow, Professor Tait's experiment, 266 Cross wind, Professor Thomson on, 240 Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey on, 298 Vardon on, 256 Cut, principles of, 89 Cutting round a stymie, 73 Direction, demand for, 3 Downward swing, control of, 133, 278 Downward swing, Duncan and Vardon, 130 Drag for bolting puts, 62, 63 in putting, 60 Drive, tension of muscles during, 38 Duncan, George, 7, 82 and mashie stroke, 72, 82 and smooth ball, 289, 309 Dynamical problems, Professor Thomson on, 228 Elimination the secret of coaching, 352 English mental attitude towards games, 4 _English Review, The_, 267 _Evening Standard and St. James's Gazette_, 288 Eye, lifting the, 34, 35 Eyes, effect of, on weight, 167 function of, 162, 163 movement of, 166 Vardon on movement of, 168 Fallacies of golf, 95 Feet, movement of, Duncan, Vardon, and Braid, 134 "Flick" in golf stroke, 213 Flight of ball, 222 Follow-through, 128, 129 control of, 278 Forearms, action of Duncan's, 210 in stroke, roll of, 210 Freemasonry of golf, 6 _Fry's Magazine_, photographs in, 125, 138 Golf books, unscrupulous practices, 10 _Golf Illustrated_, 197 and Professor Thomson, 253 Golfers groping their way, Braid, 269 Grip, apportionment of power in, 150 old, 152, 153 overlapping, 152 suggested new, 151 Gutta ball, Walter J. Travis on, 253 Haskell ball, 253 Head, keeping still, 162, 163 Taylor on position of, 171 High tee for low ball, 246 Hilton, Mr. H. H., 153 Hilton, Mr. H. H., in _Concerning Golf_, 160 Horizontal stroke, Professor Thomson's idea, 244 Hutchinson, Mr. Horace G., on distribution of weight, 120 on top of swing, 158 Impact, action during, 182 and address similar, Braid on, 137, 277 an incident of stroke, 45, 99, 100 arc during, 244 duration of, 165 length of, 277 muscles at time of, 30, 31 "no control over," Braid, 278 Professor Thomson on, 242 Walter J. Travis on, 253 Impatience to play, 5 Instruction by elimination, 352 Knee, left, Braid's action, 137 left, not loose, 127 right, and Vardon, 131 Laws of swerve of universal application, 234 Left and right wrists together, Vardon, 216 Left arm, power of, 12, 140 Braid on, 142, 143, 148 Mr. Hutchinson on, 146 Taylor on, 144, 145, 148 Vardon on, 140, 141, 148, 149 Left hand, regulating grip, Vardon on, 150 Left wrist starts club down, Braid, 215 _Le Golf_, Arnaud Massy, 320 Literature of golf, 10, 334 Low, Mr. John L., _Concerning Golf_, 159, 256, 257 Low ball, high tee for, 246 Mashie, cut shot, 26 cut stroke, Vardon on, 191 for stymies, 70 stroke, Taylor's cut, 193 Mashies, short, for stymies, 330 Massy, Arnaud, 320 Master stroke, the, 178 Matter, definition of, 41 Mechanical accuracy demanded, 2 Mechanics of golf, 3 Mitchell, A., 327 _Modern Golf_, 59, 73, 83, 133, 210, 246 _Morning Post_, 198 Mystery, none in other games, 16 _Mystery of Golf_, 15, 125, 220 Newton, on principles of swerve, 223, 235, 228 "Nip" at impact, Professor Tait, 266 "Nose" of golf ball, 231 Palm grip, Mr. Horace G. Hutchinson on, 159 Payne-Gallwey, Sir Ralph, 292 tests, 296 _Practical Golf_, 120, 335 _et seq._ Press, influence of, 33 Professionals and journalists, 10 lacking in theory, 9 _Projectile Throwing Engines of the Ancients_, 292 Pull, the, 179 axis of vertical, Professor Thomson on, 237 Braid on, 188 explanation of spin, 240 Mr. John L. Low on, 258 true axis of, 240 Vardon on, 183 Push stroke, Vardon's, 194 Put, Braid on cutting the, 83 not a wrist stroke, 67 position of ball, 67 run on, 69 short grip for, 84 Vardon on cutting the, 87 Put, short, the easiest stroke, 48 Braid on the, 50 should be taught first, 48 Taylor on the, 50 Vardon on the, 49 Putter, short, 326 Putting, 11, 47 chief point in, 64 fundamental principles of, 53 importance of address in, 65 mechanically simple, 57 most important factor, 52 off heel or toe, 64 pendulum action in, 66 tests, 304 with drag, 60 Ray, Edward, 301, 309 Roll of ball on club, 238, 245 "Ruff," the, golf ball, 300, 309 St. Andrews, Royal and Ancient Golf Club of, 322 Schenectady putter, 320, 326 Self-consciousness, 20 Shaft, torsional strain of, 321 Simplicity of golf, 2 Slice, the, 179 axis of, vertical, Professor Thomson, 237 impact in, 252 Mr. John L. Low on, 258 pressure on rear of ball, Professor Thomson, 241 Professor Thomson on, 250 true axis of, 238 Walter J. Travis on, 190 Slow back, 96 Smooth ball, uneven flight of, 311 Snap of wrists in drive, 205 Soles, broad, of clubs, 328 Spalding, A. G., & Bros., 291 Speed, gradually increasing, 29 Spin, 181 effect on flight, Braid on, 260 Spread of golf, 6 Style, 19 Stymie, cutting round, 73 run-through, 343 "Sweep," a hit with iron clubs, 109 Sweep, the, 12, 98 _Swerve, or the Flight of the Ball_, 224 Swerve, principles of, 223, 233 Swerve, double, 293 Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey on, 305 Swing, premature teaching of, 5 the short, 110 top of, Mr. Horace G. Hutchinson on, 158 Tait, late Professor, 223 Taylor on distribution of weight, 120, 171 on putting, 50 on the sweep, 103 Teaching by elimination, 352 of golf unsound, 43 Temperament, golf the test of, 7 Tension during stroke, Braid on, 133 of muscles during stroke, 38 Thomson, Professor, and smooth ball, 312 Thomson, Professor Sir J. J., 227 _Times, The_, 292 Topped ball, 279 Top-spin, alleged possibilities of, 280 how obtained, 233 in lawn-tennis, Professor Thomson on, 232 nearest approach to, 280 not used in golf, 280 Travis, Walter J., fallacies of, 335 _et seq._ on distribution of weight, 120 Under-spin not essential to long carry, 227 Professor Thomson's error, 246 properties of, 248 Upward concavity against back-spin, 267, 275 Vaile golf ball, 290 putter, 55 stymie stroke, 70 Vardon and blind spot, 169 on cross wind, 256 on cutting a put, 87 Vardon on distribution of weight, 118, 124 on follow-through, 131 on putting, 50, 75 Vardon's weight in follow-through, 131 Vertical axis of slice and pull, Professor Thomson on, 237 Waggle, the, 346 Duncan's, 346 Waist, pivoting from, 122 Weight, distribution of, 13, 25, 27, 97, 117, 171 Weight distribution, Vardon on, 118, 124 Braid on, 119, 121 fallacy, origin explained, 138 Horace Hutchinson on, 120 Mr. Haultain's explanation, 125 Taylor on, 120 W. J. Travis on, 120 Weight on right leg, test for, 122 Wind-cheater, 3, 179 Wind, cross, 242, 256, 257 Wrists, action of, 202 Mr. Horace Hutchinson on, 219 speed of, 217 turn over of, 107 Vardon on action of, 203 _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. * * * * * THE MYSTERY OF GOLF BY ARNOLD HAULTAIN Second and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. Mr. HENRY LEACH in the _EVENING NEWS_.--"Mr. Haultain's book answers to all the tests to which it may be submitted, and I am strongly disposed to regard it as the best book of its kind that has ever been written." Mr. J. SUTHERLAND in the _DAILY NEWS_.--"A short time ago I was asked by a young aspirant ... to point out the book I liked best. 'That wee one?' he inquired, and on my nodding assent he ... took the book down and read ... _The Mystery of Golf_ (Haultain)." _THE PROFESSIONAL AND GREENKEEPER._--"The book is undoubtedly one of the best ever written dealing with the Royal and Ancient Game." 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