When the winds blow and the rains pour down, we discover the true worth of the golfer. The game has no season; it allows no right of control to any weather. It is for all places and for all times, and in the law of the links it is clearly set down that he who is playing by strokes for a prize shall on no account whatsoever delay in the course of his round, nor take any shelter, though Pluvius should pour out upon him from the heavens their entire holding of the most drenching rain. If, in defiance of the stern law of St.Andrews, he does so take shelter, though it be but for a minute under the scanty protection of leafless boughs, he is to be visited with the extreme penalty. Whatever his score, whatever the perfection of his golf, he shall take no prize, his card must be tossed aside as worthless, and he is branded among his fellows as he who was afraid, and as more fitted to putt on the hearthrug by the fireside at home in rivalry with his baby boy or girl, than to take part in this now fierce game of men. What is the law for medal competitions is, in scarcely less measure, the custom and tradition in matches. Once he has begun, the golfer with the great heart must finish his game, and generally he does so. Scotland sometimes turns up its nose at the English golf of the towns; but round about London, among all its “effete civilisation,” there is seen in golf, as in perhaps no other game, that some fine British sporting hearts beat beneath starched linen and silken waistcoats; and it is a thing to think about, that the city man who on ’Change at eleven o’clock in the morning was arrayed most spotlessly and was dealing in his thousands, at three o’clock was driving his little golf ball through wind and blinding rain, drenched to the skin, cold, miserable, despondent with his 8’s and 9’s, but still doing his duty as a golfer to his game.

So the authorities of St.Andrews will in no case countenance the mere fairweather golfer. He must “face the music.” But they do say—they said it when appealed to on one occasion—that the brave player is, after all, entitled to have a hole to putt at, and if the green is under water it is better that there should be no competition. It was the club of St.Duthus that made the appeal, and the experiences of the members of that club on the day concerned were varied and curious. One golfer played his ball on to a “floating green,” and after vainly trying to dodge the sphere along the waters into the neighbourhood of the place where the hole was, he picked it out and claimed the right to play again some other day. But when that same day was far spent and the flood had to some extent subsided, another player came along with his card to that green, and, having worked his ball to within three feet of the place where the hole was, he deftly pitched it up into the air with his mashie and down it came on the water immediately covering the hole, sank for a moment, and came up again floating. Had he holed out? St.Andrews declined to say. They took shelter from this trying problem by observing that that green should not have been played on.

In very similar circumstances a player coaxed his ball to the place where the hole was, and then debated within himself as to how he should hole out. No club that he had would sink the ball, but the law does not prescribe that golf must be played with standard clubs. This resourceful fellow, after due consideration, took his bag from his caddie, held it for a moment above the ball, and then dumped it, end on, down on the floating sphere, sinking it for a second. But was not that a push? And, again, when another man had played on to a floating green he discovered that the wind made a current, and that it—O generous current!—was slowly taking his ball towards the hole. So he waited until it should do so, but it was a slow process, and somebody protested. He claimed that his last stroke was still in progress all the time, and that neither he nor anyone else had any more right to interfere with it than with a ball in flight. However, he was utterly cried down, and his point was not settled.

Thus some curious shots have been played on water; and, have a mind, some great ones too. One of the most classic shots of golf, perhaps the most classic of them all, was that which Fred Tait played in the championship from the water-logged bunker on the far side of the Alps, guarding the seventeenth green at Prestwick. At a moment of crisis he waded in with a forlorn hope, and with a shot that will still be spoken of in a hundred years he saved a point that had seemed gone for ever.

The brave golfer is placed in a difficult position, when his partner is smitten with craven fears of pneumonia and inflammation of the lungs supervening on the soaking that he is getting on the links. What is he to do if in medal competition this fearing one says that he will go no farther, but will hasten back to the clubhouse, with its drying-room and its fire and warm refreshment? The law says that no man shall delay in his round; but how shall the card be marked if the marker goes off for his dry clothes and hot drinks? Ever generous to the brave, St.Andrews has said that he whose heart is thus willing shall not be disqualified, but shall be permitted to scour the links and the clubhouse in search of a new marker, and if haply in the meantime the storm shall have ceased, good luck to him, and may his be the winning card.

But no false excuses. Did you hear of the historic case of the Bury golfers who appealed to St.Andrews for a ruling after one fateful medal day on their rain-swept course? The storm raged, the winds blew, and the rain drove through the players’ garments to the most vulnerable parts of their body. And then one man lost his ball. The other espied a friendly hut and sought shelter there until his unhappy friend should find that which was lost. When it was discovered its owner likewise went to the hut and stayed there for a little while. Why did that golfer seek that hut so? He told St.Andrews that he went there because he had dirtied his face, and his partner had a cloth wherewith it might be wiped! They pleaded for qualification in their competition. “Out upon you for golfers!” said St.Andrews angrily, and so it was decreed.

II

On a frosty day one is apt to damage clubs. The clubmaker does not mind his patrons playing on steely courses. The chances are that one man in a few will need something doing to his shafts or his wooden heads as the result of a day’s play. The list of casualties at sunset is considerable, and somewhat reminds one of the early days when a golf club was a much less lasting thing than it is at present. Old golfers are agreed that the breakage of a club by any kind of player is a thing of infinitely rare happening in comparison with what it used to be only a very few years ago. How is this? It cannot be that beginners are any better or more careful than they used to be, and one is very doubtful as to whether the clubs are made any better (although, perhaps, a trifle more elegant), or are endowed with any more strength than they were in the olden days when there were fewer of them to be made, and when so much time was spent upon their individual perfection. Some people think that the socketed shafts that have become firmly established are less reliable than others, and are more likely to give way under severe strain from misuse, and yet how seldom do we really see a wooden club give way at the socket? On the whole there can be no doubt that our modern clubs are thoroughly well made, but that the real cause why we so seldom see breakages is the lighter work that the clubs have to do with the rubber ball than they were set to in the old days of the gutta. In those old days the jar of impact was harder, severer, harsher, and it sent a shiver through the wrapping of the club that, often repeated, made for an eventual snap. Certainly the decrease in the breakages seems to date exactly from the beginning of the use of the rubber ball.

I have just said that it cannot be that beginners are any better or more careful than they used to be, but this is a statement that needs a trifle of qualification. Your modern beginner has heard from many and diverse authorities of the enormous difficulty of this game, and of the necessity of treating it from the outset with the utmost possible respect; but the neophyte of the olden days was often more of a slapdash, full-blooded fellow, who needed to have two or three strenuous rounds before the spirit in him was fairly broken and he became amenable to the reason of the links. A wonderful story of a wild opening to a golfing career is that of Lord Stormont, when he was initiated at Blackheath some fifty years ago. His lordship had taken too much weight to himself, and SirWilliam Ferguson, his doctor, being consulted, suggested that he ought to have more exercise, and thought that this might best be administered in the form of golf. SirWilliam played golf himself, and, like all good doctors, he recommended the game to lazy pale-faced people whenever he thought the occasion opportune. He said to Lord Stormont, “Go down to Blackheath and put yourself in Willie Dunn’s hands,” Dunn then being professional at this historic course.

Lord Stormont had never seen a golf ball driven in his life, but he took kindly to the idea and repaired to Blackheath. Unfortunately he went there for the first time on a club day, and on this day it was impossible for Dunn to give him his services. But he did as well as he could in the circumstances, and selected his very best caddie, one Weever, quite a capable teacher, and intrusted him with the onerous duty of teaching the game of golf to Lord Stormont. Dunn sold his lordship a full set of good clubs by way of outfit, and away the two went. When the first round had been played, the round at Blackheath then, as now, consisting of only seven holes, Weever returned alone to the professional’s shop, with his pockets full of heads and his arms full of broken shafts. My Lord Stormont had broken every one of his clubs, and had sent his mentor back for a new complete set.

In the second round nearly all of these were broken also; and when, after so many trials and tribulations, Dunn espied the noble beginner returning from the seventh green, he was in some anxious doubt as to how he should best make reference to the events of the day. It was at least encouraging that Lord Stormont was smiling, and so Dunn ventured to observe, “I am very sorry, my lord, that such disasters have befallen you to-day in breaking so many clubs.” For answer the new golfer tapped Dunn on the shoulder, and said, “My dear fellow, don’t mention it. I feel this game has done me already a great deal of good, and it is going to do me still more. Have another set of clubs ready for me by Thursday. I shall be down then.” How many sets of clubs went to the making of the game of Lord Stormont no man knows.

III

Sometimes, in the long and dark evenings, golfers like to play their games in thought by the fireside, and one may suggest to them a new kind of reflection and study which may prove at the same time interesting and not without educational profit, particularly if such reflections are uttered in company and comparisons of views are made. A golfer has no sooner come by some sort of a working knowledge of the different strokes of the game than he longs for adventures on strange courses, to play at holes that are new and strange to him, and—if it must be—to niblick his way out of bunkers that are more fearful than anything he ever encountered on his mother links. This spirit is in every way commendable, and the experience that results from it is one of the best means of gaining skill and steadiness at the game. Thus it happens that every player of two or three years’ practice is acquainted more or less with several different courses in various parts of the country, and it will generally happen that he has the kindest memories of certain holes on each, and that, in fact, there are some of these holes which are his special favourites for their particular length and character. Now if by some impossible grant of nature it were to be ordained that a special course should be made up, consisting of eighteen of his favourite holes, due regard being paid to the proper requirements of a golf course as to variety of length, which eighteen would he select for the purpose, and why? Thoughts on these lines will help him towards an understanding of the points of a good course; for the average player, while he knows a good course when he sees it—or thinks he does—rarely troubles to dissect his general appreciation. Even those players whose game has been almost restricted to play on a few courses in the London or some other district, may entertain themselves by piecing up a new and better course than any they know from the materials with which they are supplied in all the holes they have ever played over.

With the idea thus presented, you may go on to making your own ideal course, and that some basis of necessary requirements may be afforded, it may be added that in the opinion of Mr.Harold Hilton such a course should include three short holes, eleven holes requiring two shots to reach the green under ordinary conditions, and four holes which require three shots to reach the green. Mr.Hilton adds that the short holes ought not to be more than 200yards long, and that in the case of the four very extended holes the minimum of length should be 470yards. The other holes he thinks should vary from 380yards to 430yards. In this connection it is noteworthy that Mr.Hilton’s selections are the Redan at North Berwick and the Himalayas at Prestwick for short holes; the Alps and the eighth at Prestwick, the sixth at Hoylake, the second at St.Anne’s, and the sixth at Sunningdale for two-shot holes; and the fourteenth at Sandwich, the seventeenth at St.Andrews, and the Cardinal at Prestwick for long holes.

In another part of the world there is something now happening that gives a special point to these fancies. It is nothing less than the attempt, backed up by enormous energy and practically unlimited capital, to make “an ideal course,” combining all the best features of the particular holes that it is resolved to copy. A club called the National Golf Club, including among its members many of the best players and many of the richest men in the United States, has been established, and they have taken a big piece of territory on Long Island for the prosecution of their most ambitious scheme. One of the moving spirits, Mr.CharlesB. Macdonald, well known to St.Andrews golfers, and the first American amateur champion, spent a long time in this country about a year or two back, making a most exhaustive study of the best holes on our best courses, and he went home to America with large parcels of most minute plans and photographs. The land chosen on Long Island is a fine piece of country for golf, and this is going to be—is being—so pulled about, built up, and given the general appearance of having been acted upon by several earthquakes, to the end that the best possible copies of these holes shall be made. Although anything in the nature of an exact copy is manifestly impossible in a large proportion of cases, despite all the powers of money and energy, it is declared that at least the underlying principles which account for the superlative excellence of the holes chosen as models shall be faithfully and accurately represented. It is prophesied that on these two hundred acres of land which have been bought at Peconic Bay, there will be combined in one eighteen-hole round the best features of the most celebrated courses in the world; in other words, “a course that shall be the best in the world.” This is a vast ambition, and one which only Americans would find it easy to entertain.

Let me mention what conditions Mr.Macdonald made for the selection of these eighteen holes. He decreed that there should be two short holes for iron shots, between 130 and 160yards in length; two 500-yard holes; two of the “drive and pitch” order, 300 to 320yards; eight good two-shot holes, 350 to 470yards; and four long one-shot holes varying from 190 to 250yards, according to the contour of the ground, the longer holes having the fair green falling towards the putting green. These together would make up a course of about 6000yards in length.

IV

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

It happened the other morning when this match was to be played, that a great disappointment was in store for the little party, as they took train from Charing Cross bound for that fine inland course some twenty miles away to which they were all most devoted. Heavy clouds of ominous complexion were above at nine o’clock, and there was a suspicious look and feel about the atmosphere; but, like all good golfers, these men were optimists all, and would not mention to one another the fear that was in their hearts.

“I daresay we shall have a very nice day after all,” murmured the Parson, and the Colonel stated that he was nearly certain that the glass was rising when he last looked at it. A fine fellow is your golfing optimist. But when London had been left some ten miles behind, the hideous truth was exposed beyond any denial. It was snowing, and the chill of it went to the hearts of the golfers.

“Oh, this won’t be much,” said the M.P., “and it is certain to melt quickly, anyhow; see how watery are the flakes.”

But when they arrived at the course it was snowing more than ever, and big dry flakes were whirling in eddies all about, while the course already lay an inch beneath a white covering. It was a bad case. Unless there was a great change in an hour or so there could be no golf that day, and indeed the idea of it was already almost given up. The four sat in the smoke-room looking exceeding glum. Attempts to make congenial conversation failed. The Parson felt that it was incumbent on him to cheer up his friends, and after other kind efforts he bethought himself of what he considered to be an excellent story.

“Upon my word, you fellows,” he said, “I nearly forgot to tell you of the most extraordinary occurrence that I have ever heard of, and one in which a strange point of golfing law is involved. The case must be sent to St.Andrews.”

Everybody was alert at this announcement. It is an excellent thing to know that a poser of sorts is going to be put to that autocratic assembly in Fifeshire.

“Splendid!” ejaculated the Colonel, “we must hear this story of yours, Septimus; but I hope you are not going to pitch us that yarn you once told me about your wife’s brother having once played a low push shot across a river, and a salmon leaping at the ball as it skimmed across and being carried with it on to the bank! We have heard that, you know.”

“As I told you at the time,” responded the Parson, “I only repeated what my wife’s brother told me, and I certainly did not say that I had seen the fish dragged on to the bank in that manner. But this story was told me by my son Richard, when he was down from Oxford last time, and he declares the incident happened on the course at Radley. One of the men was engaged in a match, and going to the tenth he played a beautiful run up from forty yards off the putting green, that actually made the ball hit the pin and then it rolled into the hole; but it had no sooner got into the hole than out it flew again, and after it came a large frog! It was clear that the ball had rolled on the back of the frog in the hole, and that this frog, startled, no doubt, jumped up and out of the hole, ejecting the ball at the same time. The ball came to rest on the green, and my son’s friend thereupon claimed that he had holed out.”

For a few seconds there was a stony silence, and then the Colonel burst out with a loud guffaw.

“My dear old boy,” he exclaimed, “I am sure that you will find that story, or one very like it, in the Old Testament somewhere if you look sufficiently. It is as old as the hills! You really should not tell us these things. You know what the American did when he was told that story? He put a recommendation in the suggestion book that the club should urge upon the St.Andrews authorities that they should make an addition to the rules to something like this effect:

“‘If any frog, toad, snake, or other reptile, or a mouse, rat, weasel, mole, gopher, or other vermin (or in the case of casual water, a pike, pickerel, perch, pompano, or other fish) be in or near the hole, its presence being established to the satisfaction of two independent witnesses, such reptile, vermin, or fish must be removed before the next stroke is played, under penalty of the loss of the hole. Should a player unwittingly play at the hole when such reptile, vermin, or fish is in it, its presence being subsequently attested by the aforesaid independent witnesses, and such reptile, vermin, or fish either hinder the ball from entering the hole or eject it therefrom, the ball shall nevertheless be considered to have been duly holed, and no penalty shall be incurred.’

“Still,” went on the Colonel, after this little pleasantry, “you have given us a most excellent idea, Septimus. Now let each one of us think awhile, and let us see who can present to our little company the stiffest poser in golf law. Each of us, I suggest, shall be allowed to look at the rules for the space of ten minutes, no more and no less, and shall then have ten more minutes for consideration of his problem. What do you say, boys?”

All agreed that the idea was a most excellent one for the purpose of killing time and gathering knowledge about the rules. It was decided that the company should vote, if necessary, on the answers, and that while the Parson should be at liberty to choose his own position in the recital in virtue of what he had done already, the others should draw lots. The reverend gentleman decided that he would go last, and, on lots being drawn, the Colonel was settled to present the first problem, the Author the second, and the M.P. the third. When the twenty minutes had expired the four assembled at the table, and the Colonel was called upon to present his queer case. It was suggested to him that he should make it look as real as possible.

He submitted it as follows:

“Here is a nice point, which I think an Imperial Conference might be called upon to determine. General Botha, let us say, has a little dog, which takes some intelligent interest in the game of golf, as do many other dogs. He goes out to play a match with Dr.Jameson, and despite all rule and custom, ‘Bobs,’ as the little dog is called, is permitted to accompany them. When approaching the fourth hole the Doctor plays a lovely wrist shot with his iron which sends the ball on to the green, trickling close up to the pin. In one of his frisky moments that wretched dog scampers after it, picks it up in his mouth before it (the ball) had stopped running, and then begins playing about with it. The dog drops the ball on to the green two or three times, paws at it and plays with it, and then, seemingly struck by an inspiration, rolls it into the hole. ‘By Jove! That’s my hole, then, Botha!’ exclaims the Doctor, although the General has laid his ball dead with his mashie with the like. ‘How do you make that out? Let us be fair, now that we are such good friends,’ says Botha. ‘Most certainly,’ replies the Doctor, ‘but you must see that as the ball went into the hole from that last shot of mine I holed from that shot. Of course it was a pity that your dog got up to his tricks, but he is an outside agency, and I don’t see that it makes any difference to the result.’ Botha thinks awhile. Then he asks, ‘Did you watch “Bobs” closely while he had the ball?’ Dr.Jameson assented. ‘Then,’ Botha says, ‘there may be one circumstance in which you do not win that hole, my friend, and when we go to England we will discuss it with the authorities.’ Now what was passing through Botha’s mind, and is his point a good one anyway?”

“Excellent for you, Colonel,” said the M.P. after a moment’s pause. “Now, gentlemen, what must we do with Botha, for it is clear that we are the authority to whom he refers. But then we have a right to know what it was that Botha had in his mind at the finish of his little argument with Dr.Jim. You will tell us that, Colonel?”

“Botha urges that he saw ‘Bobs’ let the ball come to rest when pawing it about.”

“And what does Jameson say to that?” inquired the Author.

“Oh, Jameson does not deny it. He says that he did not see it, but he thinks it very probable, and he will certainly yield that point if it is material, as he desires that the case should be settled strictly on its merits, neither side taking any unfair advantage of the other.”

“It is a pity that they could not settle it on terms of equity,” said the Parson.

“I don’t agree that equity has anything to do with the case,” observed the Colonel at length. “It seems to me that Botha’s point settles it, and that the ball must be played from the place where the dog allowed it to come to rest. I don’t think Dr.Jim wins the hole at all. Rule22 governs the case partly but not entirely. By the way, Septimus, when we turn up rules to settle these cases, I think you should only look at those affecting the one in hand, and not at other rules which have a bearing on the case you are to present. You have had your ten minutes’ study, you know. Now it is clear that the ball was in motion when the dog seized it, and if the dog then took it direct to the hole it all counted in the stroke. This case does not come within the clause about the ball lodging in anything moving, because the dog was not moving when it seized the ball. Once the dog let the ball stop on the green the stroke was ended. Therefore it is evidently a question as to whether it allowed it to come to rest or not, and Botha’s evidence settles the matter. What do you say, William?”

“I entirely agree,” responded the M.P.

“And you, Jim?”

“I agree,” said the Author.

“I trust we can count on your support, Septimus?” said the Colonel, looking across towards the Parson.

“Oh, certainly,” he replied.

“Gentlemen,” said the Colonel in his most official manner, “it is determined that Dr.Jameson did not hole out with that stroke. I am informed that they putted out afterwards, each in one more, and therefore the hole was halved. Now, my literary friend, will you kindly present your case?”

The Author thereupon advanced his queer case as follows:

“A very awkward point has arisen in the course of play on the links at Valhalla. Shakespeare and Bacon, who are staying there at the present time, got up very early one morning, when the other golfers were asleep, and went out for a match, without caddies. Going to the seventh hole, which is both a short one and a blind one—a thoroughly bad hole—the players were not aware that the greenkeeper was on the putting-green cutting a new hole. They played their tee shots and then went forward to the green, when they were surprised to find that the ball of each lay dead to a different hole. The greenkeeper had taken the flag and the metal lining out of the old hole, and had cut the slab of turf out of the new one, but had not at that time placed the metal cup or the flag into the new one, nor put the turf into the old one to fill it up. Bacon’s ball lay dead to the new hole, and Shakespeare’s to the old one. Each insisted on holing out at the hole to which his ball lay dead (the holes were many yards apart), and then the dispute began, each claiming the hole. Shakespeare said that as the new hole was not finished the old one was still in commission. ‘No,’ said Bacon, ‘not satisfied with cheating me out of my plays, you now try to take my holes. We have evidently been playing at new holes all the way out so far, and we must continue to do so. It is the new holes that count.’ ‘But,’ expostulated Shakespeare, ‘there are more old holes on the course at the present time than new ones. And this wretched greenkeeper will take two hours to finish his job. Must we dawdle behind him the whole way round? Let us ask the greenkeeper which hole was most like a hole at the time the balls came on to the green.’ The greenkeeper, however, was very ill-tempered, having been nearly hit by one of the balls, and he declined to answer the question. He said that people had no business to be playing on the course while holes were being cut, no matter who they were. Eventually the parties gave up their match and went back to the clubhouse, when they agreed to submit the point to some carefully constituted authority that would do its best to settle this most unfortunate and undignified quarrel between two eminently respectable persons of considerable standing.”

The Author looked about him after this deliverance.

“H’m!” muttered the Colonel, “not bad for you, Jim.”

“It seems to me,” said the Reverend Septimus, “that Bacon certainly won if the new hole was full size, despite its not having had the tin put into it.”

“Oh yes, it was full size,” interposed the Author.

“The old hole,” pursued the Parson, “was ground under repair, but if the new hole was not full size Shakespeare won.”

“Of course,” remarked the Author, “the tin is only mentioned to indicate the state of transition.”

“I don’t agree with Septimus,” said the M.P. “The rules do not provide for this contingency, and it must be settled under the equity clause of Rule36. Regarding it in this way, it seems exactly six of one and half a dozen of the other, and the best—indeed, the only thing—to do is to regard the green as under repair, and the hole as temporarily closed. Shakespeare and Bacon should therefore call it a half and pass on. If they had seen the flag before playing their tee shots it might have made a difference.”

“I am in entire accord with you, William,” the Colonel declared.

“Ditto,” said the Author. “That was the ruling I had in my mind.”

“I think we ought to have another opinion,” persisted the Parson, “but for the present I desire to go with the majority.”

“Now let us hear the character of the problem that our friend the hon. member for North-East Fife has to present to this tribunal,” said the Colonel, with an expectant look to the quarter indicated.

“My case is a somewhat singular one, gentlemen,” the M.P. responded. “It is this:

“A public road leading to the clubhouse crosses the line to the second hole, and when John Smith and Isaac Rosenstein were playing this hole it happened that Isaac’s bad slice landed his ball under the back seat of a motor-car standing still in the road, said car, curiously enough, being the new one which Rosenstein himself has bought this season, and which, it is suggested, he likes to ‘show off’ with. Seeing where the ball had gone to, and having the price of ten balls on the match, a thought passed through his mind. Hailing the chauffeur in the car, he exclaimed, ‘You mitherable vellow! Did I not tell you to geep that car in the garage at the back of the clubhouse, where it vould not be damaged. Be off vith you this very instant, or I vill sack you! Quick!’ And before John Smith could speak the chauffeur was doing his forty miles an hour back to the clubhouse—with the ball still in the car. Smith and Rosenstein then wrangled for hours, the latter being greatly astonished because his opponent objected to his dropping a ball, and that without penalty, at the spot where he played his last stroke. The points presented for argument are these: (1)Shall Rosenstein drop without losing a stroke? (2)Shall he drop and lose stroke and distance? (3)Shall he not drop at all, but lose the hole? (4)Shall he play the ball from where it lies under the seat of the motor-car in the club garage, as, if he loses on the first two counts, he wants to do? (5)What ought to have been done?”

“I trust that your friend Rosenstein will not offer himself as a candidate for membership of this club,” observed the Colonel with a smile, “because you might tell him if he thinks of doing so that I have heard of this incident, and I happen to be on the committee.”

“He is no friend of mine,” said the M.P.

“Well then, gentlemen,” the man of arms demanded, “what is your pleasure that we should do in the affaire Rosenstein?”

“I don’t think there is very much doubt about that,” observed the Parson, “We must be unanimous in this matter. I think we may safely leave it to you, Colonel, to make the award.”

The M.P. and the Author assented, but it was understood that the former should have the privilege of sending the case back for re-trial if he disagreed.

“Then, gentlemen,” said the Colonel, “I give judgment as follows:

“Rosenstein loses the hole. It was his duty to have played the ball from the place where it lodged in the car, and there is a strong suspicion that he knew it! He is not entitled to regard the car as an agency outside the match, since he controlled the car and ordered it away. By his own act he made it impossible for him to obey the rules. He loses under Rule7, and it may be mentioned that the Rules of Golf Committee has already decided that a ball played into a motor-car must be played out of it, or the hole given up. Clearly the ball lying in the car in the club garage does not lie where it did before.”

“I quite agree,” said the M.P.

“But should not something be done with Rosenstein?” the Parson asked.

“That is for his own committee to determine,” the Colonel replied. “We have no jurisdiction. And now, Septimus, I am sure that the tit-bit of this sitting of the court will be submitted by you. We are anticipating that. I beg to move that if your case is not so pointed and interesting as those already presented, you shall be condemned to give such an order to the steward as will do something to stifle our disappointment, and take the chill from our blood on this wretched day. What do you think, my colleagues?”

“It is an excellent and a most proper idea,” the Author said, and the M.P. concurred.

“As you will,” the clergyman assented. “Now the little problem that has arisen in my mind runs this way:—

“Dives said to Lazarus, ‘These are days of charity, my poor friend, but the cases must be deserving. The par of this course is 74. If you can get round in 68 I will give you one twentieth of what I have got.’ Lazarus wept tears of gratitude, and forthwith began to take lessons and to practise exceedingly, three rounds a day, for his handicap was 24. And years passed by and he did not go round even in par; but one day, having great luck, a sensation was caused about the links, and the word was passed about that old Lazarus had got a 4 at the last hole to do 68. And he had. But he took 3 to get on the green, and then had a 10-yard putt for the 4 and 68, which was not an easy matter, particularly as the putt was downhill and there was a big slope from the left as well. Dives was watching and he smiled, but Lazarus was in sore trouble. Then he bethought himself of an idea, and he placed a ball to the left of his own and he tried to putt it to a point exactly a foot to the left of the hole. First he found that he borrowed too much, and then too little, and next that he was too strong, but eventually he got it right exactly, and his ball just got to a foot to the left of the hole. ‘Now, I know,’ he said, and then he putted his proper ball, and with great confidence, and it went into the hole! Whereupon Dives was much wroth, and said, ‘Surely I will not give you a twentieth of what I have got, for you have offended against the law and the spirit of the game, and you did not go round in 68, but are disqualified.’ Lazarus said, ‘Master, I have not offended against the law of the game, and as for the spirit thereof I care not, for having gained the twentieth of what you have got I shall never play it more.’ And when they heard what Lazarus said they were amazed, and they said they must have some proper judgment upon it. Does Lazarus come into his fortune after finding the line and strength of his putt in that fashion?”

The Parson seemed pleased with himself when he had finished his statement.

“I believe the beggar’s got off—Septimus, I mean!” the M.P. ejaculated.

“I am sure he has,” agreed the Colonel.

“Now, you see,” put in the Author, “the wretched Lazarus did not tamper with the line of the putt. He practised along what was to all intents and purposes that line; but it was not the line, or else he might have been caught. He placed no mark and drew no line.”

“That is so,” muttered the Colonel thoughtfully.

“He clearly offended against the spirit of the game,” the M.P. observed. “You or I would not have done such a thing in any circumstances, eh, Colonel?”

“Of course not,” the Colonel replied, “but it has to be remembered that this was really almost a matter of life and death to the old man, and in such a case he was perhaps not to be blamed for sticking to the strict letter of the law. From our point of view the spirit is above the law; but when it comes to a case of this kind, with goodness knows how many thousands at stake, a merciless fellow on the other side who is himself inclined to stick to the law exactly, and when Lazarus, as he says, intends to have done with the game, why I am not sure that from his point of view—his, mind you—he is to be condemned for throwing the spirit overboard. His opponent would do so—in fact, to all intents and purposes he does. This has become a strictly business transaction. The question is, did he break the law?”

“You remember the Rules Committee’s decision in the famous Selkirk case in 1906?” the M.P. asked. “It showed the Committee’s very proper anxiety to preserve the true spirit even to the extent of straining the interpretation of the rule about touching the line of the putt. I believe some of them privately admitted that they were conscious of straining it; but they were doing so in a very good cause, and to my mind they were to be applauded rather than blamed. In this case a foursome was being played, and while one man was preparing to putt, his partner stood two yards beyond the hole on the other side, and from there pointed out the line of the putt, incidentally letting his putter rest on the turf to do so—two yards beyond the hole. The opponents claimed the hole on the ground that the line of the putt had been touched, meaning that the line from the ball to the hole, continued beyond the hole, was still the line of the putt. The case was sent to St.Andrews, and the Rules Committee upheld the claim and gave the hole to the opponents—a remarkable decision!”

“H’m!” the Colonel grunted. “Of course, give some golfers an inch and they will take a yard; and supposing the putter had been laid on that line only two inches beyond the hole, the green had been very keen, and had sloped down to the hole from the back side. If the ball had got to the point where the putter had rested it might conceivably have rolled back into the hole. There would be splendid justification for the Rules Committee in a case of that kind, and it would prove the wisdom of the Selkirk decision. Of course every day of our lives we see golfers, when studying their putts from the back side of the hole, allowing their putters to rest on the green in the continuation of the line. However, Lazarus seems to have been quite clear of any decision of this kind. By no stretch of imagination can you call a line which is a foot to one side of the real line, although parallel to it, ‘the line of the putt.’”

“The Americans have been tinkering with a proposed new set of rules,” the Author said, “and one of their suggested rules prohibits a practice swing anywhere except on the tee. That would govern this case.”

“Ah yes, but what about our own code?” the Colonel said.

“The practice stroke is not forbidden,” the M.P. observed after careful reference to the rules, “but I remember that on one occasion a very similar point was submitted to the Rules Committee, and they said that such a thing was so obviously contrary to the spirit of the game that they had not thought it necessary to legislate upon the point. And they have not done so, and”—

“That is so, and they were quite right,” the Colonel interrupted hurriedly, “because this is golf, and we cannot have rules in our code to say that men must not cheat, and the penalties for doing so. It would be too much of a reflection on us as gentlemen and golfers. But here is a most exceptional case, where advantage is taken of the omission, and Lazarus appeals to the law and the law only. He will stand by the law—the strict letter of it.”

“I believe he must have his money,” the Author said.

“It is the law,” said the M.P.

“I think so,” put in the Parson.

“Then, Septimus,” the Colonel concluded, “will you kindly tell your friend Lazarus that he may send a chartered accountant round to Dives’ headquarters to examine his financial position, with a view to a proper apportionment of his estate on the basis of nineteen parts to Dives and one part to Lazarus? And you had better tell the new record-holder at the same time that we don’t like this sort of thing, and we expect him to keep to his statement that he will not play the game again. He will have the fever on him after that 68, and with a few thousands a year at his disposal he will be after getting into all the clubs. I know these renunciations of golf. I have renounced myself—hundreds of times!”

At this moment the door opened and the steward entered to say that luncheon was ready. “Splendid!” exclaimed the Colonel. “Gentlemen, the court is closed!”

V

Golf remained impossible in the afternoon, and the M.P. filled up his time by working out some golf statistics with a view to indicating to the ignorant public what was comprised in a year of golf.

“You see,” he said, “sooner or later some of the very high authorities will find it to be necessary to take very serious notice of this game, of the number of people whose time it claims, of the land it engages, of the capital sunk in it, and of the enormous current expenditure upon it. Golf has really become a considerable factor in the social scheme of this country, and this must be recognised by legislators. I see that the Union authorities at Wirral have been giving some attention to the matter, with the result that they have jumped on the Royal Liverpool Club with an enormously increased assessment. The process of milking the golfer will begin soon.”

“Well,” said the Colonel indulgently, “if our little game is to become a matter of national importance, you will be having questions asked about it in the House before long; eh, William?”

“It is odd that you should make that suggestion,” the Parliamentarian responded, as he began to rummage in the inside pocket of his coat, “because I have a rather curious document here which amplifies it somewhat. Let me see—I am sure I had it in my letter-case—well, well!—Ah yes, here it is! I was going to say that one of the keenest golf youngsters we have got in this Parliament is young Norris, whose constant object in life seems to be to pair off with one of the Opposition down to Sunningdale. I believe he would rather win the Parliamentary Handicap next year than get a small Government job. Well, in the House he is always filling up his spare time with the development of some golfing idea or other. The other night there was quite an angry discussion between him and another of his kidney upon the question as to whether, if a ball were teed alongside the Beaconsfield statue, a Massey or a Braid could loft it over the Houses of Parliament and into the river, and eventually the pair of them went out to see what sort of a shot it really would be. The next night, when somebody whispered to him that there would be a lot more sense in discussing a Bill for the Regulation of the Rubber Core than the measure that just then was occupying the attention of the House, he got out some paper and concocted what he called a ‘Forecast of a Report of the Parliamentary Proceedings in 1950,’ and that is what I have got here. Just listen to this for question time:

“‘HOUSE OF COMMONS—Thursday

“‘The Speaker took the chair at 3.5.

“‘Unrest in Morocco

“‘In answer to Mr.R. Kore (+1), the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs stated that no more rubber-cored balls would be shipped to Morocco until some kind of guarantee had been given by the Maghzen that British golfers would be treated with respect and every consideration extended to them in the pursuit of their game. Latest advices were to the effect that parties of Moors had constantly collected round the ninth green at Tangier and the third at Mogador and had made faces at the players while they were putting, causing them the most intense annoyance and completely ruining their play. His Majesty’s ships Baffy and Niblick had been instructed to proceed to Mogador without delay, and left Gibraltar on Friday. (Loud cheers from both Government and Opposition benches.)

“‘Mr.A. Gutta (10): Is it a fact that Germany has encouraged the Moors in these acts of rebellion? (Loud cries of “Order.”)

“‘The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs: The hon. member must perceive that public considerations make it undesirable that any answer should be given to his question.

“‘Mr.Will Labor (40): Will the right hon. gentleman inform the House what are the handicaps of the British officials at present in Morocco, and will he state whether in his opinion the rebellious attitude of the Moors has been caused to some extent by the inferior playing capacity of these servants, which has been such as to excite the derision of the native population? (Loud cries of “Order” and “Withdraw.”)

“‘The Speaker: The hon. member must not cast aspersions on the handicaps of the public servants of His Majesty’s Government.

“‘Mr.Labor: I could give them all a stroke a hole! (“Oh, oh.”)

“‘The Speaker: I must ask the hon. member not to persist in these reflections on the playing quality of the Government servants in Morocco, and to withdraw what he has already said.

“‘Mr.Labor: I withdraw. No doubt they are all Vardons. (“Order, order.”)

“‘The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs: It may interest the hon. gentleman the member for Woolwich, to know that a cable received at the Foreign Office this morning stated that the British Consul at Mogador had just holed out with a mashie shot. (Loud and prolonged cheering.)

“‘Great Britain and Russia

“‘In answer to Mr.T. Box (+4), the Prime Minister (+7) said that there was no development to report in the negotiations which were at present proceeding with the Government of Russia. The British Government had suggested that under clause563B of the Hague Convention the differences existing between the two Governments should be decided by one professional foursome, but Russia had replied that this suggestion was obviously unfair, unless the British Government gave an undertaking not to select Taylor and Braid as their representatives. In the absence of a friendly understanding on such lines as these, there would be nothing for it but for the British Government to pour golfers into Russia with a view to winning all their monthly medals and cups, and with such a possibility in view detachments of our best players had been mobilised and were now doing two practice rounds a day at Sandwich and Prestwick. The transports Stymie and Bunker were in readiness, each stored with ten thousand boxes of the best balls. (Loud Government and Opposition cheers.)

“‘The Boom in the Ball Trade

“‘Mr.R. Tisan (20) asked whether it was true that the ballmakers of Glasgow had been working twenty-four hours a day for the last six weeks, and in some cases more.

“‘The President of the Board of Trade (scratch): In no case have these ballmakers been working more than twenty-three hours a day, and they have been paid at the full twenty-four rate, and are quite satisfied. If Great Britain did not make and sell the balls, America would.

“‘Mr.R. Tisan: But they have no time left for play.

“‘The President of the Board of Trade: They play nine holes in the dinner hour instead of utilising it in the customary manner. (“Hear, hear.”)

“‘No Stymies

“‘In answer to Mr.Foozleum (42), the Minister of Education (2) stated that it was not true that the children in the schools at Hoylake and Westward Ho! were being taught to play no stymies, or that they were systematically encouraged to play the score game to the neglect of true match play. What had happened was simply this, that there had been complaints that the last lot of mashies that had been received from Taylor and Forgan had not sufficient loft for very young players, and that all attempts to loft over stymies with them had failed, though the senior players experienced no such difficulties. In the circumstances the teachers, acting under authority of the Board of Education, had thought it best to suspend stymies until more mashies came to hand. As to score play, the simple fact was that one or two of the senior students were going in for the Open Championship, and had been doing a little practising in view of it. It might interest the House to know that one of them, Smith by name, had done a round of 75 at Hoylake with a wind blowing straight upwards from the turf. This was a splendid performance, and showed the efficacy of the new Education Act which the Government brought into force last year, which made the use of the Complete Golfer compulsory in all elementary schools. (Loud Ministerial cheers.)

“‘Bills

“‘The Bogey Amendment Bill was read a third time and passed.

“‘The Women’s Handicaps Bill was read a first time.

“‘Championship Courses

“‘The House then went into Committee on the Championship Courses Bill.

“‘Mr.John Blumond (scratch) asked how much longer the just claims of Ireland were to be ignored. Irish golfers were in such a state of irritation, due to the way in which they were neglected, that it was impossible for them to settle down to the improvement of their game, with the result that Irish driving was never so bad as at present, and his suffering compatriots could not putt for nuts or potatoes.

[Left Sitting].’”

“Rather good,” commented the Author at the end of this recital. “Wasn’t it that young Norris who circulated the jest that if he could play his mashie pitches properly he would be down to scratch and in the running for a small kind of office, and that if he could get to plus7 he would be the President of the British Republic?”

“That’s the man,” the M.P. answered. “Very nice sort of chap, too. We must bring him down here one day. Richardson took him down to Rye for a week-end once, but had to go back to town again without him at the end of a whole week.”

“Ha!” said the Colonel, “but that’s nothing in comparison with the true story of the non-golfer who went to Sandwich for a week-end nine years ago, and at the invitation of his friend experimented with the game, and has been down there ever since, playing it!”

“Good man!” exclaimed the Author.

“But what about these statistics, William?” the Colonel inquired.

“Well,” said the M.P., “I have calculated that at the present time there are over a million acres under golf in Great Britain, and that a sum-total of about £4,700,000 a year is now spent on the game in this country. But you get the queerest results when you come to consider the balls that are used in a year, and what happens to them.”

“Proceed,” said the Colonel.

VI

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

“To begin with, there are said to be 300,000 golfers in this country. It has been reckoned that at the height of the summer golfing season, when the players are busy everywhere, not less than 500,000 balls are used up every week. This, indeed, seems to be a most reasonable estimate—less than two balls per man per week, with an enormous percentage of players out on the links four or five days a week. It was semi-officially stated last June that one firm of makers, and that not by any means the biggest, was working night and day, and turning out 100,000 balls a week. Decidedly half a million is well within the mark. Taking the whole year round, if you say one ball per golfer per week, that is surely a very modest reckoning. It is practically a certainty that it is an underestimate. At that rate we have a grand total of 15,000,000 balls used up every year by the British golfers on British links. Fifteen millions!”

“Good gracious!” the Parson exclaimed. “One would hardly believe it!”

“Yes, let us see what we can do with these 15,000,000 besides play 6,000,000,000 shots with them, which is what may be done, allowing four rounds to each ball and a hundred strokes to each round, and what with foozlers, women, and children, you will find that a hundred is a very fair average, even if it is only the medal-winning score of the 20-handicap man.

“Seven balls go to the lineal foot, and thus there are forty-nine of them in the square foot. It seems hard to believe that all the balls of a year could, if packed nicely together after the fashion of eggs, be laid out in a fair-sized field of seven acres. But stay! I can give you some fancy idea of what this annual ball crop really means after all. There are seven to the foot—in one little lineal foot you have sufficient balls to last a careful week-end player for a couple of months. Now, bring out the army of caddies that there are in the country and set them to work teeing the balls up right against and touching each other in a line, beginning with the first at Charing Cross, or, to be more appropriate, on the Mid-Surrey course at Richmond. Then proceed northwards. There will still be a few balls left in the pockets of the caddies when they have continued that long line of one year’s balls right away through Rugby, Stafford, Carlisle, and over the Border range to Edinburgh, and on to the Braid Hills course. We can join the premier courses of two capitals with the balls of one year, for the line we make is 405miles long, and at 11s. or 12s. a foot it would be considerably more expensive than the ordinary permanent way. It is a wonderful line. Nine yards of it will last a busy golfer a whole year, and he need never be reproached for putting down a dirty ball.”

The Hon. Member for North-East Fife was fairly warmed to his theme by this, and he pursued enthusiastically: “There is some food for reflection in the incidental mention that I have just made that the British golfers play 6,000,000,000 shots every year. Puck boasted some time ago that he could ‘put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes.’ It might surprise this sprite to know that the British golfers could do the job in ten minutes, which is the time we might give them to drive a dozen balls each from the tee. If those were fair drives, and were put end to end, they would easily go round the world, with a little to spare. Evidently, then, the British golfers go the distance of the circumference of the world many times over in the course of the year. You may take it that the average player, what with going off the line, waddling about on the putting greens, walking from green to tee, and so on, does a tramp of four miles in every round of eighteen holes that he makes. At four rounds a week, that is sixteen miles a week, or eight hundred in the golfing year of fifty weeks, a fortnight’s holiday for illness, dissipation, and foreign travel, being allowed in all these annual calculations. So our 300,000 British golfers in the course of the year walk and tool their balls for a matter of 240,000,000miles. Most of this abundant exercise would not be taken if there were no golf.

“This 240,000,000 of miles means that if the British golfers had a links round the middle of the earth they would collectively play 60,000 times round it in the course of the year. They would be almost jostling and continually driving into each other. There would be a shriek of ‘Fore!’ from the Gulf of Guinea to Borneo, and it would be wailed across the wide Pacific. It would prevent overcrowding and blocking at the short holes if a course were laid out to the sun and back, and the British golfers were started off at five minutes intervals. It would be nearly 93,000,000miles to the turn, and the same back, and if the British golfers then did a short round to Venus and home again, putting on another 50,000,000, they would nearly have done their usual year’s golf.

“But this little glimpse into the fairyland of golf,” said the Hon. Member in a tone of conclusion, “has all come about through the contemplation of that simple-looking pimply little ball, and it is time we wound up our consideration of it. It has been said that there are 15,000,000 used in Britain in the year. Suppose the average cost is 1s. 6d., which it probably is. That means that the nice little sum of £1,125,000 is spent by the British golfer in the course of the year in golf balls.”

“Prodigious!” exclaimed the Parson.

“Well, I don’t know what you think, William,” put in the Colonel, “but my recommendation is that all facts which indicate the extensiveness of this game, and the enthusiasm of its followers, such as some of those you have quoted, had better be kept to ourselves. On one day in April we shall be having a Chancellor of the Exchequer coming along with a fine scheme for paying the National Debt off by means of golf. And now, boys, we’d better be off. Next Thursday, we said, didn’t we? And it’s to be red balls then, if necessary!”

VII

When the short days, wet and cold, come on, some golfers speak of the virtues of close seasons for games. There never can be any regularly ordained close season in golf; such is neither needed nor desired. But now and then some men will try the imposition of such a season on themselves.

They oil and put away their clubs, give away their stock of balls, put everything connected with golf away into the box-room, and settle down to a course of winter reading, study, and attention to those domestic and social matters which have for so long been sadly neglected. All goes well for a week, and then they think there will be no harm in getting out an aluminium putter and practising on the hearthrug for five minutes or so in the evening. This is found to be a wonderfully interesting occupation, and presently they unstore the mashie or well-lofted iron in order to practise negotiating stymies—a form of practice which cannot fail to be useful in the forthcoming season. Ten days later they ask themselves what is the use of being strong-minded and miserable, they ring up somebody on the telephone, and they catch the next train down to the course.

In the majority of cases the particular way in which the cold affects the members of the close-season party and crabs their shots, is in reducing their wrists and hands to a state of numbness in which it is certainly difficult for anybody to play the game as it ought to be played. Such people may be recommended to adopt a very simple device, which is in favour among the best and sturdiest players, namely, that of wearing knitted cuffs or mittens over those wrists and coming some way up on the hands. Mr.Hilton carries this idea to the extent of wearing a special kind of thick, warm cuffs made of fur, and the effect is to keep warm those important and much exposed veins in the wrists which feed the hands with blood. The difference is wonderful; but if it is still insufficient to enable the man to do what he considers justice to his game, and if he is still miserable, there is no harm in his imposing a close season upon himself. But he must not talk like the fox who lost his tail, and try to induce others to stop the game as well. It is no use pretending that the game generally would be any the better for it.

But let us take the question as to whether a man’s golf, supposing it is normally good golf, ever can be any better for a more or less lengthy stoppage, and upon it I have taken the opinions of several different authorities, with the result that, though they do not all agree, there is a strong balance in favour of keeping your golf going all the time if you want to improve or even maintain it at its best standard. You will generally find that it is only the amateurs who ever get really stale. The professionals rarely do. Mr.Horace Hutchinson is apparently one of those who do not believe in giving up one’s golf for any length of time. He thinks the results are generally disastrous, and he tells how on one occasion in his earlier days, when he was reading for the Bar, he did not look at a golf club for some months, with the result that when he resumed the game he found that he had forgotten a great deal of it, had to relearn it, and found even then that it was not the same good game that he had been bred up with. He now counsels all who are going anywhere for a long holiday or anything of that kind, on no account to go near a place where there is no golf course, for the result will be that life will never be the same again as regards its golf. “You never play again,” he says, “with the same confidence, the same fearlessness, the same certainty that you can control the ball and make it do what you tell it to do. You may make something of the game afterwards, but I am sure that you will lose immensely. You do not play in the same instinctive way as before.” Men like Braid and Vardon would not say “Thank you” for a month’s holiday in which they could not play golf regularly, despite the fact that they are always playing. One recent winter Harry Vardon was sent to Bournemouth for his health, and they took good care to see that his clubs did not go with him, and solemnly warned him that he must not play there, for he might have been equal to borrowing somebody else’s clubs. Then he would write to London in a most pathetic manner, saying, “They won’t let me have my clubs and play,” as if he were being deprived of food and the necessaries of life.

There are some exceptions to this rule of continual play that may be taken as proving it. There is the case of Andrew Kirkaldy, who, after being second for the Open Championship in 1879, went for to be a soldier, was sent to Egypt, fought at Tel-el-Kebir and other places, came back in 1886, and soon afterwards tied for the Open Championship. Mr.Edward Blackwell had two separate spells of farming in California, each lasting about five years, during which periods he never saw a golf club or ball, but each time he came home he regained his best form almost immediately, and captured Royal and Ancient Club medals. But, after all, in golf every man must be to a large extent a law unto himself; and the fact that he is so is one of the glories of the game.

VIII

It is a glorious thing to play a game that one need never give up, however long one may live. And what is more, the game can be played well by the veteran, and he enjoys it almost as much as ever, and does not merely take part in it for the sake of the fresh air and the exercise. Possibly if he had not been a golfer in his middle age, and perhaps in his youth as well, he would not be able to play any game, even a fireside game, by the time he was due to become an octogenarian. For some years previously his pleasures would have been with the angels. One cannot discover who is the oldest golfer, but there are many still active on the links who are nearing ninety, including a celebrated peer-patron of the game. Considering the matter from the other point of view, we have the remarkable fact that nearly every professional golfer of note in these days (and a large though decreasing proportion of amateurs) began to play golf of some sort as soon as his baby intelligence had developed sufficiently to make him understand that if he hit a ball with a stick it would move. They began to play as soon as they could walk, and almost to a man they declare that the very first memories they have of anything in life are associated with playing some kind of childish golf, and aping their elders in every possible way.

It is to the fact of their having done so that they attribute most of their success in their after life at the game. As children they developed a free, easy, natural swing that has stood them in good stead ever since, and it has become so rooted into their system that they are far less liable than other golfers who began much later, to be constantly going off their game and dropping out of their proper swing. Harry Vardon, James Braid, J.H. Taylor, Alexander Herd, Willie Park, Jack White, and all the rest of them played golf as the very smallest children. The two last-named both declare that they developed their extraordinary putting faculties when they were mere babies. Park, a king of putters, it is certain, gained his extraordinary delicacy of touch, and fine discrimination in selecting the line to the hole, through practising as a very small boy with marbles on the stone or brick floor of his father’s workshop at Musselburgh, a slight hollow in the floor being regarded as the hole. He got a passion for such putting practice, and at nights would surreptitiously borrow the key to the shop and hie there with some other boys for putting practice. He says that he has never had such hard putting to do since, and that when in due course he went out on the links to play the real game, putting seemed very easy to him. The first clubs that Alexander Herd ever used were glued together for him by his mother, and his first golf was obtained in the streets of St.Andrews. It was much the same with several of the best amateurs, though from the evidence that one can obtain they do not appear to have been such keen golfers when babies as were the professionals. Mr.Hilton, one of the most skilful amateurs of any time, thinks he was about six when he first went forth to try to play with a full set of his father’s clubs.

Then, practising all through their childhood and youth, at what age did these men first begin to play first-class golf, and to give signs of their future greatness? From an analysis I have made of their own statements, and the events of their careers, I find that in nearly every case it was at about seventeen—just when their stature and physical powers had fairly fully developed. In practically all cases men who were subsequent champions were good scratch players at this age. But you will always find that it takes them many more years after this to make their game perfect—many years of the hardest and most persistent practice conceivable. Mr.Hilton came on very quickly, being in championship form when he was twenty-two, and Taylor had fully matured by the time he was twenty-three. But Harry Vardon was twenty-six, and Braid was thirty-one. Generally a man who is destined to play the great golf, and who has been at it all his life, does not begin to settle down to the steady brilliant game until he has passed twenty-five, and from that point he usually improves a little until he is thirty, at which he is at his very best. Thirty is the golden age for golf. Look back through history, and see how formidable have been the great men at that age. The fact may be useful evidence against those who sneer about the “old man’s game,” as showing how long it takes to attain perfect golf when everything is in your favour. Mr.Barry’s victory in the amateur event when he was nineteen, and those of Mr.Travis and Mr.Hutchings when these gentlemen were quite middle-aged (anyhow, Mr.Travis, the younger, was forty-three), have to be regarded simply as phenomena, and as the exceptions which prove the rule. The tale of the ages, as gathered from all experience, seems to be that the ideal golfer begins as a baby, is scratch at seventeen, a champion at twenty-five or twenty-six, and perhaps again at thirty-two, and that thenceforth he plays serenely on until at eighty-five or thereabouts he engages in a great foursome with other old warriors. And, taking it all round, a very good time he has had.

IX

In the dampest and gloomiest days of the British winter, the golfer’s fancy often flies to Riviera and Egyptian courses; and a while later the golfer follows his fancy, so that he may have a dry game in the sunshine again. Golf in Egypt is a thing to itself. “Through the green” it is mere sandy desert, for bunkers there are chiefly mud walls, and the putting “greens,” which vary a little on the different courses, are generally made of rolled mud. Yet this golf is eagerly participated in and most thoroughly enjoyed by the large British population. They would not be without it for a thousand Pyramids. They have their competitions and they have a championship of their own. Egyptian golf has a curious history. It is nineteen years since the game was first played in the Land of Pyramids—that is to say, since two players drove from a tee and holed out on what they called a “green”; but some time before that a ball was hit by a golfer. The circumstances are remarkable and are worthy of the baptism of an ancient country like Egypt to a Royal and Ancient game. Rameses II. and Cleopatra would have approved.

This is the true story. A full-blooded Scottish golfer, imbued with all the best traditions, and all the better for being a clergyman, none other than the well-known Rev.J.H. Tait of Aberlady, went for a holiday to Egypt, and duly climbed to the top of the Great Pyramid. Arrived there he rested, and to do so the more effectually he put his hands into his pockets, when, curiously enough, he felt a golf ball in one of them. In a moment the golfer was ablaze in the parson, and he determined that right there on the summit of the Great Pyramid of Cheops he would play the game for the first time in Egypt. So he teed up the ball and addressed it most elaborately and conscientiously with his umbrella, for, of course, he had no clubs with him. There were none in Egypt. Then he made a bonny St.Andrews swing: the ball went spinning away through the fine desert atmosphere and was never seen again—by the man who hit it, at all events. There were some great jokes about this shot afterwards. They said that in future days some old antiquary would find this ball in the desert sand, and would try to make out the hieroglyphics (the name of the maker, Tom Morris) upon it. As they would then be indistinct it would be suggested that they stood for Moses, and the inference would be that the lawgiver of Israel was a golfer.

Some years after that a course was laid out near Cairo. The men who made that course and played the first golf were none other than Mr.J.E. Laidlay, twice Amateur Champion, and SirEdgar Vincent, who won the Parliamentary handicap in 1905. This was in 1888, and SirEdgar had only had one taste of golf previously, that being in the previous summer, but he thought it would be as well to take his clubs with him to Egypt. Mr.Laidlay, going to Egypt also, thought the same thing; but when they got there they found there was no golf at all. They did not know each other; but SirEdgar knew Mr.Laidlay by reputation, sought him out, and they conferred together on the miserable character of the situation. Mr.Laidlay was famishing for some golf, and stirred up a great enthusiasm in the other, so they agreed that they would go out into the desert together and make a course.

“We made a survey of the outskirts,” said SirEdgar, “and found the material to be of the most unpromising description—seven parts sand and one part scrub everywhere. There was one comforting fact, and that was that our bunkers were ready made, for there were bunkers everywhere. Mr.Laidlay’s enthusiasm overcame everything, and by dint of hard labour and perseverance we soon had a nine-hole course laid out. In this way we were certainly the pioneers of golf in Egypt, and, as I believe, in Africa.” When Mr.Laidlay went home again he entered for the Amateur Championship and won it for the first time. One of the first converts to golf in Egypt was Lord Cromer.

There are now nine clubs and courses in Egypt. At Cairo the round usually consists of twelve holes, although there are two more which are very seldom played. It is desert golf, and the “greens” are brown patches of puddled earth, over which sand is sprinkled daily to true them up and slow them down a bit. Some say that the golf at Helouan is the best in Egypt, and others prefer the Assouan course, in the making of which Mr.John Low had much say and which he has visited since. Here the greens are made of rolled Nile mud. But most prefer the Mena House course, which is laid out on a bit of the very small area of grass there is in Egypt, which is so precious that players are requested to play only in rubber-soled shoes for fear of breaking it. For part of each year the course is under water. Not only is there grass here, but the course is laid out alongside the Great Pyramid, the shadow of which is thrown across it. This Great Pyramid—2,000,000cubic feet of stone—gives golfers a queer feeling if they catch sight of it when swinging for their drive. When Napoleon was beginning the battle of the Pyramids hereabouts, he said to his men, “Soldiers! from the summit of yonder Pyramid forty ages behold you.” That is so, and the golfers may wish they did not. They may think it is no game for spectators of this kind.

X

Many golfers, like others who are not golfers, have come to the conclusion that in the twentieth century it were better for them and their game to think and grow thin. One of the most enthusiastic and determined says that success in the game depends chiefly on the stomach, and one is half inclined to think that he is right. He is, to this extent, that it is hard to play fine golf when the interior mechanism is in bad working order. And it is quite apparent that we modern golfers, like other people who are outside the pale of our noble game, are not the possessors of such strong heads and tough digestive apparatus as our ancestors of the links used to be. The man in the street dare not for his life walk into the Cock Tavern and call the “plump head waiter” to bring him a pint of port just because it is five o’clock, as Tennyson used to do as regularly and deliberately when he was Fleet Street way, as if it were nothing more fortifying than tea that he demanded. The modern man would be too much afraid, lest perchance he should not know when it was six o’clock. We are not like our forefathers, and we can never be like them. There is a queer tale of a comparatively modern golfer who drank deeply overnight, so that his path to his bedchamber was one of tortuous difficulty, but who, nevertheless, got up in the morning to win a championship; and it is not many years since a picture was drawn for a text-book on golf in which it was suggested that “the man to back” was he who was sitting down to something in the nature of a Porterhouse steak with a not very small bottle of wine at the side of his plate.

From a high moral point of view those ancestors of ours who bred inferior stomachs for us were, of course, wrong, and yet they did many fine things on their pints of port. They wrote great prose and verse, they painted fine pictures, their taste and skill in handicrafts were superb, they won the battle of Waterloo and the battle of Trafalgar, and they could—most undoubtedly they could—play golf. Having regard to the quality of their tools and the state of the upkeep of their links, they made many fine rounds, which showed that they had great skill, that they had a fine steadiness of hand and eye, and even that they upon occasion went in for thinking golf!

And of all the types of the modern Britishers’ ancestors, give us for great courage at the board and for a capacity for high enjoyment according to his lights, the golfing ancestor! He was a rare fellow. He went out to play his round by day, and he foregathered the same evening with the others of his golfing society and celebrated the day as many persons say that a good day should be celebrated. And it was a matter of duty with him too, not merely inclination. On the morning of the play and dinner days of some of the fine old Scottish golfing societies, it was the custom to send the boy of the club round to each member’s house summoning him to the meeting, and taking his name if he promised to be present at the evening meal.

The old golfers saw to it that the quality of all the fine things of which they partook was of the very best, for leading features of their dinners were the gifts of various members of their own company, and it was the common custom before each gathering was ended to make large provision for the next one in the way of promises of food and drink, and these promises once made were exacted to the last ounce and drop, under penalty of fines of dozens and cases of wines and spirits.

No club has richer traditions in this respect than the old North Berwick. The viands that its own company sent to its table for its constant meetings were fine things. One time Mr.Hay of Rockville sent along a round of beef stewed in hock. SirD. Kinloch sent Shetland beef, the Duke of Buccleuch contributed large quantities of venison and venison pasty, while the Earl of Eglinton, as an apology for his absence from one meeting when captain, sent a fine buck. As for liquids, SirDavid Blair presented the club at the start with three dozens of champagne, and thereafter it became the custom to fine a member exactly that for any delinquency or omission on his part. Thus we have a minute on the books for 23rdSeptember 1835, which reads: “At dinner it was voted unanimously, on the motion of the captain, that Mr.John Sligo be fined in a case of three dozen champagne for not sending a cook as proposed by himself, by which means the turtle, venison, and other delicacies were entirely destroyed.” Judging by the temper of these old North Berwickers, and of the importance that they attached to these things prandial, one would have been inclined to congratulate Mr.Sligo on the leniency with which his grave offence was treated. Whisky by the dozen and half-dozen came from Campbell of Glensaddell and Macdonald of Clanranald, shrub from Mr.Whyte-Melville, rum from Major Pringle, casks of beer and porter from various other members, and so on; claret, withal, which was presented in large quantities, being the favourite drink.

Even if one be but a drinker of tea and ginger ale, there is some interest in reading of the exploits of the old-time golfers of Edinburgh and Musselburgh. In the “bett book” of the Honourable Company, under date of 4thJanuary 1766, there is the rule entered: “Each person who lays a Bett in the Company of the Golfers, and shall fail to play it on the day appointed, shall forfeit to the Company a pint of wine for each guinea, unless he give a sufficient excuse to their satisfaction”; and a most interesting entry in the minutes of 16thNovember 1776 tells us that “this day Lieutenant James Dalrymple, of the 43rd Regiment, being convicted of playing five different times at Golf without his uniform, was fined only in Six Pints, having confessed the heinousness of his crime.” To this minute, signed by the captain, there is appended a codicil, stating, “at his own request he was fined of Three Pints more.” Always pints, and never pounds or guineas. The Company even thought that it was a proper thing for it to pass a formal resolution adopting certain liquors as the club drink, just in the same way as they would adopt a uniform. Thus, on 11thDecember 1779, the sentiment of Christmas being already abroad, it was resolved and duly entered on the minutes, that “Port and Punch shall be the ordinary Drink of the Society, unless upon these days when the Silver Club and Cups are played for. At those meetings Claret or any other Liquor more agreeable will be permitted.”

O, say some, for the days of famous Jamie Balfour, secretary and treasurer of the Company in 1793! Never was jollier golfer. And never a man more honest, more deservedly popular, and loved by all his contemporaries than he, as witness the fact that when, alas! he went to the links of Valhalla before he reached the age of sixty, the company mourned for him as golfers had never mourned before. They met at a special meeting and dinner in the most solemn mourning, with the Captain in the chair and SirJames Stirling, Baronet, Lord Provost of the City of Edinburgh, beside him, and drank to Balfour’s memory in the most solemn of toasts.

Jamie looked upon the wine when it was red; he could see no virtue in self-denial. He liked the sound of the drawn cork. When he heard one drawn in any house that he happened to be in, which gave an unusually sharp report, he would call out, “Lassie, gie me a glass o’ that!” not troubling to ask what the wine was, but taking it for granted that for such a report it must needs be good of its class.

A story is told that a lady who lived in Parliament Close, Edinburgh, was wakened from her sleep one summer morning by a noise as of singing, when, going to the window to learn what was the matter, guess her surprise at seeing Jamie Balfour and some of his boon companions, evidently fresh from an orgie, singing “The King shall enjoy his own again” on their knees around King Charles’s statue. It used to be said that Balfour could run when he could not stand still, and the story is told that on one occasion, going home late from a festive night, he happened to tumble into the pit formed for the foundation of a house in St.James’s Square. A gentleman passing heard his wailing, and, going up to the spot, was entreated by Balfour to help him out. “What would be the use helping you out when you could not stand though you were out?” said the passer-by. Whereupon Jamie retorted, “Very true, perhaps, yet if you help me up I’ll run you to the Tron Kirk for a bottle of claret.” And he did; and having won the first bottle, Jamie exclaimed, “Well, ’nother race to Fortune’s for another bottle of claret,” and he won that one also.

In its ancient days the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St.Andrews was great on fines in wine. It promoted conviviality on every possible occasion, and, indeed, one of the first of its minutes that are now discoverable says, under date 4thMay 1766, “We, the Noblemen and Gentlemen subscribing, did this day agree to meet once every fortnight, by Eleven of the clock, at the Golf House, and to play a round of the links; to dine together at Bailie Glass’, and to pay each a shilling for his dinner—the absent as well as the present.” It was some two or three years after this that means were devised for augmenting the dinner wine through the various social delinquencies of members. Thus, on 4thSeptember 1779, a resolution is passed as follows: “It is enacted that whoever shall be Captain of the Golf, and does not attend all the meetings to be appointed throughout the year, shall pay Two Pints of Claret for each meeting he shall be absent at, to be drunk at such meeting; but this regulation is not to take place if the Captain be not in Fife at the time.” Many years later, in 1818, the wine tax on absentees was applied to members generally, under interesting circumstances, as indicated in the terms of the resolution that was passed, which read: “The Club, taking into consideration that the meetings have of late been thinly attended by the Members residing in town, in consequence of several members giving parties on the ordinary days of meeting, and thereby preventing those who would otherwise give their presence at the Club, from attending them, Do Resolve, that in future such Members as shall invite any of their friends, Members of this Club, to dinner on the days of meeting, shall forfeit to the Club a Magnum of Claret for himself, and one bottle for each Member so detained by them, for each offence, and the Captain and Council appoint this Resolution to be immediately communicated to General Campbell.” On 16thSeptember 1825 a minute is entered, “Which day the present Captain, having imposed on himself a fine of a Magnum of Claret for failure in public duty, imposed a similar fine on the old Captains present.” It is quite evident that in these rich old days the social side of golf was cultivated in a manner that makes the worthiest efforts in this direction in the twentieth century look mean in comparison.

The men of the old Musselburgh Club were great in conviviality. Here is a remarkable entry taken from their minute-book: “Musselburgh, 11thJanuary 1793.—The Club met according to adjournment. The meeting was so merry that it was agreed that matching and every other business should be delayed till next month.”

On 11thMay 1798, when the Club held its meeting, the question was put as to whether the funds should be disposed of by the members present or delayed till the December meeting, when it was resolved by a majority that the company then present should determine it. Thereupon it was put to the vote as to whether the funds should be drunk, or part of them taken to “give their Myte to the Voluntary Subscription in aid of the Government,” and it was carried unanimously that Five Guineas should be sent to this fund in the name of the Club, and that the remainder of the funds should be disposed of at the December meeting. Meeting at Moir’s on 16thFebruary 1810, the members “Resolve, That an annual subscription of One Guinea be paid by each member, from which fund the expense of the dinners is to be in future defrayed, but all the expenses of liquors to be defrayed by the company present. And any overplus at the end of each season to be sunk in a General Gaudeamus.”

The old records of the Bruntsfield Links Golf Club are similarly entertaining. On 27thApril 1822, “Captain Kilgour informed the meeting that Mr.Williamson had sent a small cask of spirits of his own manufacture as a present to the Club. The Secretary was ordered to transmit the thanks of the Society to Mr.Williamson, and to inform him that he was unanimously elected an Honorary Member.” On 29thJune 1842 we are told that “a very large party dined at Cork’s, and the evening was spent with more than stereotyped happiness, harmony, and hilarity. A number of matches were made. Mr.S. Aitken (not, of course, when madness ruled the hour) pledged himself if, and when, Deacon Scott married, to present to the Club half a dozen of wine, and the like quantity to the object (lovely, of course) of his choice! This happy evening ‘through many a bout of linked sweetness long drawn out,’ partook of the transitory nature of all earthly things, and, as one of our poets says, broke up!”

After the meeting of the Bruntsfield members on 17thDecember 1842, “A large party dined at Goodman’s, and spent a very happy evening, not the less so that some member, to the company unknown, made the handsome present of half a dozen of Champagne. Mr.Brown, after some very apposite remarks, read an interesting paragraph from the Bombay Times of the 19thOctober last, noticing certain proceedings of a Golf Club formed in the East Indies, which gave rise to much felicitous discussion, and the appointment of a deputation, consisting of the Captain and Mr.Paterson, to meet and compete with the like, or any number of the Indian Club, the deputation to travel at the Club’s expense and by the new Aerial Transit, which is expected to start early in February next.” They were in a happy mood that evening.

The minutes record that on 18thOctober 1845, “The Club dined in the Musselburgh Arms Inn, and spent a very happy evening; but the meeting having been prolonged beyond the period at which the omnibus (in which seats had been taken) started, the members found it necessary to walk the greater part of the way to town.”

Rich, indeed, were those ancient days of golf!

XI

And so, heigho! another full year of golf has run to its end, and we come to pause for a little while to reflect upon the new chapter that has been added to the long happy story of our play; for, indeed, it is true of us golfers, as it is of others, that “we spend our years as a tale that is told.” For some days now the links which have served us so faithfully and so well during all this year, have been at rest, asleep. Nature, the gentle considerate nurse, sometimes comes to the help of these precious acres of green turf in that season when their lot is the least happy, fending away us tyrant masters while she lays them to repose and wraps up each teeing ground and putting green and all the way between in the thick mantle that she weaves herself. Perhaps the players do not always know that the grass welcomes this snow, and is not, as they might imagine, stifled with it and reduced to such unconsciousness as to be near the point of death. The snow both nourishes and warms the worn-out turf—collects and holds down for its sustenance all the available nitrogen in the atmosphere, and then covers it with that thick cloak which generates only warmth beneath. Presently, when the frosts cease and the snow melts and the grass lies bare again, those who have recollection enough for the comparison will see that it is greener and stronger than it was before. When there is a championship in prospect on St.Andrews links, the wise and good greenkeeper there beseeches kind Nature that of her infinite variety she will vouchsafe to his little patch of earth for some several days of winter a heavy fall of snow, that in due course he may better serve up to his master golfers a links of such perfection of order as will please them to the utmost. What shall he care if the old grey place is beleaguered by these storms of snow, if the Swilcan Burn is almost covered up, and if it would be as much as the life of the captain of the Royal and Ancient Club were worth to try to find the line to the Long Hole? Hush, you grumbling golfers! The old course, weary, is at rest; and patiently will the happy greenkeeper wait for its awakening. There is something of pathos in the time and the scene, as:

How much does it mean to us, does a year of golf! In the last few moments of the year that you give up to golfing thought and reverie as you sit by the cheerful fire, and perhaps, according to the old fancy, toy on the hearthrug for a while with the putter that you hold at convenience in the corner, and the memento ball that you preserve upon the mantelpiece—at such time make a pleasant reflection upon all the joy and the gladness, and the health and the adventure, and the glorious rivalry and close comradeship that have been crowded into this short space of time! Above all, think how much nearer in most blessed friendship has this year of golf drawn you to those who are most after your own heart! There is no habit of man that can do more than golf towards such an end as this, and it is in his abundance of the best friends that a man lives most happily and to the best purpose.

And the golfer has seen more of the year, of the real year of Nature so complex and so complete in its variety and balance, than the other men who live in towns. He braved it in the open lands through the bitter weeks of January and February, and he was cheerful through the winds and rains that followed, for as the rainbows spread across the sky he knew that the glorious spring had come, most heartening time of all the golfing year. Then would he stamp his feet on turf grown firm, and acclaim his ball with affection for its constant cleanliness. The golfer, even he of the town, hears the change in the song of the birds, he notices the newcomers among them; he has interest in the leafing of the trees, and lo! the big sun of summer shines upon him. And when can golfer be happier than when, after droning lazily through a hot afternoon, he plays an evening round upon the links in those most perfect conditions for pure delight? Surely it is hard to say which of those rounds is the best, that of the spring morning, the autumn morning, or the one in the balmy evening of June. And the golfer, bold and lucky, who once in a way makes his ripest play on some wild day in December when the wind from the sea comes like a blast across the links and all above is dripping scud, would in his pride not grant that the golfer lived his life at the full on any of those other days of peace and calm. So, from the play in the long summer twilight, we wander down the year, through brown October to the greys that follow, and the white curtain falls at last upon the exhausted season.

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