They may not always be conscious of the fact, but the people who live in towns and are cooped in themconstantly, abiding in flats, working in gloomy chambers and travelling in underground railways, derive more than half their golfing enjoyment from the vision of Nature, less adorned than in the public parks, with which they become associated in their golf—grass to tread upon, surrounding trees through which soft breezes croon, and timid clouds creeping slowly underneath the blue. There is nothing so good as the golf of the true seaside links; there could not be. In this, the real thing, we have land formations that are impossible on inland flatness; there are the wildness of dunes and bent that cannot be reproduced artificially away from the coast; we have the perfect turf that is ideal for the game and which has never yet been completely imitated away from shore, and above all, through the rich variety of situation and possibility, we have the course springing surprises on us all the time. This is golf in the highest, the stern, cold, enthralling game. London golf is a gentler thing, a little softer, but it has charms that are all its own, and they are the charms of green Nature and the delights of changing seasons. By the sea it is warm or it is cold, and there is little difference else from the beginning of the year to the end. But in London the golfer notices the seasons as he does nowhere else, and they are everything to him and his happiness. And the trees best tell him of the seasons, and it is then that he might exclaim, as Ruskin did, "What a great thought of God was that when He thought a tree!"
In this way the two most beautiful seasons of the year, spring and autumn, touching nearest the heart, creating inspirations and causing reflection, the germinal and the fall, are the most splendid times for golf in London, and at other inland places, and they are surely the best seasons of all for the enjoyment and happiness ofthe game. But particularly they are London's seasons. In the spring there is the time for preparation, when all golfers are keen in a new life. Then the leaves of the trees are opened, and are there prettier scenes on any course than on some of those near London then? There is hardly to be fancied a better day than could be had at St. George's Hill or on the New Zealand course at Byfleet when the golden gorse is in bloom and gives out its rich perfume, while the trees that line the fairway all about are full to life again. Think, when May is come, of the glory of Sudbrooke Park, Cassiobury, of Sunningdale, even of Neasden, Northwood, and a hundred more. Then there comes the holiday time, and the seaside links, and the golf of London rests until the autumn, and then it is alive again; and let the faults of London golf be whatever they may, the players are few who are not happy to return to the old courses of home. Be they ever so poor they are their very own.
This of all others is the most delightful golfing season. The white sun of summer has been toned to gold, and the air is sweet and cool; the turf is moist again. It is soothing; but there is a pathos in it all that the golfer, sensitive and sympathetic observer as he has become, must always feel. One may tramp a country lane and notice little, but the men of this game have been trained to notice. Here present is the season of the fall, the rest after achievement, when Nature closes in upon herself and lapses to her sleep. She has done her season's work, done it wisely, ever well. So the fires of heaven burn low again. Green of the world turns russet and bronze, with flashes of scarlet and gold. A smell of earth that is moist with autumn dew rises in the morning air. When the round begins the sun warmth is not enough to dry away the little globules of the dew, tears of the sobbing night,and the course has a glittering sheen upon it. From drooping branches of beeches and sycamores that half surround a putting green in a corner of the course, crackling leaves are falling and some must be moved before the intruding ball can be putted to its appointed place. As the little golfing company moves along to the adjoining tee more of these spent leaves come fluttering sadly down. But, a little sad as this may be, the golfer of the towns, with summer memories of mountains and hills and deep lanes still lingering in his mind, hearing the crooning of the summer seas and the lapping of waves near northern putting greens, has his consolations. He is grateful for the coppery leaves and the early dew, though they may hinder play a trifle. They are as echoes from the north and east and west. We see no dew in Piccadilly, and there are no mountains in the Strand.
THE END
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