This application of strength is always done subconsciously, and here again there is a part of professional teaching which does not recognise the fact when it ought to do. The teachers tell us that to strike the ball a certain distance with an iron, the club chosen should be swung back to a certain point, that to get twenty yards more it should be swung upwards so many more inches or degrees, for a farther distance so much more swing should be made, and so on, throwing the onus of swinging the proper distance on to the conscious effort of the player. By a moment's thought it will be realised that players do not consciously regulate the lengths of their swings in this way, that they could not do so, and that any deliberate stopping of their swing at a certain carefully calculated point would be ruinousto the stroke in hand. What is done is, that an estimate of the distance to which the ball has to travel is made; this is taken into the mind, and the mind, having much experience, influences the swing so that it is quite subconsciously made of the proper length, or at all events the length that the mind suggested. In this way the swing is certainly made short for short shots, and longer as the greater distance is needed; but it is wrong to suggest that the matter is carefully and consciously arranged by the player. The truth is that not one player in a thousand could tell you, when about to make a swing with an iron club, exactly how far he intends to swing, or having made the shot successfully, how far he did swing. His mind subconsciously arranged the whole affair.
An interesting case was quoted to me some time since of the success a man achieved in lofting over stymies, and the reason why. This person never seemed to miss. He related that he found previously that his failures were due to looking at the other ball too much when in the act of making the stroke. He then found that he succeeded frequently when he did not look at either that ball or his own but at the hole itself. Doing this enabled him to carry his club through, failure to do which is the chief cause of missing these shots. But he did not altogether believe in this system, which seemed dangerous, and he compromised by keeping his eye fixed on his own ball, but at the same time imagining the hole and seeing mentally his ball dropping into it. Since then his success has been wonderful. In much the same way and by the same principle it will be found that the best way in the world to encourage a good follow-through, and to stop jerky hitting with wooden clubs, is to look at the ball properly and yet imagine it a couple of inches farther on.
The principles of this subconsciousism suggest oneearnest recommendation to the player who is bent on making a change in a faulty or ineffectual style, and it is that such change is better brought about gradually and in the way of a coaxing influence rather than by a quick drastic alteration. Thus the player whose swing is too upright and who wants to obtain a flatter one, or he who desires to change from a long swing to a short one, or the other way about; or again he who would bring the ball more over to the right foot (one of the most difficult of all changes to make for a player accustomed to have it nearly opposite the left toe, but a desirable one in these days when the rubber-cored ball shows no disinclination to rise as the gutty did); all these players would do better to make their changes slowly and gradually and by way of subconscious influence. If the ball is moved three inches to the right all at once the entire swing is upset and the whole driving arrangement is likely to go to pieces. But when done in the other way the gradual change is not noticed, and when the ball gets to the desired position it would be as difficult to play it from the old one, as the new one would have been, if assumed suddenly. It is sometimes said of golf that the most exasperating part of the whole thing is, that the more you try to succeed in it the more you fail. There is more truth in that sad reflection than may have been fancied, and a fine moral in it too. To "try" in this case means to make conscious effort.
After all, in this teaching about subconsciousism we are merely going back again to Nature, to simplicity, and to an original idea that there is undeveloped golf in all of us just because all the movements of the game are so natural, and natural because they are so true and rhythmical. In everything Nature encourages alwaysthe best in a man, and she likes most the graceful movement, the perfect poise, the equal balance. The easier, the more natural, and the more rhythmical our movements are in golf the more successful will be the efforts always. The undeveloped golf is always in the system, and with fair encouragement or a hint that is sufficiently obvious the instinct will surely lead a young subject to its cultivation on good lines. Man when old becomes awkward and contrary, and so the aggravations of the game arise.
I have always maintained that if we placed a young boy who had never seen or heard of golf on a desert island and left him there with means for his subsistence for a few years, together with a set of golf clubs and a few boxes of balls, the people who might be wrecked on those lonely shores thereafter would find him playing a good scratch game and in want of nothing but a caddie, for which part the arriving boatswain might be indicated. But these wrecked miserables, with their shiverings and their grumblings, would jar unpleasantly upon the happy peace of this purely natural golfing youth, in all the ecstasy of the discovery of his own world. Probably he would wish the others—all except the boatswain—to leave him there when a white sail of relief was seen upon the horizon. A pretty speculation arises instantly. Suppose at the same time we had placed upon another desert island four thousand miles away another raw child, innocent of the simplest, vaguest thought of what golf is or could be, and left him also with clubs and balls and directions for obtaining fresh meat and fresh water when the human desires in food were felt. He would surely take to the game in the same way as the other boy did, practise it and probe into its mysteries with just the same enthusiasm, would become a good scratch player also, and would probably make use of the same simple expression of condemnationwhen a shipload of people uncivilised to golf were wrecked that way. But here is the point: this second scratch desert-island boy would probably be just as good as the first scratch desert-island boy, no better and no worse, and if they were to play for the Championship of the Most Lonely Islands, nothing is more likely than that their excellent match would have to go to the thirty-seventh hole or beyond it. They would, being good material to begin with, attain approximately equal results so far as playing the holes in a certain number of strokes is concerned, and each youth's system would be perfect for himself, but between the two there would be the very widest differences, and the basic principles that were common to the games of both players would be so encrusted with masses of individual detail and coloured with temperamental attitude that they would be scarcely discernible.
In front of the red brick club-house of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club at Hoylake, a citadel which by its tower and clock commemorates the great achievements of Hoylake's famous son, John Ball, there was assembled late in the afternoon of Friday, the 21st of June 1907 (being the forty-seventh year of the Open Championship), a large gathering of golfing persons who by their speech and demeanour suggested some of the vivid unrealities of a stage crowd near the footlights. They had a self-conscious and somewhat artificial bearing towards each other. They muttered and beckoned. They gave the impression of being a little uneasy and nervous. Friends among them who essayed to conduct a conversation found themselves at a loss for appropriate comments upon what had happened and made remarks which had no clear or relevant meaning. Professor Paterson, wearing the red rosette, came from the house and stood before the little table bearing a silver cup which had been held by the line of champions all the way from the time of Morris, the younger, and a familiar friendly figure in chequered garments moved about in a manner of official preparation. What had happenedhad indeed been dramatic; but the drama had had the living circumstance of full reality. We could not discuss constructions and readings, and suggest other endings. Here was the one gross fact, that Arnaud Massy, a Basque, the professional attached to the leading club of Paris, a strong bonily built man with no British blood in his being, had just made himself the possessor for the year of that historic championship cup, which hitherto had never been taken out of the United Kingdom. This was something which the gathering did with difficulty absorb into their golfing minds. They were good sportsmen, and they cheered because they knew that this Massy was a fine fellow and a good champion; but it was all a little dream-like, and there was a spell that needed to be broken.
Massy, the victor, with a big smiling face came forward. The gold medal was delivered to him. There was a little silence, a few muttered incoherent words, and then this splendid Massy threw up his hands into the air and shouted out with a full blast from his lusty lungs, "Vive l'entente cordiale!" The tensity was broken; the people cheered easily, naturally, and whole heartedly; they accepted Massy as the true and proper successor to James Braid in the Open Championship, and wished him thoroughly well—even though he were a Frenchman or a Basque. He had done the right thing.
This foreign player (never forgetting that he was trained to the game at Biarritz, which in golf is mostly British, though it lies under the laws of France) was brought to England and Scotland by Sir Everard Hambro, and was improved in golf at North Berwick with Ben Sayers assisting him. He well deserved to win that championship, and it should not be overlooked that, so to say, he has confirmed his victory by making a tie for the championship again since then. He is theonly man outside the great triumvirate who has done so much as twice to reach the top of the list in modern times. He was well on his own very good game. There was a crispness about his play with his wooden clubs that indicated the man who for the time being had full confidence and could hit his hardest. And Massy's putting, especially in the case of the most difficult and fateful of all putts, those of from five to nine feet—putts for the missing of which there is the fullest excuse, for whose holing there is enormous gain—had been splendid for a long time before and was most excellent then. At those putts of the kind I remark upon I do not think that Massy in accuracy or confidence has his equal in the world. He strokes the ball into the hole as though it were the simplest thing to do; easily and gracefully he putts it in. In other ways he makes a fine figure of a golfer. Military training in France has given him a stiffer, straighter build than most great golfers have, for this game tends a little to a crouching gait and posture. Massy marches from the tee to the ball that has gone before with a quick, regular step of the right-left-right military way, and when he comes up with the ball he does a right wheel round, presents his club, and plays his second with a quickness and lack of hesitation in which he is second only to George Duncan. Particularly in putting is Massy a man of inspirations and quick impulse. And I must not now forget that there is in the world a charming little lady who is called Mlle. Hoylake Massy, which is her proper name. Providence is disposed often to be kind and generous to the strong and those who have well deserved, and that week Mme. Massy gave to the man who was even then making himself the champion a sweet little daughter. Having won the championship, the next question was one of christenings, and, said Massy tohis wife, "Voila! Surely she shall be called our little Hoylake!" Which she was accordingly, Mme. Massy, rejoicing in her husband's success, like the good, happy little woman of Scotland that she is, having cordially agreed.
And in France there were rejoicings among the golfers. My friend, M. Pierre Deschamps, fine and keen sportsman (and the "father of golf in France," as we call him for the grand work he has done in establishing the game so well at La Boulie, where he is president of the Société de Golf de Paris, and encouraging it with all his heart and energy elsewhere in his country), rose and made a remarkable declaration that golf was to be the "national game of France." The national game of France, our Scottish golf of English development, started, as some still will have it, in Holland, played in some sort of way asjeu de maileven in France, practised in Pekin, called the "national game" also, as I have heard it, in America—now it was to be naturalised and made the "national game of France!" Ubiquitous golf indeed! M. Deschamps, whose words are careful if they are quick, as befits one who is in the diplomatic service of his country, sat down and wrote an essay on golf in general, and Massy's success in particular, and, addressing the new champion as if he were before him, said: "Et maintenant à vous la parole, mon cher Massy; continuez votre brillante carrière, jouissez de votre belle gloire dont nous sommes tous fiers, comme Golfeurs et comme Français; à cette heure, où tant de links s'ouvrent chez nous, pour répondre aux besoins d'enthousiastes sportsmen, puissent d'autres professionels de notre race suivre votre example, unique encore dans les fastes du 'Royal and Ancient Game,' et contribuer à faire de ce sport un jeu national dans notre beau pays de France!" That was written. Invictory you may be magnanimous, and M. Deschamps at this time would graciously waive all questions of origins and growths; he must have felt that then it mattered little that a kind of golf calledcholehad been played ages back by the people of the north, and that it was possible the Scots had copied from them. It was enough that Arnaud Massy was "le Champion du monde."
Disregarding all those doubts about thejeu de mailand the game ofchole, and considering only the real thing as we know it, taking its time from the stone temple by the Fifeshire sea, it was away back in 1856 that the game was first played on the soil of France, and that was in the south by the Pyrenees at Pau. Yet at that time only the wintering British were concerned. Forty years went on before the French themselves made a fair beginning with the game. In 1896 the Société de Golf de Paris was established, and it has been a splendid success. To-day in prestige and influence it stands for the headquarters of the game in the country, though since it was begun there have sprung up many clubs of great pretensions, with good courses, nice club-houses, distinguished memberships, and unlimited francs. Yet La Boulie holds her queenship still. Excellent golfing places have been made at Chantilly, Le Pecq, Compiègne, Fontainebleau. Out on the north-west coast at such resorts as Le Touquet, Dieppe, Deauville and Wimereux by Boulogne the game is established. Long years back I played at pretty open Wimereux when there was but a nine-holes course there, and not the excellent one of eighteen that has now been made. Shall it not be considered as a happy token that golf links are commonly found on old battlefields and at places where armies haveencamped? Sometimes this is just because the soldiers play the game when they are abroad; sometimes it is because entrenchments are bunkers all prepared; but oftenest it is just coincidence. Whatever it be or why, it is the fact that there is golf where armies and battles have been in Egypt, in South Africa, in the United States and Canada, and at many places. Where there was the fury of flying shells there is now only the peaceful hum of the rubber ball. One recalled when first at Wimereux that here the great Napoleon had encamped with his grand army, the same as was to cross the Channel to defiant isles and make a conquest of them. But playing neither the first hole nor the last do we need any reminder of what great Bonaparte wished to do, for by us there towers aloft the monument that he had erected to that successful invasion of Albion that never did take place. Hereabouts is indicated the place where the master-general in full satisfaction with the progress of things, and in remembrance of great achievements, distributed his military favours. And here all along are deep grass-covered trenches, and larger, rounder, shallow pits that once might have been kitchens or stables. All these that now are bunkers and hazards are where Napoleon camped and waited. And on a fine day our white-cliffed Albion is in full view. Sometimes there may even be a sigh as one reflects that the Corsican little dreamt of what should be done with his camping land when a hundred years were gone, that those sportsmen of Britishers would be playing their game about there, taking their divots and holing their putts, and striving for golden tokens given for competition by the mayor and municipality of adjacent Boulogne! It was not for no reason that Arnaud Massy called aloud "Vive l'entente cordiale!" In the heart of the country there have been more golf clubs and courses formed, andthey are supported now mostly by the French. At Rouen and Rheims the game may now be enjoyed. It is spreading. M. Deschamps may yet be soundly justified. And indeed when we take our clubs to Paris we feel that he should, and heartily do wandering players echo the cry of Massy, who by his victory signalised the fact that French golf had grown from babyhood to the strength of independence, and was now to be considered as an entity. There is a subtle sweetness about a golfing expedition in Paris that there is about a little holiday for the game at no other place. One is not here suggesting that it is better for golf and other matters to go to Paris than elsewhere, only that it is quite different, intensely enjoyable, and easily convenient. We breakfast in comfort in London, read the newspaper afterwards, go through the pack of clubs to see that the roll-call is rightly answered, and with time enough for everything move along to Victoria. Had we dawdled less we might have gone much earlier from Charing Cross. We meet quite casually other golfers in our compartment on the South-Eastern, and inquire with no astonishment as to which of the Parisian courses will be scarred by their irons before their trip is done. From Dover or Folkestone we have a quick and comfortable crossing; we discover some people who are bound for Le Touquet and tell us of the excellent changes there, and then on the comfortable railway of the Nord we are swung happily into the heart of France, and are in the capital before the sun has set on a summer's day, and with time yet to go out to La Boulie, which is by Versailles, or Chantilly, and stretch our English arms and legs in preparation for matches of the morrow. We are at home as golfers without delay.
What one feels about golfing in Paris now is that while there is always that elevation of the spirits, thatsense of extra life, that little superfineness of feeling that are induced by a sojourn in the capital by those who feel themselves somewhat akin to her, and there is a certain subtle difference in the golfing ways and systems, such as we not merely find but wish for, golf at Paris and the world over is really very much the same—the same not merely in the playing of the shots as in the general scheme of things, the going and the coming, thetout ensemble. We settle ourselves comfortably in a big hotel in the Rue de Castiglione, and next morning we fling away the sheets before eight as alive as any Parisianouvrier. Thecafé completdisposed of, the next question is that of clubs and balls. If it is a fine day and there is time for the walking, we may stride through the corner of the gardens of the Tuileries, across the corresponding corner of the Place de la Concorde, over the bridge and into the station to the left by the side of the Seine and down the steps to the platform, where there always awaits us at the most convenient time what is in essence largely a golfers' train. Our golfing people are in full evidence. You cannot mistake their kind in a train of France any more than you can when they journey from Charing Cross to Walton Heath. They pervade. So on to the other end of the journey at Versailles, and there the carriages await us, and the brake for those who like it, and we are bowled and rattled along through that place which has seen much of the makings and undoings of France, and on to La Boulie, where we hasten to the first tee, fearful of any waiting. Or, alternatively, we take a taxi-cab that is outside the hotel in Paris, and let loose through the Parisian streets with it, across the Place Vendôme, past the Opera, away along to the Gare du Nord with our inimitable Parisian taxi-man hurtling round the corners with all the fury of a charioteer in the races of ancient Rome, making usreflect that it is well there will be a rest of an hour before being called upon to do the first putting at Chantilly. So we perceive that the going and the coming are very much what they might be in England, with just that difference that gives a piquancy, while, after a day on the course, it is found to be quite excellent to have the gaiety of Paris at one's disposal. Those who have tried it generally agree that golf de Paris makes the finest change of the game, the most exhilarating that may be had by the player of the south of England, who is not too far removed from Charing Cross or one of the ports. It may be 444 miles from our metropolis to St. Andrews, and 383 to North Berwick, but it is only 259 to Paris, and despite the sea the journey lasts a much shorter time than the dash to the north by the fastest trains. We do not compare the golf of Paris with the golf of our historic and beloved seats of the game, but the courses of France, as inland courses, are good, and we think again of the virtues of the change complete, of thetout ensemble. Good things have come out of France in the days of long ago and in recent times; golf that is nearly of the best order rises in it now, and when we see Mr. Edward Blackwell and some others of the great men of the auld grey city who are most particular about all golfing things playing themselves on the slopes of La Boulie, over the plains of Chantilly, and through the forest of Fontainebleau, we know that things are moving tolerably well.
Upon our initiation at La Boulie, our curiosity is stirred and attention is attracted to many things. Perhaps M. Deschamps, or such a good sportsman as the Baron de Bellet—whose son, M. François de Bellet, has won the Amateur Championship of France, while Mlle.de Bellet is the best of the lady players in the country—would conduct a guest about the place and show him many things that would interest him, and many more that as a golfer he would most honestly admire. La Boulie is not a great course despite all the championships that have been played upon it, but the Société de Golf de Paris, which has a membership of 750 at a subscription of about £10, is quite a great institution. Yet, let me hasten to say that in the first remark I was judging La Boulie on the highest inland standard, and even then the judgment must be qualified by the statement that if not great in the best sense La Boulie is good and is quite interesting. At one time it suffered much from the nature of its soil and turf, but greenkeeping science, the francs of France, and the loving and most assiduous care of M. Deschamps, have changed much if not all of that. In the summer time it is quite one of the most beautiful courses I can think of with its wealth of trees, in which the nightingales sing soon after the golfers have done, and its majestic undulations, which come so near to being mountainous that herein, with so much climbing to be done and so many uphill and downhill shots, is one of the greatest faults of the course. But everything is well done at La Boulie, and human ingenuity and thoroughness are well applied. M. Deschamps is a fine humanitarian, and exerts himself constantly for the welfare of the caddies, who are as good for their business as any caddies in the world. It was a happy idea on his part to have these boys trained under a semi-military system as he has them now. They are all housed in a building near to the first tee under the care of the club; they have to observe regulations of duty and life which are good for them, and they are dressed in a boy-scout khaki uniform with touches of red to brighten it, and the principles of boy-scoutism are worked into theiryoung lives. This is excellent, and indeed it is the truth that already we have a little to learn in golf from France. By the way, one of the curious laws of the country—curious as it seems to us, though soundly sensible—is that boys are not allowed, when under about fifteen years of age, to carry more than a certain weight in the way of work, and this prohibits caddies from carrying a bag of clubs of more than fair extent. As a matter of detail you will find that the weight quantity allowed works out to something like ten clubs of an average mixture, but happily for some good friends of mine there is no weighing at the first tee and no officers of the Republic there to see it done. They threaten to arrest us at St. Andrews if we play the game with iron clubs only, and they have the power through bye-laws ratified by Government to do so and send us to prison. Is it possible that a wandering player in happy France should be lodged in a modern Bastille for that on one eager day he defied ill omen and the law by carrying thirteen clubs in his bag, as both James Braid and Edward Ray have done when winning championships, the weight limit being exceeded and all the unhappiest consequences following? M. Deschamps took the initiative in founding the Golf Union of France, which is based completely on the American system and is likely to be a strong force in the golf of the future.
To the best of my knowledge they have only one plus-handicap amateur in France, being M. François de Bellet, who is rated at plus 1 at two or three clubs, but I have examined the handicap books at different places and find that there are a few scratch men, and that the number of players who have single figure handicaps is quite good in proportion to the whole, and is increasing.The fears we had that the French temperament was not good for the game prove to be unfounded; while the French enthusiasm is equal to anything that we know. There are cases of golf fever in France that are every degree as bad—or as good—as those we find here at home.
One muggy winter morning, when a friend and I teed up at the beginning of the round at La Boulie, we could with difficulty see the flag on the first green, short as was the hole. We surmised that we might be the only players; but, no, many holes ahead, having started early, was a match going on between a baron of France and one of his rivals. The baron was taking the game with exceeding seriousness, and the information was given to me that he played two rounds on the course every day of his life. "Saturdays and Sundays?" I asked my caddie. "Toujours!" was the answer. "Even if it rains?" I pursued. "Toujours!" the boy answered with emphasis. "Or snows or is foggy?" I persisted, and then the carrier of clubs replied a little impatiently and with finality, "Toujours!" intending to convey that in all circumstances whatsoever the indefatigable baron played his two rounds a day, and independent witnesses confirmed the statement of the boy. This surely is the French counterpart of what is considered to be the finest case of golf enthusiasm that Britain has produced, being that of old Alexander M'Kellar who played on Bruntsfield Links in the brave days of old and was known for his ardour as "the Cock o' the Green." He also would play always; when snow covered the course he begged and implored some one to become his opponent in a match, and if nobody obliged he would go out alone and wander the whole way round, playing his ball from flag to flag, the greens and holes being hidden. At night he would sometimes play at the short holes by the dim glimmer of a lamp, and golf by moonlight washis frequent experience. Once upon a time his suffering wife thought to shame him by taking to the links his dinner and his nightcap; but he was too busy to attend to her. M'Kellar is long since dead, but something of his soul survives in England—and in France. And there are old and experienced golfers in France. There are Parisians who are members of the Royal and Ancient Club of St. Andrews, and I have met others who could argue most deeply with me upon the peculiarities and merits of many British courses from Sandwich and Sunningdale to Montrose and Cruden Bay. I took tea at Fontainebleau with M. le Comte de Puyfontaine, who exercises a kind of governorship over the course, and he told me that he learned his golf twenty-three years ago at a place near Lancaster, and that since then he has played in many parts of the United States and elsewhere.
I have endeavoured to make the point that the French are worthy and thorough, that the Parisian golf and golfers must be taken seriously, and that it is a pleasure to go among them with our clubs. Their courses are nearly good enough for anything, and they are all different from each other in type and characteristics. Fontainebleau is cut out of the forest, and silver birches line the fairway, while some of the great boulders which are peculiar to the place stand out as landmarks near the putting greens—but not so near as to be useful to the erratic player. Holes of all kinds are at Fontainebleau, and some of them make pretty puzzles in the playing. The teeing ground for the third is high up on a hill and the view is charming, but that may be of less account than the circumstance that the carry is farther than it looks, and the hole is a long one. The fifth is a catchy dog-leg hole, which the caddies ofFontainebleau do not call ajambe du chien, as you might expect them, but a "doc-lac." Soon the game will be Gallicised completely. The ninth, being a drive and a peculiar pitch, is a strange hole which worries the pair of us exceedingly. It looks one of the simplest things, but there is an inner green and an outer one, as one might say, and the former is on a high plateau. There is a secret about it which we did not discover in three full days. The tenth is a fine long hole, with a guard to the green that might have been brought up from the Inferno, and so on to the end in great variety. I like Fontainebleau. Chantilly has less character but more length. It is a better test of wooden club play, but not of pretty work with the irons in approaching. Yet it is well bunkered, the fairway is smooth and dry, as it is at Fontainebleau, all through the winter, and the putting greens are most excellent, fast and true. If most parts of the course are a little flat, there is a great ravine about the middle of it which gives a touch of the romantic and helps to the enjoyment. The turf at La Boulie does not winter so well as it does at the other places, though the club has spent many thousands of francs in applying real sea-sand to it for its improvement; but in the spring, the summer, and the autumn, golf here at Versailles is a fine pleasure. Yet some will say that, much as I tempt them, they would not after all go to France for golf, that indeed they could never confess to others that they had been to Fontainebleau and Versailles and Chantilly for their game. But why may they not take their game and their historical views and reflections on the same days, as they may do better in France than elsewhere; though when we play at St. Andrews or at Sandwich, where Queen Bess visited, and Westward Ho! we wonder again how strangely this royal and ancient game does attach itself and cling to the old places of celebrity, and especially those whosefame was made for them by kings. It is curious. The keen golfer is a man of thought and sense. We play on a morning at Fontainebleau, and in the afternoon we wander through the rich galleries of the wonderful palace where many kings of France held magnificent court, a place where the great Napoleon loved to rest a while between campaigns. There are relics of the Emperor in many chambers; and it was at the chief entrance here that he bade his last good-bye to the old guard and went lonely away, an emperor no more. The wonders and the glories of Versailles are known even to those who have never crossed the Channel; Chantilly has had its great romances of history also. The old castle was put up in the ninth century; here the Condes lived in fine state, and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the place was very famous. The good French have endeavoured to make their courses suit their places. Sometimes we seem to look even on these playgrounds for a touch of art, a little delicacy, a fineness and a high quality, and we think in just that way of the golf de Paris when the train of the Nord runs us homewards again.
The seaside golf in the northern and north-western parts of France is coming to be an important thing in the general scheme. Personal association and its seniority above all except Dieppe have led me already to mention Wimereux, but the golf of Wimereux is not the queen of the game of northern seaside France. In all honesty we must crown the slightly younger Le Touquet, on the other side of Boulogne, with that distinction. Here you may have one of the most charming changes of the game, and the most wholesome, delightful rearrangement of your general daily living system. Go to Etaples from Boulogne, then spinin the car through that splendid forest, skimming by Paris Plage and its casinos and evidences of lightness of life, and so through to Touquet, where there is a course for golf that is most excellent in every respect, lengths and character of holes, sandy nature of soil, quality of putting greens—everything. Some of the holes are a little tricky; but the course in general has been enormously improved in recent times, and it well deserves the championship dignity that has now been accorded to it. The girl caddies there are the best of their kind. I remember a little Marie for such an intuition regarding clubs to be used as I remember no other assistant: and after playing for a day through these avenues of fir trees with the great banks of silver sand in the distance, shutting off the sea, then dawdling among the coloured lights at Paris Plage listening to the music after dinner, and in the night sleeping in an upper room near to the links, and hearing at the last moment of consciousness the wind music floating in from the surrounding trees, one feels that this is almost an enchanted land, with the spirits of happiness and pleasure controlling a joyful cosmos.
Dieppe is good, and it is quite different. Here the golf is some seventeen years of age, the whole system of things is well matured and settled, and the golfing season goes along with a fine swing from the beginning to the end. It was Willie Park who first laid out this course, but it has been much altered and lengthened since then, and now there is a fine club-house and all that a player might wish for, and especially one who likes to contend in competitions. There is something for such challengers to do all the time; I know few other golfing places where there are so many competitions in August and September, and yet they are no nuisance to the people who say they hate such things. At Etretat the game has been making excellentprogress lately; at Deauville by Trouville, where you bathe always except when you do not golf or sleep or eat, it has been long established, and the course there has recently been raised very high in quality; and at Cabourg and Havre, in the same region, there are courses also. There are at Etretat thirteen holes, and yet you may play a lucky round, and I am reminded that in the long ago, when golf near the sands of Picardy was first being thought of, a wise man of Cabourg sent for an English course architect, and, displaying to his view one nice field, said, "Voila! Make me a hole! Two if possible!" But they know much better now than that, and Cabourg has its full eighteen. To golf, to lie down and sleep, to splash and tumble in the sea, to seem to do so much and yet to do so little except make a few drives and miss some putts—it is all a very happy holiday that you may enjoy at these places.
The championships of France, which began in a small and gentle way, have lately risen to be very important events, and they gain a most wonderfully cosmopolitan entry. In 1913, which was the greatest year for championships in general that the game has ever known—Taylor winning his fifth Open at Hoylake, Mr. Hilton his fourth Amateur, Mr. Travers his fourth American Amateur, Ouimet beating Vardon and Ray in the American Open—the championships of France did indeed rise to the first class, and in both events, the Amateur at La Boulie and the Open which was held for the first time at Chantilly—and the first for it to be taken away from the mother course at Versailles—produced some most exciting business. I have never seen a more extraordinary final in its way than that in the amateur event at La Boulie on this occasion,when Mr. E. A. Lassen came to grips with Lord Charles Hope—and such grips they were! I was led to describe it at the time as a dramatic affair of four periods and a spasm, and that is just what it was. Lord Charles Hope, though not physically strong, has acquired a fine game, and in the first period of this thirty-six holes match we witnessed him playing some quite beautiful golf and exercising the most complete self-possession and steadiness, gradually piling up a big lead of holes upon his more experienced opponent, who has been once Amateur Champion of Britain and a finalist another time, and seeming to make himself a certain winner. The duration of this period was one whole round, and at the end of it Lord Charles had five good holes to his advantage. The second was a period of peace, in which we watched Lord Charles keeping a tight hold on his most valuable gains, while Mr. Lassen, if losing nothing more, was gaining nothing when it was absolutely necessary he should be gaining quickly if he was not to be the loser of the day. Time was flying and holes were being done with, and fewer of them being left for play and recovery. This period terminated at the turn in the second round, with Lord Charles Hope still four to the good and "still winning." The third period lasted from the tenth to the fourteenth holes in this round, and in it the man who had seemed to be very well beaten threw a new life into his game, tightened it up, made it exact, certain, and aggressive, while at the same time his opponent seemed to collapse entirely, his driving becoming soft and uncertain and his short game nervous. The Yorkshire player won four of these five holes and at the fourteenth he was level with his man. Never was there a more extraordinary illustration of the truth that no match is lost until it is won; to some extent it recalled that amazing championship at Hoylake, when Mr. SidneyFry so nearly gained the title after being at one time, as it appeared, hopelessly beaten by Mr. Charles Hutchings. Now it was surely Mr. Lassen's match; but in the crisis Lord Charles Hope came again and fought every inch of the way home. In this period every hole was halved to the end of the round, so that after the statutory thirty-six had been played the state of things was as at the beginning of the day. No business had been done, and each man might be said to have had his tail up quite as much as the other. The spasm followed. The thirty-seventh had to be played. Mr. Lassen teed up his ball, said to himself that he must keep it to the left as there was the dread out-of-bounds on the right that had been a constant trouble to him, swung, struck, and to his dismay saw the little white ball bearing slowly but surely to the right after all. It did not reach the trees, but, almost as bad, it fell into the big deep bunker out that way, and made recovery difficult. Lord Charles Hope seized his advantage. A good ball shot straight down the middle of the fairway, and the hole and the match were his. An extraordinary game indeed that was.
In the Open Championship at Chantilly there was an entry that was nearly good enough for a championship on British soil. Vardon and Ray, out across the Atlantic, were missing, but otherwise the class was as numerous and good as need be, and there were a few of the best British amateurs. George Duncan won, as he had won the "News of the World" tournament the week before, and so made it clear that he had come into his own at last. These two were his first really big victories in classic open events, and they were brilliantly and indeed easily gained. But it was not Duncan's victory, so well deserved as it was, that makes this championship at Chantilly worth a place in golfing history. It was something else that verynearly happened. Among the competitors was an amateur in Mr. H. D. Gillies, who at different times in recent seasons has shown an immense capacity. At St. Andrews in the Amateur Championship only a few months before he had made a brilliant display. Now, here, he did a thing which to the best of my belief and after a searching of all the records had never been done before, and that was in an open championship competition of the first order, decided by four rounds of stroke play and with the best players of the world arrayed against him, he as an amateur led the whole field for three consecutive rounds. Mr. Ouimet in America did not lead for three rounds, no amateur had led for three rounds in any open championship before, and it is not often that any professional has done so either. Mr. Gillies has enormous powers for concentration and effort, and, as one might say, he can strain himself at the game until he nearly drops. In his third round he had a wicked piece of bad luck which cost him two most valuable shots—not the sort of bad luck that one gets through finding a specially nasty place in a bunker, but the much worse variety which is the result of a grave error in course construction. After one of the finest drives one might wish to see, at a hole just after the turn he found his ball lying on a road which had to be treated as a hazard, and from here he was bunkered. He knew that Duncan was pressing him hard, and that he had not a stroke to spare. Still by an enormous effort he kept his lead, and at the end of the third round it looked as if it would still be a lead of two strokes, when alas! on the home green he lost a stroke in putting. Instead of having a lead of two over the terrible George for the last round he had now a lead of only one. There is not much difference between one and two—it may all be accounted for by the very smallest of putts—but in a case of this kindthe moral effect is very great. You see, when you lead by two strokes you realise that you can afford to lose one of them and still be leading, but when you only have an advantage of one there is the cold truth that you cannot afford to lose anything at all or the lead will go—the lead that Mr. Gillies had held all the time. One may be sure that he felt this, for coming off that home green some one said to him quietly, "You still lead, Gillies," and he turned with a little melancholy and responded, "Yes, but one stroke is not much to lead Duncan by, is it?" The effect was visible at the first tee in the afternoon. He knew the responsibility. He took an infinity of pains, far too much. He addressed his ball until he was sick of looking at it any more, and then he topped it into the bunker in front of him. Good-bye, Open Championship of France! But there it was, a brilliant achievement for all that, and if he had won, as once he seemed likely to do, no man could have done justice to the golf history of that year with amateurs Ouimet and Gillies as Open Champions.
Surely Mr. Gillies is one of the most interesting studies in the game at the present time. Born in New Zealand, he became a boat-race Blue at Cambridge, and is the only one who has won a high position in first-class golf. Now he is a surgeon in Upper Wimpole Street, already with a high reputation as a specialist in matters affecting throat, ears, and other organs of the head. He is evidently a man of immense will-power, with a most enviable capacity for concentration and for obliterating from his mind completely what is not essential to the business of the moment. He will work at his profession continuously for a week or a month and only just remember golf, and then he will suddenly appear in a great competition, perhaps a championship,and be a golfer and nothing else whatever. That is as it should be, as it is always supposed to be in golf, but few men can exchange themselves to this extent. When he won the St. George's Cup at Sandwich he had not touched a club for ages, but somebody insisted on motoring him down there for the occasion. He had no idea of going to Chantilly, but was at Wimereux when an entry form was sent along to him there, and he said to Mrs. Gillies, "Let us go and watch the professionals," but they watched him instead. He is always going to courses he has not seen, and when he has not been playing golf for a long time, and then doing wonders on them. Tall and athletic in build, in demeanour he is solemn, and I have heard it said that his attitude at times somewhat suggests that he is about to put his opponent on the operating table—which in a sense he often does. He belongs to the hard thinking and slow playing school. Although he has a keen temperament, and is a man who at his best plays largely from inspiration, yet he is much of what we call a mechanical golfer, and is very measured and deliberative in his movements. He has studied and satisfied himself about what are the essential principles of this mysterious game, and he applies them to the best of his intense ability. He keeps himself steadier on his feet than almost any other player I can recall. Those who have had the necessities of pivoting on toes drilled into them from their first day at golf should make close observation of the Gillies way and see how well that way pays. He swings his club backwards but a little way and very slowly, but finishes the swing at great length. As is often the case with players of his attitude towards the game, his iron strokes are plain and they can be depended on.
But the most interesting feature of his system and his principles is the remarkable steadiness with which heholds his head during the making of his stroke. We understand very well that of all principles this is the most imperative, and that he who disobeys it is completely lost. When we have foozled we know well that the presumptive cause was a little movement of that most restless and anxious head. We know also that head movement disturbs the general balance, and induces body movement, and have not troubled to consider why. A reason seems vaguely obvious, but Mr. Gillies knows more about matters of the head than other people, and from his surgical knowledge he has come by one of the most interesting theories that have been propounded in connection with this game and believes in it absolutely, which is one reason why he has decided that, when driving, whatever happens his own head shall be absolutely motionless. This is not a matter for a layman to explain or guess at, and so I have gone to Mr. Gillies himself and begged from him his theory. He says to me, then, that he has always felt that keeping the eye on the ball is certainly the key to the situation, but in recent times he has realised that the importance of so doing is really in keeping still the delicate balancing organs of the head when executing the shot. These organs or semicircular canals are intimately connected with the eye, and also give one the sense of position. The least movement of the head upsets the fluid in these canals, so that the sense of position is more or less lost, according to the amount of movement. Without the sense of position the stroke is almost sure to fail. "I take it," he says, "that your visual memory is good enough to remember the position of the ball, if you shut your eyes just before hitting it; but if you move the head at the moment you cannot hit the ball correctly. Swaying the head in putting, as Tom Ball does, is probably not very disturbing owing to the movement being so slow that the fluid in the canalsdoes not get jerked. At the same time I can understand him requiring a great deal of practice to perfect the sway." To the layman this theory is very remarkable, and it is impressive for two reasons, one being that it is backed by expert scientific knowledge, and the other that it is emphasised by successful application.
And if Mr. Gillies is one of the most interesting figures that have arisen in amateur golf in recent times, most certainly George Duncan is the most interesting of the newer professionals. Here is an artist at the game if you will, the greatest genius of golf that has come up since Harry Vardon rose to fame. I am convinced that in the new period that is beginning with the inevitable decline, to some extent at all events, of the old triumvirate, George Duncan will be far and away the most conspicuous figure. He is a great golfer, and is in every way admirably fitted for supremacy. A more fascinating player to watch and study and think about afterwards has never driven a ball from the tee.
When he first came out it was declared that he was the fastest golfer who had ever lived. It was said that he walked up to his ball and hit it away before anybody had time to realise that he had taken his stance. He was likened unto hurricanes, lightning, and racehorses. I remember that Mr. Robert Maxwell, being once partnered with him, in an Open Championship I think, remarked afterwards that it was the most violent and disturbing experience of fast golf he had ever known. All this was true. Duncan never seemed to find it necessary to think as we do, and not merely we with all our doubts and hesitations, but those far better than we are, men who have won championships. He dispensed with all alternatives, those fatal alternatives that ruinour own game. We often fail because there are not only so many ways of doing the same thing in golf, but because we try to think of too many of them when we have a stroke to play and change from one to another and then to a third, until our increasing indecision can be no longer tolerated and some sort of shot has to be played. Analyse your own emotions and experiences, and you will discover that this vacillation has been the cause of many disastrous failures. But George Duncan never suffered in this way. He is a man of lightning decision, of peculiarly sound and valuable inspiration, and he is one who, having once decided, does not swerve from his determination no matter what may be the allurements in the way of alternatives. Duncan does not know the alternative. He has no use for it. He does not recognise it. He believes that first thoughts in golf are best, and he abides by them. He decides and he acts. And he does all such thinking as is necessary for his decision while he is walking from the place where he played his last stroke to the place from which he will play his next, so that when he reaches his ball there is nothing to do but get to business without any waste of time. All these were features of the early Duncan just as they are of the present one, and they have been developed and perfected during the ten or dozen years that he has been out in the professional world.
But the Duncan of the early period had a fault of temperament in that he would go wild. He would at the moment of crisis lose his head, think of impossibilities and try to do them. He would lose his grip of his game. Elation and despondency would alternate too quickly in his mind. He would be careless; he would forget consequences. Who that ever saw it will ever forget the way in which he let the Open Championship at St. Andrews in 1910 slip from his grasp in that terrible last round? He haddone rounds of 73, 77, and 71, the third being then and still the record of the course. Another 77 would have given him the Championship. Instead of that he did an 83. The next year at Sandwich he did very much the same sort of thing in his third round. It has seemed that in each of the last four or five years he was good enough to win the Championship, and that it was largely his own fault that he did not do so. That is why we used to say of him that ambition should be made of sterner stuff, that these weaknesses of his temperament were inexcusable and must be stamped out.
Duncan has cured that fault of temperament now. He has stamped it out. The other day when he and I were discussing his predecessor in the same flesh, he said, "All that is past and done with. It is gone behind me. There is no more of it. I am quick still. I shall always be quick because that is I, Duncan, my nature. I cannot be anything else. And why should I not be quick? Are there not too many slow golfers in the world? But for the rest of it I am steady now. I feel hold of myself and the game. I do not forget." Championships should come quickly to him now.
One who will only play on summer days is a little less than half a golfer after all. Golf at the full demands resource, good heart, some courage, and a settled nerve, and it is of its principle that in the matter of places, times, and weather the game shall be taken as it is found. Hence the real golfer should not only tolerate the play in the bad seasons when there are howling winds and drenching rains, and much of life seems damp and sad, but he might be expected even to feel some occasional satisfaction in it. One who can hold himself up to the big wind and drive a ball that whistles through it to the full drive length, then play a good second and all with fine allowance and good wind work with his irons, so that the game works out well enough for any day, is one whose contentment is a state to be envied. Rarely does one feel the thrills of the golfing life better than when playing well in a lashing wind, with clothes that soak and stick; the sense of mastery is magnificent. Yet of such luxuries of winter golf one may sometimes tire. The strong would be gentle again; and sunshine comes well after storms and leaden skies. Swearing in December that this winter shall see us stay at homethe season through, playing on our east coast links throughout, January finds us hesitate, and in February, if we wait till then, there is a journey being made away through France to the sweetness of life by the blue Mediterranean Sea. It is an unforgettable change. We have spoken wrongly when sometimes after, at the end of a winter season, we have declared we tired of it. Never.
We have returned to London weary at the end of a January day from Sunningdale or Walton Heath, or it may have been just back along on the underground from the Mid-Surrey course at Richmond, which seems as well in winter as any, and much better than most others. But London is murky and dirty. It is cold, it is windy, there is a drizzling rain, and the streets are very dirty. It will be three-quarters of an hour before we may be seated at the dinner table. Oh, we become a little tired of this! Troubles never come singly, and probably on such a day a match or matches have been lost. Those who are not of the community do not understand what worries make up the full agony of this game, and that is why the loss of two matches was considered by the gentle lady with her friend at tea to be the cause complete of the horrid din as of breaking furniture in the hall, the barely-stifled awful words, the yelping and limping of the little dog that suggested some sudden and unexpected injury, and the general impression that was conveyed throughout the household of havoc and disaster. "It is nothing," said gentle Fanny of the perfect understanding as, with her toes in pink satin on the fender, she poured another cup for Mrs. Larcombe. "Really, it is only George, who, I can tell, has lostbothhis matches, dear!"
But it was not the matches only. It was the waiting lone and weary for Marmaduke at the beginning of the day; it was the lame excuse of Marmaduke forhis tardiness; it was the aggravating manner of the man throughout and the stupidity of the caddie; it was the stickiness of the greens; it was something wrong with the fateful golfer's lunch that made it all worse in the afternoon; the slicing that was more frequent and farther into the rough; the pitch shots that were topped still more; and the putts that ever lipped and stayed outside. It was the luck that went viler all the time, the cruelty of circumstance, the misery of it all; and after the twin defeat the sad discovery and reflection that if one little thing—perhaps only the pressure of a finger—had been remembered about some big things that were wrongly done, it might all have been avoided. It is realised again that of all the sad thoughts the saddest is: "It might have been." It is then that the agony of golf is experienced; it is then that the golfer is not happy. And it is then, on the retreat to town, that one may seem to hear the Mediterranean call, and see a vision of a sun glistening on a flowered and song-laden land where golf is played. Take the chance, unhappy man; make the change then if you can.
The strongest emotions often arise from the widest and most sudden contrasts. Our beautiful English summer comes to us too slowly and gradually through the vicissitudes of spring for the fullest delight. One may step out from the mist and drizzle of a London street into the greater darkness of a theatre, and it is all blank and gloom and nothingness, but there is a quick expectancy. A few moments, and there is the tinkling of a bell, the curtain is rolled up, and there is a blaze of light with a pretty picture, perhaps, of summer with a full suggestion of Arcadia. Music and song, love and gladness, and younger again is the heart in years. Thus for a while the load is lightened. It is like that when one wanders to the Riviera forgolf in the depth of England's winter. We leave London when it rains and is cold and heavily depressing; the spirit is weary from the trials of the season. Charing Cross—the Channel—Paris, hardly less gloomy than her sister Londres,—the plunge into the rumbling darkness of the fast train on the P. L. M.—sleep and dreams. And in the morning the bell rings and the curtain of the new and sunny world rolls up, and it is glorious summer. Nothing in the way of change of scene is quite so good as this. Those who do not know the Riviera may try to imagine it, but in the clearest vision they cannot approach the grand reality of this sudden change. Marseilles—Toulon—Hyères—Costebelle; and there is the sunshine, the flowers, and the game. A rest of a day, quiet slumber through the night, and in the morning drowsily one hears a beat, beat, beat upon the window-panes, and, not being then awake to Hyères, or Costebelle, it seems perhaps but the dismal tapping of the London rain. But later it is discovered to be the tapping of the leaves and rosebuds on the glass. Breakfast on the terrace, the contenting cigar whose smoke rises wreathingly through a still atmosphere upwards to the blue, and then an effort to lift oneself from a summer languor. Clubs in possession again, a walk for a little way along a rose-fringed road, and then a plunge through a coppice along a broken stony path that thousands of golfers have trod before. Through a field of narcissi, through the planted violets, past a little vineyard on to the plain below—there the golf course is. Then play the game all day, and mount to the hotel again when the afternoon is nearly spent. But in the earlier afternoon at Costebelle I would rather climb back through the little wood after my single round, enjoy this perfect illusion of summer, and read and rest in laziness. Tints of lemon andcitron come into the sky when the sun falls to its setting. Out beyond the plain is the sea and then the Iles de Hyères, or the Iles d'Or as they have been called, because the sun will shine upon them when it has left the mainland for the day—Porquerolles, Portcros, Titan, Bagaud, and Roubaud—a pearly-coloured group. You may make a short journey to them, to the blue Mediterranean which is so very blue. There is the delicate blue of the sapphire, and the richer blue of the turquoise. There is the wide blue of the Italian skies, and a wonderful blue in some women's eyes. But there is no blue that is so deep, so glorious, so soulful as that of the Mediterranean Sea, as in fancy I see it now. We gaze upon it and are content. All is so peaceful and pleasant. Over the hills comes a booming sound; it must be naval gunnery at Toulon. Grim realities of life and strife press even into this sweet scene. Yet they are French guns, and they are not meant for England either. I love Costebelle. For the simple sunny happiness of the life that is led there it is incomparable.
And this happiness in scene and sun, be sure, is the greater part of the golf on the French and Italian Riviera. There is often much doubt by those who have not been there upon the quality of Riviera golf. It varies. It once was poor; it was bad. It is now much improved, and it is improving still as the demand for it has quickened, as the people of southern France who depend so much upon their British visitors have come to realise the full meaning of "the golf boom" and the education and bettered tastes of the golfing people who leave Britain in the winter time. It is now, as golf of the inland kind, quite tolerably good, which is to say that in degree it might rank fairly well up in the second classof British inland golf. It is no better than that; it is sometimes not so good. Climatic difficulties on the Riviera are somewhat desperate. In the summer there is a continuous baking heat, and this is followed by days of warmth and nights of frost, and in such confusion of temperatures the golf courses have to be grown afresh for every season. Until recent times the putting greens needed to be newly sown and cultivated for every winter season, and I believe that it was at Nice that Mr. Hay-Gordon, secretary of courage and discernment as he is, first gave battle to the destructive climate and determined he would hold his putting greens—which at Nice are better than at almost any other place in southern Europe—right through the suns of summer and keep them on from one season to another. At Nice, again, thanks to gold, and thought, and enterprise, they have what the guardians of other Riviera courses do much envy, a magnificent supply of water, and this is lavished upon the turf through the dry time when the golfers are back at their homelands. The experiment of Nice, which was a fateful one, proved successful, and since then it has been copied by other clubs out that way, and greens are kept on and are much the better for it. In the old days it was a painful thing, as I remember it, to tread upon those tender new-born blades of grass, thin and scarce they were, and unfit for such usage as golfers give. It is far better now. Then also the construction of the courses has been much improved; but it must be remembered again that conditions and circumstances do not encourage or even agree with ideas of length and bunkering as we of Britain entertain them. Yet these things do not matter. We need no six thousand yards and no bottle-neck approaches when we wander southwards to the sun. Life shall be taken simply then; the press of existence shall be relieved, the gameshall be made a little gentler than at other times, the nerves shall not be unduly tried. So we discover that there is a virtue in what is little more than five thousand yards, a generous amplitude of short holes, and enough to satisfy of those that can be done with a driver and an iron of sorts. In a mood of ease and languor, when even strong men who like the game find joy in a mixed foursome, we come to admire the Riviera system; and we may find men at nights hard in argument upon the points and delicacies of the fifth hole or the fifteenth, the aggravations of the sixth and the sixteenth, when they would disdain to think of such like in their golfing life at home. That comes of the influence of the sun; it soothes and satisfies, and it makes contentment.
Then there is this good thing to be said for the Riviera golfing way, that it yields a very full variety, and it might well be advertised that it embraces something to suit all tastes. Not only does it vary in the kind of course, but in the way of life that is attached to it. The manner of living at Hyères and Costebelle is more of the English country kind and more sporting healthily open-air, with less of the flummery of fashion, than it is at other Riviera places, not meaning by that that there is not enough of good music and social entertainment for evening hours. The sea is a distance off, and there is next to nothing of promenading. Here we live well and are happy, and the sun is very warm. R. L. S. lived at "La Solitude" at Hyères, and he loved it. The golf in some respects is as good as elsewhere on the littoral; in some ways it is even a little better. There is the course of Hyères flanking one side of the quaint old town, and there is Costebelle with the chief hotel on the hillside on the other, and its golf course on the plain below. Hyères is a gentle course, pretty, smooth and nice, and much improved inrecent times. The turf is good for southern France, and some of the holes are remembered, as where we play through an avenue of trees with silver bark. Golf is younger at Costebelle and it is quite different, but if one were led to make comparisons, as from which we shall refrain, it might be said that often youth is no harmful thing. Golf architecture had already advanced to a science when this course was first made, the first planning being done by Willie Park, and such as Mr. John Low have advised upon its improvement since, while M. Peyron has lavished much money and attention upon it too. Even if there are still some rawnesses apparent, golf at Costebelle comes near to being the real thing. Then it is a good point in favour of this end of the Riviera that here we have the golf almost at the door of our hotel as it is scarcely to be had at any other place. It is something to walk down to the first tee, and pluck a rose by the wayside as we go.
That of Cannes is a pretty course. The Grand Duke Michael has done much for it and here he is a king. Society is high at Cannes, the people come along to La Napoule, six or seven miles from the town, in their motor-cars in a long procession, and it is the proper place for the luncheon party and such social entertainments as go well with a verandah, sunshine, and the flowers. One would go to the golf club at La Napoule even though one did not golf; many do—perhaps too many. Those who eat and chatter, kiss hands and smile, but never take a divot are losers of something that is heartening. A river runs through this golfing land, and twice we cross it by a famous ferry worked by hands upon a rope that is stretched across the stream. On one side of the river there are twelveholes laid and on the other there are six; but the six may be considered to be better than the twelve for the pleasure that they yield. First we play three of the batch of twelve, and then we are floated to the precious six. Here there are big sand bunkers of a natural kind, and they are nicely placed. The fairway is tolerably good, and there are putting greens in pretty places.
If this were all it would be good; but the course of Cannes gains a splendid charm from its magnificent situation which cannot be ignored. There is a promise of beauties to come when we approach the club-house by that long avenue of golden mimosa; later there are glimpses of almost heavenly scenes. If the golf at these continental places is gentler than at home, such things as scenery may count for a little more. I have never had full sympathy with the suggestion that the golfer cares nothing for scenery or sparkling air except when he is off his game and then falls back upon them for compensation. There is not only hypocrisy in this, but in suggesting the player to be scarcely above the savage it is unfair to a healthy taste that has had some training in appreciation of natural beauties. One does not dwell upon cloud effects nor let the mind loose upon a panorama when the strokes are being done and there is a man to beat, but sunlight and sweet scenes have always their strong effect subconsciously, and it would be a pity if they had not. I shall not place the course of Cannes at La Napoule in that warring and jealous company, many clubs strong they are, each of which claims that it is the most beautifully situated in the world. I have played upon three or four of such courses, and indeed their claims have appeared to be strong. It is enough that Cannes is very beautiful. It will be well if there are a few moments for waiting caused by a slow-going match in front when your ball has been placed on its little pinnacle of sand on the fourth teeing ground, for spreadout in the distance there is a glorious panorama of the snow-capped Maritime Alps, on whose last spur there lies glistening white in the sunshine the little town of Grasse where sweet perfumes are distilled and where, as they say, twelve tons of roses are crushed to make a quart of essence. Grasse rests on that hillside like a linen sheet dropped there by the gods. When we have done this hole and face about, there are the pearly-tinted Esterels ahead. Hereabouts the holes are chiefly laid out through avenues of fir trees, and here and there, especially when one is approaching the eighth green, the picture is one that bears some suggestion of an Italian charm. Elsewhere in the round the Mediterranean is presented, as once when we look across the bay in which Cannes is placed to Cap d' Antibes at the opposite corner from La Napoule. By comparison some of the concluding holes are a little dull in looks; but when we play them in the afternoon the sun is setting behind the Esterels in front, and then there is indeed a sunset to be seen.
Again, the course of the Nice club is at Cagnes some miles out from the town. It is different from the others of the Riviera, and it has its special advantages. I recall an example of one of them which was the more impressive since it was made on the occasion of my first visit to the course. That was years ago, and we had been held up at Nice for five days and five nights by continuous and heavy rain during the whole of that long time, and it was in February too. Such a spell of Riviera wet seems almost incredible, but it happened, the oldest inhabitants, for the credit of their country, declaring that such a thing had never been before since the world as they knew it had begun. When this kind of thing happens on the Riviera there is only one thing to do, and that is go to the casinos; and it was bad for us in every way that this rain came down like that evenif it was good for the Casino Municipal and the others at Nice and for M. Blanc at the adjacent Monte Carlo. When the five days and five nights had been endured, when the heart had grown sick of what happened at the tables, when our thoughts had turned to Sicily and Egypt—for during this period of the flood I had made one voyage (we should call it a voyage though the journey was done by motor-car along that glorious Grand Corniche) to the Riviera of Italy, and there at Bordighera and San Remo (and what a pretty little course it is at Arma di Taggia) found it to be raining still—the sun came out again and the question of golf arose to life. But surely, it seemed, golf would be impossible for some time; courses would need to dry. However, we argued that a stroke with a driving mashie is better than no play, and so we took the car at the Place Masséna and soon were out at Cagnes, and there we played on a course that was as dry as any course need ever be though the rain had been pelting down to within three or four hours before. In one or two hollow places there were little pools of casual water, but otherwise the state of things was such that we might sit upon the grass when the opposition was badly bunkered and needed time for his recovery. Others knew that Nice recovers quickly, for when we were out in the middle of the course we espied some figures a couple of long holes away, and about the attitude of one of them there was something strangely familiar. There was a manner of walking on the course not so much stiff as small and quite precise, and there was a club being carried vertically, head high up as if it were a gun and the carrier were one of a line of infantry. I can recall only one man who sometimes walks with his club like this—not that there is anything against it—and, knowing him, I still regret that opponent had not courage to accept a wager of anything from five francs to fifty thatI could name the man at that distance of seven hundred yards, having no knowledge that he I had in mind was on the Riviera at all. It was Mr. Arthur Balfour, ex-Prime Minister, who, chafing for lack of golf after his own five days' shutting up, had motored over from Cannes at the moment that the rain held up.