As to the lengths of the holes on his ideal course he would have about twelve two-shot holes varying from 380 to 440 yards, and there should be three one-shot holes of about 165, 180, and 200 yards respectively. There would be two or three drive-and-iron holes of about 350 yards each, but a drive-and-iron hole should be so constructed that if the drive is missed it will be impossible for the man who missed it to sail on the green with his next. There is a good example of this in the fifteenth at Prince's, for although this hole is only a drive and an iron the penalty for missing the drive is that it takes the player two more shots to reach the green because of the nature of the ground in front of the tee. And then he would have it a condition that the last three holes should average about 400 to 420 yards each, and the seventeenth and eighteenth should be made specially testing ones. This is the ideal course, and, being such, it is not a place for foozlers. But if it is properly and fairly constructed it will be easier and pleasanter to play on than a course which is made difficult by the simple method of making it unfair, for example by putting bunkers in the wrong places, bycutting the hole in a ridiculous position on the green, by punishing the man who is "up" (a new-fangled and absurd idea of course construction) by placing the hole immediately in front of a bunker at the back of the green, and by leaving the approach to the green from a long shot rough or broken, and so unfair. It is easy to make any course difficult, and so conducive to high scoring, by making it unfair. This induces pawky play because the punishment for bold play may be too severe. He is also of opinion (and there is a constantly growing tendency to agree with him) that there is too much premium on putting, and that it plays far too important a part in the game, especially among first-class players and in first-class matches. He thinks the hole should be six and a half inches instead of four and a quarter. Under present conditions a putt missed by half an inch bears the same punishment (although the rest of the hole through the green may have been played faultlessly) as a hopelessly bad shot by one's opponent through the green.
Prince's supports its creator's arguments very well indeed, and one enormous fascination of it lies in the fact that it is always suggesting to you, always inviting you, always tempting you to do the more daring thing, and hinting that, even though you failed, the suffering might not be too much. In that, it seems to me, lies the chief charm of this masterpiece of architecture.
So when we come home from other lands, let us think of golfing holidays in our own, and moralise from old experience. It is an aggravating circumstance that while there is hardly anything in the way of change and holiday that is so splendid as a golfing holiday, there is hardly any kind that is so easily spoiled. Thegolfer is not dependent on the weather, only to a small extent on his friends, he seldom knows limits of time or space, yet he fails oftener in his pursuit of the perfect happiness of a summer vacation than do the unsophisticated people who kill the time of August and September in other ways, and that happens because of the very fascination of the thing, and the enthusiasm and excess to which it leads him on. In our working days limits are imposed upon us; when we are loose and unrestricted all system and wise restraint fly to pieces. It is not only that we often play too much on holidays, but that during play and in the intervals between those spells of action the imagination is at work too fast and makes riot upon settled methods which have raised the game of the individual to some more or less agreeable sort of quality. Excess and experiment are the two evils that shatter so many golfing holidays, and yet the contradictions of golf are such that we find there is something good to be said both for excess and for experiment. But be all this as it may, it is not until a man has gone through twenty golfing holiday campaigns that he fully realises he has an education to serve in this matter, and after twenty more he is able to start out on the forty-first in the strong confidence that from the days and weeks before him he will extract the full available supply of rich golfing delight. These remarks do not well apply to the person of the thick phlegmatic temperament who plays now with the same set of clubs that he started with ten years or more agone, the which have not had their shafts varnished, nor their grips attended since the time of their first swinging. This man is without imagination, without feeling, and, with no blessing upon him, we may let him wander away to play wherever he will, knowing that he will always derive some great satisfaction from his pursuit and gainmightily in health. He is not like most of us; he is as the man without any religion; he is very material. He eats, he plays, he rests, he sleeps. And he does very well in it all; and yet we of the majority who think always, ponder deeply, worry exceedingly and are wracked with doubts and conflicting theories, disappointed ever in fruitless experiments, do not envy him. The material person does not go down into the depths where we grieve and are in pain (how often do we go and grieve!), but neither does he ascend to the heights of pleasure that are scaled by successful experiment, by the sudden discovery of some wonderful secret that seems to have unlocked the gates of the higher golf and rendered us immune from failure for evermore. (Never mind what happens in the morning!) We may suffer the depths for those hot moments of life on the summits.
This preamble is needed for warning. Golf is the great game of emotions, and at holiday times those emotions are quickened, strung up and, flying loose in riot, play the devil with our game. I am sorry to believe that many young men who come back to their homelands from the golfing holiday grounds in October do so with inward sighs and stifled sobs. They tell us that they have had the most glorious time; they may foolishly give an account of a round said to have been done in 74, and of many of the longest holes that cost them only four strokes apiece, and we forgive them for their words which we know are false, realising the pain of their case and that their dissembling is in a small manner for the good of the game. Their emotions have led them astray; they have been weak and foolish; they have done the wrong things and they have left undone all those which were recommended to them as right. They have played three rounds a day, and they have bought new drivers and putters. Andsome of them have actually changed their stances and had an inch cut off a favourite shaft! Truly their emotions have led them wrong. Player! if you would pass the placid holiday, kill those emotions and cast them off. You may then take a golfing holiday from which you will derive that magnificent material comfort and refreshment that your butcher and baker do when they walk upon the promenade at Margate and, well fed, sleep at times on the sunlit sands. You will really believe on your return to labour in the town, that you have had a splendid time, but soon you will cease to talk of it for you will find that there is very little to remember. Time was passed; that was all. The man whose emotions played old Harry with him does not forget. He has something indeed to remember, for he lived very much in his month of play. So you will see that in the scheme of golfing things as jointly ordained by Nature and kind Providence, with the petty meddling of the man himself, there are different processes of holiday, and each in its way is the best. As in so many other affairs of golf there are contradictions abounding. But let us, after such philosophy, move to some definite considerations, and consider life and facts as they are presented to us.
One of the doctors' papers was well laughed at a little while since for suggesting that, on account of the nerve strain that it makes, golf is not an ideal game for everybody, especially busy folks with few hours and days for recreation. To quote: "If he takes his failures to play a good game to heart, it is doubtful whether his health gains very much. He has had, it is true, the advantage of a change of scene and occupation, and has lived for a while in a healthieratmosphere, and, if he had only been satisfied with his game, all these things would have conspired to send him back to his work cheered and braced up. But he may play very badly and become unduly worried thereat. A game that is calculated to increase an irritability which has arisen out of a trying week's work can hardly be said to be recreative, at all events to the mind." The medical writer concluded impressively: "The game of golf, if it does not go smoothly, presents so many points of analogy with the tiresome eventualities of life that there can be little doubt that persons of an irritable, gloomy, and worrying disposition would be better if they did not seek their recreation on the links." The common people sometimes look upon these pronouncements from the columns of the professional paper as being like the essence of the wisdom and knowledge of the whole of Harley Street. I remember, however, that when this was published the golfers ridiculed and condemned it, and agreed to take more golf and less medicine. It is not my function to advocate the playing of less golf than is played, much less the stoppage of any of it, but I dare to suggest that there was a germ of truth in what the medical paper said. There are kinds of players who should take their golf with restraint and caution, especially at holiday times. The truth is that a vast proportion of golfing holidays are completely ruined through a bad plan of campaign, or over-doing it, or both—commonly both. We would say nothing to a doubter now about the selection of his friends for his party; he should know that it is a matter demanding the extremest care. A golfing holidayà deuxmay expose all the least beautiful parts of each man's character, and those who are not such friends that they can comfortably bear each other's infirmities might do better even to go on their golfingway lonely and without a partner. There is much to be said for the freedom of this latter holiday existence, and odd indeed would be the golfing place where there were not many games for the solitary stranger to play.
The night before the opening of the campaign, the eve of the journey outwards, is a trying time to many men. I think of those who take loving interest in their clubs, and have many of them, including a first-class reserve, and perhaps a second-class reserve also, to the original set that is in full commission. The man who has only seven clubs in the world, and seems to take a pride in telling you that he has had them all since the beginning of his golf, is in no difficulty. But with others the trouble is how many clubs to take, and how many to dare to leave behind. After the first selection it is seen that about five or six drivers are put in the list, very many irons, and a large assortment of putters. All the ex-favourites are to be tried over again and experiments to be made with a number of others. It is found then that too many clubs have been selected; but after the most painful and difficult weeding out there may still be some twenty left, and these are taken. It is a mistake. From the day of arrival at the holiday place the man is in doubt as to what he will play with, and he mixes up his game into a bad state of confusion through using different clubs almost every day. It is a good rule, to which every golfer subscribes after twenty campaigns, if not before, to take away the regular clubs as used every day at home, not one less and only two more, being a spare driver and an extra putter. In that way happiness and contentment lie. I would leave out the driver did I not know the case of a man who so much grieved for one he had left behind that he travelled three hundred miles back home to get it!
The little truth that there was in the indictment against the game by the doctors' paper is that it is possible for some men, many of them, to have too much of it, when it becomes bad for the men and bad for their game, and holidays are rendered failures. There was a time when really good golf could only be had at the seaside, or very far away from the great centres of work and business. That is no longer the case, and the situation is that the golf we are having all the time at home is hard and strenuous, demanding great ability and thought. The golfing holiday, then, might very well be made an easy one on a links where the holes are simple, and—remembering another scare that was made by a doctors' paper some time later—I believe that there is as happy golf to be had up on the hills, and in the lonely country places, as on the margin of any sunny sea.
But it is the excess of golf that is played on holidays that spoils everything in the case of the man of a somewhat nervous temperament, and one who may not be as strong and beefy as the John Bull of the pictures. Too many of these people seem to think that, as they have gone away for golf, they should have as much of it as they can get, and play to excess accordingly. Three rounds! Three rounds! One of the reasons why some men play so much—as they put it to themselves—is that they wish to improve their game, and they conceive that the holiday time is the best of all in which to achieve that end. But experience shows that very seldom indeed is a man's game improved at such a time; very frequently it is injured, and that through the excess. When so much of it is played, weariness, though half unconsciously, is induced, proper pains are not taken at every stroke, carelessness becomes constant; then, with deterioration, too many experiments are tried, and worst of all, that terrible, and forthe time being incurable, disease of staleness sets in, and there is then an end to all happiness and enjoyment. There is hardly any cure for staleness except complete abstention for a time. It needs some strength of mind to carry out such a resolve, but he who severely limits his golf at holiday times enjoys it the more, and he and his health and his game are the better for it. A holiday system based on wise restrictions is a splendid thing. Men of long experience have tried many of them, and the best of all is this: Play two rounds on the first day of the week, one on the second, two again on the third, one on the fourth, two on the fifth, one on the sixth, and take a whole holiday from the game on the seventh day. That is not too much nor too little. Another point for remembrance is that on the days that are warm and long the old convention of one round before lunch and another afterwards is not a good one for the best and most enjoyable employment of the day. Much better is it to play in the morning, rest pleasantly—sleep, perhaps—in the afternoon, and play again in the cool of the evening, when golf is the best of all—always provided your course is not laid out in a straight line from east to west and back, for playing full against a setting sun is a very tantalising thing.
Mention has been made of staleness. In our minds there is awakened an unhappy thought with which something had better be done for good contentment's sake ere we pass along to the pleasant consideration of this holiday golf. Staleness is the canker that kills many of these expeditions that are planned with the happiest promise. It is a dread golfing disease that rages on the links almost like an epidemic during August and September. It spoils the game and happinessof every player whom it attacks, and sometimes it cuts holidays short. It is nearly safe to assume that when on holiday one golfer in every half-dozen is afflicted with it, and some of the others are in danger. It consists in the absolute incapacity of the player to produce a game that is within very many strokes of his real form; in truth the game of a good man may fall to the twenty-handicap level or lower, and each new effort on his part to raise it up again only results in a worsening of the case. There is no certain cure except isolation from the game and long rest. A trouble that has the power, then, to ruin the golfing holiday, and often does, must be considered very seriously.
Here is the progress of a case for the details of which I can personally vouch. I was a sympathetic witness of it. The man was playing well at the beginning of the holiday season and went for a month to a fine east coast links where there was no town, no village, and no society but that of golfers, and nothing to do but golf, which was what he desired. For a week he played well, doing two rounds every day, and sometimes three. The weather was hot. At the beginning of the second week there were signs of a failing game. His first anxiety soon increased; he changed his ball, then began to make alterations in his stances and swings, and at the end of the second week was all foozles, and getting worse. Soon afterwards it was obvious that the cause of the whole thing was staleness. The man tried the heroic remedy of loafing about his quarters, golfless, for a couple of days, reading novels and pretending to play bowls against himself. He also studied the stones in the old graveyard near by. On the third day he went back to the links very hopeful, but the case was as bad as before, and, desperate, he gave his game a three days' rest after that. This alsofailed. Neither of the resting spells was long enough. This being a man of keen nervous temperament, who took his game very seriously and was very miserable, he did the wisest thing by giving up his holiday and going home to work in London.
The primary cause of staleness is excess of play, resulting in exhaustion of nervous and physical energy, which in turn produces carelessness, decreases the capacity for taking the infinite pains that are necessary to the game, and—important—brings about a failure in the subconscious working arrangement between the mind and the physical system that has everything to do with the proper accomplishment of the various strokes. The movements of every golfing swing, as we have agreed, are extremely complicated; they consist of hundreds of little movements amalgamated into one great system, and while one is conscious of the system, it is impossible for the parts of it to be anything but subconsciously done, and they are made perfect by training and practice, and by getting the brain and the physical construction to work together exactly and with harmony. When staleness comes on, this working arrangement breaks down and the player attempts the hopeless task of trying to do consciously what can only be done the other way. I believe that this is the true explanation of staleness.
Note 1.—The exhaustion of the nervous and physical energy is often unsuspected, and is covered up by the enthusiasm for the game.Note 2.—Excess of play does not mean only a frequent playing of three rounds a day. Two rounds every day, as a regular thing, may be excess in many cases. Much depends on the individual. A man of highly-strung temperament will become stale much more quickly than a beefy, phlegmatic person, who is commonly immune.Note 3.—Staleness is very much more easily induced, and developsmore quickly and dangerously, in hot weather than at other times, because the tax on the nervous energy and the eyesight is so much greater then.
Now here are the common symptoms and the results of staleness. Almost the first real sign of it is swaying of the body. This is very slight at first, and is rarely suspected; but it brings about a general collapse of the swing and the entire golfing apparatus. A very hopeless sort of tap is given to the ball on the tee, and it is driven perhaps only a hundred and fifty yards. As everything seems to have been done properly, the player is mystified, begins to experiment, and then worse troubles come on. Shakiness of the legs, and much exaggerated knee and foot work, often resulting in collapse of the right leg and the player getting up on his toes, make up the next symptom; and another one that is a common accompaniment of the beginning of staleness is falling or lurching forward as the club is brought down on to the ball. Anything like a proper swing is, in such circumstances, impossible. Bad timing begins immediately; then there is overswinging and too fast swinging; and, of course, the moving of the head and the taking of the eye from the ball, those two faults that never miss an opportunity of coming in to add to the woes of the worried golfer.
What must the stale golfer do for his salvation and happiness? In the first place, if he has had this thing before, he should be on his guard against it and catch it in time. If taken at the very beginning an early cure is quite practicable. The golf should be stopped at once for a few days, and a rest and change, as complete as possible, taken. Then the game should be resumed warily—one round a day. In addition to this, some men will insist on having alterations made in their clubs. They deceive themselves. One of the greatest champions of all times once, in intimate conversation,laid down a rule to me with great seriousness, and it is one never to be forgotten. He said: "Never make a change in your regular clubs, and never buy a new one, unless it is a putter, when you are playing badly. Only make changes when you are playing at your very best. You may then play even better, knowing so well what you want." Yet, warn them as much as you may, many men will make extensive changes when they are stale and desperate. One plea to them then—the change having failed, go back to the old clubs before changing again. Never get far from your base, or you will be lost in doubt and confusion. Let it be the same with methods as with clubs. If a new way fails, let the sick man go back to the old one before experimenting again. He should remember that that old one has served him well, and the possibilities are that he will have to stand by it after all. Then the stale golfer should try to encourage himself; he should try a new set of opponents, play with men of longer handicap than himself, who normally would never outdrive him, and so on. A change of links often works wonders, but if the staleness has gone very far, and it matters little, it is often wise to give up the golfing part of the holiday if one is in progress. We have seen the advice given to play through a period of staleness. This is a heroic measure, but it would not succeed in one in six cases, and the suffering would be too great for the ordinary mortal. We tell him to take few clubs away with him, and to be faithful to them, and they will serve him well. And we tell him when his golf is ill not to fly to the dangerous stimulant of a new club. And yet, where is the man who does come back from his holiday without a new one in his bag, one fond relic of those days that were so tightly packed with golf? We bring them back with us, the names of their nativity upon them, as huntersand explorers bring trophies from distant lands. Mutely they testify for us. Sometimes when the holiday is done they are added, for their merit and fine service, to the clubs in commission in the bag; oftener they fall into the reserve; frequently they are given a purely honorary office and sent off with a title to the golfer's own private House of Lords as magnificent relics.
A diary should be kept during the golfing holiday; indeed it should be kept at all times. More such are made than the golfing world realises, because they are often, to the uttermost degree, secret and private, and that not merely for the reason that some diarists place themselves in the confessional when they make their entries, but because, alas! they are conscious of serving their own vanity by exaggeration of their best achievements. It may be kept for one of two distinct reasons, or for both of them, though the latter is not generally done. The two different objects are entertainment and instruction. For the former, the small things that are sold in shops will do. You write down, each time you have been playing, where the game was had, who the other man was, and what you beat him by; or the extent of the disaster if it was the other way about. In the column devoted to "Conditions" you exaggerate the force of the wind; and under "Remarks" you say you were driving and putting splendidly when you won. If you lost, the space is left blank. This record is in its own way valuable, because at a future time it will refresh the memory concerning great golfing days of the past, and thus furnish a real enjoyment. When a game of golf is played, and finished, it is not done with. It is lodged in a great store of remembrance, with full particulars attached toit, ripening with time, so that the player's memories are among the best happenings of his golfing possessions. All of us know that this is so, and it is as a kind of catalogue that the little diaries serve their purpose well.
The diary of analysis or instruction is a very different thing. The object is to make a serial record of ideas and successful experiments, faults and tendencies—most particularly tendencies—in order that on periodical examination of it the player may derive useful lessons and improve his game. One should get a good exercise book, bound nicely and strongly, with morocco corners, and just enter up one's performances on the plain paper according to any system that one may choose, giving prominence to a line at the top of each entry, naming the day, the place, and the man. I have seen diaries kept in this way, and they have been very serviceable. But the man who is starting anything of this kind must come to a definite agreement with himself to be absolutely honest and sincere; and he must also be very introspective, and have keen discernment for his own faults and constant observation for all that he does at every stroke. Otherwise it were better that he merely kept the diary of glorious remembrances.
Let him, if he keeps a diary of fact, hold it secret from all the world; but every night after his play put down in it the plain, real truth about what happened; and let him see to it, after much thought upon recent events, that he does properly know the truth. This point is emphasised because men may be short with their putts, say on sixteen of eighteen greens in one round, and yet not notice the frequency of the same fault; or they may be pulling or cutting their putts all the time and be oblivious, in the same way, to the circumstance. Or they may be pitching their approaches too short of the greens, or slicing most of their drives. The point is that the golfer'smemory for his own misdeeds is an exceedingly short one, and he rarely gets them tabulated and analysed as he should. If he made an analysis of his play at the end of the day, stated the truth about it in the book, and then examined that book carefully once a week, he would learn something about the causes that were preventing him from getting on in the game, and the next step would suggest itself. Some would say that the making of personal statistics in this way would be a very troublesome matter, and they would be certain to tire of it soon. It is not so much a nuisance as might be imagined; it becomes interesting, and it helps one's game.
But if you are doubtful about this idea, do keep a diary of sorts anyhow, for it is such a pity to let the golf that has been played die out of memory. You may gather a notion of the value and interest of what might be called played golf by reading through the match-book of another man, like that of the late F. G. Tait, which is included in the delightful and pathetic memoir that Mr. John Low wrote about him. Tait, model of golfers, always filed the facts about his matches, but briefly. Not many words were wasted in the "Remarks" column; what was said there was the plain truth. Often it was "F. G. T. in great form," but the recorder knew how to denounce himself. It does one good to read through this diary of one who was soldier, hero, golfer, and darling of the game.
But not every man departs on a golfing holiday for a strenuous time of continuous match-play with keen rivals who might be fine companions, and who would keep him up at night with bridge, after a day's work on the links was done. All sorts and conditions of men are included in this comprehensive golfing world of ours;and some have most contemplative moods, love solitude, and, alone with themselves and the game, probe deeply into its mysteries and into their own weaknesses. It is to the credit of the pastime that it accommodates itself most splendidly to every disposition and mood and manner; and men of a lonely way have gone solus on their holidays, and held themselves solus all the time, and have come back again, well refreshed and satisfied. They have often enough had fewer disappointments than the others. They have practised extensively, and they have improved themselves as golfers. Practice is indeed a feature of many golfing holidays. Here at such times we have the full game at our disposal and nothing but the game, and now, if ever, we can make ourselves to be better golfers. That is how we reason. It is a matter to be considered carefully.
Practice fails in most cases because the golfers concerned do not concentrate upon their efforts with that keenness, thoroughness, and determination they exhibit when playing a real match. The game is not the same to them; they do not try so hard, however much, as one might say, they try to try, and the result is there is such an excess of looseness, carelessness, about their methods, that bad habits are born; and these persons then had really better not be practising at all, for thus they do harm to their game. This is one reason why one-club practice is better in small quantities than in large ones. It is not sufficiently interesting when kept up. What we should do, therefore, is to make the practice interesting, and fortunately the circumstances of the game afford wide scope for doing so. There is no other game that is half so good in this way. Golf to many people's minds is not merely a game to be played with others and against them; it is a study, a subject for meditative research and exultant discovery. If others should regard such terms as immoderate,golfers anyhow know they are fairly employed. The essential difference that the presence of a man as opponent makes is that a real game, hard and according to the law, has then to be played, and there can be a winning or a losing of it.
Well then, it is our business, in order to make solitary practice interesting and valuable, to create a game for ourselves. It is easily done, and there are some wise men who say that they would rather play their solitary game, going round the links alone with all their clubs or nearly, than they would play a match with a stranger who happened not to turn out to be the right kind of golfing man. Many who start systems of solitary competitive play against themselves in this way fail with them, did they but know it, because they are not honest with themselves. Having become very badly bunkered, and having taken three for recovery, they must not call it one because they should have got out in one, had they played the shot just right; nor, having missed a foot putt, must they consider it as holed because if they had tried their uttermost they could have holed it. We must see that it is of the essence of solus play, and making it valuable, that the man should try his best and should know and feel that he has no second attempt at the same stroke, just as he has none in the real game when others are there. If he permits himself second drives and putts, all the strokes are done without the sense of responsibility, and the player then were better indoors writing letters to his friends to come and match themselves against him. Therefore let the first and the most inexorable rule in one's solitary golf be that the shot once made must count, no matter what its quality. What may be permitted—and this does not operate as an exception to the rule—is that when a shot has been badly done another ball may be played from the sameplace. One may learn something in this way, but always must it be understood that the first ball must count; and it is a good maxim that there should be no attempted repetition of a successful stroke, for if it were done well again the man would be no better off in mind or skill, and if it failed there would be an unnecessary disappointment and uncertainty.
Now, to consider ways of competing against oneself that will make interesting the lonely game, and lift it to value too, every man of thought might quite well devise some suitable system for himself; but we may tell him of some that have been successful with many players, and of a good principle to embrace in any new one, which is never to make the test or competition too severe. I believe that golfers are improved more by coaxing and flattery than by harsh measures and heavy defeats. It is often said that the best way to improve is to play against better players than ourselves, but there are limitations to that advice which are not always sufficiently emphasised. The superior party ought not to be too much superior, the different points of the game of the two men should not be very widely contrasted, and the better player should be giving to the inferior one so much allowance that the latter ought to win as often as he loses, never letting it be forgotten that, when handicaps are right and three-fourths of the difference is allowed, the odds are really always in favour of the better player, as has been proved over and over again. Even when a man is of long experience and has been fashioned by nature in the heroic mould, it is impossible to play his very best golf, and be improving on it, unless he "has his pecker up." The pecker properly set makes happiness and confidence, and it is only when such moods are engendered that the man is led on to higher things, perceives the absence of limitation to his prospectsof improvement, and likens himself to the chrysalis of a Vardon or a Braid. Above everything else, as we have agreed so often before, golf is a game of hope. Crush the hope by setting the man a task that is beyond him and you take away the joy of the game and kill the happy prospects. The golfer who is winning will win again and play better.
In these observations there have been some principles for practice laid down that are seldom emphasised, but are of the most vital importance. To make exact systems to suit them is, after all, a simple affair. Now many men play round after round, counting their strokes, as if they were playing in a medal competition, and comparing results at the finish, always trying to break their own records. They may gain some benefit from this play, but it often fails in interest, and consequently in value, for the same reason that medal competitions do—because of the continual occurrence of the one, or it may be two, very bad holes. The percentage of cards that are turned from good to bad merely by one disastrous hole must be very high, and when a man is playing a practice round and does a nine at the second hole, it is difficult for him to treat the remainder very seriously or be keen about them. The remedy is simple. Let this system of playing and comparisons be that his aggregate shall always be for sixteen or seventeen holes only, leaving the worst to be eliminated. There is nothing unfair in doing so. The one bad hole is frequently more the result of accident than of inability. At the beginning of a system of practice play three holes may be dropped regularly from the reckoning, then a week later two, the week after that one only. Comparisons of form are more accurate and reliable when the worst hole is eliminated, than when all eighteen are totted up. Then the man may play the bogey game; but instead of opposing the set bogey ofthe course and complicating the business with handicap strokes, let him make a bogey of his own of such a kind that it represents not the scratch man's proper game but his, so that when he is playing well he ought to beat it, and it should be a tolerable match. In constructing such a bogey, he might make allowance for his own special likes and dislikes in regard to particular holes. Again, I have known men to derive pleasure and improvement from a system of practice against the ordinary bogey by which they merely reckoned the number of holes at which they equalled or beat the phantom's figures, disregarding the losses. There is a little difference between this and the ordinary reckoning, and it is in the direction of encouragement if the player is coming on.
And then there is the interesting system that was first set forth by a most eminent player who has been amateur champion more than once, by which the practiser wins half-crowns for his good play and loses them on his off days. He plays against bogey on terms that give him an equal chance. Then he establishes a money-box with two sections in it, one being for bogey and the other for himself, and into each section he deposits four half-crowns, which is very little to pay for all the enjoyment he is about to gain. When bogey beats him one of the half-crowns is lifted out of the man's section into the ghost's, but when flesh and blood prevail the coin comes back. The course of practice is ended when one side or the other has got all the half-crowns. If bogey has them there is something wrong with the game of the man, and he had better start another series; but when the man is triumphant he may depart for a holiday exultingly and spend the money on it, in the doing of which he will probably win some more, his form being so much bettered by his lonely practice.
Perhaps in the middle ages of the game some rare old conservative of a player at one of the great Scottish seats of golf was told by another that a gentleman had just arrived by the coach from London and would like a match in the morning, and it is distinctly possible, if he was the excellent man we picture him, that he ejaculated, "And where, sir, is London?" The manner would have been Johnsonian, if not the sentiment. Should any one now be disposed to regard such lack of knowledge—though I think you would find it was only what might be called judicial golfing ignorance—or narrowness, or whatever it was, as merely stupid or a little culpable, he may hesitate. The pride of dignity, arising from conscious strength and superiority, was a fine thing among the Scottish golfers, and certainly was to be admired. That spirit, that sturdy consciousness of personal value, have helped to the making of a British empire. And sometimes a golfer would wander in the north and be discovered by the players there to have a wooden club with a brass sole, and thereupon he might be good-humouredly mocked for being the Blackheath golfer that he was, since it was on the famous course by London that the brasseywas first used. Since then London has given other good things to golf, including many courses that are unequalled among their kind and a number of players of high championship rank. And sometimes there is more golf played in a day within twenty-five miles of Charing Cross than there is in the whole of Scotland in a week, and much of it is very good golf. But this is not a place for comparisons, and particularly it is not meant for one in which the English gratitude to Scottish benefactors for the gift of this remarkable game is to be lessened from the full. It is only suggested that London golf is now a thing of great account. That is coming to be understood; but one doubts if the Londoners properly realise that the game in the metropolis has rich history and traditions which make a match for those of nearly any other place. Except that the great players of the game of different ages were so little acquainted with it, Blackheath has golfing land as historic as any, and the Royal Blackheath Club, with its origin in 1608, is the oldest in the world. That is London. Some time since there was a fashion for open-air shows of pageantry, and if the golfers had then been so disposed they could have put forward a pageant of London golf that would have embraced most picturesque and impressive tableaux. There is King James the First of England and the Sixth of Scotland, keen golfer indeed, playing the game at Blackheath in the company of some of his nobles when the court was at Greenwich, and there is a charming scene to be imagined in which the monarch gives his royal sanction and authority to the Society of Golfers that is established at this place in 1608, as it is well believed to have been, and in varying forms to have maintained its existence ever since, being to-day the Royal Blackheath Golf Club, and highly respected. I think we should regard this King James as being the very firstof our London golfers, and he makes a fine figure of a player for the distinction, keen enough in all conscience. Five years before the reputed beginning of the Society at Blackheath he appointed William Mayne to be the royal clubmaker, and a few years later gave one named Melvill a monopoly of ball-making at four shillings a time. Altogether this makes a good scene of golf.
Here in the earliest days the course of Blackheath consisted of but five holes, which was then considered the proper number, and was the same as the Honourable Company had at Leith. Later there were seven holes arranged, and though they are played in a different order, those seven remain much the same to-day. It is to the discredit of London golfers as a body, those golfers who make the most reverential pilgrimages to northern shrines, that they have not, to the extent of one in a hundred, ever been to the scene of the old Blackheath golf, or played a game there on this hallowed ground, as they may at their will. It is the story again of the prophet in his own country, the same failing as that by which the majority of Londoners might be condemned for never having visited the Tower of London. I believe I have met more golfers in America who have been to Blackheath than I have met in England, for I have encountered several who told me they had not cared to sail back home until they had made the short journey down from Charing Cross to the famous common.
Apart from the sense of history and the sentiment of pilgrimage, Blackheath, as a practical golfing proposition still surviving, should interest every golfer intensely. Surely it is one of the most interesting courses, one causing the deepest reflections, and one which, even by play upon it, might have some good effect on a man's game. For it is a chastening course, is our old Blackheath; one that makes humility ifcourse ever did, and one that gives us the best contentment with our modern lot. Men who have played at Blackheath do not so constantly complain of the weak effort of their greenkeeper, and his governing committee, at their most favoured club. A little while since the cry was raised that golf had become too easy—too easy! It was said that the improving of the fairways and the smoothing of the putting greens had taken all its early viciousness from the game. Conditions have certainly changed, but when champions tell me that this maddening game from time to time brings their nerves to the state of piano wires, it may be reckoned as sufficiently difficult for the ordinary mortal. But Blackheath is extraordinary and most educative. It is certainly hard enough, though the modern bunker scientists have done nothing with it, and in the ordinary sense it has no bunkers. New theories of bunkering and the changing necessities of new kinds of balls trouble the Blackheath golfers not at all, for the course belongs to London and not to themselves, and they cannot do any engineering work upon it, as is being accomplished continually on other courses. Of the seven holes that are played the shortest is 170 yards, there is another of 230, a third of 335, another of 380, another of 410, a sixth of 500, and the longest is 540. The two very long holes come together, and though they are virtually bunkerless you may be assured that they take an uncommon amount of playing, and that he who gets them in five strokes each is skilful and fortunate too. Here, as nowhere else, is one made to feel that inferior shots bring their own punishment with them without any artificial hazards.
The common is quite flat, but it is intersected by various roads and paths, and the greens are generally near to these walking ways. Variety is given by the great gravel pits which are here, as they have been forages, although they are now smoothed and grassed over, and the biggest of them has to be played through at both the long holes. What is known as "Whitfield's Mount," a little clump of enclosed trees, is almost the only relief from the bareness and flatness of this golfing common. The lies are better than they used to be, but however kindly they may think of them at Blackheath—and we must respect them for doing so—they are not good. How could they be? The common is open for the children of London, or any other place, to play upon, and for the grown-ups to lounge about or walk over, which in abundance they do. It is primarily a public common and only secondarily a golf course, and the vast majority of those who walk upon it know nothing of the great game, except what they occasionally see as they pass along. The golfers have no rights. They have the greens, as they are called for compliment, smoothed a little and made in some way to resemble greens; and there are holes of sorts but not generally with flags in them, and there are no teeing boxes. The fairway is as hard as might be expected, and consists for the most part of bare places and tufts. There is no smoothness and evenness of proper golfing turf about it. But one does not say this in an unappreciative way. Not for a million balls or a permanent increase of drive would we have Blackheath anything but what it is, for if it were changed the charm would be gone.
Let us go there and try the game. We must decide in advance that, like Vardon, Braid, and Taylor we can play our real game before any gallery in the world, and let our nerves and self-confidence be braced accordingly, for those who play at Blackheath must undergo great ordeals. A number of children, usually accompanied by a small dog, discover us soon after our appearance on the course, and gather close while our stroke is being made, very close. There is a littleboy, perhaps, one or two little girls, the baby, and the dog. We consider most the baby at Blackheath. The boy, occasionally relieved by the elder girl, is the spokesman of the party, and in tones indicative of complete sympathy with the objects of the expedition, which are to strike the ball and project it in the direction of the holes, he explains to the remainder what is about to be done, what is done, and how we fail to do what was intended. He corrects himself whenever he finds his information to have been wrong. Willie having told little Liza something about the performance that is pending, the child inquires about what will happen if the gentleman does not hit the ball, and the gentleman, hearing, develops fear. At this moment the dog, which has been lingering quietly within a yard of the ball, shows signs of becoming restive, and is inclined to smell at it. Finally it favours only a disconsolate bark. Somehow we despatch that ball at last, and then Willie, Nell, Liza, baby, Towser, and selves move on some way towards the hole, but not so far as we should have done, because the ball happened to strike a lamp-post; and on the way Liza desires to know if a golf ball would kill anybody if it hit them, and wishes Willie to buy one some day. And a human sweetness there is in these little Blackheath urchins after all! This early innocence is a sublime and splendid thing, and when in like circumstances you would scowl, you gentlemen from London, remember, if you please, that Liza called you one, and she thinks you are.
And the caddies! At Blackheath they have the most wonderful of all caddies. The ways and manners and the character of the St. Andrews and Musselburgh caddies are inferior. These Blackheath fellows are not like the usual thing. They lean against the wall of the club-house and offer their services to the stranger, declaring that it is a nice day for the game,when a storm is gathering over the common. Generally the caddie is given to laziness; they are a shiftless company. But see, though the Blackheath caddie looks as indolent as any to begin with, he is in truth one of the most active fellows within a hundred miles of Charing Cross, as you very soon discover, after beginning the round with him. The old red flag of traction-engine law obtains at Blackheath still. The golfer is a dangerous person, death lurks in his flying ball, and so a man with a scarlet banner must walk before the player to warn all people that he is coming on. But we make the caddie do the ordinary work of carrying, and teeing up, and red-flagging also, and he contrives in effect to be in two places at the same time. He tees the ball, lays down the driver by the side of it, and then runs ahead with a coloured handkerchief, which is the red flag, and he waves it while on the run and the golfer follows. So the caddie, leaving near the ball the club that is needed, goes on again, and is always a shot ahead. Reaching the green he stands by the hole until the golfer comes near enough to see it, and then the man hurries away to the next tee, sets everything in a state of preparation (and he carries a supply of sand in his pocket), and at once is off again to the distance of a drive before the player has holed out. The weakness of this system is that the caddie, by force of circumstances, can know little or nothing of the progress of the match, he is not one of the party, and he cares nothing at all about our good shots. He lacks the sympathy of the real caddie, but he is marvellously efficient all the same. If it is true, as we always say, that golf is the same all over the world, I would suggest that if there is a place where it is not the same it is at Blackheath, and that is why every one should go there, and it should cease to be the fact that more London golfers have been to Fifeshire than have been to play upon that historic course.
Take a glimpse into the rich past of Blackheath golf. Look into the old bet-book of the club and see some entries there, and do not forget that all bets were made on the understanding that all members of the club had a share in the gains of the winner no matter whether the bets were made in cash or kind. On Saturday, July 9 1791, "Mr. Pitcaithly bets Captain Fairfull one gallon of claret that he drives the Short Hole in three strokes, six times in ten—to be played for the first time he comes to Blackheath—after the annual day. Lost and paid by Mr. Pitcaithly, the 10th September." A little while later "Mr. Christie bets Mr. Barnes one gallon of claret that he drives from the Thorn Tree beyond the College Hole in three strokes, five times in ten, to be decided next Saturday." Mr. Christie in due course performed his driving feat and won his bet. Then "Captain Welladvice, having left the company without permission of the chair, has forfeited one gallon claret"; and "Mr. Turner bets Mr. Walker one gallon claret that he plays him on Wednesday, the 12th inst., four rounds of the green, and that Mr. Walker does not gain a hole of him." Again, "Mr. Longlands bets Mr. Win. Innes, Sen., that he will play him for a gallon of claret, giving Mr. Innes one stroke in each hole. Four rounds on the green. Out and in holes to be played." One may well understand that all the good claret that was thus available from these gallant bets, together with what was bought and paid for in the ordinary course, had a heartening effect upon those old golfers, with the result that in the fine fancies that floated in the dining-hall of the "Green Man" after dinner, drives seemed all endowed with unusual length, and direction was always good. Again it is recordedthat on an evening of June "Captain MacMillan bets a gallon with Mr. Jameson that Captain Macara in five strokes drives farther by fifteen yards than any other gentleman Mr. Jameson may name of the Golf Society now present, to be determined next Saturday"; and no sooner had Captain MacMillan registered his bet than there came along Mr. Callender, who "bets Mr. Hamilton one gallon that Mr. R. Mackenzie drives in five strokes farther than Mr. H., to commence at the Assembly Hole and go on five strokes running." Then Mr. Innes gets into a sporting mood, and he "bets Mr. Wilson a gallon (a guinea) that he beats him, allowing Mr. Innes the tee stroke with his wooden club, and after with his irons. Out and in—four rounds." All these were in the latter days of the eighteenth century, and all the time the happy golfers were filling up the bet-book of the club, not with golfing bets any more than, or as much as, with bets about events of the great war that was in progress; as, for instance, when Mr. Satterthwaite "bets Mr. Callender a gallon of claret that Admiral Nelson's squadron does take or destroy the French transports in the harbour of Alexandria, or the major part of them."
In the Knuckle Club and the Blackheath Winter Golf Club, forerunners of the Blackheath Golf Club, the same happy state of affairs prevailed. The Knuckle Club was a very remarkable institution. In form it was a secret society. Each member had to be initiated, and had to learn certain signs and answers to questions by which he would know brother members from strangers. Also, the members wore orders or a kind of regalia, and there were heavy fines if they allowed themselves to be seen outside the club-rooms with these special tokens of their community about them. On one occasion we have a member, named James Walker, heavily fined in claret for being so thoughtless as totake home his order. The holder of the golfing gold medal for the year was termed the Grand Knuckle, and was the chief of the club, which boasted also a "Registrar," and various other officials of much dignity of title. As the mystic element of the club decreased, so the golfing strength and enthusiasm of it increased, and it was by this process of evolution that in course of time the mystery lapsed and the name was changed. Before the competitions of the club took place advertisements were always inserted in theTimesand theMorning Chronicleof the period, and it must be remarked that play in these competitions was usually conducted on the strictest lines. One record in the minutes reads: "28th March, 1795. Medal Day. It being stated to the club that Mr. Innes, one of the candidates for the medal played for this day, lost his ball; the opinion of the club was desired whether the loss of the ball put an end to the candidate's chance for the honours of the day." The club determined that it did. So more than a hundred years ago their medal rules were stricter than ours, in this matter at any rate. "Scrutineers" always examined the medal cards after dinner, and announced the winner. In the early part of last century there seems to have been rather less of betting and a little more of feasting. There were gifts of venison and turtle from the members, and the supply of claret, varied now and then by champagne and choice spirits, was very copious. Each time a child was born to a member, he contributed a pound's worth of claret to the weekly or monthly dinner; and whenever a member was married, the same thing was done. The golf of Blackheath, and all connected with it, was then a highly picturesque thing. The course was yet only a five-holes affair. The clubs of the players were carried by pensioners of the Royal Naval Hospital, Greenwich, in their quaint uniforms, and anallowance of beer was regularly made to them by the club until 1832. The pensioners were caddies until 1869.
The Royal Blackheath Club was, and still is, most original and interesting in many points of its constitution and government. To be captain of this club, small one comparatively as it is now, is to fill a high office, the honourable nature of which is duly impressed upon the holder at the time of his election and installation, for he is elevated with much ceremony and in much the same way as the captain of the Royal and Ancient Club. The retiring captain sits in his chair at the meeting for the last time, and thanks are offered to him by grateful members for the good things he has done in his year. And then the captain-elect is called by name by the secretary, who takes in his arms the silver club which is the equivalent of the mace in Parliament, the symbol of power and active authority, and places himself at the head of a procession which is formed. The field-marshal, conducting the newcomer to the chair, follows behind, and so they make their way to the head of the chamber, where the field-marshal presents the new captain to the old one. There are various little forms of ritual to be gone through; the new captain makes a solemn declaration of loyalty and fidelity to the club and his office, and, particularly, expresses his anxiety to maintain its dignity, and then he commits himself irrevocably and awfully to an undying oath—he kisses the club! All this is to-day just as it was in the ancient days. Mention has been made of the field-marshal of the club; no other club boasts a field-marshal, who fills an office of most ineffable and incomparable dignity. Captains may come and go, year by year; they do their work well; and they lay down the club. But the field-marshal is above all captains, and he is in office till hedies. He is a prince over captains. He is essentially a golfer—not a mere ornament—and a good golfer, and one strong in the true spirit of the game. Because a good field-marshal is not easily found, he is made much of. The installation of a new one is a fine ceremony. There is a solemn gathering, all the famous trophies and bits of regalia are furbished up; there are speeches, forms, declarations, questions, answers; and if it were a very coronation the thing could scarcely be more serious. The silver club is held before the field-marshal elect, and he is presented with the special medal of his office, when he is finally addressed thus: "We expect and ask that you will wear this medal at all golf meetings as your predecessors did; and we have further to ask that you will in all time coming, while you are spared in health, do all that in you lies to maintain and support the rights and privileges of this ancient club; to maintain the honour and dignity of the club; and should any attempts be made to interfere with the rights of the club, that you will aid the executive in endeavouring to put down such interference, so that the club may maintain the high and honourable position that it ever has done, since its institution in 1608. Kiss the club!" The field-marshal kisses it, and thus he is exalted among the highest in the whole world of golf.
There are many eras with marked features to be noted in the history of the club. Even now many of those features are still perpetuated. Dinners are still held; dignity still is high. We have now heard much of the old-time Blackheath golfers; but an era of vast consequence, not only to Blackheath but to the game, is one that can still be remembered by some old golfers, that of great activity which began just before the middle of last century, and is only just now reaching its climax in the great and universal "boom" in golf.It has already been suggested that Blackheath led the way, and led it most effectively. For long after it had done so it was still the premier club in England, and in playing strength was the best. The club itself has few solid possessions—just a few fine old club heirlooms—but many great memories. In a very modern sense it is poor, having a comfortable but not a magnificent club-house, and no splendid links of eighteen holes. But the Royal Blackheath Golf Club is like a fine old English gentleman of the very best kind, ignoring all new ways of thought and life, eschewing all sordidness, clinging to the fine simple principles of wise fore-fathers. That is just what it is, the fine old English gentleman whom the age has outstripped. It is the Colonel Newcome of the clubs.
And in that pageant of London golf that we suggested there are many other picturesque and significant scenes. If we cannot be sure of the places where the holes were cut, nor of the situation of the teeing grounds, it is still certain, from documentary evidence, that a golf course that was made at Molesey Hurst was only second, in point of seniority, in England, to Blackheath itself, and it was very high up in the list of the golf clubs of the world. Manchester came next in 1818. There are concerned in the only existing record two people of no less credit and renown than David Garrick, the actor, and the eminent Dr. Alexander Carlyle, of Inveresk, who witnessed the Porteous riots, saw the fight at Prestonpans, and amid these many excitements cultivated his game to a fine point, was one of the keenest golfers of the eighteenth century, and won the Musselburgh medal in 1775. Carlyle was like many others of the Scottish parsons of those good times and the present,who would take their golf clubs with them wherever they might wander, on the chance of opportunity presenting itself. He came to London, and knowing of Blackheath, the clubs came with him. Garrick at that time had a house at Hampton which in recent days was occupied by the late Sir Clifton Robinson, the organiser of the London electric tramway system. Garrick asked John Home and a number of friends, including Carlyle, to dine with him at Hampton and bring their golf clubs and balls with them that they might play on the course at Molesey Hurst. When the six of them, who were in a landau, passed through Kensington, the Coldstreams, who were changing guard, observed their clubs, and gave them three cheers "in honour of a diversion peculiar to Scotland."
There might be a railway train in the pageant of London golf, one of the early trains with engines of the Stephensonian style. The period would be just after the accession of Queen Victoria, and there would be two gentlemen travelling together from London to Aldershot, one of them being Sir Hope Grant, a keen golfer, a member of the Royal and Ancient Club, who held a military appointment at Aldershot, while the other would be the Duke of Cambridge. It has been recorded that in matter of companionship this journey was a very dull affair, for Sir Hope Grant was moody, and failed to respond to the well-meant attempts of the Duke to open conversation. He seemed troubled. But suddenly after long silence he jumped up from his seat, rushed to the window of the compartment and opened it. At this stage the Duke of Cambridge felt that things could not be well with his companion, and jumping up after him, grabbed him by the tails of his coat. A moment later they both sat down, and looked at each other. "Well," said Sir Hope Grant, in the manner of a man recovering from a great surprise,"that is a thing that you seldom see near London; there were two men playing golf in a field out there."
And then in the pageant there would be represented the starting of golf at Wimbledon in 1865, with the Blackheath emissaries all on fire with the zeal of their enterprise. Wimbledon with its Royal Wimbledon and its London Scottish, its famous holes and its windmill, and all the rest of it, has played no small part in golfing history. At the beginning seven holes were made as they had them at Blackheath, and did you ever hear that at Wimbledon once there was a round that consisted of nineteen holes, the longest round in number of holes in the world? Tom Dunn, who was responsible for the extension of the course about 1870, told the story, and so far as I am aware he only told it in America. We may repeat it here in the words he used. The committee had asked him whether he thought they might make a full-sized course on their land, and, coming to the conclusion that they might, he was told to go on with the work, and eventually was satisfied that he had made a good job of it. The secretary of the period is said to have been somewhat imperfectly acquainted with the game in general just then, and went to Dunn with the inquiry as to how many holes they had on the old course at St. Andrews, and was told. "The secretary thought a moment," said Tom, "scratched his head and began to look wise. Then he approached very closely, and nodding his head for me to bend my ear, he whispered in a hoarse voice, 'Tom, let us have one more!' 'Oh, that is impossible,' I replied. 'It cannot be, for eighteen is the orthodox number.' 'I care not for that,' replied the secretary, who was accustomed to have his own way, 'we will have one more!' I was very young at the time and I would do anything rather than offend the gentleman, for he had much influence, and I wanted his goodwill;so I reluctantly submitted to the demand. The committee met the next day, and I was asked if I had succeeded in making an eighteen-holes course. I replied, with some hesitation, that I had made a nineteen-holes course, and explained why I had done so. Well, you never in your life saw a more excited lot of men. There was an uproar in a moment, and all made a dive for the poor secretary, who never heard the last of it."
Within sight of Wimbledon now there is Coombe Hill, one of the best and most recent achievements in the new metropolitan golf. Here is a contrast indeed! One may sometimes wonder how those ill-tempered people who grumble that golfers in these days take their game, and all about it, too richly, and that fine club-houses do not make plus players—such complainers still being eager for all the most modern comforts themselves—would like to live their golfing lives for a season after the early Wimbledon manner in all its great simplicity. The first club-house those golfers ever had, if you would call it by the name, was the old iron "shooting house," and it measured only eight yards by six. It served the purposes of club-room, clothes-room and others. If its floor space was small, its roof was high, and the members' clothes were hung up on hooks, to the very top; and were lifted up to their proper places, and reached down again by a pole. Most of the numerous members had their private hooks, and a boy who worked the pole had a most marvellous memory for the garments and their proper owners, so that when a member, coming in suddenly, called for his jacket and his stockings, up went the pole, and down came the goods without a moment's delay, and all correct. This remarkable young person hashis proper and highly-developed successor in Gibbon, the house-steward at the present Mid-Surrey club at Richmond, who, though he has nearly a thousand members to consider, knows so well the particularities and possessions of them all. Tom Dunn had his workshop in this iron shooting house, and here he kept a fair stock of clubs and balls, and did his own repairs. Presently some of the members suggested to him that it would be agreeable if he stored some eatables and drinkables in his shop for their sustenance and comfort, before and after rounds; and so he laid in a stock of wines and spirits, sandwiches and eggs, and so forth, which had of necessity to be laid out on his bench where there were varnish, shavings, sawdust and pitch as well. Behold here the early London golfer! It is an interesting historical fact, that when a few years after its establishment, and just before the Tom Dunn era, the club first thought of engaging a professional, the committee set it on record that "they took a very favourable view of young Tom Morris's application for the post."
The people who accuse the moderns of being over fond of prizes in competitions—and a nasty name they call them!—might be told the tale of the old golfing baronet of Wimbledon, now dead, who once won five shillings, being his half share of the third prize in the sweepstakes attached to the monthly medal competition there. It was the first prize that this keen but unfortunate golfer had ever won, and he begged the permission of the committee to be allowed to add more money for a richer keepsake. The consent of the authorities was graciously given, whereupon the prize-winner purchased for himself a golden-eagle writing stand for which he gave a hundred sovereigns, adding ninety-nine pounds fifteen shillings to the prize-money. Friends, not being golfers, who called uponhim had the prize exhibited to them, and they said, "Goodness, what a fine player you must be!" He felt he was, and that the prize was worth the money.
When the 'nineties of the last century were reached golf began to spread in London, and such clubs as Northwood with its "Death or Glory" Hole, Tooting Bec, and Mid-Surrey laid the foundation for the great London golf that was soon to come. This Mid-Surrey club with its thousand members, its financial turnover of thirty thousand pounds a year, its hundred thousand rounds that are played on that excellent course in twelve months without its showing hardly the wear of a blade of grass, the twenty thousand lunches that are eaten by their members, the four thousand pounds that were spent in one year lately on the improvement of the course, is, I believe, the busiest golfing institution in the world. It is well said that there is nearly always a couple driving off from that first teeing ground near the rails in the Old Deer Park. And one might add that as a place where golf is played in a plain but excellent spirit, without any fancy trappings, the club here is one of the best organised and managed in the world, and is a vast credit to the secretary, Mr. J. H. Montgomerie, while the course, whose putting greens are a match for any in existence, is a fine testimonial to that prince of greenkeepers, Peter Lees, who was lately captured by the Americans for a great new course on Long Island. Lees has been a great influence in the development of modern golf in England, and I know that he will make a great difference to American courses. And there is champion J. H. Taylor as the club's professional. In a special way Mid-Surrey stands for London golf.
It has come to this, that we no longer fear to speak and write of the great excellence of the London golf courses. Sunningdale at the beginning of the presentcentury opened up a new era not only in London golf but in golf in general—the period of the inland courses of a far higher class, better and more interesting in every respect than anything that had ever been dreamt of before. Sunningdale was followed by Huntercombe and Walton Heath, of which Sir George Riddell has assisted to make such a magnificent success. There have come after them Worplesdon, Burhill, Bramshot, Stoke Poges, Sandy Lodge, Coombe Hill, St. George's Hill, and many others all belonging to the same class. Many of us hold to the fancy that Sunningdale, the mother of the new sort of courses, is still the best and most charming of them all. She is the Berkshire jewel; magnificent. But comparisons are not easily made, for, most remarkably and happily, these new modern inland courses that are setting an example to the world and which the world is following wherever it can afford it, vary enormously in character, in appearance, in the precise sort of golf that they present and offer, whereas at the beginning of inland golf we had the fancy, and the fancy truly led to fact, that in the main all inland courses must be the same—plain, flat, one cross bunker here, another there, and then the green. Not only the architecture, but, far more than that in its beneficial effects, the greenkeeping has been improved, soils are understood, they are fortified and seeds are adapted to them, and results are achieved which not ten years ago would have been regarded as impossible. The result is that we have fairways and putting greens on some of our best inland courses near London which are rarely excelled at the seaside, although nothing can ever give to inland turf that firm springiness—a term slightly paradoxical but one easily appreciated—which is the characteristic of good seaside links. No longer is good inland golf to be despised. It has charms all its own, and it has thedistinction that golf as we know it to-day would never have existed if it were not for the inland courses. There are fewer hedges on them now than once there were, and no more ditches than there should be.
To a section of old conservatives it may seem a dreadful thing to say, but it is the truth that one of the reasons why we love our golf of London, praise it and rejoice in it, is because of its glorious trees. We know courses on the coast where there is never a tree or a bush to be seen, and never one to be avoided in the playing. The golfers who live and play and die in those parts know nothing of the splendour of trees and the leaves that come and go, and knowing nothing they will even sometimes wrongfully say that no golf course ever should have a tree about it. Golf is a game of Nature; allow it then all the best effects that Nature can supply. Permit it the trees that the townsmen otherwise so seldom see; cutting them down, hewing them away will not bring the ocean nearer nor liken the course more to seaside golf. Trees belong to the inland game as much as sandhills to the other, and when a question of removal arises, let constructors and committees reflect that a golfer can be made in a season and he perishes some time later, that a new hole can be made in a week and may be altered the week after, that some shots which are thought of might be hindered by the tree but that only one shot in a dozen is likely to be of the kind that is considered—and that the tree has taken ages to grow, and will live ages on, being more of eternity than many generations of golfers.