The man who has the courage to enter upon a medal round or a match with
a keen opponent and play with a cheap, or cheaper, ball, is a rarity,
and an admirable one. Faith goes for a long way in these matters. Give a
man the most expensive ball on the market to play with, and he feels
that he has got something which will do justice to his capabilities, and
occasionally let him off with light penalties for some of his errors.
Let him have a cheap ball and he is uneasy, with the idea that nothing
is likely to go right for him. When he has faith in his ball--his
expensive ball--he plays accordingly, that is to say, he plays with
confidence, and the probabilities are, of course, that in such case he
will play better than he would otherwise do, especially if he makes a
good start. If he has not so much faith in his ball--because it is
cheap--he will not play so well, because he will play without
confidence. This is really a truism which is emphasised over and over
again on the links every day. As this player cannot test his balls
accurately and show for a certainty which one is better than others, he
has naturally faith in the more expensive, because it ought to be
better, whether it is or not. So one comes quite logically to the
conclusion that the most expensive balls are the best. Now suppose that
the makers of any of our leading brands of florin balls were at this
stage to reduce the price of their specialities to a shilling each. What
would be the attitude of these golfers to that ball? They would say to
themselves, or suspect, that these makers were taking something out of
the quality of their wares, and if they suspected that, they would
almost certainly find innumerable happenings in their next match, which
in their opinion would give the utmost possible support to their theory.
Every drive that fell short of the proper standard would be put down to
the makers of the ball; this really very funny golfer would shake his
head and say that it was a great pity, and so forth, but that he would
have to give up this shilling ball, of which at two shillings he was so
very fond. And he would do it. But all the time there may not be a
particle of difference between the old two-shilling ball and the new
shilling one.
Once again one is tempted to the fancy that there is a good future for a
reasonably good ball to be sold at five shillings. It would not be a
popular ball, because there is a large proportion of players to whom
this one would at last be too expensive; but all who could afford to
play with it by making some little sacrifice, such as by cycling to the
links instead of going by train, by carrying their own clubs two or
three times a week instead of employing a caddie, or, simpler still, by
reducing the weekly or monthly allowance for domestic purposes to the
lady of the household because of the hard times, would certainly do so.
And as the rich golfers would play with it also, it would have a good
sale, and if it cost no more to make than the florin balls it would be
very profitable to the manufacturers. All the ordinary golfers would
play well with it. They would feel that they had the very best, that at
last they could do themselves justice. They would have confidence. Queer
world this of golf!