IV

There is an old golfer who says that it cost him many weeks of failure,

and many hundreds of pounds, to come by that experience in conducting a

golfing holiday as enabled him to make a complete success of such always

afterwards. For the benefit of others of the smallest experience, who

are liable to err grievously, he offers the following precepts:--

“However keen one may be, and however much one may enjoy the excellent

golf that is obtained on a good seaside course, it is a great mistake to

play too much during a short holiday, and failure to appreciate this

fact has completely spoiled more golfing holidays than any other cause.

The early keenness is followed by carelessness, and after a while the

game becomes somewhat of a taskmaster. Then one’s game suffers severely,

and even a strong physical constitution is hardly equal to three rounds

a day kept up constantly. Yet that is what many holiday golfers try to

do, and when they have finished their vacation they are sick of the

mention of golf, and wish they had gone fishing or shooting instead. My

advice is never to play more than two rounds a day, and to play no golf

at all on two days of the week; whilst, if the holiday lasts a month,

the man will be all the better for a four or five days’ rest in the

middle of it. He will then enjoy all his golf, and the entire holiday

will be much more of a success.

“On a holiday course, where there are many visitors, one sees a greater

variety of clubs and golfing implements than anywhere else, and

numerous novelties of a more or less attractive character. However

favourably many of these ideas may strike you, do your best to resist

the inclination to invest in them, because, if you once begin doing

this, you will have a dreadful quantity of rubbish to take home. A

golfer who thinks several times before he buys a new club when he is at

home, somehow seems to be a very irresponsible creature when he is

holidaying, and will purchase wonderful brasseys, niblicks, and putters

at the slightest provocation.

“As soon as you get on to your holiday seaside course, don’t make the

mistake of beginning to play for larger money stakes than you are

accustomed to do on your home links, even when you are invited to do so

and you may feel it difficult to refuse. Comparatively small beginnings

in this direction have a way of developing before the holiday is far

advanced into gambling on the game to an extent that the player cannot

afford. Apart from this important view of the matter, the pleasure of

playing the game is completely ruined. A ball on the match is enough for

anybody, no matter what balance he may have at his bank, and in starting

a golfing holiday a man will be wise to make up his mind in advance that

he will not play for more.

“When you are a complete stranger and alone, and you beg the club

steward that he will find you matches, do not hesitate when he offers

you an opponent, even though the latter’s handicap is either too large

or too small to give you the most enjoyable match. Take him on at once,

and be thankful. The steward, who is always an obliging fellow, has a

rather difficult task in suiting everybody, and you should be greatly

obliged for the favour he does you in supplying you with any kind of

match.

“If you are a long-handicap foozler, make your start for the round

either very early in the morning or very late, say nine o’clock or

half-past eleven. Either of these times is just as good as half-past

ten, and you will miss the crowd, have a clear course, and spare

yourself the anxiety of being a constant annoyance to the scratch men

behind you if you started at the busy time. You will play a much better

game.

“At the commencement don’t announce your handicap as either more or less

than what it is at home, whatever your views upon the accuracy of the

latter may be. If you say your handicap is more than it really is, you

are grossly dishonest and a cheat, though some misguided players do so

without any full sense of the grave responsibility of their action. On

the other hand, many players with the best of motives say they are

several strokes less than they really are, for the purpose of seeing

what they can really do at a shorter handicap, and thus, as they put it,

pull their game out. They also do it with the object of getting better

matches, but their sins will find them out. They may very likely lose

most of their matches, and their opponents, perhaps, will not care to

play with them again, wanting something more to do. Besides, they may

run up against some of their own club fellows, and then they may look

rather foolish.

“Don’t give your newly-made opponent-friend a long account of your many

brilliant performances on your home course, particularly if the account

is by way of being an excuse for your falling off on the present

occasion. The probability is that he will take a large discount off your

story, and in any case he doesn’t care an old gutta what you do at home.

“Also, don’t make the shocking mistake of discussing with him the play

and the manners of other visitors to the course with whom you have been

having matches, or whom you have otherwise encountered on the green. It

is very bad form, and, besides, after you have been denouncing some

person or other, your companion may inform you that he is a friend of

his.

“Don’t ask permission of your opponent to take your wife or your sister

or your mother round the links with you to watch the match, even with

the proviso that she shall keep at a convenient distance from you both.

Like the good fellow he is sure to be, he will say at once that he will

be delighted, and will be most agreeable. But would you be delighted,

and would you play your best game in such circumstances? Would not the

presence of a lady stranger rather irritate you, however gallant you

might desire to be? And what if all the players on the links did this

kind of thing? The proper place for ladies who do not play golf is the

seashore.

“Do please remember that as a visitor to the links, even though you are

made a temporary member, you have no _right_ to be there, and are only

admitted to the course by the courtesy of the members. This is a point

in manners which is far too often neglected, and when the neglect is

carried to an extreme the golfer may find his application for temporary

membership refused another season. There must be no arrogance in your

conduct in the clubhouse or on the green. Do not complain about the food

or about the state of the course. You are not obliged to eat or to play

there, and the members have got on very well in the past without you,

and will doubtless survive your departure.

“Likewise remember that others who are playing on the course have at

least as much right to do so as you, even if in your opinion they do not

play such a high-class game as you do. Therefore don’t get into the

habit of calling out ‘Fore!’ to the couple in front unless it is

absolutely necessary to do so, and don’t complain loudly that people who

take four putts on the green have no business to come to such good

courses and interfere with the play of others.

“Assume that your opponent, though you do not know him well, is both a

gentleman and a sportsman, as it is extremely likely is the case, and

don’t allow any contrary idea to enter your mind unless the evidence in

favour of it is overwhelming. Then say nothing about your suspicions,

but simply make a convenient excuse when he asks you for another match.

“If a point of difficulty occurs in the course of your match, do not

squabble with your opponent about the rules or stubbornly maintain your

own position against his arguments. It is better to waive your point and

even lose a hole than do so. You are unlikely to convince him, and it is

quite possible that you yourself are in the wrong. Besides, you will

score most heavily by gracefully waiving what you feel is your right.

He will feel that afterwards.

“When you are leaving at the end of your holiday, do not forget to

tender your best thanks to those to whom they are due. When you get home

again don’t tell untruths about the great things you have done while on

your holiday. The people to whom you tell them will not believe you.

Indeed, you must be very careful as to how you tell the good part of the

truth.”

V

When you are one of a special party that sets out for a sojourn at some

place, solely for the reason of the golf that it affords, and when in

due course, the time having been well and enjoyably spent on the links,

your friends determine that they will return home or depart to some

other place for golf, do not on any account yield to an impulse to stay

behind them, on feeling that you could enjoy still a little more play,

and persuading yourself that among the people you know who are staying

in the place you may make up good matches. There will be no further

enjoyment, for all the days that follow will suffer in comparison with

those full ones that were spent when those bosom companions helped to

the happiness in every hour. The course will not be the same; there will

be a ghostly silence about the rooms of your lodging place, and the

atmosphere of the town or village may seem unfriendly or at least

indifferent; whereas before, in the independence of your association,

you had not cared what it was, but formed a vague impression that the

people were pleasantly conspiring to add to the comfort and the

pleasure of this expedition.

On the first morning afterwards it does really seem that all the people

who had stayed there had gone also, and not merely the three who had

come with you. You breakfast perhaps alone in a vast apartment. The head

waiter seems to mix a great sympathy with his attentions, suggesting

that he appreciates the loneliness and the misery of your bereavement.

Out of this wretched place to the clubhouse, and there is no one there,

and the obliging secretary or steward is unable to give any definite

information as to the prospects of a morning match. You take out a young

professional, and, well though he plays, a poor thing is this match with

him in comparison with those that were of the days before, when you knew

always the thoughts and fears that were passing through the mind of your

opponent, and knew almost as well as your own, the clubs with which he

played his shots, and exactly how they did their work. The ghosts of

your friends seem to walk in front of you down the fairway leading to

every hole, and as you leave the putting green and go forward moodily to

the next tee, there is the shadow form of one of them pointing with his

club to the exact spot where you remember his ball was teed yesterday,

and you feel momentarily a happier man as you think you can see his

characteristic swing and the glint of joy that comes into his eyes as he

finds he has made the carry that it needed a strong heart to attempt

with this wind blowing back from the green. You do not wish to appear

inconsiderate, and not to show yourself as a man of proper feeling and a

good sportsman in the presence of another who can hardly display any

open resentment at your attitude, but you cannot help this walking

moodily and listlessly to the tee, as if not caring anything for the

game that is in progress. There is no familiar talk on the old familiar

topics. It is a relief when the match is ended, and you feel less pain

at being beaten at the thirteenth hole than you have done for a long

time.

“I can get a good match for you this afternoon, sir,” says that

excellent steward when you go back into the clubhouse. “Oh, thanks very

much, Brown,” you say, “but it doesn’t matter. I think I shall go back

this afternoon.” And by the afternoon train you go, and as you are

whirled along the seashore and through the open country and the tunnels,

a first thought is that yesterday at the same time those three merry

fellows were running along the same course, and were perhaps seated in

that very carriage. They have gained a day on you in everything. Next

time, my friends, we will all go back together.