In the dampest and gloomiest days of the British winter, the golfer’s
fancy often flies to Riviera and Egyptian courses; and a while later the
golfer follows his fancy, so that he may have a dry game in the sunshine
again. Golf in Egypt is a thing to itself. “Through the green” it is
mere sandy desert, for bunkers there are chiefly mud walls, and the
putting “greens,” which vary a little on the different courses, are
generally made of rolled mud. Yet this golf is eagerly participated in
and most thoroughly enjoyed by the large British population. They would
not be without it for a thousand Pyramids. They have their competitions
and they have a championship of their own. Egyptian golf has a curious
history. It is nineteen years since the game was first played in the
Land of Pyramids--that is to say, since two players drove from a tee and
holed out on what they called a “green”; but some time before that a
ball was hit by a golfer. The circumstances are remarkable and are
worthy of the baptism of an ancient country like Egypt to a Royal and
Ancient game. Rameses II. and Cleopatra would have approved.
This is the true story. A full-blooded Scottish golfer, imbued with all
the best traditions, and all the better for being a clergyman, none
other than the well-known Rev. J. H. Tait of Aberlady, went for a
holiday to Egypt, and duly climbed to the top of the Great Pyramid.
Arrived there he rested, and to do so the more effectually he put his
hands into his pockets, when, curiously enough, he felt a golf ball in
one of them. In a moment the golfer was ablaze in the parson, and he
determined that right there on the summit of the Great Pyramid of Cheops
he would play the game for the first time in Egypt. So he teed up the
ball and addressed it most elaborately and conscientiously with his
umbrella, for, of course, he had no clubs with him. There were none in
Egypt. Then he made a bonny St. Andrews swing: the ball went spinning
away through the fine desert atmosphere and was never seen again--by the
man who hit it, at all events. There were some great jokes about this
shot afterwards. They said that in future days some old antiquary would
find this ball in the desert sand, and would try to make out the
hieroglyphics (the name of the maker, Tom Morris) upon it. As they would
then be indistinct it would be suggested that they stood for Moses, and
the inference would be that the lawgiver of Israel was a golfer.
Some years after that a course was laid out near Cairo. The men who made
that course and played the first golf were none other than Mr. J. E.
Laidlay, twice Amateur Champion, and Sir Edgar Vincent, who won the
Parliamentary handicap in 1905. This was in 1888, and Sir Edgar had
only had one taste of golf previously, that being in the previous
summer, but he thought it would be as well to take his clubs with him to
Egypt. Mr. Laidlay, going to Egypt also, thought the same thing; but
when they got there they found there was no golf at all. They did not
know each other; but Sir Edgar knew Mr. Laidlay by reputation, sought
him out, and they conferred together on the miserable character of the
situation. Mr. Laidlay was famishing for some golf, and stirred up a
great enthusiasm in the other, so they agreed that they would go out
into the desert together and make a course.
“We made a survey of the outskirts,” said Sir Edgar, “and found the
material to be of the most unpromising description--seven parts sand and
one part scrub everywhere. There was one comforting fact, and that was
that our bunkers were ready made, for there were bunkers everywhere.
Mr. Laidlay’s enthusiasm overcame everything, and by dint of hard labour
and perseverance we soon had a nine-hole course laid out. In this way we
were certainly the pioneers of golf in Egypt, and, as I believe, in
Africa.” When Mr. Laidlay went home again he entered for the Amateur
Championship and won it for the first time. One of the first converts to
golf in Egypt was Lord Cromer.
There are now nine clubs and courses in Egypt. At Cairo the round
usually consists of twelve holes, although there are two more which are
very seldom played. It is desert golf, and the “greens” are brown
patches of puddled earth, over which sand is sprinkled daily to true
them up and slow them down a bit. Some say that the golf at Helouan is
the best in Egypt, and others prefer the Assouan course, in the making
of which Mr. John Low had much say and which he has visited since. Here
the greens are made of rolled Nile mud. But most prefer the Mena House
course, which is laid out on a bit of the very small area of grass there
is in Egypt, which is so precious that players are requested to play
only in rubber-soled shoes for fear of breaking it. For part of each
year the course is under water. Not only is there grass here, but the
course is laid out alongside the Great Pyramid, the shadow of which is
thrown across it. This Great Pyramid--2,000,000 cubic feet of
stone--gives golfers a queer feeling if they catch sight of it when
swinging for their drive. When Napoleon was beginning the battle of the
Pyramids hereabouts, he said to his men, “Soldiers! from the summit of
yonder Pyramid forty ages behold you.” That is so, and the golfers may
wish they did not. They may think it is no game for spectators of this
kind.
X
Many golfers, like others who are not golfers, have come to the
conclusion that in the twentieth century it were better for them and
their game to think and grow thin. One of the most enthusiastic and
determined says that success in the game depends chiefly on the stomach,
and one is half inclined to think that he is right. He is, to this
extent, that it is hard to play fine golf when the interior mechanism is
in bad working order. And it is quite apparent that we modern golfers,
like other people who are outside the pale of our noble game, are not
the possessors of such strong heads and tough digestive apparatus as
our ancestors of the links used to be. The man in the street dare not
for his life walk into the Cock Tavern and call the “plump head waiter”
to bring him a pint of port just because it is five o’clock, as Tennyson
used to do as regularly and deliberately when he was Fleet Street way,
as if it were nothing more fortifying than tea that he demanded. The
modern man would be too much afraid, lest perchance he should not know
when it was six o’clock. We are not like our forefathers, and we can
never be like them. There is a queer tale of a comparatively modern
golfer who drank deeply overnight, so that his path to his bedchamber
was one of tortuous difficulty, but who, nevertheless, got up in the
morning to win a championship; and it is not many years since a picture
was drawn for a text-book on golf in which it was suggested that “the
man to back” was he who was sitting down to something in the nature of a
Porterhouse steak with a not very small bottle of wine at the side of
his plate.
From a high moral point of view those ancestors of ours who bred
inferior stomachs for us were, of course, wrong, and yet they did many
fine things on their pints of port. They wrote great prose and verse,
they painted fine pictures, their taste and skill in handicrafts were
superb, they won the battle of Waterloo and the battle of Trafalgar, and
they could--most undoubtedly they could--play golf. Having regard to the
quality of their tools and the state of the upkeep of their links, they
made many fine rounds, which showed that they had great skill, that they
had a fine steadiness of hand and eye, and even that they upon occasion
went in for thinking golf!
And of all the types of the modern Britishers’ ancestors, give us for
great courage at the board and for a capacity for high enjoyment
according to his lights, the golfing ancestor! He was a rare fellow. He
went out to play his round by day, and he foregathered the same evening
with the others of his golfing society and celebrated the day as many
persons say that a good day should be celebrated. And it was a matter of
duty with him too, not merely inclination. On the morning of the play
and dinner days of some of the fine old Scottish golfing societies, it
was the custom to send the boy of the club round to each member’s house
summoning him to the meeting, and taking his name if he promised to be
present at the evening meal.
The old golfers saw to it that the quality of all the fine things of
which they partook was of the very best, for leading features of their
dinners were the gifts of various members of their own company, and it
was the common custom before each gathering was ended to make large
provision for the next one in the way of promises of food and drink, and
these promises once made were exacted to the last ounce and drop, under
penalty of fines of dozens and cases of wines and spirits.
No club has richer traditions in this respect than the old North
Berwick. The viands that its own company sent to its table for its
constant meetings were fine things. One time Mr. Hay of Rockville sent
along a round of beef stewed in hock. Sir D. Kinloch sent Shetland beef,
the Duke of Buccleuch contributed large quantities of venison and
venison pasty, while the Earl of Eglinton, as an apology for his absence
from one meeting when captain, sent a fine buck. As for liquids,
Sir David Blair presented the club at the start with three dozens of
champagne, and thereafter it became the custom to fine a member exactly
that for any delinquency or omission on his part. Thus we have a minute
on the books for 23rd September 1835, which reads: “At dinner it was
voted unanimously, on the motion of the captain, that Mr. John Sligo be
fined in a case of three dozen champagne for not sending a cook as
proposed by himself, by which means the turtle, venison, and other
delicacies were entirely destroyed.” Judging by the temper of these old
North Berwickers, and of the importance that they attached to these
things prandial, one would have been inclined to congratulate Mr. Sligo
on the leniency with which his grave offence was treated. Whisky by the
dozen and half-dozen came from Campbell of Glensaddell and Macdonald of
Clanranald, shrub from Mr. Whyte-Melville, rum from Major Pringle, casks
of beer and porter from various other members, and so on; claret,
withal, which was presented in large quantities, being the favourite
drink.
Even if one be but a drinker of tea and ginger ale, there is some
interest in reading of the exploits of the old-time golfers of Edinburgh
and Musselburgh. In the “bett book” of the Honourable Company, under
date of 4th January 1766, there is the rule entered: “Each person who
lays a Bett in the Company of the Golfers, and shall fail to play it on
the day appointed, shall forfeit to the Company a pint of wine for each
guinea, unless he give a sufficient excuse to their satisfaction”; and a
most interesting entry in the minutes of 16th November 1776 tells us
that “this day Lieutenant James Dalrymple, of the 43rd Regiment, being
convicted of playing five different times at Golf without his uniform,
was fined only in Six Pints, having confessed the heinousness of his
crime.” To this minute, signed by the captain, there is appended a
codicil, stating, “at his own request he was fined of Three Pints more.”
Always pints, and never pounds or guineas. The Company even thought that
it was a proper thing for it to pass a formal resolution adopting
certain liquors as the club drink, just in the same way as they would
adopt a uniform. Thus, on 11th December 1779, the sentiment of Christmas
being already abroad, it was resolved and duly entered on the minutes,
that “Port and Punch shall be the ordinary Drink of the Society, unless
upon these days when the Silver Club and Cups are played for. At those
meetings Claret or any other Liquor more agreeable will be permitted.”
O, say some, for the days of famous Jamie Balfour, secretary and
treasurer of the Company in 1793! Never was jollier golfer. And never a
man more honest, more deservedly popular, and loved by all his
contemporaries than he, as witness the fact that when, alas! he went to
the links of Valhalla before he reached the age of sixty, the company
mourned for him as golfers had never mourned before. They met at a
special meeting and dinner in the most solemn mourning, with the Captain
in the chair and Sir James Stirling, Baronet, Lord Provost of the City
of Edinburgh, beside him, and drank to Balfour’s memory in the most
solemn of toasts.
Jamie looked upon the wine when it was red; he could see no virtue in
self-denial. He liked the sound of the drawn cork. When he heard one
drawn in any house that he happened to be in, which gave an unusually
sharp report, he would call out, “Lassie, gie me a glass o’ that!” not
troubling to ask what the wine was, but taking it for granted that for
such a report it must needs be good of its class.
A story is told that a lady who lived in Parliament Close, Edinburgh,
was wakened from her sleep one summer morning by a noise as of singing,
when, going to the window to learn what was the matter, guess her
surprise at seeing Jamie Balfour and some of his boon companions,
evidently fresh from an orgie, singing “The King shall enjoy his own
again” on their knees around King Charles’s statue. It used to be said
that Balfour could run when he could not stand still, and the story is
told that on one occasion, going home late from a festive night, he
happened to tumble into the pit formed for the foundation of a house in
St. James’s Square. A gentleman passing heard his wailing, and, going up
to the spot, was entreated by Balfour to help him out. “What would be
the use helping you out when you could not stand though you were out?”
said the passer-by. Whereupon Jamie retorted, “Very true, perhaps, yet
if you help me up I’ll run you to the Tron Kirk for a bottle of claret.”
And he did; and having won the first bottle, Jamie exclaimed, “Well,
’nother race to Fortune’s for another bottle of claret,” and he won that
one also.
In its ancient days the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews was
great on fines in wine. It promoted conviviality on every possible
occasion, and, indeed, one of the first of its minutes that are now
discoverable says, under date 4th May 1766, “We, the Noblemen and
Gentlemen subscribing, did this day agree to meet once every fortnight,
by Eleven of the clock, at the Golf House, and to play a round of the
links; to dine together at Bailie Glass’, and to pay each a shilling for
his dinner--the absent as well as the present.” It was some two or three
years after this that means were devised for augmenting the dinner wine
through the various social delinquencies of members. Thus, on
4th September 1779, a resolution is passed as follows: “It is enacted
that whoever shall be Captain of the Golf, and does not attend all the
meetings to be appointed throughout the year, shall pay Two Pints of
Claret for each meeting he shall be absent at, to be drunk at such
meeting; but this regulation is not to take place if the Captain be not
in Fife at the time.” Many years later, in 1818, the wine tax on
absentees was applied to members generally, under interesting
circumstances, as indicated in the terms of the resolution that was
passed, which read: “The Club, taking into consideration that the
meetings have of late been thinly attended by the Members residing in
town, in consequence of several members giving parties on the ordinary
days of meeting, and thereby preventing those who would otherwise give
their presence at the Club, from attending them, Do Resolve, that in
future such Members as shall invite any of their friends, Members of
this Club, to dinner on the days of meeting, shall forfeit to the Club a
Magnum of Claret for himself, and one bottle for each Member so detained
by them, for each offence, and the Captain and Council appoint this
Resolution to be immediately communicated to General Campbell.” On
16th September 1825 a minute is entered, “Which day the present Captain,
having imposed on himself a fine of a Magnum of Claret for failure in
public duty, imposed a similar fine on the old Captains present.” It is
quite evident that in these rich old days the social side of golf was
cultivated in a manner that makes the worthiest efforts in this
direction in the twentieth century look mean in comparison.
The men of the old Musselburgh Club were great in conviviality. Here is
a remarkable entry taken from their minute-book: “Musselburgh,
11th January 1793.--The Club met according to adjournment. The meeting
was so merry that it was agreed that matching and every other business
should be delayed till next month.”
On 11th May 1798, when the Club held its meeting, the question was put
as to whether the funds should be disposed of by the members present or
delayed till the December meeting, when it was resolved by a majority
that the company then present should determine it. Thereupon it was put
to the vote as to whether the funds should be drunk, or part of them
taken to “give their Myte to the Voluntary Subscription in aid of the
Government,” and it was carried unanimously that Five Guineas should be
sent to this fund in the name of the Club, and that the remainder of the
funds should be disposed of at the December meeting. Meeting at Moir’s
on 16th February 1810, the members “Resolve, That an annual subscription
of One Guinea be paid by each member, from which fund the expense of the
dinners is to be in future defrayed, but all the expenses of liquors to
be defrayed by the company present. And any overplus at the end of each
season to be sunk in a General _Gaudeamus_.”
The old records of the Bruntsfield Links Golf Club are similarly
entertaining. On 27th April 1822, “Captain Kilgour informed the meeting
that Mr. Williamson had sent a small cask of spirits of his own
manufacture as a present to the Club. The Secretary was ordered to
transmit the thanks of the Society to Mr. Williamson, and to inform him
that he was unanimously elected an Honorary Member.” On 29th June 1842
we are told that “a very large party dined at Cork’s, and the evening
was spent with more than stereotyped happiness, harmony, and hilarity. A
number of matches were made. Mr. S. Aitken (not, of course, when madness
ruled the hour) pledged himself if, and when, Deacon Scott married, to
present to the Club half a dozen of wine, and the like quantity to the
object (lovely, of course) of his choice! This happy evening ‘through
many a bout of linked sweetness long drawn out,’ partook of the
transitory nature of all earthly things, and, as one of our poets
says, broke up!”
After the meeting of the Bruntsfield members on 17th December 1842, “A
large party dined at Goodman’s, and spent a very happy evening, not the
less so that some member, to the company unknown, made the handsome
present of half a dozen of Champagne. Mr. Brown, after some very
apposite remarks, read an interesting paragraph from the _Bombay Times_
of the 19th October last, noticing certain proceedings of a Golf Club
formed in the East Indies, which gave rise to much felicitous
discussion, and the appointment of a deputation, consisting of the
Captain and Mr. Paterson, to meet and compete with the like, or any
number of the Indian Club, the deputation to travel at the Club’s
expense and by the new Aerial Transit, which is expected to start early
in February next.” They were in a happy mood that evening.
The minutes record that on 18th October 1845, “The Club dined in the
Musselburgh Arms Inn, and spent a very happy evening; but the meeting
having been prolonged beyond the period at which the omnibus (in which
seats had been taken) started, the members found it necessary to walk
the greater part of the way to town.”
Rich, indeed, were those ancient days of golf!