There are few pastimes that supply their followers with more innocent
merriment than is afforded by "the royal and ancient." Certainly no
outdoor game can make the neophyte feel more utterly worm-like in his
ability, for it is the peculiar quality of golf to appear to be absurdly
easy to the onlooker and preposterously difficult to the unpractised
player. It may be taken that there is no better way of reducing a man's
self-conceit than to place him on the teeing ground for the first time,
present him with a driver and invite him to strike a little rubber-cored
ball to a distance of 200 yards in a given direction. Consequently we
have here most excellent material for fun; and you may depend upon it
MR. PUNCH has not had his eyes long shut to the humours of the links.
Despite the royalty and antiquity of golf, it has been thoroughly
democratised in modern times, and its popularity, in the wide
proportions to which it has attained, is chiefly a matter of recent
years. Despite the shortness of the period that is represented by what
we may call the vogue of golf--a vogue that is by no means in danger of
passing--MR. PUNCH has evidently found the game so rich in fun that his
merry knights of the pen and the pencil have contributed to his pages as
many pictures as to illustrate very lavishly this volume and a good deal
more literary matter than could be used. In the days when croquet was as
popular as golf is to-day--the days of Leech and Keene--doubtless a
volume could have been drawn from PUNCH devoted entirely to that sport.
But it is worthy of note that an examination of these old croquet
pictures and jokes for a comparison of them with the contents of the
present volume leaves one with the conviction that the humour of the
present day is infinitely superior to the humour of the days of Leech
and Keene. Admirable draughtsmen though these artists were, both of
them, but Leech particularly, were often content to let their masterly
drawings appear with the feeblest jokes attached. The standard of humour
has been immensely raised of late years, and MR. PUNCH'S GOLF STORIES is
no bad evidence of that.
[Illustration]
* * * * *