The game of golf, as every humorist knows, is conducive to profanity. It
is also a terrible strain on veracity, every man being his own umpire.
Four men were playing golf on a course where the hazard on the ninth
hole was a deep ravine.
They drove off. Three went into the ravine and one managed to get his
ball over. The three who had dropped into the ravine walked up to have a
look. Two of them decided not to try to play their balls out and gave up
the hole. The third said he would go down and play out his ball. He
disappeared into the deep crevasse. Presently his ball came bobbing out
and after a time he climbed up.
"How many strokes?" asked one of his opponents.
"Three."
"But I heard six."
"Three of them were echoes!"
When Mark Twain came to Washington to try to get a decent copyright law
passed, a representative took him out to Chevy Chase.
Mark Twain refused to play golf himself, but he consented to walk over
the course and watch the representative's strokes. The representative
was rather a duffer. Teeing off, he sent clouds of earth flying in all
directions. Then, to hide his confusion he said to his guest: "What do
you think of our links here, Mr. Clemens?"
"Best I ever tasted," said Mark Twain, as he wiped the dirt from his
lips with his handkerchief.