GOLFATOR. You are to observe, my honest Scholar, that although your iron
is a shorter tool than your wooden, you may do quite as much mischief
with it; nay, sir, more, I warrant, for the head of the club being of
metal, you may hack a ball to pieces with it in a few wild strokes.
Wherefore it is that the experienced golfer plays his iron shots with
less frenzy than he brings to his drive, striving to hit the ball cleanly
and with exactness.
SCHOLAR. Sir, I shall endeavor the cultivating of this virtue, in
accordance with your wise counsel.
GOLF. You are to observe again, that in the free stroke of the drive
’tis all one whether the ball fly ten yards to this side or that of the
true line of its flight, but as you draw near to the flag this true line
becomes a matter of first importance. Marry, sir, if your desire for
knowledge of this game were deeper than yonder ditch, I would have you
to begin at the edge of the putting green, and to withdraw by degrees to
greater distances, until you reached a point where the wrists no longer
sufficed to propel the ball, by the which time they might be trained to
some purpose.
SCHOL. Nay, Master, my desire for knowledge of this ingenious game is as
deep as any well.
GOLF. Then, sir, I have read you wrongly, for I mark that you clutch
your iron with impatience, and gaze into the distance, and then upon this
ball at your feet, and you do have the seeming of one that would smite
the ball most lustily. Smite it, then, good Scholar, and have done with
it. Ah! A most marvelous slice! The ball hath flown far into the wood, as
a startled quail. Come, let us follow it, and though we find it not we
may happen upon matter of more importance.
SCHOL. The ball cannot be far in the wood, Master. I marked it by this
dead tree, yet we find it not.
GOLF. ’Tis most cunningly hidden. Do you sit down, honest Scholar, and
rest your eyes, for much searching for a lost ball doth weary them. See,
here is a brave array of trilliums, nodding welcome to us, as jocund a
company as the poet’s daffodils. Here, too, is columbine, that begins to
show itself, and Bethlehem’s Star, and many other wilding flowers.
SCHOL. Sir, I thought to walk directly to the ball, since I saw it drop
among these trees.
GOLF. Marry, sir, believe your ears sooner than your eyes, and your
nose before either; but not one of the senses is to be trusted. Yet if
mine eyes serve me now, here is yellow lady’s-slipper, that I have not
seen before in this countryside, and it were well worth losing a ball
to come upon this solitary plant, for I see no others of the family. I
have found them in great number farther north, where, too, I chanced one
rememberable day on the orchid Arethusa, that grows in bogs, and is the
loveliest of plants. Mark you the gold in the sunlight, shewing that the
summer draws on; and hearken to that thrasher overhead, who would have
you to believe that singing is the chief business of life.
SCHOL. Think you that the ball struck upon a tree and was flung deeper
into the wood?
GOLF. ’Tis conceivable, for I never saw ball that had less notion of
whither it was flying. Let us press farther into the thicket, for ’tis a
rare place to loiter in. This, you are to observe, is the compensation
for a foolish stroke at golf, for he that plays straight before him sees
nought but a strip of turf, and ever his thought is of his next stroke,
whether he shall take wood or iron to it.
SCHOL. Good fortune, Master! Here is the ball, among these trilliums, the
which it is very like in color.
GOLF. And fairer to your eye than any flower. I observe, sir, that
you have the makings of a golfer, and are not to be diverted by the
babbling of brookwater, and the twittering of birds, and other natural
distractions. Let us return, then, to the fairgreen, where you may make
further trial of your iron.