A caddie should be, first of all,
As silent as the Sphinx of fable;
And he should watch the flying ball,
At least as far as he is able.
That, with acknowledgment to Stevenson’s heirs and assigns, covers
the case to our notion. It may be desirable to give a caddie a polite
education, including French and dancing, but the duty of a caddie is
simple. So long as he is reticent and watches the ball, we don’t mind if
he stands an inch too near us while we shoot, or whether he bats an eye
while holding the flag for a putt.
* * * * *
Miami, with its 19-hole golf course, has a rival in Pensacola, which
calls itself “The Oasis of West Florida.” One who was there tells us that
it is well camouflaged.
* * * * *
We have read half a ton of golf books, and in none of them is it advised
to start the hands back before the club head. Yet, as C. B. Lloyd’s
moving pictures show, many if not most of the crack players employ that
method. Don’t they know what they do?
* * * * *
“Lord Northcliffe is shown contemplating a long drive on the celebrated
golf course at Biarritz, where he is much at home.”—The incomparable
Examiner.
As the gentleman has a mashie in his hands, he is evidently a
considerable contemplater.
* * * * *
“Warren K. Wood and Will Diddel, paired against Chick Evans and Kenneth
Edwards.”
Hey, Diddel, Diddel, the cat and the fiddle,
The ball sailed over the moon,
The gallery laughed to see such sport,
And Chick drove the green with a spoon.
* * * * *
“With the upright swing,” writes Hon. Jock Hutchison, “you must of
necessity take some turf. Any novice knows when he has taken too much.”
True; the limit is a pound. But what the novice needs to know is that it
is more important to put back turf than to take it.
* * * * *
Speaking of the Lincoln Park Country Club, F. D. P. reports that the
golfer in the skin-tight, bowery blue sweater failed to make a clean
drive although he spat on both hands.
* * * * *
A carping correspondent asks why cartoonists, column conductors, and so
forth, drop into golf when they can’t think of anything else to draw or
write about. We can reply only for this department. We touch the subject
of golf infrequently, and then chiefly for the benefit of readers in
remote corners of the land, who write to us to ask about such elementary
things as the difference between square and open stance. These novices
are almost sure to get off on the wrong foot if they read almost any
of the books about golf. Herr Einstein’s explanation of his theory is
translucent compared with the average golf writer’s exposition of his
stroke.
The results are sometimes deplorable. There is Ed Freschl, who wrote
the other day that golf does not reduce his circumference. Very likely
not—with his swing. He probably entertains that curious notion of the
“follow-through” which the writers emphasize—the notion of “letting the
arms go forward freely,” as if that would get you anything. Ed will never
take up any belt-holes by extending his arms in prayer.
* * * * *
Brother Whigham takes a lusty crack at some of the “enormities” of golf,
No. 2 being “the horrible habit of counting scores and competing for
silver pots on Saturday afternoons.” Medal scores produce the “strong
east winds in the locker room” which George Ade once referred to, and
are a nuisance in more ways than one. Some pencil players remain on the
putting green, lost in computation, and it is necessary to drive into
them to wake ’em up.
* * * * *
The links of the Gary Country Club are laid out on the Atlas plan,
reports the Gary Tribune. “That is, squares each 100 feet in size,
measure numerically one way and alphabetically the other. This greatly
facilitates the locating of any particular section of the grounds when
necessary.” The idea being, we take it, that when a player slices into
the ball he has only to consult his atlas to locate the ball.
* * * * *
Much personal property was destroyed in the fire at the Glen View Country
Club; but they saved the trophies! What’s the use of having a fire if you
don’t get rid of the trophies?
“THE ART OF GOLF.”
Readers and writers of the game are discovering Sir Walter Simpson,
whose “Art of Golf” is a classic not so much because of the instruction
it contains as because of the graceful style in which the instruction
is conveyed. In this respect it resembles “The Compleat Angler.” Old
Izaak’s instruction to fishermen was sound enough, but we cherish his
pages for something more than that. Sir Walter wrote the book himself,
we conjecture—another peculiarity distinguishing it from most of the
dull-thud volumes on the Five-Foot Shelf of Golf Books. Copies of it
appear to be scarce; a gentleman writes to “The American Golfer” that
he has a Simpson in his library, which “makes at least two copies in
America.” We’ll make it three; there is a copy in the Chicago Public
Library. And we shall be much surprised if Mr. Dana, the golfing
librarian of Newark, N. J., hasn’t Simpson in _his_ temple of erudition.