At Old Elm last fall we were knocking around in a foursome, one member of
which was a visitor from the east. We paired with him, but he was unaware
of the singular honor accorded him. After apologizing for missing a short
putt, he confided to us that his putting had been ruined by his following
the advice of a writer in some golf magazine, who advocated looking
at the hole instead of the ball. “If ever I meet that chap,” said he,
“I’ll take a niblick to him.” As we dislike violent scenes, we did not
enlighten the gentleman.
Quite otherwise the case of Old Al Dennis of Skokie, whom we persuaded to
give the theory a trial. For several seasons he has looked at the hole
while putting, and is wholly satisfied with the result. Why wake him up?
Of 365 persons who use the expression “the psychology of golf,” 365 know
nothing of psychology, and 273 can spell the word. As it happens, one of
our friends is a distinguished psychologist and something of a golfer,
and our conversations have been more or less illuminating. We may report
some of them in this incomparable department of uplift.
* * * * *
Mr. Punch gives us a picture of a golfer subduing a burglar with a cleek,
and Mr. Fox shows us a golfer pitching coals into his furnace with a
mashie. So perhaps the missus will admit that the game is not an utter
waste of time.
* * * * *
Mr. Varden’s game is a drive, a mashie, and a couple of putts. Thanks
to temperament and years of practice, he has concentration and perfect
control of his muscles. Self-control is nearly all of golf, and few
people play seventies because few people possess self-control.
We do not envy the man with the vegetable temperament. The man we envy
is the man with the nervous temperament, who has acquired control of
himself. He may not live so long as the vegetable person, but while he is
living he is living.
* * * * *
Considerable golfer, Mr. Ouimet. Or is it pronounced Ouimet?
* * * * *
About this “perfect golf” or “faultless golf” that figures so frequently
in the accounts of matches. It isn’t. For if a par four, allowing
two putts, is perfect golf, one under par would be “more perfect.”
One under par—one putt on each green—would be perfect golf, and this
is accomplished by good players frequently and by ordinary players
occasionally.
* * * * *
They have been playing golf at Bayside for the Mary Garden cup. Another
clever substitute for losing one’s jewels.
* * * * *
Mr. Darwin, who knows how to play golf as well as how to write about
it, has pleasantly but plainly indicated that there is a difference
between a real golf course and the usual links to be found hereabouts.
Any course on which a player can slice or hook badly without penalty is
fit only for lady golfers or for males who are content to slop around in
ninety-something with nothing worthier in view than winning a “syndicate”
from two or three other dubbers.
* * * * *
Anybody can drive a golf ball a considerable distance, but not every one
can drive in a straight line. The man who CAN do it should be rewarded
with a good lie for his second. The man who can’t should experience
the terrors of the pit and the jungle. After a season of continuous
punishment he may do one of two things—quit the game, or learn how to
play it.
* * * * *
The dear old _Saturday Review_ has discovered, to its own satisfaction,
why Vardon and Ray were beaten by Ouimet. The concentrated will power
of the gallery did it, and the idea, says the S. R., “is based upon the
latest teachings of psychology.” “Englishmen,” it adds, “are seldom at
their best when playing games in America.”
Can you—as Baucis inquired of Philemon—beat it? Apparently the denser
atmosphere of the British Isles is a non-conductor of psychological
force; otherwise, Mr. McLoughlin could not have brought home the Davis
Cup, and Heinrich Schmidt could not have held Harold Hilton until the
last gun was fired.
* * * * *
Women are queer. They can’t see the difference between playing eighteen
holes of golf and digging eighteen shrub holes in a garden.
* * * * *
Al Seckel is our notion of the Height of Affluence. His valet caddies for
him.
* * * * *
Another cousin of Young Grimes, reports D. M. V., refers to a w. k. golf
implement as a Skenecaddy putter.
* * * * *
Entrants for the Printers’ Golf tournament were requested to “hole all
puts and replace all pivots.” A proofroom foozle.