I
There has been considerable argument about it--even a mention
of ethics--though where ethics figures in this case is more
than I know. I'd like to take a flat-footed stance as claiming
that the end justified the means. Saint George killed the
Dragon, and Hercules mopped up the Augean stables, but little
Wally Wallace--one hundred and forty-two pounds in his summer
underwear--did a bigger job and a better job when the betting
was odds-on-and-write-your-own-ticket that it couldn't be done.
I wouldn't mind heading a subscription to present him with a
gold medal about the size of a soup plate, inscribed as
follows, to wit and viz.:
_W. W. Wallace--He Put the Fore in Foursome._
Every golfer who ever conceded himself a two-foot putt because he was
afraid he might miss it has sweated and suffered and blasphemed in the
wake of a slow foursome. All the clubs that I have ever seen--and I've
travelled a bit--are cursed with at least one of these Creeping
Pestilences which you observe mostly from the rear.
You're a golfer, of course, and you know the make-up of a slow foursome
as well as I do: Four nice old gentlemen, prominent in business circles,
church members, who remember it even when they top a tee shot, pillars
of society, rich enough to be carried over the course in palanquins, but
too proud to ride, too dignified to hurry, too meek to argue except
among themselves, and too infernally selfish to stand aside and let the
younger men go through. They take nine practice swings before hitting a
shot, and then flub it disgracefully; they hold a prayer meeting on
every putting green and a _post-mortem_ on every tee, and a rheumatic
snail could give them a flying start and beat them out in a fifty-yard
dash. Know 'em? What golfer doesn't?
But nobody knows why it is that the four slowest players in every club
always manage to hook up in a sort of permanent alliance. Nobody knows
why they never stage their creeping contests on the off days when the
course is clear. Nobody knows why they always pick the sunniest
afternoons, when the locker room is full of young men dressing in a
hurry. Nobody knows why they bolt their luncheons and scuttle out to the
first tee, nor where that speed goes as soon as they drive and start
down the course. Nobody knows why they refuse to walk any faster than a
bogged mooley cow. Nobody knows why they never look behind them. Nobody
knows why they never hear any one yell "Fore!" Nobody knows why they are
so dead set against letting any one through.
Everybody knows the fatal effect of standing too long over the ball, all
dressed up with nowhere to go. Everybody knows of the tee shots that are
slopped and sliced and hooked; of the indecision caused by the long wait
before playing the second; of the change of clubs when the first choice
was the correct one; of the inevitable penalty exacted by loss of temper
and mental poise. Everybody knows that a slow foursome gives the
Recording Angel a busy afternoon, and leaves a sulphurous haze over an
entire course. But the aged reprobates who are responsible for all this
trouble--do they care how much grief and rage and bitterness simmers in
their wake? You think they do? Think again. Golf and Business are the
only games they have ever had time to learn, and one set of rules does
for both. The rest of the world may go hang! Golf is a serious matter
with these hoary offenders, and they manage to make it serious for
everybody behind them--the fast-walking, quick-swinging fellows who are
out for a sweat and a good time and lose both because the slow foursome
blocks the way.
Yes, you recognise the thumb-nail sketch--it is the slow foursome which
infests your course; the one which you find in front of you when you go
visiting. You think that four men who are inconsiderate enough to ruin
your day's sport and ruffle your temper ought to be disciplined, called
up on the carpet, taken in hand by the Greens Committee. You think they
are the worst ever--but wait! You are about to hear of the golfing
renegades known as the Big Four, who used to sew us up twice a week as
regularly as the days came round; you are about to hear of Elsberry J.
Watlington, and Colonel Jim Peck, and Samuel Alexander Peebles, and W.
Cotton Hamilton--world's champions in the Snail Stakes, undisputed
holders of the Challenge Belt for Practice Swinging, and undefeated
catch-as-catch-can loiterers on the Putting Green.
Six months ago we would have backed Watlington, Peck, Peebles and
Hamilton against the wide world, bet dollars against your dimes and
allowed you to select your own stakeholders, timekeepers and judges.
That's how much confidence we had in the Big Four. They were without
doubt and beyond argument the slowest and most exasperating quartette of
obstructionists that ever laid their middle-aged stomachs behind the
line of a putt.
Do I hear a faint murmur of dissent? Going a little strong, am I? All
right, glad you mentioned it, because we may as well settle this
question of supremacy here and now.
To save time, I will admit that your foursome is slower than Congress
and more irritating than the Senate. Permit me to ask you one question:
Going back over the years, can you recall a single instance when your
slow foursome allowed you to play through?... A lost ball, was it?...
Well, anyway, you got through them.... Thank you, and your answer puts
you against the ropes. I will now knock you clear out of the ring with
one well-directed statement of fact. Tie on your bonnet good and tight
and listen to this: The Big Four held up our course for seven long and
painful years, and during that period of time they never allowed any one
to pass them, lost ball or no lost ball.
That stops you, eh? I rather thought it would. It stopped us twice a
week.