Flashing now to a close-up of the scores for the qualifying round, there
were two strange faces in the first sixteen--Cyril's and the
Major's--and Cyril walked off with the cup offered for low man. His
seventy-three created quite a commotion among the Class A men, but the
Major's eighty-one was what knocked them all a twister. Even Waddles was
amazed. Waddles had turned in an eighty-five, which barely got him into
the championship flight, but medal scores are nothing in Waddles' life.
Match play is where he shines--match play against a nervous opponent.
"The old rum-hound must have been shooting over his head," said Waddles.
"I'll bet he holed a lot of niblick shots."
I might have been in the fourth flight if I had not picked up my ball
after playing eleven in the ditch at the fifth hole, and by that act
eliminated myself from the tournament. I finished the round, of course,
and signed my partner's card, becoming thereafter a mere spectator and a
bit of the gallery.
Sam was disgusted with me--so much so that he refused me advice or
sympathy. As a usual thing Sam walks up on a drive and selects the club
which he thinks I should use. I may disagree with him, but I notice that
in the end I always make the shot with the club of his selection. If I
am short he tells me that I spared the shot; if I am over he says I hit
it too hard.
After the catastrophe at the fifth hole Sam stood the bag on end and
turned his back, a statue of silent contempt. When he allows me to pick
out a club I know that he has washed his hands of me; when he will not
accept a cigarette I am past praying for. I can think of nothing more
keenly humiliating than to feel myself a disappointment to a caddie like
Sam, but I have disappointed him so often that he should be getting
hardened to it by now.
The first and second rounds of match play took place on Thursday, and
the pairings put Cyril at the top of the drawing and the Major at the
bottom. When the day was over the first flight had assumed a distinctly
international aspect, for the semifinalists appeared as follows:
Waddles versus Cyril; Jay Gilman versus the Major.
Cyril had won his matches quite handily and without being pressed, but
the Major had caught a brace of seasoned campaigners, one of whom took
him to the twentieth hole before he passed out on the end of a long
rainbow putt.
Gilman had played his usual steady game--nothing brilliant about it, but
extremely dependable; and, as for Waddles, he had staggered along on the
ragged edge of defeat both morning and afternoon, annoying his opponents
as much as possible and winning quite as much with his head as with his
clubs.
The time has come to say a few brief but burning words about the way
friend Waddles plays the royal and ancient game of golf when there is
anything in sight for the victor. I trust that when he reads this he
will have the decency to remember that he had already cut my handicap to
the quick, as it were.
To begin with, Waddles has no more form than an apple woman or a Cubist
nude. He is so constructed that he cannot take a full swing to save his
immortal soul. Everything has to be wrist and forearm with Waddles, but
somehow or other he manages to snap his foolish little tee shots
straight down the middle of the course, popping them high over the
bunkers and avoiding all the traps and pits. The special providence that
cares for taxicab drivers, sailors and drunken men seems to take charge
of Waddles' ball in flight, imparting to it a tremendous overspin that
gives it distance. I never saw Waddles square away at a drive without
pitying him for his short, choppy swing; but he usually beats me about
ten yards on account of the run that he gets. I never watched him jab at
a putt without feeling certain that the ball was hit too hard to stay in
the hole; but stay it does. Waddles actually putts with an overspin, and
his ball burrows like a mole, dropping into the cup as if made of lead.
His brassy shots are just pusillanimous--there is no other word which
describes them accurately--but somehow they keep on bouncing toward the
pin. His irons run half-way and creep the rest of the distance. He
always gets better results than his shots deserve, and complains that he
should have had more. This one little trick of his is enough to drive an
opponent crazy. Every golfer knows the moral--no, immoral--effect of
going up against some one who gets more out of every shot than he puts
into it, and still is not satisfied. It is like sitting in a poker game
with a man who draws four to a deuce, makes an ace full, wins the pot,
and then wolfs because it wasn't four aces.
I never played with Waddles without feeling certain that I could show
him up on the long game, and it was straining to do it that ruined me.
Trying to pick the tail feathers out of that lame duck has ruined many a
golfer, the secret being that the duck isn't as lame as he looks.
Waddles makes 'em all press--a big factor in his match play; but there
are others, and not nearly so legitimate.
Playing the game strictly on merit, observing all the little niceties of
demeanour and the courtesies due an opponent, Waddles would be a
desperately hard man to beat; but he does not stop at merit. When he is
out to win he does not stop anywhere. He has made a lifelong study of
the various ways in which an opponent may be annoyed and put off his
game, and he is the acknowledged master of all of them.
For instance, if he plays Doc Jones, who is chatty and conversational
and likes to talk between shots, Waddles never opens his mouth once, but
plods along with a scowl on his face and his lower lip sticking out a
foot. Before long the poor little Doc begins to wonder whether he has
said anything to hurt Waddles' feelings--and that is the end of Jones.
But if Waddles plays Chester Hodge, who believes that the secret of a
winning game is concentration, he is a perfect windmill, talking to
Chester every minute, telling him funny stories, asking him questions,
and literally conversing him off his feet.
Bill Mulqueen is nervous and impatient and hates to wait on his second
shots; so when Waddles plays him he drives short and takes five minutes
to play the odd, while Bill fumes and frets and accumulates steam for
the final explosion, which never fails to strew the last nine with his
mangled remains. On the other hand, old Barrison is deliberation itself,
and Waddles beats him by playing his own shots quickly and then crowding
Barry--hurrying him up, nagging at him, riding him from shot to shot,
trying to speed up an engine that can't be speeded without racking
itself to pieces. Joe Bowhan hates to have any one moving about the tee
when he is setting himself to drive. Waddles licks him by washing his
ball fresh on every hole. Joe can't see him, but he can hear him
scouring away behind him. "Hand-laundered out of the contest again" is
what Joe tells us when he comes into the clubhouse.
Perhaps the cruelest thing Waddles ever did was in the finals of the
Spring Handicap against young Archie Gatter. The kid was inclined to
think fairly well of himself and his game, but on the day of the match
Waddles lugged a visiting golf architect round the course with him,
planning improvements in the way of traps and bunkers, discussing
various kinds of grass for the greens, arguing about soil, and paying no
attention whatever to the wretched Archie--not even watching him make
his shots. It broke the boy's heart to be ignored so completely, and he
shot the last nine holes in a fat fifty-seven, finishing a total wreck.
These are only a few of Waddles' little villainies, and the fact that he
is a consistent winner at match play bears out the theory that the best
study of golf is golfers--splitting it fifty-fifty with the late Mr.
Pope.
The most exasperating thing about Waddles is the bland, unconscious
manner in which he perpetrates these outrages upon his opponents. He
never seems aware that he is doing anything wrong or taking an unfair
advantage; he pleads thoughtlessness if driven into a corner--and gets
away with it too. You have to know Waddles very well before you are
certain that every little movement has a meaning all its own and is part
of a cold-blooded and deliberate plan of campaign.
With all these things in mind, I had a hunch that Friday's match with
Cyril would be worth watching, and I was at the clubhouse at nine in the
morning. Cyril and the Major were already there, driving practise balls.
It was generally understood that the matches in the semi-finals would
start at nine-thirty, and promptly on the dot Jay Gilman and the Major
were on their way--both of them off to perfect drives.
I waited to follow Cyril and Waddles--and a long, weary wait it was.
There is nothing which secures the angora so neatly and completely as to
be all dressed up and keyed up with nowhere to go. Have you ever seen a
boxer fretting and chafing in his corner, waiting for the champion to
put in an appearance; and did you ever stop to think that the champion,
in his dressing room, was counting on the effect of that nervous period
of inactivity? Golf is a game which demands mental poise, and Cyril was
losing his, minute by minute. He prowled all over the place, searching
for Waddles; he walked out and looked down the road toward town; he
practiced putting--and hit every shot too hard. If he had not been an
Englishman, and schooled to keep his feelings to himself, I think he
would have said something of a blistering nature.
It was eleven-fifteen when Waddles arrived, dripping apologies from
every pore. Had Cyril understood that nine-thirty was the hour? Well,
wasn't that a shame--too bad he hadn't telephoned or something! Waddles
stated--and there was and is no reason to doubt his word--that he
thought the matches were scheduled for the afternoon. He dawdled in the
locker room for a scandalously long time, while Cyril made little
journeys to the first tee and back again, growing warmer and warmer with
each trip.
When Waddles finally emerged, neatly swathed in flannels, he suggested
lunch. Cyril replied a bit stiffly that he never took food in the middle
of the day.
"And a hard match in front of you, too," said Waddles. "I couldn't think
of starting without a sandwich. Do you mind waiting while I have one?"
Cyril lied politely, but it was a terrible strain on him, and Waddles
consumed a sandwich, a glass of milk and forty-five minutes more. Then
he had to have one of his irons wrapped where the shaft had
split--another straw for the camel's back. By this time the Major and
Jay had finished their match, the Major winning on the sixteenth green.
They joined the gallery, after the usual ceremonies at the nineteenth
hole.
"Are you ready?" asked Waddles, breezing out on the first tee--and that
was rather nervy, too, seeing that Cyril hadn't been anything else for
three mortal hours.
"After you, sir," said the boy, short and sharp. He knew that he was
getting "the work," and he resented it.
It always suits Waddles to have the honour. He likes to shoot first
because his tee shot usually makes an opponent sore. He popped one of
his dinky little drives into the air, but instead of dropping into the
bunker it floated beyond it to the middle of the course and ran like a
scared rabbit.
"No distance!" grumbled Waddles, slapping his club on the tee. "No
distance. I'm all out of luck to-day."
Well, that was no more than rubbing it in by word of mouth. It produced
the desired effect, because Cyril nearly broke himself in two in an
attempt to beat that choppy half-arm swing. He swung much too hard,
didn't follow through at all, and the ball sliced into a trap far up to
the right.
"Do you know what you did then?" asked Waddles. "You tried to kill it,
you didn't follow through, and----"
"And I sliced. I know perfectly, thanks." And Cyril started down the
course, with Waddles tagging at his hip and telling him what was the
matter with his swing. Coming from a man who never took a full-arm
wallop at a ball in his life, criticism must have seemed superfluous. I
couldn't see Cyril's face, but his ears reddened.
Waddles slapped a brassy to the edge of the putting green, but Cyril,
trying for distance out of a heel print, took too much sand and barely
got back on the course again. His third reached the green, whereupon
Waddles promptly laid his ball dead for a four. Cyril missed a
twenty-footer and lost the first hole.
Again Waddles spatted out a drive that narrowly escaped a cross bunker,
but it struck on a hard spot and ran fully one hundred yards before it
stopped. Waddles knows every hard spot on the course and governs himself
accordingly.
Cyril followed through this time--followed through so vigorously that
the ball developed a hook. A cross wind helped it along into the rough
grass, leaving him a nasty second shot over shrubbery and trees. It
hadn't stopped rolling before Waddles was talking again.
"You know what you did then? Too much right hand; and your club
head----"
"Precisely," said Cyril, and left the tee almost on a dog-trot; but
Waddles trotted with him, explaining what had happened to the club
head. He was so earnest about it, so eager to be of assistance, so
persistent, that Cyril did not know how to take him. Then, to add to the
boy's discomfiture, Waddles played a perfect spoon shot, taking
advantage of the wind, and the ball stopped six feet from the pin. Only
a miracle could have saved Cyril after that, and there were no miracles
left in his system. His ball carried low from the rough, struck the limb
of a tree and glanced out of bounds. He played another, which dropped
into thick weeds, and then picked up, conceding the hole. All the way to
the third tee Waddles expounded the theory of the niblick shot out of
grass, pausing only to spat another perfect ball down the course.
It was here that Cyril left the wood in his bag and took out a cleek. He
wanted distance and he needed direction, our third hole calling for a
well-placed tee shot; but he sliced just enough to put him squarely
behind the largest tree on the entire course.
"I was sure you'd do that," said Waddles, sympathetically. "It's really
a wooden club shot, and when you took your iron I knew you were afraid
of it. Changing clubs is always a sign of weakness, don't you think so?"
Cyril mumbled something and started down the path, and at this point the
old Major, who had been lingering in the background, swung in behind him
with his first and last bit of advice.
"Keep your hair on, dear boy," he bleated. "Keep your hair on. Whatever
happens, don't get waxy."
Cyril grunted but didn't say anything, and the Major dropped to the rear
again, making queer little noises in his throat.
"Now the ideal--shot on this--hole," panted Waddles, overtaking his
victim, "is a little bit--farther to the left. A hook--doesn't hurt
you--as much--as a slice----"
"I'm not hurt yet!" snapped Cyril.
"Why, of course not!" cried Waddles with the heartiest good nature. "Of
course not--but if your ball--had been farther to the left--you wouldn't
have to play--over that tree--and----" There was more, but Cyril did not
wait to hear it.
Waddles, executing his second with mechanical precision, carried the
deep ravine with his mashie and put the ball on the green for a sure
four. Off to the right Cyril prepared to do likewise, but the tree
loomed ahead of him, his nerves were unstrung, his temper was ruffled,
and instead of going cleanly under the ball he caught the turf four
inches behind it and pitched into the ravine, where he found a lie that
was all but unplayable.
"Tough luck!" said Waddles.
Cyril turned and looked at him. I expected an outburst of some sort, but
the boy was evidently trying to keep his hair on.
"I didn't hit it," said he at length, swallowing hard. I heard an odd
choking noise behind me. It was the Major, attempting to remain calm.
"Of course you didn't hit it!" agreed Waddles. "You took a hatful of
turf; and you know why, don't you?"
Cyril groaned and plunged into the ravine.
Why follow the harrying details too closely? With the Major as chief
mourner, and Waddles holding sympathetic postmortems on all his bad
shots, Cyril suffered a complete collapse. I could have beaten him--any
one could have beaten him--and as a matter of fact he beat himself.
Having found his weak spot, Waddles never let up for an instant. Talk,
talk, talk; his flow of conversation was as irritating as a neighbour's
phonograph, and as incessant. I wondered that Cyril contained himself as
well as he did, until I remembered that it is tradition with the English
to lose as silently as they win.
The Major, who saw it all, addressed but one remark to me. It was on the
tenth hole, and Waddles was showing Cyril why he had topped an iron
shot.
"Look here," said the Major, jerking his thumb at Waddles, "does he
always do this sort of thing? Talk so much, I mean?"
I replied, and quite truthfully, that it depended on the way he felt.
The Major grunted, and that ended the conversation.
The match was wound up on the thirteenth; Cyril shook hands,
complimented Waddles on his game, and made a bee line for the
clubhouse. Nobody could blame him for not wanting to finish the round.
Waddles tagged along at his elbow, gesticulating, explaining the theory
of golf, even offering to illustrate certain shots with which Cyril had
had trouble.
The Major spent the rest of the afternoon on the porch, nursing a tall
glass and looking at the hills. After a shower Cyril joined him.
"The blooming Britons are holding a lodge of sorrow," said Waddles, who
was in high spirits. "What's the betting on the finals to-morrow?"
"I'll back the Major," spoke up Jay Gilman, "if you'll promise not to
talk the shirt off his back."
"Another dumb player, eh?" asked Waddles, grinning.
"Never opened his mouth to me but once the entire way round," answered
Jay.
"And what did he say then?"
"As near as I recall," replied Jay, "he said 'Dormie!'"
"I hate a man who can't talk!" exclaimed Waddles.
"How you must hate yourself," I suggested, and was forced to dodge a
match safe.
"Just the same," persisted Jay, "I'll take the Major's end if you'll
promise to keep your mouth shut."
"I'll accept no bets on that basis," Waddles announced. "I like a
friendly, chatty game."
"I've got you for fifty, then, and talk your head off!" And Jay laughed
until I thought he would choke. As a matter of fact, he laughed all the
rest of the afternoon.