I
Now that Winthrop Watson Wilkins has taken his clubs away and cleaned
out his locker some of the fellows are ready enough to admit that he
wasn't half bad. On this point I agree with them. He was not. He was
two-thirds bad, and the remainder was pure, abysmal, impenetrable
ignorance.
Windy Wilkins may have meant well--perhaps he did--but when a fellow
doesn't know, and doesn't know that he doesn't know and won't let
anybody tell him that he doesn't know, he becomes impossible and out of
place in any respectable and exclusive golf club. I suppose his
apologists feel kindly toward him for eliminating Adolphus Kitts and
squaring about a thousand old scores with that person, but I claim it
was a case of dog eat dog and neither dog a thoroughbred. I for one am
not mourning the departure of Windy Winkins, and if I never see him
again, I will manage to bear it somehow.
They say that every golf club has one member who slips in while the
membership committee is looking the other way. In Windy's case the
committee had no possible excuse. There was an excuse for Adolphus
Kitts. Adolphus got in when our club absorbed the Crystal Springs
Country Club, and out of courtesy we did not scrutinise the Crystal
Springs membership list, but Windy's name was proposed in the regular
manner. All that was known of him was that he was a stranger in the
community who had presumably never been in jail and who had money. The
club didn't need his initiation fee and wasn't after new members, but
for some reason or other the bars were down and Windy got in. The first
thing we knew he landed in our midst with a terrific splash and began
slapping total strangers on the back and trying to sign all the
tags and otherwise making an ass of himself. He didn't wait for
introductions--just butted in and took things for granted.
"You see, boys," he explained, "I've always been more or less of an
ath-a-lete and I've tried every game but this one. Now that I'm gettin'
to the time of life when I can't stand rough exercise any more, I
thought I'd kind of like to take up golf. I would have done it when I
lived in Chicago, but my friends laughed me out of it--said it was silly
to get out and whale a little white pill around the country--but I guess
anything that makes a man sweat is healthy, hey? And then my wife
thought it would be a good thing socially, you know, and--no, waiter,
this round is on me. Oh, but I insist! My card, gentlemen. That's right;
keep 'em. I get 'em engraved by the thousand. Waiter! Bring some cigars
here--perfectos, cigarettes--anything the gentlemen'll have, and let it
be the best in the house! I don't smoke cigarettes myself, but my
friends tell me that's the next step after takin' up golf! Ho, ho! No
offence to any of you boys; order cigarettes if you want 'em. Everybody
smokes on the new member!"
Well, that was Windy's tactful method of introducing himself. Is it any
wonder that we asked questions of the membership committee? No
out-and-out complaints, you understand. We just wanted to know where
Windy came from and how he got in and who was to blame for it. Most of
the information was furnished by Cupid Cutts.
Cupid is pretty nearly the whole thing at our club. In every golf club
there is one man who does the lion's share of the work and gets nothing
but abuse and criticism for it, and Cupid is our golfing wheel horse, as
you might say. He is a member of the board of directors, a member of the
house committee, chairman of the greens committee, and the Big Stick on
the membership committee. He is also the official handicapper, which is
a mighty good thing to bear in mind when you play against him. I have
known Cupid to cut a man's handicap six strokes for beating him three
ways on a ball-ball-ball Nassau.
Cutts is no Chick Evans, or anything like that, but, considering his
physical limitations, he is a remarkable golfer and steady as an
eight-day clock. He is so fat that he can't take a full-arm swing to
save his life, but his little half-shot pops the ball straight down the
middle of the course every time, and he plays to his handicap with a
persistency that has broken many a youngster's heart. Straight on the
pin all the time--that's his game, and whenever he's within a hundred
yards of the cup he's liable to lay his ball dead.
There are lots of things I might tell you about Cupid Cutts--he's a sort
of social Who's Who in white flannels and an obesity belt, and an
authority on scandal and gossip, past and present--but the long and
short of it is that it would be hard to get on without him, even harder
than it is to get on with him. Well, we asked Cupid about Windy Wilkins,
and Cupid went to the bat immediately.
"Absolutely all right, fellows, oh, absolutely! A little rough, perhaps,
a diamond in the rough, but a good heart. And all kinds of money. He
won't play often enough to bother anybody."
That was where Cupid was wrong two ways. Windy played every day, rain or
shine, and he bothered everybody. He was just as noisy on the course as
he was in the locker room, and when he missed his putt on the
eighteenth green the fellows who were driving off at No. 1 had to wait
until he cooled down. And when he managed to hit his drive clean he
yelled like a Comanche and jumped up and down on the tee. He did all the
things that can't be done, and when we spoke to him kindly about golfing
etiquette he snorted and said he never had much use for red tape anyway
and thought it was out of place in sport.
He tramped around on the greens and bothered people who wanted to putt.
He talked and laughed when others were driving. He played out of his
turn. He drove into foursomes whenever he was held up for a minute, just
to let the players know that he was behind 'em.
He was absolutely impossible, socially and otherwise, but the most
astonishing thing was the way he picked up the game after the first
month or so. Windy was a tremendously big man and looked like the hind
end of an elephant in his knickers; but for all his size he developed a
powerful, easy swing and a reasonable amount of accuracy. As for form,
he didn't know the meaning of the word. His stance was never twice the
same, his grip was a relic of the dark ages, he handled his irons as a
labouring man handles a pick, he did everything that the books say you
mustn't do, and, in spite of it, his game improved amazingly. And he
called us moving-picture golfers!
"Every move a picture!" he would say. "You have to plant your dear
little feet just so. Your tee has got to be just so high. Your grip must
be right to the fraction of an inch. You must waggle the club back and
forth seven times before you dare to swing it, and then chances are you
don't get anywhere! Step up and paste her on the nose the way I do!
Forget this Miss Nancy stuff and hit the ball!"
When Windy got down around 90 he swelled all out of shape, and the next
step, of course, was to have some special clubs built by MacLeish, the
professional. They were such queer-looking implements that Cupid joked
him about them one Saturday noon in the locker room. It was then that we
got a real line on Windy, and Cupid found out that even a rough diamond
may have a cutting edge.
"You're just like all beginners," said Cupid. "You make a few rotten
shots and then think the clubs must be wrong. The regular models aren't
good enough for you. You have to have some built to order, with bigger
faces and stiffer shafts. Get it into your head that the trouble is with
you, not with the club. The ball will go straight if you hit it right."
"Clubs make a lot of difference," said Windy. "Ten strokes anyway."
"Nonsense! A good, mechanical golfer can play with any clubs!"
"I suppose you think you can do it?"
"I know I can."
"And you'd bet on it?"
"Certainly."
Windy didn't say anything for as much as two minutes. The rascal was
thinking.
"_All_ right," said he at last. "Tell you what I'll do. I'll make you a
little proposition. You say you can play with any clubs. Give me the
privilege of pickin' 'em out for you, and I'll bet you fifty dollars
that I trim you on an even game--no handicap."
"Yes, but where are you going to get these clubs for me to play with?
Off a scrap pile or something?"
"Right out of MacLeish's shop! Brand-new stuff, selected from the
regular stock. And I'll go against you even, just to prove that you
don't know it all, even if you have been playin' golf for twenty years!"
It was a flat, out-and-out challenge. Cupid looked Windy up and down
with a pitying smile--the same smile he uses when an 18-handicap man
asks to be raised to 24.
"I'd be ashamed to rob you, Wilkins," said he.
Windy didn't say anything, but he went into his locker and brought out a
roll of bills about the size of a young grindstone. He counted fifty
dollars off it, and you couldn't have told the difference. It looked
just as big as before. He handed the fifty to me.
"It would be stealing it," said Cupid, but there was a hungry look in
his eye.
"If you get away with it," said Windy, "I won't complain to the police.
Put up or shut up."
Well, it looked like finding the money. We knew that Windy couldn't
break a 90 to save his life, and Cupid had done the course in an 84,
using nothing but a putting cleek.
"How many clubs can I have?" asked Cupid with his usual caution in the
matter of bets.
"Oh, six or eight," answered Windy. "Makes no difference to me."
"I'll take eight," said Cupid briskly. "And if you don't mind, I'll post
a check. I'm not in the habit of carrying the entire cash balance in my
jeans."
"Fair enough!" said Windy. "You boys are all witnesses to the terms of
this bet. I'm to pick out eight clubs--eight new ones--and Cutts here is
to play with 'em. Is that understood?"
"Perfectly!" grinned Cupid. "It'll just cost you fifty fish to find out
that a mechanical golfer can lick you with strange weapons."
Windy went out and Cupid promised us all a dinner on the proceeds of the
match.
"I don't want the fellow's money," said he, "but Windy's entirely too
fresh for a new member. A beating will do him good and make him humble.
Eight clubs. If he brings me only two or three that I can use--a driver,
a mid-iron, and a putter--I'll hang his hide on the fence too easy. He's
made a bad bet."
But it wasn't such a bad bet after all. Windy came back with eight
clubs in the crook of his arm, and when Cupid caught a glimpse of the
collection he howled himself purple in the face, and no wonder. Eight
nice, new, shiny, mashie niblicks!
You see, nothing was said about the _sort_ of clubs Windy was to pick
out, and he had selected eight of the same pattern, no good on earth
except for digging out of bunkers or popping the ball straight up in the
air! Harry Vardon himself can't _drive_ with a mashie niblick!
"What are you beefin' about?" asked Windy. "Eight clubs, you said, and
here they are. Play or pay."
"Pay! Why, man alive, it's a catch bet--a cinch bet! It's not being done
this year at all! It's like stealing the money!"
"And you thought you could steal mine," was the cool reply. "You thought
you had a cinch bet, didn't you? Be honest now. Eight clubs, by the
terms of the agreement, and you'll play with 'em or forfeit the fifty."
Cupid looked at the mashie niblicks and then he looked at Windy. I
looked at him too and began to understand how he got his money. His face
was as hard as granite. "You'd collect that sort of a bet--from a
friend?" It was Cupid's last shot.
"Just as quick as you would," said Windy.
"I'll write you a check," and Cupid turned on his heel and started for
the office.
Windy tried to turn it into a joke--after he got the check--but nobody
seemed to know where to laugh, and following that little incident he
found it a bit hard to get games. Whenever Windy was hunting a match the
foursomes were full and there was nothing doing. A sensitive man would
have suffered tortures, but Windy, with about as much delicacy as a
rhinoceros, continued to infest the course morning, noon, and night.
When he couldn't find any one weak-minded enough to play with him he
played with himself, and somehow managed to make just as much noise as
ever with only a caddie to talk to.
This was the state of affairs when Adolphus Kitts returned from the
East, barely in time to shoot a 91 in the qualifying round of the Annual
Handicap. We had hoped that he would miss this tournament, but no; there
he was, large as life--which is pretty large--and ugly as ever. Grim and
silent and nasty, he stepped out on No. 1 tee, and Cupid Cutts groaned
as he watched him drive off.
"That fellow," said Cupid, "would hang his harp on the walls of the New
Jerusalem and come back from the golden shore just to get into a
handicap event, where nobody wants him, nobody will speak to him, and
every one wishes him an ulcerated tooth! Why didn't he stay in the
East?"
There were about four hundred and seventy-six reasons why Adolphus was
unpopular with us; a few will suffice. In the first place, he was a cup
hunter. He had an unholy passion for silver goblets and trophies with
the club emblem on them, and he preferred a small silver vase--worth not
to exceed three dollars, wholesale--to the respect and admiration of his
fellow golfers. Heaven knows why he wanted trophies! They are never any
good unless a man has friends to show them to!
In the second place, Adolphus didn't care how he won a cup, and, as
Cupid used to say, the best club in his bag was the book of rules.
If you don't know it already, I must tell you that golf is the most
strictly governed game in the world, and also the most ceremonious. It
is as full of "thou shalt nots" as the commandments. There are rules for
everything and everybody on the course, and the breaking of a rule
carries a penalty with it--the loss of a stroke or the loss of a hole,
as the case may be. Very few golfers play absolutely to the letter of
the law; even those who know the rules incur penalties through
carelessness, and in such a case it is not considered sporting to demand
the pound of flesh; but there was nothing sporting about Adolphus Kitts.
He knew every obscure rule and insisted on every penalty. Question him,
and he fished out the book. That book of rules stiffened his match play
tremendously, besides making his opponents want to murder him. It was
rather a rotten system, but Kitts hadn't a drop of sporting blood in
his whole big body, and the element of sportsmanship didn't enter into
his calculations at all. He claimed strokes and holes even when not in
competition, and because of this he found it difficult to obtain
partners or opponents.
"He's a golf lawyer, that's what he is--a technical lawyer!" said Cupid
one day. "And I wouldn't even play the nineteenth hole with him--I
wouldn't, on a bet!"
Come to think of it, that is about the bitterest thing you can say of a
golfer.