Chapter XV

THE SUPERIORITY OF BRITISH LINKS, AND A MASTERPIECE OF KENT, WITH SOME SYSTEMS AND MORALS FOR HOLIDAY GOLF.

The chief and essential difference between golf in Britain and all other places in the world, as everybody feels on coming home to it after wanderings with clubs abroad, is that here in the home of the game it is "the real thing" as nowhere else. Climate, soil, history and sentiment, and the temperament of the people have combined to make golf here a thing that foreign people who have never seen and enjoyed it cannot imagine. It is not only that its excellence is so great, but its variety so infinite; and perhaps it is because of that excellence and variety that, human nature being in such a constant state of discontent, our people in these days are so much concerned with problems of architecture and the attainment of ideals which vary much with individuals and cause incessant wrangling. It is when we are far away that we think most of the magnificence of the courses on the western seaboard of Scotland--Prestwick, Troon, and Turnberry among them, with Machrihanish and Islay in more lonesome parts--of the wealth of golf in that East Lothian district that is so amazingly crowded with fine links, of the splendid strength of such as Hoylake and others in Cheshire and Lancashire, of our own east coast with such jewels as Brancaster set in it, of that marvellous trinity of courses on the Kentish seaboard, which as a golfing land has surely not its match in the world--Sandwich, Deal, and Prince's, in the group--of Littlestone and Rye along the southern coast, and then in the west such a glorious golfing ground as Westward Ho! And there is Wales with its pretty and excellent Porthcawl, Ashburnham, and many more, and Ireland also with its great Dublin courses, Portmarnock and Dollymount, and then sweet Newcastle in county Down, and bold Portrush.

Indeed there are no others like the British courses, and it is always a tremendous speculation with any golfer of experience as to which he likes the best. When he comes to make it he has to separate in his mind the feelings of admiration and those of affection, for it commonly happens, if the judgment is reasonably good, that one may have the utmost admiration for some particular course, for its unimpeachable architecture based so well on perfect theory and the attempt always to make the punishment fit the crime and award stern justice, and yet not greatly delight to play upon it because in a way that sometimes he can hardly understand it does not give him his utmost pleasure. Here again the inexplicable emotions settle it. But in that matter of "justice" which seems so much to be the ideal of new architects, there comes the reflection in the ordinary golfer's mind sometimes as to whether golf, not really being a game of justice now, would be better if it were one, whether with so much that is unfair and tantalising removed from it the game would be half so good. Surely in no fine sport is there always exact justice done, and if it be made an ideal is it not possible that the nearer such ideal is approached the poorer may become the sport, not perhaps in regular proportion but in approximate effect? Golf is a game of Nature after all, and Nature in some ways does not always stick to justice. One may ponder upon what Anatole France once said about this justice. "In the vulgar sense," he wrote, "it is the most melancholy of virtues. Nobody desires it. Faith opposes it by grace and Nature by love. It is enough for a man to call himself just for him to inspire a genuine repulsion. Justice is held in horror by things animate and inanimate. In the social order it is only a machine, indispensable doubtless, and for that reason respectable, but beyond question cruel since it has no other function than to punish, and because it sets jailers and executioners at work." And perhaps it may be said that golf has little enough in principle to do with justice either; and we have seen into what perplexities the good authorities of St. Andrews have fallen by their vain endeavour to make a code of laws that would settle the just dues of every golfer in every circumstance. Nature in her variety has contrived to beat them all continually. Perhaps it may be the same with the construction of courses, but the end of all golfers' endeavour, however much it may be criticised, is the good of the game, and it is generally achieved.

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Those who in the most dispassionate frame of mind have considered carefully all the points that should count the most and detached themselves as well as they might from their private and inexplicable preference have generally come to the conclusion that there are three courses in this great golfing country of ours that are somewhat better than all the rest in their golfing quality. One of them is old St. Andrews, another of them is middle-aged Westward Ho! and the third is the youthful Prince's at Sandwich. Considered as the perfect course, weighing point against point, a jury of the best critics might have difficulty in coming to any other decision than that architecturally, for the real magnificence of its golfing value, the great creation of Mr. Mallaby-Deeley on the golfing land by Pegwell Bay is supreme. Here ten years ago there was nothing but a barren waste of sandhills, just as they had been, as it seemed, since the very beginning of things--lonesome, useless, forgotten. Then it was realised that what was good for nothing else was best of all for golf. Mr. Mallaby-Deeley saw it and understood, and now hereabouts the land is comparatively priceless so much is it coveted by the golfers, who also now understand as they see. Other great courses have been the productions of a long period of time, improvements continually on an original structure of the crudest kind. Westward Ho! was not made in a season, nor in many seasons. Only recently some of its most delightful touches have been added to it. St. Andrews was the work of generations. But Prince's, though it has been appreciably changed from its original design, was like one great flash of inspiration, and as such is surely the most amazing achievement in the architecture of golf. Mr. Mallaby-Deeley in other ways has shown himself to be a man of immense imagination; but was it ever better illustrated than in his making of Prince's? Our admiration for the course may be not the less but greater because we cannot play her properly. For my own humble part I love most the championship course of the Royal Cinque Ports club at Deal near by. Here there are charm and variety, and holes of the most splendid character. If some find fault with them, what does it matter when they are so good to play? The Royal St. George's course at Sandwich, again, is a most beautiful thing; surely there is no other which gives such an infinite pleasure to a greater number of capable players. But for sheer golfing quality, Prince's truly is the queen of all.

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I have asked Mr. Mallaby-Deeley to tell me what his ideals are in this matter, and in response he has made a statement of such interest and value that it should be given at its length. He said that, premising that for purposes of consideration we should regard "ideal links" as having reference only to the sequence of holes, both as to ranges of length, difficulty, and beauty of design, he submitted that the making of such an ideal course, given suitable ground, depended then on three things only, being knowledge, time, and money. St. Andrews and his own Prince's come nearest to this ideal, but the former fails in that it is too straight in and out, and also because one can pull all the way out and all the way home again without falling into any trouble, the truth being that the more one pulls the greater the possibility of safety in doing so. Some say that if you do thus pull you cannot reach the greens, but in these days that is not so. We have seen them reach those greens after the most exaggerated pulling. Then he thinks that the set of St. Andrews in the matter of prevailing winds is far from ideal, for so often the wind is at one's back all the way out and against the player all the way coming home, or the other way about. Again, no one can deny, he says, that St. Andrews has three if not four very ordinary and commonplace holes. Prince's, as now laid out, has in general opinion not a single commonplace or uninteresting hole in the whole course, but it has had the advantage of being laid out many years after St. Andrews, and after the introduction of the rubber ball. A course comes nearer to the ideal as its holes are placed to every variety of wind. In the early days of Prince's at Sandwich the disadvantage of an in and out course were soon discovered and an enormous amount of money was spent in altering it to its present form, in which, with the single exception of St. George's, it is the best in existence, the old course at Sandwich being ideal in this respect. Mr. Mallaby-Deeley, looking upon his Prince's in the supercritical way of a pleased but still insistent creator, can see only one blemish in it, and that is that the two short holes, being the third and the fifth--though the fifth is longer than the third--come too close together. Any two holes on a course may separately be extremely good, but coming together lack something of perfection because of the repetition that instantly arises. He would have the pin visible for every approach shot on his ideal links, and the only exception he would make would be in the case of a full second shot with a long carry over a high bunker to the end of it, for this to his mind is a most interesting shot. Such an one, he points out, is that presented at the sixteenth hole at Littlestone, and he would be surprised to know that any one would ever think of altering that hole in order to enable a player in the distance to see the pin. He also would not agree to placing a bunker immediately at the back of the green, which punishes the man who dares to be up and encourages "pawkiness."

The visible pin is imperative at short holes; he will admit no exceptions. But all who have been to Prince's have been most impressed with the beauty and golfing perfection of the dog-legged holes there, a couple of which are presented at the beginning of the round, immediately introducing the stranger to some of the best delights of this course. He would have dog-leg holes of both shapes in his round, those bending to the right to worry the slicer, and those angled towards the left to help the long driver who greatly dares. The first hole at Hoylake and the second and eleventh at Prince's are dog-leg holes that he likes best. But, he will tell you, by far the most vital matters to consider in making any course with pretensions to being ideal are the position of the greens and the bunkering through the course and near the hole, and, though it is a consideration that is too often overlooked, it is nearly as important to bear in mind from which quarter the prevailing wind blows. He believes every shot from the tee to the hole ought to be of equal importance, but in the case of the majority of the courses this is not so. Despite the fact that on the tee the man has everything in his favour, a perfect stance and a teed-up ball, he is given more space to play into and a greater margin for inaccuracy than in the case of any other shot. This, says the architect, is wrong. Surely it should be as necessary on the ideal course to place the tee shot as any other. He has turned the subject of ribbon bunkers very thoroughly over in his mind. In a general way, he does not like them because of the varying winds. He says, "_Tutiores ibis in medias vias_," is a safe and golden rule of life, and it applies equally to ribbon bunkers which while they make some holes mar many more. Most frequently on account of wind and other things this form of hazard fails as a fair guard to the green for a hole that is meant for two full shots. It is then wrongly placed, and would generally be improved by the substitution of ear bunkers to catch sliced and pulled shots thereto. The push shot is one of the most difficult in the game to play, but it is one of the prettiest and most satisfactory in accomplishment; but the ribbon bunker is often unfair to the man who plays it. Yet the absence of such ribbon bunkers does not prevent the man who likes to play his high mashie shots from still playing them. Thus the absence of this form of bunker is fair to all, while if placed very near the green its presence penalises the push-shot player. But many a tee shot would be tame if it were not for the ribbon bunkers some way ahead. In epitome he says to the student of architecture--"Bunker your course so that every bad shot is punished; place your bunkers so that every shot must be played and played well; make the length of your holes such that if a shot is foozled it costs you a stroke; guard your greens right and left, and even to the very edge and into the green itself, if necessary, but this must of course depend on the length of shot to be played; and at one-shot holes make the green a very fort of surrounding bunkers, and guard the tee shot. Do not leave it open as at the famous short hole at St. Andrews, a much overrated hole. But above all things, make your bunkers fair; don't make them impossible to get out of except by playing back."

As to the lengths of the holes on his ideal course he would have about twelve two-shot holes varying from 380 to 440 yards, and there should be three one-shot holes of about 165, 180, and 200 yards respectively. There would be two or three drive-and-iron holes of about 350 yards each, but a drive-and-iron hole should be so constructed that if the drive is missed it will be impossible for the man who missed it to sail on the green with his next. There is a good example of this in the fifteenth at Prince's, for although this hole is only a drive and an iron the penalty for missing the drive is that it takes the player two more shots to reach the green because of the nature of the ground in front of the tee. And then he would have it a condition that the last three holes should average about 400 to 420 yards each, and the seventeenth and eighteenth should be made specially testing ones. This is the ideal course, and, being such, it is not a place for foozlers. But if it is properly and fairly constructed it will be easier and pleasanter to play on than a course which is made difficult by the simple method of making it unfair, for example by putting bunkers in the wrong places, by cutting the hole in a ridiculous position on the green, by punishing the man who is "up" (a new-fangled and absurd idea of course construction) by placing the hole immediately in front of a bunker at the back of the green, and by leaving the approach to the green from a long shot rough or broken, and so unfair. It is easy to make any course difficult, and so conducive to high scoring, by making it unfair. This induces pawky play because the punishment for bold play may be too severe. He is also of opinion (and there is a constantly growing tendency to agree with him) that there is too much premium on putting, and that it plays far too important a part in the game, especially among first-class players and in first-class matches. He thinks the hole should be six and a half inches instead of four and a quarter. Under present conditions a putt missed by half an inch bears the same punishment (although the rest of the hole through the green may have been played faultlessly) as a hopelessly bad shot by one's opponent through the green.

Prince's supports its creator's arguments very well indeed, and one enormous fascination of it lies in the fact that it is always suggesting to you, always inviting you, always tempting you to do the more daring thing, and hinting that, even though you failed, the suffering might not be too much. In that, it seems to me, lies the chief charm of this masterpiece of architecture.

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So when we come home from other lands, let us think of golfing holidays in our own, and moralise from old experience. It is an aggravating circumstance that while there is hardly anything in the way of change and holiday that is so splendid as a golfing holiday, there is hardly any kind that is so easily spoiled. The golfer is not dependent on the weather, only to a small extent on his friends, he seldom knows limits of time or space, yet he fails oftener in his pursuit of the perfect happiness of a summer vacation than do the unsophisticated people who kill the time of August and September in other ways, and that happens because of the very fascination of the thing, and the enthusiasm and excess to which it leads him on. In our working days limits are imposed upon us; when we are loose and unrestricted all system and wise restraint fly to pieces. It is not only that we often play too much on holidays, but that during play and in the intervals between those spells of action the imagination is at work too fast and makes riot upon settled methods which have raised the game of the individual to some more or less agreeable sort of quality. Excess and experiment are the two evils that shatter so many golfing holidays, and yet the contradictions of golf are such that we find there is something good to be said both for excess and for experiment. But be all this as it may, it is not until a man has gone through twenty golfing holiday campaigns that he fully realises he has an education to serve in this matter, and after twenty more he is able to start out on the forty-first in the strong confidence that from the days and weeks before him he will extract the full available supply of rich golfing delight. These remarks do not well apply to the person of the thick phlegmatic temperament who plays now with the same set of clubs that he started with ten years or more agone, the which have not had their shafts varnished, nor their grips attended since the time of their first swinging. This man is without imagination, without feeling, and, with no blessing upon him, we may let him wander away to play wherever he will, knowing that he will always derive some great satisfaction from his pursuit and gain mightily in health. He is not like most of us; he is as the man without any religion; he is very material. He eats, he plays, he rests, he sleeps. And he does very well in it all; and yet we of the majority who think always, ponder deeply, worry exceedingly and are wracked with doubts and conflicting theories, disappointed ever in fruitless experiments, do not envy him. The material person does not go down into the depths where we grieve and are in pain (how often do we go and grieve!), but neither does he ascend to the heights of pleasure that are scaled by successful experiment, by the sudden discovery of some wonderful secret that seems to have unlocked the gates of the higher golf and rendered us immune from failure for evermore. (Never mind what happens in the morning!) We may suffer the depths for those hot moments of life on the summits.

This preamble is needed for warning. Golf is the great game of emotions, and at holiday times those emotions are quickened, strung up and, flying loose in riot, play the devil with our game. I am sorry to believe that many young men who come back to their homelands from the golfing holiday grounds in October do so with inward sighs and stifled sobs. They tell us that they have had the most glorious time; they may foolishly give an account of a round said to have been done in 74, and of many of the longest holes that cost them only four strokes apiece, and we forgive them for their words which we know are false, realising the pain of their case and that their dissembling is in a small manner for the good of the game. Their emotions have led them astray; they have been weak and foolish; they have done the wrong things and they have left undone all those which were recommended to them as right. They have played three rounds a day, and they have bought new drivers and putters. And some of them have actually changed their stances and had an inch cut off a favourite shaft! Truly their emotions have led them wrong. Player! if you would pass the placid holiday, kill those emotions and cast them off. You may then take a golfing holiday from which you will derive that magnificent material comfort and refreshment that your butcher and baker do when they walk upon the promenade at Margate and, well fed, sleep at times on the sunlit sands. You will really believe on your return to labour in the town, that you have had a splendid time, but soon you will cease to talk of it for you will find that there is very little to remember. Time was passed; that was all. The man whose emotions played old Harry with him does not forget. He has something indeed to remember, for he lived very much in his month of play. So you will see that in the scheme of golfing things as jointly ordained by Nature and kind Providence, with the petty meddling of the man himself, there are different processes of holiday, and each in its way is the best. As in so many other affairs of golf there are contradictions abounding. But let us, after such philosophy, move to some definite considerations, and consider life and facts as they are presented to us.

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One of the doctors' papers was well laughed at a little while since for suggesting that, on account of the nerve strain that it makes, golf is not an ideal game for everybody, especially busy folks with few hours and days for recreation. To quote: "If he takes his failures to play a good game to heart, it is doubtful whether his health gains very much. He has had, it is true, the advantage of a change of scene and occupation, and has lived for a while in a healthier atmosphere, and, if he had only been satisfied with his game, all these things would have conspired to send him back to his work cheered and braced up. But he may play very badly and become unduly worried thereat. A game that is calculated to increase an irritability which has arisen out of a trying week's work can hardly be said to be recreative, at all events to the mind." The medical writer concluded impressively: "The game of golf, if it does not go smoothly, presents so many points of analogy with the tiresome eventualities of life that there can be little doubt that persons of an irritable, gloomy, and worrying disposition would be better if they did not seek their recreation on the links." The common people sometimes look upon these pronouncements from the columns of the professional paper as being like the essence of the wisdom and knowledge of the whole of Harley Street. I remember, however, that when this was published the golfers ridiculed and condemned it, and agreed to take more golf and less medicine. It is not my function to advocate the playing of less golf than is played, much less the stoppage of any of it, but I dare to suggest that there was a germ of truth in what the medical paper said. There are kinds of players who should take their golf with restraint and caution, especially at holiday times. The truth is that a vast proportion of golfing holidays are completely ruined through a bad plan of campaign, or over-doing it, or both--commonly both. We would say nothing to a doubter now about the selection of his friends for his party; he should know that it is a matter demanding the extremest care. A golfing holiday _a deux_ may expose all the least beautiful parts of each man's character, and those who are not such friends that they can comfortably bear each other's infirmities might do better even to go on their golfing way lonely and without a partner. There is much to be said for the freedom of this latter holiday existence, and odd indeed would be the golfing place where there were not many games for the solitary stranger to play.

The night before the opening of the campaign, the eve of the journey outwards, is a trying time to many men. I think of those who take loving interest in their clubs, and have many of them, including a first-class reserve, and perhaps a second-class reserve also, to the original set that is in full commission. The man who has only seven clubs in the world, and seems to take a pride in telling you that he has had them all since the beginning of his golf, is in no difficulty. But with others the trouble is how many clubs to take, and how many to dare to leave behind. After the first selection it is seen that about five or six drivers are put in the list, very many irons, and a large assortment of putters. All the ex-favourites are to be tried over again and experiments to be made with a number of others. It is found then that too many clubs have been selected; but after the most painful and difficult weeding out there may still be some twenty left, and these are taken. It is a mistake. From the day of arrival at the holiday place the man is in doubt as to what he will play with, and he mixes up his game into a bad state of confusion through using different clubs almost every day. It is a good rule, to which every golfer subscribes after twenty campaigns, if not before, to take away the regular clubs as used every day at home, not one less and only two more, being a spare driver and an extra putter. In that way happiness and contentment lie. I would leave out the driver did I not know the case of a man who so much grieved for one he had left behind that he travelled three hundred miles back home to get it!

The little truth that there was in the indictment against the game by the doctors' paper is that it is possible for some men, many of them, to have too much of it, when it becomes bad for the men and bad for their game, and holidays are rendered failures. There was a time when really good golf could only be had at the seaside, or very far away from the great centres of work and business. That is no longer the case, and the situation is that the golf we are having all the time at home is hard and strenuous, demanding great ability and thought. The golfing holiday, then, might very well be made an easy one on a links where the holes are simple, and--remembering another scare that was made by a doctors' paper some time later--I believe that there is as happy golf to be had up on the hills, and in the lonely country places, as on the margin of any sunny sea.

But it is the excess of golf that is played on holidays that spoils everything in the case of the man of a somewhat nervous temperament, and one who may not be as strong and beefy as the John Bull of the pictures. Too many of these people seem to think that, as they have gone away for golf, they should have as much of it as they can get, and play to excess accordingly. Three rounds! Three rounds! One of the reasons why some men play so much--as they put it to themselves--is that they wish to improve their game, and they conceive that the holiday time is the best of all in which to achieve that end. But experience shows that very seldom indeed is a man's game improved at such a time; very frequently it is injured, and that through the excess. When so much of it is played, weariness, though half unconsciously, is induced, proper pains are not taken at every stroke, carelessness becomes constant; then, with deterioration, too many experiments are tried, and worst of all, that terrible, and for the time being incurable, disease of staleness sets in, and there is then an end to all happiness and enjoyment. There is hardly any cure for staleness except complete abstention for a time. It needs some strength of mind to carry out such a resolve, but he who severely limits his golf at holiday times enjoys it the more, and he and his health and his game are the better for it. A holiday system based on wise restrictions is a splendid thing. Men of long experience have tried many of them, and the best of all is this: Play two rounds on the first day of the week, one on the second, two again on the third, one on the fourth, two on the fifth, one on the sixth, and take a whole holiday from the game on the seventh day. That is not too much nor too little. Another point for remembrance is that on the days that are warm and long the old convention of one round before lunch and another afterwards is not a good one for the best and most enjoyable employment of the day. Much better is it to play in the morning, rest pleasantly--sleep, perhaps--in the afternoon, and play again in the cool of the evening, when golf is the best of all--always provided your course is not laid out in a straight line from east to west and back, for playing full against a setting sun is a very tantalising thing.

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Mention has been made of staleness. In our minds there is awakened an unhappy thought with which something had better be done for good contentment's sake ere we pass along to the pleasant consideration of this holiday golf. Staleness is the canker that kills many of these expeditions that are planned with the happiest promise. It is a dread golfing disease that rages on the links almost like an epidemic during August and September. It spoils the game and happiness of every player whom it attacks, and sometimes it cuts holidays short. It is nearly safe to assume that when on holiday one golfer in every half-dozen is afflicted with it, and some of the others are in danger. It consists in the absolute incapacity of the player to produce a game that is within very many strokes of his real form; in truth the game of a good man may fall to the twenty-handicap level or lower, and each new effort on his part to raise it up again only results in a worsening of the case. There is no certain cure except isolation from the game and long rest. A trouble that has the power, then, to ruin the golfing holiday, and often does, must be considered very seriously.

Here is the progress of a case for the details of which I can personally vouch. I was a sympathetic witness of it. The man was playing well at the beginning of the holiday season and went for a month to a fine east coast links where there was no town, no village, and no society but that of golfers, and nothing to do but golf, which was what he desired. For a week he played well, doing two rounds every day, and sometimes three. The weather was hot. At the beginning of the second week there were signs of a failing game. His first anxiety soon increased; he changed his ball, then began to make alterations in his stances and swings, and at the end of the second week was all foozles, and getting worse. Soon afterwards it was obvious that the cause of the whole thing was staleness. The man tried the heroic remedy of loafing about his quarters, golfless, for a couple of days, reading novels and pretending to play bowls against himself. He also studied the stones in the old graveyard near by. On the third day he went back to the links very hopeful, but the case was as bad as before, and, desperate, he gave his game a three days' rest after that. This also failed. Neither of the resting spells was long enough. This being a man of keen nervous temperament, who took his game very seriously and was very miserable, he did the wisest thing by giving up his holiday and going home to work in London.

The primary cause of staleness is excess of play, resulting in exhaustion of nervous and physical energy, which in turn produces carelessness, decreases the capacity for taking the infinite pains that are necessary to the game, and--important--brings about a failure in the subconscious working arrangement between the mind and the physical system that has everything to do with the proper accomplishment of the various strokes. The movements of every golfing swing, as we have agreed, are extremely complicated; they consist of hundreds of little movements amalgamated into one great system, and while one is conscious of the system, it is impossible for the parts of it to be anything but subconsciously done, and they are made perfect by training and practice, and by getting the brain and the physical construction to work together exactly and with harmony. When staleness comes on, this working arrangement breaks down and the player attempts the hopeless task of trying to do consciously what can only be done the other way. I believe that this is the true explanation of staleness.

_Note 1._--The exhaustion of the nervous and physical energy is often unsuspected, and is covered up by the enthusiasm for the game. _Note 2._--Excess of play does not mean only a frequent playing of three rounds a day. Two rounds every day, as a regular thing, may be excess in many cases. Much depends on the individual. A man of highly-strung temperament will become stale much more quickly than a beefy, phlegmatic person, who is commonly immune. _Note 3._--Staleness is very much more easily induced, and develops more quickly and dangerously, in hot weather than at other times, because the tax on the nervous energy and the eyesight is so much greater then.

Now here are the common symptoms and the results of staleness. Almost the first real sign of it is swaying of the body. This is very slight at first, and is rarely suspected; but it brings about a general collapse of the swing and the entire golfing apparatus. A very hopeless sort of tap is given to the ball on the tee, and it is driven perhaps only a hundred and fifty yards. As everything seems to have been done properly, the player is mystified, begins to experiment, and then worse troubles come on. Shakiness of the legs, and much exaggerated knee and foot work, often resulting in collapse of the right leg and the player getting up on his toes, make up the next symptom; and another one that is a common accompaniment of the beginning of staleness is falling or lurching forward as the club is brought down on to the ball. Anything like a proper swing is, in such circumstances, impossible. Bad timing begins immediately; then there is overswinging and too fast swinging; and, of course, the moving of the head and the taking of the eye from the ball, those two faults that never miss an opportunity of coming in to add to the woes of the worried golfer.

What must the stale golfer do for his salvation and happiness? In the first place, if he has had this thing before, he should be on his guard against it and catch it in time. If taken at the very beginning an early cure is quite practicable. The golf should be stopped at once for a few days, and a rest and change, as complete as possible, taken. Then the game should be resumed warily--one round a day. In addition to this, some men will insist on having alterations made in their clubs. They deceive themselves. One of the greatest champions of all times once, in intimate conversation, laid down a rule to me with great seriousness, and it is one never to be forgotten. He said: "Never make a change in your regular clubs, and never buy a new one, unless it is a putter, when you are playing badly. Only make changes when you are playing at your very best. You may then play even better, knowing so well what you want." Yet, warn them as much as you may, many men will make extensive changes when they are stale and desperate. One plea to them then--the change having failed, go back to the old clubs before changing again. Never get far from your base, or you will be lost in doubt and confusion. Let it be the same with methods as with clubs. If a new way fails, let the sick man go back to the old one before experimenting again. He should remember that that old one has served him well, and the possibilities are that he will have to stand by it after all. Then the stale golfer should try to encourage himself; he should try a new set of opponents, play with men of longer handicap than himself, who normally would never outdrive him, and so on. A change of links often works wonders, but if the staleness has gone very far, and it matters little, it is often wise to give up the golfing part of the holiday if one is in progress. We have seen the advice given to play through a period of staleness. This is a heroic measure, but it would not succeed in one in six cases, and the suffering would be too great for the ordinary mortal. We tell him to take few clubs away with him, and to be faithful to them, and they will serve him well. And we tell him when his golf is ill not to fly to the dangerous stimulant of a new club. And yet, where is the man who does come back from his holiday without a new one in his bag, one fond relic of those days that were so tightly packed with golf? We bring them back with us, the names of their nativity upon them, as hunters and explorers bring trophies from distant lands. Mutely they testify for us. Sometimes when the holiday is done they are added, for their merit and fine service, to the clubs in commission in the bag; oftener they fall into the reserve; frequently they are given a purely honorary office and sent off with a title to the golfer's own private House of Lords as magnificent relics.

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A diary should be kept during the golfing holiday; indeed it should be kept at all times. More such are made than the golfing world realises, because they are often, to the uttermost degree, secret and private, and that not merely for the reason that some diarists place themselves in the confessional when they make their entries, but because, alas! they are conscious of serving their own vanity by exaggeration of their best achievements. It may be kept for one of two distinct reasons, or for both of them, though the latter is not generally done. The two different objects are entertainment and instruction. For the former, the small things that are sold in shops will do. You write down, each time you have been playing, where the game was had, who the other man was, and what you beat him by; or the extent of the disaster if it was the other way about. In the column devoted to "Conditions" you exaggerate the force of the wind; and under "Remarks" you say you were driving and putting splendidly when you won. If you lost, the space is left blank. This record is in its own way valuable, because at a future time it will refresh the memory concerning great golfing days of the past, and thus furnish a real enjoyment. When a game of golf is played, and finished, it is not done with. It is lodged in a great store of remembrance, with full particulars attached to it, ripening with time, so that the player's memories are among the best happenings of his golfing possessions. All of us know that this is so, and it is as a kind of catalogue that the little diaries serve their purpose well.

The diary of analysis or instruction is a very different thing. The object is to make a serial record of ideas and successful experiments, faults and tendencies--most particularly tendencies--in order that on periodical examination of it the player may derive useful lessons and improve his game. One should get a good exercise book, bound nicely and strongly, with morocco corners, and just enter up one's performances on the plain paper according to any system that one may choose, giving prominence to a line at the top of each entry, naming the day, the place, and the man. I have seen diaries kept in this way, and they have been very serviceable. But the man who is starting anything of this kind must come to a definite agreement with himself to be absolutely honest and sincere; and he must also be very introspective, and have keen discernment for his own faults and constant observation for all that he does at every stroke. Otherwise it were better that he merely kept the diary of glorious remembrances.

Let him, if he keeps a diary of fact, hold it secret from all the world; but every night after his play put down in it the plain, real truth about what happened; and let him see to it, after much thought upon recent events, that he does properly know the truth. This point is emphasised because men may be short with their putts, say on sixteen of eighteen greens in one round, and yet not notice the frequency of the same fault; or they may be pulling or cutting their putts all the time and be oblivious, in the same way, to the circumstance. Or they may be pitching their approaches too short of the greens, or slicing most of their drives. The point is that the golfer's memory for his own misdeeds is an exceedingly short one, and he rarely gets them tabulated and analysed as he should. If he made an analysis of his play at the end of the day, stated the truth about it in the book, and then examined that book carefully once a week, he would learn something about the causes that were preventing him from getting on in the game, and the next step would suggest itself. Some would say that the making of personal statistics in this way would be a very troublesome matter, and they would be certain to tire of it soon. It is not so much a nuisance as might be imagined; it becomes interesting, and it helps one's game.

But if you are doubtful about this idea, do keep a diary of sorts anyhow, for it is such a pity to let the golf that has been played die out of memory. You may gather a notion of the value and interest of what might be called played golf by reading through the match-book of another man, like that of the late F. G. Tait, which is included in the delightful and pathetic memoir that Mr. John Low wrote about him. Tait, model of golfers, always filed the facts about his matches, but briefly. Not many words were wasted in the "Remarks" column; what was said there was the plain truth. Often it was "F. G. T. in great form," but the recorder knew how to denounce himself. It does one good to read through this diary of one who was soldier, hero, golfer, and darling of the game.

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But not every man departs on a golfing holiday for a strenuous time of continuous match-play with keen rivals who might be fine companions, and who would keep him up at night with bridge, after a day's work on the links was done. All sorts and conditions of men are included in this comprehensive golfing world of ours; and some have most contemplative moods, love solitude, and, alone with themselves and the game, probe deeply into its mysteries and into their own weaknesses. It is to the credit of the pastime that it accommodates itself most splendidly to every disposition and mood and manner; and men of a lonely way have gone solus on their holidays, and held themselves solus all the time, and have come back again, well refreshed and satisfied. They have often enough had fewer disappointments than the others. They have practised extensively, and they have improved themselves as golfers. Practice is indeed a feature of many golfing holidays. Here at such times we have the full game at our disposal and nothing but the game, and now, if ever, we can make ourselves to be better golfers. That is how we reason. It is a matter to be considered carefully.

Practice fails in most cases because the golfers concerned do not concentrate upon their efforts with that keenness, thoroughness, and determination they exhibit when playing a real match. The game is not the same to them; they do not try so hard, however much, as one might say, they try to try, and the result is there is such an excess of looseness, carelessness, about their methods, that bad habits are born; and these persons then had really better not be practising at all, for thus they do harm to their game. This is one reason why one-club practice is better in small quantities than in large ones. It is not sufficiently interesting when kept up. What we should do, therefore, is to make the practice interesting, and fortunately the circumstances of the game afford wide scope for doing so. There is no other game that is half so good in this way. Golf to many people's minds is not merely a game to be played with others and against them; it is a study, a subject for meditative research and exultant discovery. If others should regard such terms as immoderate, golfers anyhow know they are fairly employed. The essential difference that the presence of a man as opponent makes is that a real game, hard and according to the law, has then to be played, and there can be a winning or a losing of it.

Well then, it is our business, in order to make solitary practice interesting and valuable, to create a game for ourselves. It is easily done, and there are some wise men who say that they would rather play their solitary game, going round the links alone with all their clubs or nearly, than they would play a match with a stranger who happened not to turn out to be the right kind of golfing man. Many who start systems of solitary competitive play against themselves in this way fail with them, did they but know it, because they are not honest with themselves. Having become very badly bunkered, and having taken three for recovery, they must not call it one because they should have got out in one, had they played the shot just right; nor, having missed a foot putt, must they consider it as holed because if they had tried their uttermost they could have holed it. We must see that it is of the essence of solus play, and making it valuable, that the man should try his best and should know and feel that he has no second attempt at the same stroke, just as he has none in the real game when others are there. If he permits himself second drives and putts, all the strokes are done without the sense of responsibility, and the player then were better indoors writing letters to his friends to come and match themselves against him. Therefore let the first and the most inexorable rule in one's solitary golf be that the shot once made must count, no matter what its quality. What may be permitted--and this does not operate as an exception to the rule--is that when a shot has been badly done another ball may be played from the same place. One may learn something in this way, but always must it be understood that the first ball must count; and it is a good maxim that there should be no attempted repetition of a successful stroke, for if it were done well again the man would be no better off in mind or skill, and if it failed there would be an unnecessary disappointment and uncertainty.

Now, to consider ways of competing against oneself that will make interesting the lonely game, and lift it to value too, every man of thought might quite well devise some suitable system for himself; but we may tell him of some that have been successful with many players, and of a good principle to embrace in any new one, which is never to make the test or competition too severe. I believe that golfers are improved more by coaxing and flattery than by harsh measures and heavy defeats. It is often said that the best way to improve is to play against better players than ourselves, but there are limitations to that advice which are not always sufficiently emphasised. The superior party ought not to be too much superior, the different points of the game of the two men should not be very widely contrasted, and the better player should be giving to the inferior one so much allowance that the latter ought to win as often as he loses, never letting it be forgotten that, when handicaps are right and three-fourths of the difference is allowed, the odds are really always in favour of the better player, as has been proved over and over again. Even when a man is of long experience and has been fashioned by nature in the heroic mould, it is impossible to play his very best golf, and be improving on it, unless he "has his pecker up." The pecker properly set makes happiness and confidence, and it is only when such moods are engendered that the man is led on to higher things, perceives the absence of limitation to his prospects of improvement, and likens himself to the chrysalis of a Vardon or a Braid. Above everything else, as we have agreed so often before, golf is a game of hope. Crush the hope by setting the man a task that is beyond him and you take away the joy of the game and kill the happy prospects. The golfer who is winning will win again and play better.

In these observations there have been some principles for practice laid down that are seldom emphasised, but are of the most vital importance. To make exact systems to suit them is, after all, a simple affair. Now many men play round after round, counting their strokes, as if they were playing in a medal competition, and comparing results at the finish, always trying to break their own records. They may gain some benefit from this play, but it often fails in interest, and consequently in value, for the same reason that medal competitions do--because of the continual occurrence of the one, or it may be two, very bad holes. The percentage of cards that are turned from good to bad merely by one disastrous hole must be very high, and when a man is playing a practice round and does a nine at the second hole, it is difficult for him to treat the remainder very seriously or be keen about them. The remedy is simple. Let this system of playing and comparisons be that his aggregate shall always be for sixteen or seventeen holes only, leaving the worst to be eliminated. There is nothing unfair in doing so. The one bad hole is frequently more the result of accident than of inability. At the beginning of a system of practice play three holes may be dropped regularly from the reckoning, then a week later two, the week after that one only. Comparisons of form are more accurate and reliable when the worst hole is eliminated, than when all eighteen are totted up. Then the man may play the bogey game; but instead of opposing the set bogey of the course and complicating the business with handicap strokes, let him make a bogey of his own of such a kind that it represents not the scratch man's proper game but his, so that when he is playing well he ought to beat it, and it should be a tolerable match. In constructing such a bogey, he might make allowance for his own special likes and dislikes in regard to particular holes. Again, I have known men to derive pleasure and improvement from a system of practice against the ordinary bogey by which they merely reckoned the number of holes at which they equalled or beat the phantom's figures, disregarding the losses. There is a little difference between this and the ordinary reckoning, and it is in the direction of encouragement if the player is coming on.

And then there is the interesting system that was first set forth by a most eminent player who has been amateur champion more than once, by which the practiser wins half-crowns for his good play and loses them on his off days. He plays against bogey on terms that give him an equal chance. Then he establishes a money-box with two sections in it, one being for bogey and the other for himself, and into each section he deposits four half-crowns, which is very little to pay for all the enjoyment he is about to gain. When bogey beats him one of the half-crowns is lifted out of the man's section into the ghost's, but when flesh and blood prevail the coin comes back. The course of practice is ended when one side or the other has got all the half-crowns. If bogey has them there is something wrong with the game of the man, and he had better start another series; but when the man is triumphant he may depart for a holiday exultingly and spend the money on it, in the doing of which he will probably win some more, his form being so much bettered by his lonely practice.