The Happy Golfer Part 14

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 circ.u.mstances, 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 t.i.tle to the golfer's own private House of Lords as magnificent relics.

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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 circ.u.mstance. 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 a.n.a.lysed as he should. If he made an a.n.a.lysis 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.

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 quant.i.ties 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 circ.u.mstances 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 compet.i.tive 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 repet.i.tion 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 compet.i.tion 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 fas.h.i.+oned by nature in the heroic mould, it is impossible to play his very best golf, and be improving on it, unless he "has his p.e.c.k.e.r up." The p.e.c.k.e.r 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 compet.i.tion, 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 compet.i.tions 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.

CHAPTER XVI

THE OLD DIGNITY OF LONDON GOLF, AND ITS NEW IMPORTANCE, WITH A WORD FOR THE CHARM OF INLAND COURSES.

Perhaps in the middle ages of the game some rare old conservative of a player at one of the great Scottish seats of golf was told by another that a gentleman had just arrived by the coach from London and would like a match in the morning, and it is distinctly possible, if he was the excellent man we picture him, that he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "And where, sir, is London?" The manner would have been Johnsonian, if not the sentiment.

Should any one now be disposed to regard such lack of knowledge--though I think you would find it was only what might be called judicial golfing ignorance--or narrowness, or whatever it was, as merely stupid or a little culpable, he may hesitate. The pride of dignity, arising from conscious strength and superiority, was a fine thing among the Scottish golfers, and certainly was to be admired. That spirit, that st.u.r.dy consciousness of personal value, have helped to the making of a British empire. And sometimes a golfer would wander in the north and be discovered by the players there to have a wooden club with a bra.s.s sole, and thereupon he might be good-humouredly mocked for being the Blackheath golfer that he was, since it was on the famous course by London that the bra.s.sey was first used. Since then London has given other good things to golf, including many courses that are unequalled among their kind and a number of players of high champions.h.i.+p rank. And sometimes there is more golf played in a day within twenty-five miles of Charing Cross than there is in the whole of Scotland in a week, and much of it is very good golf. But this is not a place for comparisons, and particularly it is not meant for one in which the English grat.i.tude to Scottish benefactors for the gift of this remarkable game is to be lessened from the full. It is only suggested that London golf is now a thing of great account. That is coming to be understood; but one doubts if the Londoners properly realise that the game in the metropolis has rich history and traditions which make a match for those of nearly any other place. Except that the great players of the game of different ages were so little acquainted with it, Blackheath has golfing land as historic as any, and the Royal Blackheath Club, with its origin in 1608, is the oldest in the world. That is London. Some time since there was a fas.h.i.+on for open-air shows of pageantry, and if the golfers had then been so disposed they could have put forward a pageant of London golf that would have embraced most picturesque and impressive tableaux. There is King James the First of England and the Sixth of Scotland, keen golfer indeed, playing the game at Blackheath in the company of some of his n.o.bles when the court was at Greenwich, and there is a charming scene to be imagined in which the monarch gives his royal sanction and authority to the Society of Golfers that is established at this place in 1608, as it is well believed to have been, and in varying forms to have maintained its existence ever since, being to-day the Royal Blackheath Golf Club, and highly respected. I think we should regard this King James as being the very first of our London golfers, and he makes a fine figure of a player for the distinction, keen enough in all conscience. Five years before the reputed beginning of the Society at Blackheath he appointed William Mayne to be the royal clubmaker, and a few years later gave one named Melvill a monopoly of ball-making at four s.h.i.+llings a time. Altogether this makes a good scene of golf.

Here in the earliest days the course of Blackheath consisted of but five holes, which was then considered the proper number, and was the same as the Honourable Company had at Leith. Later there were seven holes arranged, and though they are played in a different order, those seven remain much the same to-day. It is to the discredit of London golfers as a body, those golfers who make the most reverential pilgrimages to northern shrines, that they have not, to the extent of one in a hundred, ever been to the scene of the old Blackheath golf, or played a game there on this hallowed ground, as they may at their will. It is the story again of the prophet in his own country, the same failing as that by which the majority of Londoners might be condemned for never having visited the Tower of London. I believe I have met more golfers in America who have been to Blackheath than I have met in England, for I have encountered several who told me they had not cared to sail back home until they had made the short journey down from Charing Cross to the famous common.

Apart from the sense of history and the sentiment of pilgrimage, Blackheath, as a practical golfing proposition still surviving, should interest every golfer intensely. Surely it is one of the most interesting courses, one causing the deepest reflections, and one which, even by play upon it, might have some good effect on a man's game. For it is a chastening course, is our old Blackheath; one that makes humility if course ever did, and one that gives us the best contentment with our modern lot. Men who have played at Blackheath do not so constantly complain of the weak effort of their greenkeeper, and his governing committee, at their most favoured club. A little while since the cry was raised that golf had become too easy--too easy! It was said that the improving of the fairways and the smoothing of the putting greens had taken all its early viciousness from the game. Conditions have certainly changed, but when champions tell me that this maddening game from time to time brings their nerves to the state of piano wires, it may be reckoned as sufficiently difficult for the ordinary mortal.

But Blackheath is extraordinary and most educative. It is certainly hard enough, though the modern bunker scientists have done nothing with it, and in the ordinary sense it has no bunkers. New theories of bunkering and the changing necessities of new kinds of b.a.l.l.s trouble the Blackheath golfers not at all, for the course belongs to London and not to themselves, and they cannot do any engineering work upon it, as is being accomplished continually on other courses. Of the seven holes that are played the shortest is 170 yards, there is another of 230, a third of 335, another of 380, another of 410, a sixth of 500, and the longest is 540. The two very long holes come together, and though they are virtually bunkerless you may be a.s.sured that they take an uncommon amount of playing, and that he who gets them in five strokes each is skilful and fortunate too. Here, as nowhere else, is one made to feel that inferior shots bring their own punishment with them without any artificial hazards.

The common is quite flat, but it is intersected by various roads and paths, and the greens are generally near to these walking ways. Variety is given by the great gravel pits which are here, as they have been for ages, although they are now smoothed and gra.s.sed over, and the biggest of them has to be played through at both the long holes. What is known as "Whitfield's Mount," a little clump of enclosed trees, is almost the only relief from the bareness and flatness of this golfing common. The lies are better than they used to be, but however kindly they may think of them at Blackheath--and we must respect them for doing so--they are not good. How could they be? The common is open for the children of London, or any other place, to play upon, and for the grown-ups to lounge about or walk over, which in abundance they do. It is primarily a public common and only secondarily a golf course, and the vast majority of those who walk upon it know nothing of the great game, except what they occasionally see as they pa.s.s along. The golfers have no rights.

They have the greens, as they are called for compliment, smoothed a little and made in some way to resemble greens; and there are holes of sorts but not generally with flags in them, and there are no teeing boxes. The fairway is as hard as might be expected, and consists for the most part of bare places and tufts. There is no smoothness and evenness of proper golfing turf about it. But one does not say this in an unappreciative way. Not for a million b.a.l.l.s or a permanent increase of drive would we have Blackheath anything but what it is, for if it were changed the charm would be gone.

Let us go there and try the game. We must decide in advance that, like Vardon, Braid, and Taylor we can play our real game before any gallery in the world, and let our nerves and self-confidence be braced accordingly, for those who play at Blackheath must undergo great ordeals. A number of children, usually accompanied by a small dog, discover us soon after our appearance on the course, and gather close while our stroke is being made, very close. There is a little boy, perhaps, one or two little girls, the baby, and the dog. We consider most the baby at Blackheath. The boy, occasionally relieved by the elder girl, is the spokesman of the party, and in tones indicative of complete sympathy with the objects of the expedition, which are to strike the ball and project it in the direction of the holes, he explains to the remainder what is about to be done, what is done, and how we fail to do what was intended. He corrects himself whenever he finds his information to have been wrong. Willie having told little Liza something about the performance that is pending, the child inquires about what will happen if the gentleman does not hit the ball, and the gentleman, hearing, develops fear. At this moment the dog, which has been lingering quietly within a yard of the ball, shows signs of becoming restive, and is inclined to smell at it. Finally it favours only a disconsolate bark.

Somehow we despatch that ball at last, and then Willie, Nell, Liza, baby, Towser, and selves move on some way towards the hole, but not so far as we should have done, because the ball happened to strike a lamp-post; and on the way Liza desires to know if a golf ball would kill anybody if it hit them, and wishes Willie to buy one some day. And a human sweetness there is in these little Blackheath urchins after all!

This early innocence is a sublime and splendid thing, and when in like circ.u.mstances you would scowl, you gentlemen from London, remember, if you please, that Liza called you one, and she thinks you are.

And the caddies! At Blackheath they have the most wonderful of all caddies. The ways and manners and the character of the St. Andrews and Musselburgh caddies are inferior. These Blackheath fellows are not like the usual thing. They lean against the wall of the club-house and offer their services to the stranger, declaring that it is a nice day for the game, when a storm is gathering over the common. Generally the caddie is given to laziness; they are a s.h.i.+ftless company. But see, though the Blackheath caddie looks as indolent as any to begin with, he is in truth one of the most active fellows within a hundred miles of Charing Cross, as you very soon discover, after beginning the round with him. The old red flag of traction-engine law obtains at Blackheath still. The golfer is a dangerous person, death lurks in his flying ball, and so a man with a scarlet banner must walk before the player to warn all people that he is coming on. But we make the caddie do the ordinary work of carrying, and teeing up, and red-flagging also, and he contrives in effect to be in two places at the same time. He tees the ball, lays down the driver by the side of it, and then runs ahead with a coloured handkerchief, which is the red flag, and he waves it while on the run and the golfer follows. So the caddie, leaving near the ball the club that is needed, goes on again, and is always a shot ahead. Reaching the green he stands by the hole until the golfer comes near enough to see it, and then the man hurries away to the next tee, sets everything in a state of preparation (and he carries a supply of sand in his pocket), and at once is off again to the distance of a drive before the player has holed out.

The weakness of this system is that the caddie, by force of circ.u.mstances, can know little or nothing of the progress of the match, he is not one of the party, and he cares nothing at all about our good shots. He lacks the sympathy of the real caddie, but he is marvellously efficient all the same. If it is true, as we always say, that golf is the same all over the world, I would suggest that if there is a place where it is not the same it is at Blackheath, and that is why every one should go there, and it should cease to be the fact that more London golfers have been to Fifes.h.i.+re than have been to play upon that historic course.

Take a glimpse into the rich past of Blackheath golf. Look into the old bet-book of the club and see some entries there, and do not forget that all bets were made on the understanding that all members of the club had a share in the gains of the winner no matter whether the bets were made in cash or kind. On Sat.u.r.day, July 9 1791, "Mr. Pitcaithly bets Captain Fairfull one gallon of claret that he drives the Short Hole in three strokes, six times in ten--to be played for the first time he comes to Blackheath--after the annual day. Lost and paid by Mr. Pitcaithly, the 10th September." A little while later "Mr. Christie bets Mr. Barnes one gallon of claret that he drives from the Thorn Tree beyond the College Hole in three strokes, five times in ten, to be decided next Sat.u.r.day."

Mr. Christie in due course performed his driving feat and won his bet.

Then "Captain Welladvice, having left the company without permission of the chair, has forfeited one gallon claret"; and "Mr. Turner bets Mr.

Walker one gallon claret that he plays him on Wednesday, the 12th inst., four rounds of the green, and that Mr. Walker does not gain a hole of him." Again, "Mr. Longlands bets Mr. Win. Innes, Sen., that he will play him for a gallon of claret, giving Mr. Innes one stroke in each hole.

Four rounds on the green. Out and in holes to be played." One may well understand that all the good claret that was thus available from these gallant bets, together with what was bought and paid for in the ordinary course, had a heartening effect upon those old golfers, with the result that in the fine fancies that floated in the dining-hall of the "Green Man" after dinner, drives seemed all endowed with unusual length, and direction was always good. Again it is recorded that on an evening of June "Captain MacMillan bets a gallon with Mr. Jameson that Captain Macara in five strokes drives farther by fifteen yards than any other gentleman Mr. Jameson may name of the Golf Society now present, to be determined next Sat.u.r.day"; and no sooner had Captain MacMillan registered his bet than there came along Mr. Callender, who "bets Mr.

Hamilton one gallon that Mr. R. Mackenzie drives in five strokes farther than Mr. H., to commence at the a.s.sembly Hole and go on five strokes running." Then Mr. Innes gets into a sporting mood, and he "bets Mr.

Wilson a gallon (a guinea) that he beats him, allowing Mr. Innes the tee stroke with his wooden club, and after with his irons. Out and in--four rounds." All these were in the latter days of the eighteenth century, and all the time the happy golfers were filling up the bet-book of the club, not with golfing bets any more than, or as much as, with bets about events of the great war that was in progress; as, for instance, when Mr. Satterthwaite "bets Mr. Callender a gallon of claret that Admiral Nelson's squadron does take or destroy the French transports in the harbour of Alexandria, or the major part of them."

In the Knuckle Club and the Blackheath Winter Golf Club, forerunners of the Blackheath Golf Club, the same happy state of affairs prevailed. The Knuckle Club was a very remarkable inst.i.tution. In form it was a secret society. Each member had to be initiated, and had to learn certain signs and answers to questions by which he would know brother members from strangers. Also, the members wore orders or a kind of regalia, and there were heavy fines if they allowed themselves to be seen outside the club-rooms with these special tokens of their community about them. On one occasion we have a member, named James Walker, heavily fined in claret for being so thoughtless as to take home his order. The holder of the golfing gold medal for the year was termed the Grand Knuckle, and was the chief of the club, which boasted also a "Registrar," and various other officials of much dignity of t.i.tle. As the mystic element of the club decreased, so the golfing strength and enthusiasm of it increased, and it was by this process of evolution that in course of time the mystery lapsed and the name was changed. Before the compet.i.tions of the club took place advertis.e.m.e.nts were always inserted in the _Times_ and the _Morning Chronicle_ of the period, and it must be remarked that play in these compet.i.tions was usually conducted on the strictest lines. One record in the minutes reads: "28th March, 1795. Medal Day. It being stated to the club that Mr. Innes, one of the candidates for the medal played for this day, lost his ball; the opinion of the club was desired whether the loss of the ball put an end to the candidate's chance for the honours of the day." The club determined that it did. So more than a hundred years ago their medal rules were stricter than ours, in this matter at any rate. "Scrutineers" always examined the medal cards after dinner, and announced the winner. In the early part of last century there seems to have been rather less of betting and a little more of feasting. There were gifts of venison and turtle from the members, and the supply of claret, varied now and then by champagne and choice spirits, was very copious. Each time a child was born to a member, he contributed a pound's worth of claret to the weekly or monthly dinner; and whenever a member was married, the same thing was done. The golf of Blackheath, and all connected with it, was then a highly picturesque thing. The course was yet only a five-holes affair. The clubs of the players were carried by pensioners of the Royal Naval Hospital, Greenwich, in their quaint uniforms, and an allowance of beer was regularly made to them by the club until 1832. The pensioners were caddies until 1869.

The Royal Blackheath Club was, and still is, most original and interesting in many points of its const.i.tution and government. To be captain of this club, small one comparatively as it is now, is to fill a high office, the honourable nature of which is duly impressed upon the holder at the time of his election and installation, for he is elevated with much ceremony and in much the same way as the captain of the Royal and Ancient Club. The retiring captain sits in his chair at the meeting for the last time, and thanks are offered to him by grateful members for the good things he has done in his year. And then the captain-elect is called by name by the secretary, who takes in his arms the silver club which is the equivalent of the mace in Parliament, the symbol of power and active authority, and places himself at the head of a procession which is formed. The field-marshal, conducting the newcomer to the chair, follows behind, and so they make their way to the head of the chamber, where the field-marshal presents the new captain to the old one. There are various little forms of ritual to be gone through; the new captain makes a solemn declaration of loyalty and fidelity to the club and his office, and, particularly, expresses his anxiety to maintain its dignity, and then he commits himself irrevocably and awfully to an undying oath--he kisses the club! All this is to-day just as it was in the ancient days. Mention has been made of the field-marshal of the club; no other club boasts a field-marshal, who fills an office of most ineffable and incomparable dignity. Captains may come and go, year by year; they do their work well; and they lay down the club. But the field-marshal is above all captains, and he is in office till he dies. He is a prince over captains. He is essentially a golfer--not a mere ornament--and a good golfer, and one strong in the true spirit of the game. Because a good field-marshal is not easily found, he is made much of. The installation of a new one is a fine ceremony. There is a solemn gathering, all the famous trophies and bits of regalia are furbished up; there are speeches, forms, declarations, questions, answers; and if it were a very coronation the thing could scarcely be more serious. The silver club is held before the field-marshal elect, and he is presented with the special medal of his office, when he is finally addressed thus: "We expect and ask that you will wear this medal at all golf meetings as your predecessors did; and we have further to ask that you will in all time coming, while you are spared in health, do all that in you lies to maintain and support the rights and privileges of this ancient club; to maintain the honour and dignity of the club; and should any attempts be made to interfere with the rights of the club, that you will aid the executive in endeavouring to put down such interference, so that the club may maintain the high and honourable position that it ever has done, since its inst.i.tution in 1608. Kiss the club!" The field-marshal kisses it, and thus he is exalted among the highest in the whole world of golf.

There are many eras with marked features to be noted in the history of the club. Even now many of those features are still perpetuated. Dinners are still held; dignity still is high. We have now heard much of the old-time Blackheath golfers; but an era of vast consequence, not only to Blackheath but to the game, is one that can still be remembered by some old golfers, that of great activity which began just before the middle of last century, and is only just now reaching its climax in the great and universal "boom" in golf. It has already been suggested that Blackheath led the way, and led it most effectively. For long after it had done so it was still the premier club in England, and in playing strength was the best. The club itself has few solid possessions--just a few fine old club heirlooms--but many great memories. In a very modern sense it is poor, having a comfortable but not a magnificent club-house, and no splendid links of eighteen holes. But the Royal Blackheath Golf Club is like a fine old English gentleman of the very best kind, ignoring all new ways of thought and life, eschewing all sordidness, clinging to the fine simple principles of wise fore-fathers. That is just what it is, the fine old English gentleman whom the age has outstripped. It is the Colonel Newcome of the clubs.

And in that pageant of London golf that we suggested there are many other picturesque and significant scenes. If we cannot be sure of the places where the holes were cut, nor of the situation of the teeing grounds, it is still certain, from doc.u.mentary evidence, that a golf course that was made at Molesey Hurst was only second, in point of seniority, in England, to Blackheath itself, and it was very high up in the list of the golf clubs of the world. Manchester came next in 1818.

There are concerned in the only existing record two people of no less credit and renown than David Garrick, the actor, and the eminent Dr.

Alexander Carlyle, of Inveresk, who witnessed the Porteous riots, saw the fight at Prestonpans, and amid these many excitements cultivated his game to a fine point, was one of the keenest golfers of the eighteenth century, and won the Musselburgh medal in 1775. Carlyle was like many others of the Scottish parsons of those good times and the present, who would take their golf clubs with them wherever they might wander, on the chance of opportunity presenting itself. He came to London, and knowing of Blackheath, the clubs came with him. Garrick at that time had a house at Hampton which in recent days was occupied by the late Sir Clifton Robinson, the organiser of the London electric tramway system. Garrick asked John Home and a number of friends, including Carlyle, to dine with him at Hampton and bring their golf clubs and b.a.l.l.s with them that they might play on the course at Molesey Hurst. When the six of them, who were in a landau, pa.s.sed through Kensington, the Coldstreams, who were changing guard, observed their clubs, and gave them three cheers "in honour of a diversion peculiar to Scotland."

There might be a railway train in the pageant of London golf, one of the early trains with engines of the Stephensonian style. The period would be just after the accession of Queen Victoria, and there would be two gentlemen travelling together from London to Aldershot, one of them being Sir Hope Grant, a keen golfer, a member of the Royal and Ancient Club, who held a military appointment at Aldershot, while the other would be the Duke of Cambridge. It has been recorded that in matter of companions.h.i.+p this journey was a very dull affair, for Sir Hope Grant was moody, and failed to respond to the well-meant attempts of the Duke to open conversation. He seemed troubled. But suddenly after long silence he jumped up from his seat, rushed to the window of the compartment and opened it. At this stage the Duke of Cambridge felt that things could not be well with his companion, and jumping up after him, grabbed him by the tails of his coat. A moment later they both sat down, and looked at each other. "Well," said Sir Hope Grant, in the manner of a man recovering from a great surprise, "that is a thing that you seldom see near London; there were two men playing golf in a field out there."

And then in the pageant there would be represented the starting of golf at Wimbledon in 1865, with the Blackheath emissaries all on fire with the zeal of their enterprise. Wimbledon with its Royal Wimbledon and its London Scottish, its famous holes and its windmill, and all the rest of it, has played no small part in golfing history. At the beginning seven holes were made as they had them at Blackheath, and did you ever hear that at Wimbledon once there was a round that consisted of nineteen holes, the longest round in number of holes in the world? Tom Dunn, who was responsible for the extension of the course about 1870, told the story, and so far as I am aware he only told it in America. We may repeat it here in the words he used. The committee had asked him whether he thought they might make a full-sized course on their land, and, coming to the conclusion that they might, he was told to go on with the work, and eventually was satisfied that he had made a good job of it.

The secretary of the period is said to have been somewhat imperfectly acquainted with the game in general just then, and went to Dunn with the inquiry as to how many holes they had on the old course at St. Andrews, and was told. "The secretary thought a moment," said Tom, "scratched his head and began to look wise. Then he approached very closely, and nodding his head for me to bend my ear, he whispered in a hoa.r.s.e voice, 'Tom, let us have one more!' 'Oh, that is impossible,' I replied. 'It cannot be, for eighteen is the orthodox number.' 'I care not for that,'

replied the secretary, who was accustomed to have his own way, 'we will have one more!' I was very young at the time and I would do anything rather than offend the gentleman, for he had much influence, and I wanted his goodwill; so I reluctantly submitted to the demand. The committee met the next day, and I was asked if I had succeeded in making an eighteen-holes course. I replied, with some hesitation, that I had made a nineteen-holes course, and explained why I had done so. Well, you never in your life saw a more excited lot of men. There was an uproar in a moment, and all made a dive for the poor secretary, who never heard the last of it."