The Spirit of the Links Part 6

"Do please remember that as a visitor to the links, even though you are made a temporary member, you have no _right_ to be there, and are only admitted to the course by the courtesy of the members. This is a point in manners which is far too often neglected, and when the neglect is carried to an extreme the golfer may find his application for temporary members.h.i.+p refused another season. There must be no arrogance in your conduct in the clubhouse or on the green. Do not complain about the food or about the state of the course. You are not obliged to eat or to play there, and the members have got on very well in the past without you, and will doubtless survive your departure.

"Likewise remember that others who are playing on the course have at least as much right to do so as you, even if in your opinion they do not play such a high-cla.s.s game as you do. Therefore don't get into the habit of calling out 'Fore!' to the couple in front unless it is absolutely necessary to do so, and don't complain loudly that people who take four putts on the green have no business to come to such good courses and interfere with the play of others.

"a.s.sume that your opponent, though you do not know him well, is both a gentleman and a sportsman, as it is extremely likely is the case, and don't allow any contrary idea to enter your mind unless the evidence in favour of it is overwhelming. Then say nothing about your suspicions, but simply make a convenient excuse when he asks you for another match.

"If a point of difficulty occurs in the course of your match, do not squabble with your opponent about the rules or stubbornly maintain your own position against his arguments. It is better to waive your point and even lose a hole than do so. You are unlikely to convince him, and it is quite possible that you yourself are in the wrong. Besides, you will score most heavily by gracefully waiving what you feel is your right.

He will feel that afterwards.

"When you are leaving at the end of your holiday, do not forget to tender your best thanks to those to whom they are due. When you get home again don't tell untruths about the great things you have done while on your holiday. The people to whom you tell them will not believe you.

Indeed, you must be very careful as to how you tell the good part of the truth."

V

When you are one of a special party that sets out for a sojourn at some place, solely for the reason of the golf that it affords, and when in due course, the time having been well and enjoyably spent on the links, your friends determine that they will return home or depart to some other place for golf, do not on any account yield to an impulse to stay behind them, on feeling that you could enjoy still a little more play, and persuading yourself that among the people you know who are staying in the place you may make up good matches. There will be no further enjoyment, for all the days that follow will suffer in comparison with those full ones that were spent when those bosom companions helped to the happiness in every hour. The course will not be the same; there will be a ghostly silence about the rooms of your lodging place, and the atmosphere of the town or village may seem unfriendly or at least indifferent; whereas before, in the independence of your a.s.sociation, you had not cared what it was, but formed a vague impression that the people were pleasantly conspiring to add to the comfort and the pleasure of this expedition.

On the first morning afterwards it does really seem that all the people who had stayed there had gone also, and not merely the three who had come with you. You breakfast perhaps alone in a vast apartment. The head waiter seems to mix a great sympathy with his attentions, suggesting that he appreciates the loneliness and the misery of your bereavement.

Out of this wretched place to the clubhouse, and there is no one there, and the obliging secretary or steward is unable to give any definite information as to the prospects of a morning match. You take out a young professional, and, well though he plays, a poor thing is this match with him in comparison with those that were of the days before, when you knew always the thoughts and fears that were pa.s.sing through the mind of your opponent, and knew almost as well as your own, the clubs with which he played his shots, and exactly how they did their work. The ghosts of your friends seem to walk in front of you down the fairway leading to every hole, and as you leave the putting green and go forward moodily to the next tee, there is the shadow form of one of them pointing with his club to the exact spot where you remember his ball was teed yesterday, and you feel momentarily a happier man as you think you can see his characteristic swing and the glint of joy that comes into his eyes as he finds he has made the carry that it needed a strong heart to attempt with this wind blowing back from the green. You do not wish to appear inconsiderate, and not to show yourself as a man of proper feeling and a good sportsman in the presence of another who can hardly display any open resentment at your att.i.tude, but you cannot help this walking moodily and listlessly to the tee, as if not caring anything for the game that is in progress. There is no familiar talk on the old familiar topics. It is a relief when the match is ended, and you feel less pain at being beaten at the thirteenth hole than you have done for a long time.

"I can get a good match for you this afternoon, sir," says that excellent steward when you go back into the clubhouse. "Oh, thanks very much, Brown," you say, "but it doesn't matter. I think I shall go back this afternoon." And by the afternoon train you go, and as you are whirled along the seash.o.r.e and through the open country and the tunnels, a first thought is that yesterday at the same time those three merry fellows were running along the same course, and were perhaps seated in that very carriage. They have gained a day on you in everything. Next time, my friends, we will all go back together.

VI

The customary cla.s.sification of our golf courses into the inland and seaside groups is crude and inadequate. Apart from that there are many inland courses, and still more seaside courses, that differ from each other more than some in the one cla.s.s differ from the others in the second one. The golfer of experience comes subconsciously to put all the courses that he knows well into different groups, those in each group having some distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic that specially appeals to his fancy or his style of play. The student of golfing architecture has no difficulty in separating the links that we know best into four or five clearly distinguished cla.s.ses, or schools as we might call them. The contour and peculiarities of the country over which the course is laid are largely instrumental in determining the cla.s.s to which each one belongs, but the hand of man makes the final decision, and so it is that on many good courses we have the quality exposed and the temperaments suggested of the great golfing architects of dying and dead generations.

It may be that they had very unpliable materials with which to work; but after all in the planning of most holes there are two or three alternatives. One designer would determine that the golfers on his course should play over a high sand hill, while another would have inclined to avoiding it or fas.h.i.+oning another hole from another tee which would take the player round it.

One of the foremost of these schools of golf architecture is the Heroic.

The name has only to be given, and every golfer of experience knows at once what links he would select as belonging to it--links with a fine length and needing a strong arm and a brave heart for successful play upon them, links which are broad and bold in their characteristics, never easy, and terribly difficult when Nature is in a tantrum mood.

There are not so many drive and pitch holes on such courses, and when one is encountered the pitch calls for the most thoughtful golf. There are long, bare, bunkered holes that chill the blood of the nervous golfer as he goes forth from the tee with a glance at the bra.s.seys in his bag. It seems as if he wanders into a vast s.p.a.ce, a wilderness where the littleness of man is emphasised. As a leading example of golfing architecture of the Heroic school, I would select the fine course at Deal, and another n.o.ble specimen is Prestwick. There is a disposition in these times to make some new inland courses on such models so far as limited natural opportunities permit, and much the best of those that have been created so far is Walton Heath, where it is really Heroic golf all the way from the first tee to the home green.

A school which has yielded many fine courses is the Romantic. The lights and shades of such courses are in high contrast, and their colouring is rich. Hazards, big and full of character of their own, abound at almost every hole; there are rocks or sandhills everywhere, and likely enough the course is set in a frame of rich scenery surrounding. Some people would describe such courses as being "very sporting." When one thinks of the Romantic school, and of the great days of adventure that one has spent when paying homage to its dead masters, one thinks of Troon and of North Berwick; and if of this type one must select one that is away from the sea, there is Sunningdale which clearly belongs to it, though its features are not so highly developed. The Braid Hills course is certainly attached to the Romantic school. The architects who were of this school, and the men who most admire their work, are warm-blooded, human players, who like risks and the overcoming of them, and who would have their pulses throb with the joy of life when they play on the links. They like, as it is said, to be called upon to take their lives in their hands at every stroke of their play. This is great golf.

As to which of all the schools provides the truest golf it is hard to say, since few men would agree on what is the truest golf. But quite likely the links of the aesthetic school would be most frequently mentioned in this connection. There has been a subtle art at work in the planning of every hole. The architects have taken their patch of land, and, scorning all convention, have been inspired by great impulses in the selection and arrangement of the line of play. They have had moods and caprices, but they have been men of great genius, born and bred in a high atmosphere of the game. Like all other men of great independence of thought and action, they court and receive severe criticism; but at the end of it all the greatness, the superbness of the work is admitted, and its fame will for ever endure. There is character in it at every glance, but it is not such as is obtrusive, as at Troon. Here there is the perfect art that conceals art, and it is a testimony to its perfection that men go on discussing it for ever and ever, just as they still think and worry over the emotions that pa.s.sed through the mind of Hamlet, and are not all agreed upon them. How many different readings, as it were, can one not give to a hole at St. Andrews--almost any hole on the old course. St. Andrews is the masterpiece of the aesthetic school--profound, ingenious, intricate. Here and there we see a little of the influence of the Heroic school; the Romantic has had less. But always the aesthetic school is a law unto itself, and its finished work is not to be likened to that of any other. Hoylake is of this school, though the example is not so pure and unaffected by the two great rival branches of architectural art as St. Andrews. Nevertheless it is distinctly aesthetic, and there is no other course that is worthy of inclusion in this particular cla.s.s.

We have another school, which should be called the Victorian. It has many merits, and it is very prolific. It represents a sober and industrious kind of golf, but it is utterly lacking in any inspiration.

It is as business like and exact as you please, a six-o'clock-sharp morning-dress kind of golf. It conduces to good habits, and will make some good golfers. But on the whole it is rather prim and dull, and one never feels the blood running in the veins when contemplating it.

Muirfield is one of the Victorian school, and there are one or two of the satellites of Hoylake, on its own seaboard, that are of it also.

Sandwich has much of the Victorian element in it; but it is redeemed by the strong influence of other schools, as by the extreme romanticism of the Maiden. The suburbs in their own small way went over to Victorianism entirely at the outset, partly because their circ.u.mstances exerted such an irresistible tendency in that direction. A drive over one bunker and a pitch over the next one is Victorianism in its crudest form; but perhaps after all the suburbs are lucky in being able to attach themselves to any school. I am told that the Victorian school has had paramount influence in America.

VII

Of the links we know, those by the sea, to which do we return for the tenth or the twentieth time joyously as to a delightful friend in a charming home? Instantly we murmur the name of dear North Berwick. The old player has conviction in this immediate choice by instinct, though the question is not one which he answers lightly. In his heart he has corners for many old loves, and as he brings each one up for contemplation and counts her many charms, he thinks that surely she is the fairest of them all. But inevitably when they have all been pa.s.sed in review his fancy brings him back to one, and he clings to the remembrance of her, confessing that she is not like the others. There is a subtlety in her charm, a fascination in her manners, an "altogether"

which cannot be resisted. She is gentler than St. Andrews, a sweet innocent maiden wading with bare feet among the rocks of the Haddington coast, whom you love to tease and toy with; while my lady of Fifes.h.i.+re is colder and of great dignity and compelling attractions. It is a fine sea at North Berwick, and though in the play one may think little enough of the sea, it is good to have the wavelets kissing the pebbles hard by an occasional green, and to hear their soothing lapping. The sound is grateful to the hard-tried nerves. There are few parts of the North Berwick course where one cannot see a little of the ocean, while here and there, such as at Point Garry and Perfection, the greens are placed in enchanting spots. Then the air is like wine. At North Berwick one is in East Lothian, in the centre of the finest golfing country in the world. In two or three weeks one may tire of the same links, the monotony of the same round, the same bunkers, the same greens. Here there are many others at hand, and all within the shortest of journeys.

Chiefly there is Gullane the grand. When you are at Gullane you may think it is better than North Berwick as a place to stay and holiday in.

It is quieter, quainter, more old fas.h.i.+oned, a trifle more like the country, and the golf is glorious. Such is the turf on old Gullane, that one feels that one should never tread upon the greens save in stockinged feet. And the man who has not captured the eighth and ninth up the hill in 4's, and then on the summit stood hard by the Roundell to survey the finest panorama to be seen on a golf course, and taste the finest air, has something yet to know of the utmost pleasures of a golfer's existence. Then there are Muirfield, and Archerfield, Kilspindie, and all the rest of them, so near that strong men have played on the whole collection in one day. But when you go back to North Berwick in the evening you think you will stay there still. You like the comfort of the place, and the green, and you want your Ba.s.s Rock.

It is the place to conjure up a mental picture of some great events of days gone by, as:

It is nearly sixty years ago, and there is tense excitement on the seven-hole course, as it was in those far-off days. A great foursome is being played, and there is 400 at issue. Old Tom and Allan Robertson are on one side, and the Dunns are against them on the other. They have played over two other greens and are even, and now they are to decide.

The Dunns have had a great lead, but at the second last hole in the fifth and last round the game is square. Then the Dunns' ball lodges behind a stone, and the brothers are in a frenzy, and lose their heads in several vain endeavours to extricate it. Old Tom and Allan are dormy, and the 400 goes to them at the last hole.

This picture fades away, and another framed in mournful black comes up in its place. Old Tom and his boy, the great Young Tom, are on the green, matched against old Willie Park and Mungo Park. Some news comes.

It is bad news. It is taken to the green, and the others bow their heads for a moment but say nothing to the boy. But as soon as may be they take him off the links, and put him in a sailing boat to sail across the water with Old Tom, his father, to St. Andrews on the Fifes.h.i.+re coast.

And there he reels as he looks upon the pallid face of his much-beloved wife, her head laid upon a pillow, and the eyelids closed in death.

Young Tom's own death-warrant was signed that moment. The golfing history of North Berwick is full of the romance of the game.

VIII

In many sequestered places there are fine courses that the golfer in general knows little of. Demand of him suddenly that he shall tell you of a far-away seaside links where you may rest and play for a little while until the city calls you back, and by force of habit he will begin to murmur pleasantly about his Carnousties and his Gullanes and all the rest. They are excellent, most excellent; but we call for change, and where for the old wanderer is the change that is good enough? When he appeals to you, send him down in a cab to Paddington, bidding him take a ticket to Porthcawl, changing at Cardiff, for you may know that in the evening he will be happy, and that upon the next day the joy of life will have come again to a weary worker.

Porthcawl is a place that rests the man and gives balm to his troubled spirit. There is a fine links and the open Atlantic, and the Cymric spell is cast upon the sojourner--the feeling that one has relapsed from the severity of complicated civilisation for a little while to the peace and the simplicity of old Gwalia, the land of the real Briton. One day I was turning the pages of a small guide-book to South Wales, when I noticed that the topographer, in writing of Porthcawl, said somewhat complainingly that the coast round about there was "extremely desolate."

Beyond hinting that there were more rocks about it than were good for any well-ordered coast, he preferred not to go into details. He was describing things for the benefit of that curious person who is generally called "the tourist," and he seemed to feel this was no place for him to linger with his charge. So in apologetic manner he gave his reader a small a.s.sortment of the usual kind of facts as an excuse for having mentioned Porthcawl at all. He told him, for example, that the novelist, R. D. Blackmore, who was a word scene-painter of breadth and effectiveness, placed the action of his "Maid of Sker" in this region of Porthcawl, and if he had had consideration for the golfer he would have added that there are landmarks of the story to be seen from all parts of the links. The tourist was further informed as to a local church, was acquainted with the curious fact that here there is a well of fresh water which rises and falls in a puzzling manner according to the going out and coming in respectively of the tide, and was supplied with some useful and indispensable knowledge about the character of the s.h.i.+pping with which the port had to deal. And then, as it was felt that the tourist must not tarry longer in such a place, he was hurried on to some other, where there were piers and bands, and a variety of historic remains for contemplation and study in serious moments.

Generally the requirements of the golfer are in inverse ratio to those of the tourist, and it is tolerably safe to predict that when a coast is described as "extremely desolate," it represents a fine piece of golfing country. It is one of the good things of golf that it has come into our civilisation to use up all utterly barren and waste tracts of coastwise land, and that generally the more barren and waste the better they are for golf. Are not some of the best links there are in Britain situated on coasts that are to the non-golfing mind, uneducated to the beauty and charm of testing, full-blooded and yet scrupulously fair holes, quite naked of all attraction? And what an excellent arrangement of circ.u.mstances it is! The neighbourhood of Prestwick is sometimes by way of being "boomed" as a health resort, a place that affords a fine tonic to the lungs, and I believe the claim is well justified; but not all people would describe this spot in Ayrs.h.i.+re as being "interesting," and there is certainly no kind of relation between the quality of the coast scenery and the inestimable grandeur, from the golfing point of view, of the Cardinal, the Himalayas, and above all of the glorious seventeenth, the Alps. And consider Sandwich. No tourist of discrimination has been seen, or will be, on these reclaimed wastes that have already given us one champions.h.i.+p course, and lately a new links, which is of superlative quality. And the "extremely desolate" coast at Porthcawl which did not please our guide-book man, is found on acquaintance to be an excellent example of Nature's impressionist seascape work, with savage rocks abounding. Even the name of Porthcawl smacks of coves and pirates, of breezes and big seas. Porthcawl sticks out so that there is nothing in the world between it and the United States of America except the Atlantic Ocean. Its golf links are on the very margin of the sea, contiguous to those black, sharp rocks--so near, indeed, that a really badly-hit ball may sometimes be sent dancing at all kinds of fantastic angles from one to another, until it comes to rest in an inaccessible place whence it will never be disturbed. Sometimes in the severer seasons, the sea, with the full, unbroken force of the Atlantic behind it, will be sent smas.h.i.+ng along over the rocks, and even over the golf links too, until some of the bunkers are laden with salt water.

Porthcawl is fine, and it is a fine change, and there are holes on the course that have a boldness and a vigour that stir the pulse of the golfing man. We play over the wall and up the hill to the turn, and there is South Wales and its ocean frame spread out at our feet, making us linger upon a glorious scene and sigh a little as we drive down the hillside to the first hole in.

IX

It is fine golf that is to be had now on Kent's eastern seaboard, and each time one comes down into this neighbourhood with one's bag of clubs, the more one is strengthened in the conviction as to its equal excellence with any other golfing district in the world, and the abundance of its fine prospects for the future. The magnificent character of the golf, chiefly that which is enjoyed under the authority of the Cinque Ports Club at Deal, is becoming better known and appreciated year by year, and even now the feeling is general that here is one of the finest links that were ever made for a champions.h.i.+p to be played upon. The sister course of the Royal St. George's Club is practically joined up to it, and now a little farther along the bay in the direction of Ramsgate is the new course of the Prince's Club, and a very fine course too. So here we have stringed together along a small stretch of coast three of the very best courses that are to be found in the whole world of golf--one which is actually a champions.h.i.+p course, a second which is perhaps by way of being so, and a third which may soon be mentioned in the same connection. There is enough good golfing land left in Pegwell Bay to make a fourth course, and some day not very far distant it may be made. Nature has here given to the golfer every natural advantage that it is possible to afford him in the preparation of those seaside links, the contemplation of which brings the light of pleasure into his eyes. Golf is great in our modern scheme of things, and some have said, without irreverence, that they see the shaping hand of Providence in short holes of such sporting quality as the Maiden and the Sandy Parlour, in those glorious last four holes at Deal, and in all that b.u.mpy ground to be covered in approach play which calls for such an abundant exercise of the wits of the thoughtful golfer, and inevitably recalls to him some of the best characteristics of St. Andrews. So much, indeed, does all this place look as if it were made for golf, and intended to be a capital of golf, that a man with whom I played there once was led, while we were waiting at one of the tees, to the remark that if golf had never been invented it would surely have come to be so as soon as intelligent men had wandered hereabouts, so direct is the suggestion that is made by the nature and the contour of the land. One finds it difficult--nay, even impossible--to think of a better stretch of golfing land in the whole of England or Scotland, or anywhere where there are three links of this quality joined up to each other, so that, if so whimsically disposed, a golfer might play on from one to the other, and make a triple round of fifty-four holes.

Here, then, is a place which is eminently adapted to become a leader among golfing centres, and it would surprise no one if, at an early stage of the further evolution of golf and golfing matters, it came to be regarded as the chief of all. It is not to be overlooked that it enjoys the inestimable advantage of proximity to London. When London takes a fancy to such a thing as golf she likes to be its master, and will leave nothing undone to a.s.sert her supremacy. She has taken to golf, and Scotland already knows with what masterful zeal she is pursuing it. These seaside links of eastern Kent are to all intents and purposes London links, in that they are nearer than any other to London, and are fed almost exclusively from the capital. And a further advantage that the place possesses is in the fine bracing air with which it is enveloped, air which for its invigorating properties is hardly to be excelled anywhere in Great Britain. When the wind comes from the south-east with moderate strength, as it so often does down there, it is a fine thing for the golfer, and a stimulant not only to himself but his game.

The locality begins to feel, as one might say, like a great golfing centre. You know how St. Andrews and Carnoustie and North Berwick "feel"

like that. The intelligent interest of the non-golfing people in the towns and villages round about is being awakened in the game, and they are all discovering in some way or other how they may make themselves to benefit by it. Particularly is this the case with regard to a certain good cla.s.s of private hotels and boarding-houses catering specially, if not exclusively, for golfers. In all the great centres of the game one finds these places in abundance, and every player of experience knows how, in many respects, they are often to be preferred to the big hotels.

Then we find a leading thoroughfare called Golf Road, houses called Golf Villas, establishments named Golf Bakeries and Golf Laundries, all of which little details are a sign that the game is coming to be regarded in the district as an "industry," and the district is wise in arriving at such an understanding in good time. Moreover, one would be inclined to say that the standard of play down here is at least as high, taking it all round, as it is at any other big golfing centre. There are foozlers on every links, but more men with very short handicaps, men who have really come to grips with the game, are playing round Pegwell Bay than in most parts, chiefly because, whether member or visitor, the expense of playing is considerable, and the play itself is difficult, and the long-handicap men have discovered that there is not much fun in paying high rates for the privilege of spending week-ends in bunker practice. And yet another attribute of the large and important golfing centre does this neighbourhood possess, in the good quality of the caddies which in the course of many seasons it has at last developed. A man once said that if he saw the caddies beforehand he could tell what kind of golf was played in a place, and though this may have been going too far, there was a germ of truth in the idea. Mediocre links and mediocre players never produce good caddies, and the reverse argument generally holds good; and everybody knows that a good race of caddies is not to be produced in a couple of seasons. Oftentimes it needs at least a generation. But the caddies at Deal and Sandwich nowadays are excellent, and this is not such an unimportant matter as some people might imagine it to be.

X

When you think of it, there is no inconsiderable portion of our golfing lives that is spent in travelling to and from the links that are far from home, by railway and by motor-car, and if one falls into a reflective mood there are many experiences, some curious and some trying, that are to be called to mind in connection with these journeys.

On the whole, perhaps, the reflection does not make for much joy, except in the knowledge that these are things of the past and are not likely to be repeated. When the a.s.semblies for the champions.h.i.+ps are being made, there is less talk of current form than there is of adventures in travelling. Oh, the horrors of a wait at Dumfries in the small hours of a cold morning, when the mistake has been made of trying to get to Prestwick that way! Turned out from the comfortable, warm, snug sleeping-car at Carlisle, even the blanket and pillow that were vouchsafed to you on parting from the express are begrudged you now at this most icy, inhospitable Dumfries. With that curious, dirty, dazed feeling as of being a boiled owl, you watch the men throw the mails into the van that is to take them and you on to Ayr, and listen to them joking about the events of the previous night as if it were now really morning. You tell everybody what you think about Scottish common sense in not having a fire in any waiting-room and no place available for any refreshment, and the Scots themselves are too courteous to say what they must think of your common sense for a golfer in making this journey in this weird way. Then you get into a smelly, dirty carriage, and with jerks and jolts the train drags itself out of the station and slowly away along the line. Stop, stop, stop every two or three miles, but at last it is Ayr, and the worn-out golfer, cursing himself for his folly and others for their heathenism, gets out and steps forth into the land of Burns. But it is yet only a little past five o'clock, and all Ayr is fast asleep, and there are no fires, no refreshments, and no ways of getting to Prestwick just yet. This is to be a golfer! But all things end sometime except eternity, and at last you are at Prestwick, and the finest thing you ever did in your life was then to keep your first ball straight and uninfluenced by the gravestones in the churchyard, and to squeeze a heartening if a little fluky 3 at this first hole. My reader, be a.s.sured that the night train through Carlisle, and changing there and at Dumfries, is not the way to go to the west coast of Scotland where are Prestwick and Troon. Run through to Glasgow and down again, as indeed everybody but those crazy people who are always finding new ways of doing things, always do.

But generally night-travelling is an excellent thing when you get used to it, and it spares a day to golf. It is a fine thing to pack your bag of clubs away lovingly in your berth after a dinner at the London terminus, and before you turn off the light you look at them and think a "Good-night!" to them in a cheery way as of old and trusted companions.h.i.+p. "Off again, my friends!" you seem to say. "We have done this sort of thing before, eh? We know what we are going to do, you and I, eh? Yes, you are the fellows. Bonny boys, you are! Where? Didn't you know? Why, North Berwick, of course! Now, bye-bye! Let's sleep. Play in the morning." And then you switch off the light, and slip away into dreamland where there are glorious holes on seaside courses, and presently there is a big thump on the door and that dream is spoiled and dispelled by a man's gruff voice. But the next moment is one of those most worth living. The dream is realised or is in the realisation, for the caller brings you to your joyful senses by declaring that in fifteen more minutes you will be wheeling into Edinburgh. In those dreams which were helped by a soothing lullaby from the wheels below, the London was slipping away four hundred miles from the tail of the train, and here is Golf, its own rare land.

And what feats one can perform on a motor-car! And does. Just finished our putts on the home green at St. Andrews, and the sun going down, and up comes one of our impulsive party and says it is ordered that we go to Gullane to-night by car! Goodness! But it has to be, and in half an hour we are bowling along those Fifes.h.i.+re roads, and we are ferried across from Burntisland in the gloom and run into Edinburgh. Good supper, some talk in a tone of suppressed excitement as if great adventures are afoot--as they are--and history is being made, and then we hoot-hoot away into the blackness of the night. And it is black farther on. And the blacker it is the faster that dare-devil man at the wheel makes her go. Running along roads the width of the car and stone walls on either side, while branches of trees are almost sc.r.a.ping the tops of our heads, and one might swear the speed-gauge has its finger on the fifty.

"Mrs. Forman's!" you say to the man beside you, to show you are not thinking of the awful risks as we dash by Musselburgh. Farther on a cap is lost in the black and windy night, but n.o.body complains. It is enough that all survived that terrible twist round the corner at Gosford.

Aberlady! That is a fine thing to hear. "Will you stop here to-night, or come on to Gullane?" It is the end. You have indeed come through a great ordeal, and it is a great thing to be standing there in the night with your bag of clubs under your arm, and to be able to answer a greeting as it ought to be, and to let your thoughts slip away soon to the golf of the morning that is coming.

XI

But it is clear to me that the golfer who wishes to go golfing, and at the same time to live the richest and most adventurous life of the traveller, needs to take himself abroad and roam from course to course in Eastern and Central America. He will encounter many incidents that will interest and enliven him, as did the four eminent British professionals who some time since made a golfing expedition from here in the winter-time in search of Mexican treasure--dollars that were offered in open compet.i.tion at San Pedro. They told me a great tale of their adventures on their return, and, as I have reason to believe, a strictly accurate one. Andrew Kirkaldy, Alexander Herd, Jack White, and Rowland Jones were the treasure-hunters, and das.h.i.+ng fellows they seemed as they boarded a special express at New York. Having started thence at five minutes to eleven one Wednesday morning, the train reached St. Louis at 1.30 on Thursday, having been much delayed by a wreck on the Wabash in which fourteen persons were killed and injured. This news added greatly to the discomfort of the four British golfers. They lunched at the Planters' Hotel, went round the city, saw a performance at the theatre, and boarded the train again at half-past eight in the evening.

Thereafter Messrs. Kirkaldy, Herd, White, and Jones were brought to realise some of the possibilities of travelling in through trains along the American Continent. They were in the last car of the train, and after the journey had been resumed about half an hour, there was a negative kind of happening in the form of a gradual slowing down and then a final stop of the train--or rather, as it proved, of the carriage. After waiting a little while in patience the party put their heads out of the window, and then they came to realise the horrible truth. Their carriage had become uncoupled, and the train had gone on and left them! Here was a state of things! There was no other train to get them through in time. Hundreds of pounds were to be picked up at San Pedro, and they would not be there to pick them up as they had intended. The prizes would have been a gift for them, and either "Andra"

or Rowland Jones would have become an open champion of sorts at last.