My GOLF.

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 119, 15 November 1902, Page 1 (Supplement)

My GOLF.

lam naturally very nervous. All my friends say that I -lack repose, that 1 am too strenuous. "Take up golf, old man," said one. "It is what you need. •It will keep you out in the open ; it will teach you the value ox deliberation, jtud it -will cure your nervousness, and give you a repose of manner that you can get in no other way." I am spending the summer in the country, and, although there is no course near us, the country side is full of natural advantages for the pursuit of the game, and I determined to take it up. -I did not care to go to the- expense of a whole outfit, as 1 might not like the game after I had learned it ? but the. next time I went down to New York I bought a driver, thinking to practise repose with it. 1 bought a particularly stoub one that cost me five dollars, a-s' I figured that if I put a little more into the purchase price I'd gain in the end. But ntfw I'm sorry tnat I did not buy a very cheap one, because then, when I had tripped up the old gentleman •ii i the Fourthavenue car on my way to the. Giand Central, iL would have broken tho club, and that would have ended my golf. But the stick was stout, and the old gentleman fell and- broke. his leg instead, and also dropped a bottle of wine that he was taking* home, having just received it from a returning sea-captain. He told me that he did not mind the, break in his leg, because he had broken' it before in fnc same place, and he knew just how long it would take to mend it, and he needed a rest from business cares, which he would never have taken if he had not been forced to it in some such way ; but ho wa^s all broken up over the spilt wine, as it was a very rare vintage, and ho never expected to receive any more. I apologised all I could, and offered to put him up at any hospital he might select, but he wouldn't hear of it, and as the wine was priceless, thcie was nothing left for me to do except to feel miserable and show it plainly, which I did. He was an old golfer himself, and after I had helped him out of the car (and lost my train by so doing), he showed me the proper v, ay to hold my stick co that I shouldn't trip up anybody else. The plcasautest part of my golf experience was while we waiting for niKambulance— for I had telephoned for one at my own expense. We sat on the kerbstone, and he wouldn't hear of my accompanying him; said he beliaved in the rigour of the game, like ' Sarah Battle, and he ought to have scan thc=t I was a beginner and kept out of the way of my club. He was so entertaining that I was really sorry when the ambulance came, and he rolled off towards his home. I As for me, 1 had missed the last train for the day, so there was nothing to do but to put up overnight at a hotel, and that witff dinner and breakfast cost me four dollars more. So far the game had come to nine dollars, and I had yet to make my first innings. I will hastily pass over the broken car window on the way up in the train next, morning. I might have pushed an umbrella or a cane through it, and I contend that it was not because it was a golf-stick, but because I lacked repose, that I did break the glass. Of course, I had to settle with the conductor, but I think that three dollars was too much to charge mo for the glass. The car was ventilated after I had opened the window in this artificial M-ay, and thousands rose up and called me blessul in different parts of the car, for, needier to say, the car was warm, and the other windows were too tightly wedged to open, even with superhumar efforts. I should like to recommend to the Consolidated Company a judicious u&e of golf sticks or. their wjndows ; then there would not be so much smothered profanity op the part of the men, and over-strained muscle on "the part of womsr who foolishly attempt the impo-sible. I hold that the London way is preferable to ours. There you know that the 'bus windows cannot be opened, that they were manufactured hhut ; but in this country you know that a car window may be opened in a perfectly normal way tinder proper conditions. The fact that the conditions never arc proper, coupled with the knowledge that the windows wore meant to open, is what makes travel in summer in America t>o absolutely unendurable. But I digress.

I was unable to do any golfing after I had reached m.7 abiding jilace in the coimliy, a,s 1 found in the mail ap oidur for a (Jlirktmu* story, and as it was." July the aft'.ur cried haste, find kept me busy all dny. But next murning I awoke duly, av.aie that, tlie j,olf lever had seized me, and I M."i up boforo any one oLe in the hou.c, as cvety one elso knew, for my lack of lepo^e caused me to express jny exuberance of p.pirits in merry roundelay i- — that is, they were merry to mc, but dmi-strom; to the dozers. My youngest son boon joined me, and was delighted at my request Ihat he act as nry caddy. He nrcpaicd my tee — I had had colica in bed ; I never take exercise with stomach empty. I adjusted the ball, gazed earnestly at the object I desned to approximate, swung my club in the air, made .several false staits in the moat approved fashion, and tjien I let drive. My next-door neighbour, a wealthy gentleman from New York, was awakened by the crash of gla_ss, and came running downstairs in his pyjamas. 1 tried to cultivate repose as I leflected that I had disturbed his, and while cultivating it I Avent over to see just what damage I had inflicted. I hnd put quite a curve on the ball, for it was fifty feet to the left of its intended destination. I walked over and gazed at the tendollar opening I had made in his plateglass window. My son was overjoyed both at the . crash and at the jagged opening. That is youth. -I felt 3°vMy neighbour was not gazi'no- at the opening I had effected, but at a little faiencß vase which had tried in its ineffectual way to stop the rapid progress of the ball. Even as the old. gentleman of two days before had overlooked the damage to his leg, but had. grieved at the s-'lt wme, fo my friend could have overlooked the broken glass, but the vase was an heirloom and -virtually priceless. Here let me stop long enough to ask why it is that people will load up their summer houses with priceless treasures. I never yet bought anything that was priceless; in fad, 1 always insist on having the price plainly marked. And when people give me priceless things I do not put them in my summer house. 1 go even further than that. The place where I spend my winters I regard simply as a house of detention until I car return to my summer place, so I never- load ifc up with, priceless treasures ; therefore, " at no season of the year could such an accident have befallen me as I had caused to fall upon my neighbour. He would not hear of my buying him another vase— he is a little deaf— and I was glad he would not, nor did I raise my voice. My golfing had cost me enough already, and when I buy faience I want it for myself. But he was somewhat sarcastic at my expense, and that I did not like, I like sarcasm to be prepaid, although I like to do the shipping myself. He said that I Avas not -cut out for an athlets, and that at my time of life if I did want to take up games o& skill, I'd better go out to the Bad Lands, that couldn't be damaged, or to the Desert of Sahara. Altogether he made me feel very sorry that I had not bought a putter instead of a driver. Putting is wholly innocuous and innocent. Those vjio made a name for themselves in the late sixties at croquet, as I did, should be able to pub with ease, while driving of all lands is and always has been dangerous and difficult. Still, there is too much of the sportsman in my make-up to allow me to submit tamely to -set-backs. It was now. breakfast-time, and I had had a little ten-dollar practice — for, of course, I insisted on paying for the pane I had caused to be broken, and, like Dewey at Manila, I felt that ureakfast was necessary ; but afterwaids I would go on with the fight, and mister the driving. The morning mail brought me an order for a hundred-dollar story that an editor wanted written while he waited in his office ; that is to f^ay, he wanted it within twenty-four houis. I generally paj immediate heed to such orders, because i think that editors who take the trouble to older things in this world, where so much is forced upon the unwilling, ought to be encouraged ; but the golfing fever' was on me, and after breakfast, instead of going into my workroom, I secured my son once more, and sallied forth to try a little more driving. This time I went farther from the haunts of men, and took, my station in a very wild field, full of ' shrubs and weeds, and, as [ supposed, containing nothing valuable — certainly no vases or rare wines. I hive heard people saj that they found it hard to hit the '?all squarely; that they generally dug up earth, or chipped slices of gutia-peicka from the cro^s-hatched sphere, or fanned the circumambient air. But my troubles weie of a different nature. I hit the ball every time I strove to, and the first time I hit it in that field I seemed to conceal it in a lusty whortleberry -bush some fifty feet distant. Mv son and I consumed neatly the whole -of a pleasant morning looking for that ball. We visited every bush and shrub that was big enough io harbour a ball, but we could not find it, and at last, after" several hours' search, I reluctantly gave up, and sent my boy home after" another one. While he was gone 1 threw uiysell down upon the grass to rest, and found the ball, or, to speaE more acciuately, my hip found it. And it wasn't ten feet from the place where I had stood when driving. I can account for jtliis in only one way. When people lose their way in the great woods they circle round and round, and at last bring up where they started from. I dare say that lost balls do the same, and that this one was on its way back when I found it. • While yet my son was gone, I placed the new-icund ball on a little tee of my own making, and with a strength born of long waiting 1 whirled my club through the soft July air, and smote the ball. Will Fome one tell me why farmers in New England should raise Angora goats, and if so, why they select wild and scrubby pastuics to raise them? I am told that it is a profitable industry, and that in a few years, instead of the cattle upon a thousand hills, it will be the thousand Angoras on a single hill, so prolific and useful are they. But they are inimical to golf, and hard as their heads are, they are not so hard as a ball drive" by a strong man with a fivedollar club. There were little kids in that field not worth more than twenty-five dollars apiece, and they went scot free after mj terrible drive. They bleated, and leaped, and cropped the rank herbage, all unawaie of the fact that the father of the herd, imported from Turkey, had been laid low by a golf bail, lly son saw him drop, and my son found the ball on the ground in front of him. I did not know that he was highly valuable, but small boys have a way of picking up information, and -my son told

me that a Mr. Hermance, a gentleman f aimer and neighbour of mine, who had jiiit gone into the industry, had paid one Thousand dollars for this miserable animal, that was now worth no more than its wool and its hide and its carcase would bring. It did not interest me to recall, as I did immediately, that I had read in an afternoon jraper that Angora leather made the best golf-bags in the market. I did not care to buy a golf-bag just then. I decided quickly. % I took the next train for New York, and proceeded to get insured for one tbousarji dollars in favour of Mr. Hermance. Then I registered an oath to play no out-door ganies more dangerous than pu'-s-in-the-corner. Then I returned to my summer home to write the story that the editor was waiting for co patiently, and nothing better coming into my head, I wrote up my experiences at golf tinder the foregoing title. While they were not written by an expert golfer, they shoyld hold mijch of interest to the average beginner, and if the reading of them shall save to the world a few pieces of faience, a few rare vintages, a tew legs, and a few Angora rams, and other cattle, I shall not have written ir vain. — Charles Battele Loomis, in the Century.