GOLF ABSTINENCE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 23, 27 January 1923, Page 14

GOLF ABSTINENCE

"ANGEL CADDIES WEEP"

THE BREAKING OF A VOW,

Some three weeks ago I wrote rather bitterly pt one who had given up golf, writes B.D. in "The Times." I do not wish to return to a subject so repellent, but would speak, not in terms of reprobation, but rather of gentle pity, of •those who for the good of their souls or their games try to abstain from playing golf for only a little while.' It is not, at the moment, my own case, bceause I have just played rather well and have beaten a colonel, which is always a soothing fiort of thing to do; but I hsve often tried at other times, and the ensuing agony can only be compared to that produced by temporarily giving up smoking; Everything conspires to lure one on to just one little swing, and in such a case the man who waggles is lost. Those who go to offices have at least a close time every day when, if they have any regard for a reputation *■ for sanity, they cannot swing; but for. the home worker temptations lark in every corner of every room. It is said that M. Oemenceau, when he gaije up smoking, kept a bos of peerless cigars open under his nose as he worked every day for a fortnight. At the end of that time had become miraculously proof against all temptation. Few people are strong enoTtgh for such a test. ' ,

At, this moment as I write there stands a little.sheaf of clubs within, five yards of me. Now.l had much better leav« well alone, ..because I really did drive that colonel's head off—l believe I should.have outdriven most major-gener-als—and yet there is a wooden club in the corner that is drawing me towards it like. a" lodestone. Those who were brought up oh Mr. Shirley's leading cases will recall the prosperous baker of Liquorpond street, who, having baked himself a fortune, undertook not to ,bake any more in the parish of, I think, St. Andrew Undarehaft, for five years. But the effort, proved too much lor him; "his -fingers were itching for the pudding, and long ere the five years were out he was baking again as hard as ever 1." So it is with Use temporary abstainer from golf., His fingers itch for the feel of the.learner, and all too soon he is '■ swinging again' as hard as ever. Moreover, he. always, seems to be dogged by dreadful ill-luck. When he. is wrestling with tobacco and is at the' very crisis of his fato, his one rich friend is sure to thrust upon him a cigar, clad in a cummerbund of red and gold. So when golf is" the enemy, Satan finds some (mischief for his idle hands; he-inspires other members of the household to , "rout out"'ancient cupboards, with a view to a jumble sale, Vnd there is always a seductive club at the bottom of them. I remember once when staying near a seaside .course to have •worn off golf. My clubs were stowed away at the links; I had sturdily resisted the' desire to cateti the only morning tram; there was not as much as a walking stick in the housa Surely I was safe at last. No, the owner of the house before,leaving had hidden away a brassie in the baacroom, and I was led, diabolically as I can only imagine, to find it. I struggled with that- accursed' brassie all that hot Sunday afternoon in the garden, and my Monday morning swing was a thing to make angelic caddies weep, It is a depressing fact that, even when a vow of abstinence, whether from waggling, swinging, or actual flaying, » successfully kept, the result is not always an improvement. Whether it is so or not depends, I think, upon the particular state of things that caused the taking of the vow. The playfer who is suffering from one or more clearly defined diseases will not cure them by ceasing to play. The bacillus of slicing or socketing is not killed thus, and may even be all'the lustier and more rampacioua for the rest. On tho other hand, an_attack of general golfing debility, in which sometimes one thing goes wrong and sometimes another .and the whole igame is a burden, ought generally to yield to a rest cure. In that' delightful old book, "The Golfers' Manual by a Keen Hand," it is stated that when the player's ball flies'now. to right and now to left-"in a most unaccountable manner, he may safely conclude that there is .something rotten in his state of piay." I should rather suppose that in such a case there is something rotten in his own state, and that he had better repose a little. It is "when the ball flies always to the right or. always" to the left that the state of 'play is at fault. .

There are those, indeed, who can, and do deliberately, play themselves out of a fit of staleness. If we essay it, and the waters of bitterness do not quite close over our heads, we may emerge transfigured, playing perhaps better than ever we did before.; but it/is a painful and desperate remedy. -When we are on a golfing holiday we are almost forced to attempt it, since to give- up several days out of tho limited number left to us requires -a self-control that is mora than human. But if stalenesa attack. us in the course of our everyday existence, when- we can at least work on week .days and take out the children on a Sunday afternoon, then-we had better do as Mr. Bob Sawyer and 2i-J,r, Ben Allen did in Bengal after their fourteenth attack of yeilow fever, and "resolve to try a little abstinence " '