WOMEN AND GOLF.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 22 June 1912, Page 9

WOMEN AND GOLF.

"Ladies' Golf." the official organ of the "Ladies' Golf Union," and allied associations, also justifies its existence by pleasant articles on the feminine relation to golf. The most famous lady whose' name has been connected with the game, was credited with magical interference with it. This was Dame Margaret Boss, the wife of the Earl of Stair, and the supposed original of the coldhearted mother in "The Bride of Lammermoor." The gossip of her day reputed her a witch of the deepest dye, "her broomstick the longest and her cat the blackest of her generation." No opponent could maintain Ms average while he lay under her displeasure, for it is said that she could use unholy powers to convert hwself into the enemy's golf-ball, and so spoil his game by rolling out of line, or hopping into bunkers. On th» other hand, Sir Patrick Murray, of Ochtertyre, who owed to her influence his seat in Parliament, had also thank her for success on the links. "She promised him Old Nick's assistance if he voted her way in Parliament, and accordingly 'she ordered his ball while at golfe." Golf, however, amongst its many hazards, seems to include a tendency towards accepting help from the black arts; for William St. Clair, of Roslyn, who won the silver club of the Honor» able Company in 1766, was credited with obtaining it by magnically successful play. How different from the innocent exercises at Musselburgh, a little lateiin the same century, when a chronicler mentiqns that "boys and girls are train- | ed to golf in their early days, being I enticed by the beauty of the links, which lie on each side of the river between the two towns and the> sea, and excited by the example of their parents." At this date, too, golf was the great resource of the fisher lassies, whose strong play, and possibly strong language, had to be excused on the ground of their athlet'.c occupations in general. "As the women do the work of men, their manners are masculine, and their strength and activity is equal to their work." Even in 1810, the club prise for the "best female golfer" took the form of a creel and shawl, with consolation prizes of two of the best Barcelona silk handkerchiefs: and a minute ordered that this prospect was "to be intimated to the fish ladies by the officer of the club." The essayist concludes that though dames of high degree were the earliest golfers, there was a middle period of golfing history when the game was more generally popular amongst women than it is to-day. Still, without black arts or fish-wives' muscles, ladies will show, in the words of the golf misquotation, that "a swing of beauty is a joy for ever."