LURE OF THE LINKS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21616, 7 October 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

LURE OF THE LINKS

BY MATAXGA.

PAINS AND GAINS

<f Trying to hit a little ball a long way into a little hole, with most unsuitable implements." That does quite well for a description of golf, although it may seem a trifle inappropriate for " perfect shots " played in these testing days on the championship course of Titirangi. There are shots many and various in quality, as even experts—could they bo persuaded to tell all they experience—would confess; some far from perfect, richly meriting the queer terms by which they are technically distinguished and maybe excusing even the aboriginal flights of oratory to which they move, it is currently understood, their suffering perpetrators. But the lure of golf, as of other pursuits, is in the grappling with difficulty. Who would want to play it if all were assured, velvet easiness? And if there be a frequent risk of disappointment and exasperation, is not this the essential foil to a coveted joy when things go well? So the description may pass. As to the lure, there can be no shadow of doubt. It is world-wide. It weaves its spell to-day over others than " the idle rich," at one time mistakenly thought to be its phief if not only devotees. City authorities, even in this land far from the origin of the game, feel constrained to lay out " municipal links," where all and sundry may try their skill and in the trying get a new grip on health of mind and body. For this pastime—if so trivial a word be allowed—has acquired a revealing supremacy in the souls of a motley host—artists and artisans, playwrights and wheelwrights, musicians and electricians, professors and practitioners, lawyers and sawyers, the pressman and the gasman, the broker and the broke. Humour says that it vies with business as a devotion. Indeed, there is so serious and so pronounced a touch of business in it that this may well be true. Not all the antics of duffers can rob it of this element. One of this noble army of martyrs was on th,e first' tee with his caddie, a suitably solemn acolyte at the initial rites of what promised to be a round of painful genuflections and bitter heart-searchings. Three air-shots and a futile tearing of the turf a foot behind the ball; then, just touched by the toe of the club, the little white sphere went a yard or so and stayed. " Golf's a funny game, Jamie, isn't it? " came weakly from the foozler. " Oh, ay," returned Jamie sadly, " but it's no meant tae be! " • A City Devoted As everybody knows, it arose—not to * OO f ar back f° r promising origins —in Scotland, where it became the joy of clergymen of unimpeachable standing in the kirk, was thought by some to be no profanation of the Sabbath, and had the whole-hearted patronage of kings. This Scottish origin- is alone enough to defend it against any charge of bringing levity into life, and to save it from the stigma of being a mere pastime. Even now, when from the lips of young professionals as well as old amateurs the ancient Doric spreads about' the golf-house, that lineage declares itself. The burr is at times so thick that you could easily take a divot out of it with a niblick. And in Scotland remains the ruling capital of Golfdom's love and law, as a certain It. F. Murray tells:

Would you like to gee a city given over Soul and body to the tyrannising game P If you would, there's little need to be a rover. For St. Andrew's is the abject city's name.

It is surely quite superfluous to mention. To a person who has been there half-an-hour, golf is what engrosses the attention Of tlie people, with nn all-absorbing power. Rich and poor alike are smitten with the fever: Their business and religion is to piny, And a, man is scarcely deemed a true believer unless he goes atj least a round a day. The city boasts an old and learned college, where you'd think the leading industry was Greek; Even there the favoured instruments of knowledge Aro a driver and a putter and a cleek. All the natives and the residents are patrons Of this royal, ancient, irritating sport, All tho old men, all the young men. maids and matrons, The universal populace, in short. In the morning-, when the feeble light grows stronger, You may see the players going out in shoals; And when night forbids them playing any longer They tell you how they did tho different holes. Impossible? No true golfer will believe it is, any more than ho will think the versemaker's note of criticism sincere. Anyway, lie goes on. after a bit: One slender, struggling ray of consolation Sustains me. very feeble though it be: There are two who still escape infatuation— My friend McFoozle's one, the other's me. As I write these words, McFoozle enters blushing. With a brassy and an iron in his hand; Thi3 blow, so unexpected and so crushing, Is more than I am able to withstand. So now it but remains for me to die, sir. Stay! There is another course I may pursue. And perhaps upon the whole it would be ■wisci— I will yield to fato nnd he a golfer too! A Ban Withdrawn No wonder, with its subtle charm, golf has grown old in honour. The only ill ever truly said of it is that it prevented Scotsmen from becoming proficient in archery and occasionally, encroached on " the tyme of the sermonncs." The Scottish James If. was constrained to pass in 1547 a penal Act ordaining that " the futball and golf be utterly cryt doune and nocht usyt." But that ban was soon outgrown. It was one of a series extending to the times of James IV., who, thirteen years before ho fell at Flodden, made the last of these attempts to " cry down " golf and popularise archery. They might have been spared. They did not avert Flodden's tragic loss; and, anyway, what is archery to golf? James himself could not forbear to break his own law, and thereafter the court smiled on the occupation that was to establish itself in enduring favour as " royal and ancient." In 1618 James VI. of Scotland and 1. of England sent from bis new kingdom an order that after divine service " our good people bo not discouraged from any harmless recreation," but prohibiting " the said recreations to any that aro not present in the church at tho service of God before their, going to the said recreations." Charles J. afterwards ratified this order of liberty to all [ " having first done their dutio to God." " Far and Sure " Members of tho Royal House continued to engage in this approved recreation as a matter of course, and they disdained not to share-it with their subjects. The Duke of York, when heirpresumptive to the throne, was paired in a four-ball with a poor shoemaker named John Patersone, and an outcome of their win against two English noblemen was, it is circumstantially stated, a stylish house for Patersone. On it, in token that it was no mere challenge trophy, was placed his coat of arms — three pelicans vulned, on a chief three mullets; crest, a dexter hand grasping a golf club; motto, Far and Sure. That motto, while a golfer's inspiration, might well head the history of the game, which has carried far and sure. A golf ball may surely go .anywhere—even straight into the hole.