GOLF.

Otago Witness, Issue 2805, 18 December 1907, Page 36

GOLF.

NOTES BY BULGEB.

For a man who was between SO and 6Q before he allowed sport of any kind i» oooupy a place in lus heart, Mr Andrew Carnegie is a marvel. Sometimes on« hears it said that it is such a /ity that this man of millions is not a sportsmaa, an observation which, if examined, .rill bs) found to have many shades of meaning. That he does not ladle out thousands upon thousands of pounds for the cause of sport J as he does for music and education Is jusK as true^s it is that he .religiously eschews all recognition of tho turf. He even does not fire a shot on his own ■noors-, although! they are nevertheless duly shot over. There are, however, often good and sufficient reasons for m«ny tilings th«t » §raa& man does not do that he apparently might— *- that, indeed, in some cases he should. Once, many years ago, Mr Carnegie was* induced! to Join a hunting expedition to the Far West. " I am always luoky," he will telJ you, and upon this occasion the trat roe i buok fell to Mr Carnegie's gun. He became wildly exoited when he saw ths , animal tumble over. He hurried forward to the spot, only to discover |hat his pleasure was to be short-lived. The mortallywounded animal turned up its soft brown eyes in piteous gaze upon its slayer, (tf was enough. Down went the gun «ith a flop, as if it were a piece of red-hot -Yon, never again to be taken up by 'to owner. That is the sum total of Mr Carnegie's ->ecord with the gun. (dost peop/e know* something of his pronounced views on warfare, of his efforts »n furtherance of compulsory arbitration, and bow such pursuit* as Volunteering and target practice are to him as a red rag to a bull. Few areaware, however, that he never followed a pack of hounds, and that he owns none, I hie love of dogs being centred in a single | house collie. In so far as these things are* concerned, Mr Carnegie is not a bit of jtf | sportsman. Yet it would be bard tif imagine a more perfectly idealised sporting life than tha* which he fives for fivemonths every Tear at Sktbo Castle, hist Scottish house. Twenty yearn ago the multimillionaire became a devoted disciple of "Isaak Walton." Ten yeaw later he wenti crazy over golf. Ever fond off the sea, he yet contents himself with « modest title steam yacht of 80 tons, upon, which he and hie friends spend a dty ooc«r sionally on tha Dornoch Firth, visiting such places of interest as Dunrobfo, Cromarty, Fortrose, and Nairn. These nxtt his out-of-door hobbies. Indoors, liter-* ary work, at which he iabours astidu^ ously. and an occasional game at billiardsj are his pastimes. He lovim iqotorimtt chiefly because it so effectively shortens the distance between the furthest-ittnpvsd —fy mon pool on the River Shin and his pi^» tureaquely situated golf Unit* ca the nor* them shore of tbe Dornoch Firth, oVose bjf the mouth of a nice stream, with more thawa local reputation known as "The Bvelw v " ! only six or seven "'""W drive from hist home. At a cost of something like £18,00? he dammed up the EveHx ai tie entranott. to the firth. This has given him a tirovfand salmon looh of over half ■$ mttfi Qtl length,- with a breadfh varying from 350 toj 150 yards. The golf course lies on tha south bank of this fine sheet of water, butl on a substantially higher elevation, aoeeaflL beinpr had to it from the cattle, whiohf stands to the north, by a carriage road onj the embankment, shutting off tho waters} of the Evelix from those of the sea. The, course, a nine-hole one, is laid out ort real seaside links, with hazards of eand bookcxa avtl beats, and flanked on one side

try a useful " rough," and the other by the closed-in waters of the Evelix. The .fault of the course now that the ground has smoothed down is its shortness, and being, of course, well kept, good players would account it too easy. There is ample room for < extension. A charming rustic-work clubhouse, containing: a good sized reading room, stande beside the first tee and last green; and here, between his rounds of golf and his spells of fishing, the Laird of ckibo — one of the very few happy millionaires which the world can boast — spends a good many of his leisure moments. Not thai these vacant hours are by any means numerous, for Mr Carnegie" is practically / never idle ; but physical exertion, even from a, millionaire, demands respite.' Mr Carnegie, who sailed for America recently, spent the previous ten days almost entirely on the links, and loch, the -weather being- favourable. One afternoon some friends and neighbours, who had called to wish him " GooVspeed," were in the drawing room awaiting his return. Darkness had almost set in, and it was about half an hour after . the. recogniseH time before he appeared. To those who know him intimately it, was very evident that fie had something interesting to tell, and" there was no time lost in the telling. " Oh, my ! I have had such a grand time of it this afternoon. A 6£lb grilse, two good sea trout, two brown, and a thirtyseven—all since half-past 3." Everyone present was, ' of course, interested ; but a golfer wjth half an eye could- see— did see— that everyone did not fully understand. Those who didn't, fastened on to the fish catch, and were profuse in their congratulations; 'but little Miss Msrgaret — bright, i>risk, vivacious as her fatheir — was more in the thirty-seven. " But how "did you do it?" she queried. Then the Laird t related stroke by stroke how he had completed the score. " What a pity you hadn't my 4 instead of a 5 at the seventh hole^. and you would have had a 36," she regretfully remarked. It ■now dawned on the mystified that Mr Carnegie had been golfinc as well as fishing, and that the 37 was- his score, and not a fish of that enormous weight. Mr Carnegie is in deadly earnest when playinjr the game, and does not like to be interrupted or 'have in any way his attention distracted. He plays a great deal alone, John (tho attentive worthy custodian of the linics; "Mac," aa he is familiarly called by his employer) as caddie, companion,- and. scorer. - Mr Carnegie frequently plays two bells,' keeping the scores separately—a proceeding not by any means to be commended*- Sometimes player and scorer come to' amusing loggerheads over the number of strokes taken to a hole. "Tnat'e 5 for the 'Colonel' an' 6 for the •Ace.,' Mac." "No. sir; 6 for the 'Colonel' and - 7 for tho 'Ace,'" replies Mais. "What! that can't be, because " And . then Mr . Carnegie pulls himself up, looks baok, thinks, eoun£s. "Right you ' are, Mao ; come" along." Only once have I known him to persist in disputing Mac's accuracy, and then for some days he* believed- himself to have been defrauded out of a stroke. Nothing pleases the man of millions more than getting hold of a greenhorn and initiating him into the mysteries of the game. Hi« '"friend Frederic Harrison, the eminent writer and publicist, was visiting Skibo some time ago, and though not a golfer was. as a matter of course, taken to the golf links' and given a set of clubs. Aftor the eminent writer of books had- struggled his weary way for a couple of~ holes. Mr Carnegie began to count his score, no doubt to make a basis for a match. When Mr Harrison 'had worked his passage half 'way to the third hole, his opponent and teacher exclaimed. ''That'll be seven." "No." said the writer, " three." " Oh, no, it's seven." " No, sir," irascibly. " only three." Mr Carnegie, not to be flatly contradicted Jike this, with some fervour, was by this time looking back over the, devious track and nodding at each ~place where a stroke had been made to prove the seven, when Mr" Harrison burst out, with, a contemptuous shrug, "Oh, oh, 'if you count that r (the air shotel call it twenty, but I only hit the ball three ti-i-mes.— j. S., in Daily News. fc«rSU T.-.-r-' ' ' ' ' , ==g