A CAPITAL GOLF ARTICLE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue II, 13 July 1895, Page 40

A CAPITAL GOLF ARTICLE.

AS remarked elsewhere in this issue, the Australian edition of Scribner's Magazine for May is a notable one, and of special interest to a large number of people in this colony—enthusiastic golfers—is Mr Howland’s article on golf. Not merely is the article the very best on the subject we have read, but the twenty or thirty illustrations in half-tone and line engravings, are of altogether exceptional merit. Four or five of them we reproduce to give some idea of the style of those in line. The others in half-tone are, however, even more interesting. GOLF. ‘ The origin of the royal and ancient game of golf is lost in obscurity. Whether it was an evolution from the kindred games of kolf, hockey, or jeu de mail, whether developed in Scotland or carried thither from Holland, may never be definitely ascertained. Its record is woven into Scottish history, legislation, and literature from the

beginning of recorded time. More than lour hundred years ago it was a popular game in Scotland, and archery, the necessary training for the soldier, so languished in competition with it that, by the stern ordinance of Parliament and royal decree, it was proclaimed “ that fut ball and golf be utterly cryit doun and nocht usit.” But although forbidden to the people, it was a favourite royal pastime. King Janies played it with Bothwell in t553> and the royal accounts show that he had money on the game ; Queen Mary played it after the death of Darnley, perhaps as a solace in her widowhood ; James VI., an early protectionist, laid a heavy tariff on golf balls from Holland, and gave a monoply of ballmaking at four shillings each ball to a favourite. The great Marquis of Montrose played at St. Andrews and Leith Links, and was lavish in his expenditure for golfballs, clubs, and caddies. The news of the Irish Rebellion came to Charles I. while playing a match at Leith. James IL, when Duke of York, won a foursome, with an Edinburgh shoemaker as a partner, against two Englishmen ; the shoemaker built a house in the Canongate with his share of the stakes, and, in order to commemorate the origin of his fortunes, placed on its walls as escutcheon a hand dexter grasping a club, with the

motto, ' Far and Sure.’ John Porteous, of the ‘ Heart of Midlothian,’ Duncan Forbes, of Culloden, who turned the tide of Prince Charlie’s fortunes in 1745, were adepts at the game, ami Covenanters in their sermons, poets, philosophers, and novelists have paid their tribute to the royal sport.

‘ With lingering feet it crossed the Grampian Hills in the wake of his somewhat sportive Majesty James VI. of Scotland, and made its home at Blackheath, where it maintained a precarious existence under the care of Scottish Londoners, until the establishment of the famous clubs of Banbury, Westward Ho, Wimbledon, and Hoylake, when, with a suddenness unexplainable, and an unparalleled popular favour, it extended all over England ; since then it has spread to the uttermost parts of the earth.’

The author then proceeds to describe some American

golf clubs. Futher on, speaking of golf and golfers generally, Mr Howland remarks : — ‘ The true golfer is critical of lucky strokes or flukes;

in his estimation they are as discreditable as bad ones ; certainty and precision is his standard, and his comment in broad Scotch, the real golf language, after a bad shot by a good player, calculated to draw applause from ignorant bystanders, would probably be “My, but yon was a lucky yin, bad play—didna desairve it.” Gaorge Glennie, a famous player whose purism was proverbial, once in a “ foursome ” drove his ball into a burn ; his partner wading in with boots and stockings, took the ball on the wing with his niblic, as it floated down, and laid it dead at the hole. “ Well, what about that stroke ?’’ said his partner to the sage, who had preserved unyield-

ing silence. “ Nogolf at a’ ” —then, in a soliloquy, as he advanced to the teeing-ground, “just monkey's tricks.” ‘ The game can be played in company or alone. Robinsan Crusoe, on his island, with his man Friday as a caddie, could have realised the golfer’s dream of perfect happiness - a fine day, a good course, and a clear green ; if Henry VIII. had cultivated the more delicate emotions by taking to the links of the Knuckle Club, he might have saved his body from the gout and his name from the contempt of posterity; he might have dismissed the sittings of the Divorce Court and gone to play a fursome with Cromwell, Wolsey, and the papal legate ; and all the abbey lands which fell to the nobles

would have been converted into golfing greens by the fiat of the royal golfer. He might with Francis have established a record on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Such a game would have cemented their friendship, for the man with a keen love of golfing in his heart is more than a devotee of an idle sport, he is a man of spiritual perceptions and keen sympathies. As a teacher of self-

discipline the game is invaluable. The player is always trying to get the better of the game, and, as Allen Robertson said, “The game is aye fechtin’ against ye.” ’

* Golfers as a rule are an exceptionally honest race of men, but uncertain arithmetic is occasionally encountered on the green. “ I aim to tell the truth,’ said one ! ‘ Well, you are a very bad shot,” was the reply, and there is often an area of low veracity about a bunker. Accuracy is a cardinal virtue in the game, and a kindly judgment may attribute such errors to forgetfulness ; but as the chief pleasure is to beat your own record for your own satisfaction, and as this form of deception makes real progress continually more difficult, for the discount is always in your path, the man of treacherous memory gets small comfort out of his duplicity.’ As may be guessed from these extracts, the article is brilliant, and is worth perusal by every golfer. The May number of Scribner is now indeed a necessary addition to the golfers’ library.