GOLF.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 10, 7 March 1908, Page 14

GOLF.

My Golf. THE STORY OK A NERVOUS MAN. 1 am naturally very nervous. All my friends say that I lack repose, that I am too strenuous. “Take up golf, old man,” said one. “It is what you need. It will keep you out in the open, it’'will teach you the value of deliberation, and it will cure your nervousness, and give you a repose of manner that you can get in no other way.” I am spending the summer in the country, and although there is no course near us, the country-side is full of natural advantages for the pursuit of the game, and I determined to take it up. I did not care to go to the expense of a whole outfit, as I might not like the game after I had , learned it, but the next time I went down to town I bought a driver, thinking to practise repose with it. I bought a particularly stout one that cost me a pound, as I figured that if I put a little more into the purchase price I’d gain in the end. But now I’m sorry that I did not buy a very cheap one, because then, when I had tripped up the old gentleman in the Onehunga car it would have broken the club, and that would have ended my golf. But the etick was stout, and the old gentleman fell and broke his leg instead, and also Cropped a bottle of wine that he was taking home, having just received it from a returning sea-captain. He told me that he did not mind the break in his leg, because he had broken it before in the same place, and he knew just how long it would take to mend it, and he needed a rest from business cares, anyway, which ' he never would have taken if he had not been forced to it in some such way; but he was all broken up over the spilled wine, as it was a very rare vintage, and he never expected to receive any more. _ ' .. ' I apologised all I could, and offered to put him up at any private hospital he tniglit select, but he "wouldn't hear of it, and as the wine was priceless, there was nothing to do except to ifeel miserable and show it* plainly, which I did.- : . O, 4. ~ He was' an old goffer ’himself, and ‘ ift<*r" 1 Kifti* but* of “fl'ie '£ar, lie showed me the proper way to hold my iitiek so that I shouldn't trip up anybody else. The pleasantest part of my golf experience', was while we were waiting far an ambulance—for I had telephoned lor one at- my own expense. ..We sat on the curbstone, and he wouldn’t hear of ;ny accompanying him; said he believed Ln the rigour of the game, like Sarah Battle, and he ought to have seen that I was a beginner, and kept out of the Way of my club. He was so entertaining that I was really sorry when the ambulance came and he rolled oft' toward his home. I will hastily pass over the broken car window on the way up in the train next morning. I might have pushed an umbrella or a cane through it, and I contend that it was not because it was a golf-stick, but because I lacked repose, that I did break the glass. Of course, I had to settle with the conductor, but I think that seven-and-six was too much to charge me for the glass. The car was ventilated after I had opened the .Window in this artificial way, and thousands rose up and called me blessed in different parts of the car, for, needless to say, the car was warm and the other jvindows were too tightly wedged to open, ©ven with superhuman efforts. I should like to recommend to the railway commissioners a judicious use of golf-sticks on their windows; then there would not be so much smothered profanity on the part of men, and overstrained muscles on the part of women who foolishly attempt the impossible. I awoke early, aware that the golf fever had seized me, and I was up before anyone else in the house, as every one else knew, for my lack of repose caused"• me to express my exuberance of spirits ii) merry roundelays—that is, they wore merry to me, but disastrous to the dozers. My youngest son soon joined me, and was delighted at my request that he act ns my caddy. He prepared my tee—l had had coffee in bed: I never take exercise with stomach empty. I adjusted the ball, gazed earnestly nt the object I desired to approximate, swung my club in the air, made several false starts in the most approved fashion, and then 1 let drive.

The next-door neighbour, a wealthy gentleman, was awakened by the crash of glass, and came running downstairs in his pyjamas. I tried to cultivate repose as I reflected that I had disturbed his, and while cultivating it I went over to see just what damage I had inflicted. I had put a curve on the ball, for it was fifty feet to the left of its intended destination. - - ~ . I walked over and gazed at the opening I had made in his plate-glass window. My son was overjoyed both at the crash and at the jagged opening. That is youth. I felt no joy. My neighbour was not gazing at the opening I had effected, but at a little faience vase which had tried in its ineffectual way to stop tlie rapid progress of the ball. Even as the old gentleman of two days before had overlooked the damage to his leg, but had grieved at the spilled wine, so my friend could have overlooked the broken glass, but the vase was an heirloom, and virtually priceless. Here let me stop long enough to ask why it is that people will load up their houses with priceless treasures. I never yet bought anything that was priceless; in fact, I always insist on having the price plainly marked. He would not hear of my buying him another vase—he is a little deaf—and I was glad he would not, nor did I raise my voice. My golfing had cost me enough already, and when I buy faience I want it for myself. But he was somewhat sarcastic at my expense, and that I did not like. I like sarcasm to be prepaid, although I like to do the shipping myself. He said that I was not cut out for an athlete, and that at my time of life, if I did want to take up games of skill, I’d better go out to the Bad Lands, that couldn’t be damaged, or to the Desert of Sahara. Altogether he made me feel very sorry that I had not bought a putter instead of a driver. Putting is wholly innocuous and innocent. Those who made a name for themselves in the late sixties at'Croquet, as I did, should be able' to 'putt with ease, while driving of all kinds is, and always has been, dangerous and difficult. ■> Still, there is too much of the sportsman in my make-up to allow me to submit tamely' to setbacks. It was now breakfast - time, and I had had a couple of pounds of practice—for of ', I_ insisted onpaying . for the .pane . I had caused to -be - broken— I-felt-that breakfast was necess'a’ry; but affiertvard’l would’"go Sff’witli tliyj fight and master driving. . .The morning mail brought me an order for a hundred-dollar story that an editor wanted written while he waited in his office - that is to say, he wanted it within twenty-four hours. -sI generally pay immediate heed to such orders, because I think that editors who take the trouble to order things in this world, where so much is forced upon the unwilling, ought to be encouraged; but the golfing fever was on me, and after breakfast, instead of going into my workroom, I secured my son once more and sallied forth to try a little more driving. This time I went farther from the haunts of men, and took up my station in a very wild field of shrubs and weeds, and, as I supposed, containing nothing valuable—certainly no vases or rare wines. I have heard people say that they found it hard to hit the ball squarely; that they generally dug up earth, or chipped slices of gutta-percha from the cross-hatched sphere, or fanned the circumambient air. But my troubles were of a different nature. I hit the ball every time 1 strove to, and the first time 1 hit it in that field I seemed to conceal it in a lusty blackberry bush some fifty feet distant. My son and I consumed nearly the whole of a pleasant morning looking for that ball. We visited every bush and shrub that was big enough to harbour a ball, but we could not find it, and at last, after several hours' search, I reluctantly gave up and sent my boy home after another one. While he was gone I threw myself down upon the grass to rest, and I found the ball, or, to speak more accurately, my hip found it. And it wasn’t ten feet from the place where I had stood when driving. 1 can account for this hi only one way. When people lose their way in the great woods they circle round and round, and at last bring up where they started from. I dare say that lost balls do the same, and that this one was on its way back when I found it. While yet my son .was gone, I placed the new-found ball on a little tee of my own making, and with a strength born of long waiting I whirled my club through the air and smote the ball.

Will somebody tell hie .why . farmers in New Zealand ' should raise Angora goats, and if sOT why 'they select wild and scrubby pastures to raise them? I am: is a profitable industey, and that in'a'few'yea'rs,' instead of the* cattle upon a thousand 'liillSJ it*will lie” the, thousand-Angoras on a single hill, so prolific-find so useful arb they.-'Bftt they are inimical to golf and, hard as theirheads are,” they are not "so hard as a ball driven by a strong man with a guinea club. There were little kids in that field not worth more than five pounds apiece, and they went scot-free after my terrible drive. They bleated and leaped and cropped the rank herbage,’ all unaware of the fact that the father of the herd, imported from Turkey, had been laid low by a golf-ball. My son saw him drop, and my son found the ball on the ground in front of him. I did not know that he was highly valuable, but small boys have a way of picking up information, and my son told me that Mr. Hermance, a gentleman farmer who had just gone into the industry, had paid £2OO for this miserable animal that was now worth no more than its wool and its hide and its carcass would bring. It did not interest me to recall, as 1 did immediately, that I had read in an afternoon paper that Angora leather made the best golf-bags in the market. I did not care to buy a golf-bag just then. I decide quickly. I took the next train for Wellington, and proceeded to get insured for one thousand pounds in favour of Mr. Hermance. Then I registered an oath to play no outdoor games more dangerous than puss-in-the-corner.