Page:EB1911 - Volume 12.djvu/238

 and the professional classes, have proved themselves so adept at Scotland’s game, that the championships in either the Open or the Amateur competitions have been won more often by English than by Scottish players of late years. Probably in the United Kingdom to-day there are as many English as Scottish professional golf players, and their relative number is increasing.

Golf also “caught on,” to use the American expression, in the United States. To the American of 1890 golf was largely an unknown thing. Since then, however, golf has become perhaps a greater factor in the life of the upper and upper-middle classes in the United States than it ever has been in England or Scotland. Golf to the English and the Scots meant only one among several of the sports and pastimes that take the man and the woman of the upper and upper-middle classes into the country and the fresh air. To the American of like status golf came as the one thing to take him out of his towns and give him a reason for exercise in the country. To-day golf has become an interest all over North America, but it is in the Eastern States that it has made most difference in the life of the classes with whom it has become fashionable. Westerners and Southerners found more excuses before the coming of golf for being in the open country air. It is in the Eastern States more especially that it has had so much influence in making the people live and take exercise out of doors. In a truly democratic spirit the American woman golfer plays on a perfect equality with the American man. She does not compete in the men’s championships; she has championships of her own; but she plays, without question, on the same links. There is no suggestion of relegating her, as a certain cynical writer in the Badminton volume on golf described it, to a waste corner, a kind of “Jews’ Quarter,” of the links. And the Americans have taken up golf in the spirit of a sumptuous and opulent people, spending money on magnificent clubhouses beyond the finest dreams of the Englishman or the Scot. The greatest success achieved by any American golfer fell to the lot of Mr Walter Travis of the Garden City club, who in 1904 won the British amateur championship.

So much enthusiasm and so much golf in America have not failed to make their influence felt in the United Kingdom. Naturally and inevitably they have created a strong demand for professional instruction, both by example and by precept, and for professional advice and assistance in the laying-out and upkeep of the many new links that have been created in all parts of the States, sometimes out of the least promising material. By the offer of great prizes for exhibition matches, and of wages that are to the British rate on the scale of the dollar to the shilling, they have attracted many of the best Scottish and English professionals to pay them longer or shorter visits as the case may be, and thus a new opening has been created for the energies of the professional golfing class.

The Game.—The game of golf may be briefly defined as consisting in hitting the ball over a great extent of country, preferably of that sand-hill nature which is found by the sea-side, and finally hitting or “putting” it into a little hole of some 4 in. diameter cut in the turf. The place of the hole is commonly marked by a flag. Eighteen is the recognized number of these holes on a full course, and they are at varying distances apart, from 100 yds. up to anything between a and  m. For the various strokes required to achieve the hitting of the ball over the great hills, and finally putting it into the small hole, a number of different “clubs” has been devised to suit the different positions in which the ball may be found and the different directions in which it is wished to propel it. At the start for each hole the ball may be placed on a favourable position (e.g. “tee’d” on a small mound of sand) for striking it, but after that it may not be touched, except with the club, until it is hit into the next hole. A “full drive,” as the farthest distance that the ball can be hit is called, is about 200 yds. in length, of which some three-fourths will be traversed in the air, and the rest by bounding or running over the ground. It is easily to be understood that when the ball is lying on the turf behind a tall sand-hill, or in a bunker, a differently-shaped club is required for raising it over such an obstacle from that which is needed when it is placed on the tee to start with; and again, that another club is needed to strike the ball out of a cup or out of heavy grass. It is this variety that gives the game its charm. Each player plays with his own ball, with no interference from his opponent, and the object of each is to hit the ball from the starting-point into each successive hole in the fewest strokes. The player who at the end of the round (i.e. of the course of eighteen holes) has won the majority of the holes is the winner of the round; or the decision may be reached before the end of the round by one side gaining more holes than there remain to play. For instance, if one player be four holes to the good, and only three holes remain to be played, it is evident that the former must be the winner, for even if the latter win every remaining hole, he still must be one to the bad at the finish.

The British Amateur Championship is decided by a tournament in matches thus played, each defeated player retiring, and his opponent passing on into the next round. In the case of the Open Championship, and in most medal competitions, the scores are differently reckoned—each man’s total score (irrespective of his relative merit at each hole) being reckoned at the finish against the total score of the other players in the competition. There is also a species of competition called “bogey” play, in which each man plays against a “bogey” score—a score fixed for each hole in the round before starting—and his position in the competition relatively to the other players is determined by the number of holes that he is to the good or to the bad of the “bogey” score at the end of the round. The player who is most holes to the good, or fewest holes to the bad, wins the competition. It may be mentioned incidentally that golf occupies the almost unique position of being the only sport in which even a single player can enjoy his game, his opponent in this event being “Colonel Bogey”—more often than not a redoubtable adversary.

The links which have been thought worthy, by reason of their geographical positions and their merits, of being the scenes on which the golf championships are fought out, are, as we have already said, three in Scotland—St Andrews, Prestwick and Muirfield—and three in England—Hoylake, Sandwich and Deal. This brief list is very far from being complete as regards links of first-class quality in Great Britain. Besides those named, there are in Scotland—Carnoustie, North Berwick, Cruden Bay, Nairn, Aberdeen, Dornoch, Troon, Machrihanish, South Uist, Islay, Gullane, Luffness and many more. In England there are—Westward Ho, Bembridge, Littlestone, Great Yarmouth, Brancaster, Seaton Carew, Formby, Lytham, Harlech, Burnham, among the seaside ones; while of the inland, some of them of very fine quality, we cannot even attempt a selection, so large is their number and so variously estimated their comparative merits. Ireland has Portrush, Newcastle, Portsalon, Dollymount and many more of the first class; and there are excellent courses in the Isle of Man. In America many fine courses have been constructed. There is not a British colony of any standing that is without its golf course—Australia, India, South Africa, all have their golf championships, which are keenly contested. Canada has had courses at Quebec and Montreal for many years, and the Calcutta Golf Club, curiously enough, is the oldest established (next to the Blackheath Club), the next oldest being the club at Pau in the Basses-Pyrénées.

The Open Championship of golf was started in 1860 by the Prestwick Club giving a belt to be played for annually under the condition that it should become the property of any who could win it thrice in succession. The following is the list of the champions:—

Tom Morris, junior, thus won the belt finally, according to the conditions. In 1871 there was no competition; but by 1872 the three clubs of St Andrews, Prestwick and Musselburgh had subscribed for a cup which should be played for over the course of each subscribing club successively, but should never become the property of the winner. In later years the course at Muirfield was substituted for that at Musselburgh, and Hoylake and Sandwich were admitted into the list of championship courses. Up to 1891, inclusive, the play of two rounds, or thirty-six holes, determined the championship, but from 1892 the result has been determined by the play of 72 holes.