Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/707

. 12, 1863.] not been for that lady who stopped the ball with her dress; but as it is he is lying almost dead. And for the benefit of ladies generally let me tell them, with all due deference, that there is no game which they are less qualified to understand than golf, and none at which their presence is so utterly obnoxious and discouraging to the gentlemen whom they deign to patronise. There, now! I have delivered myself of a speech which has long been rankling in my heart, and often hanging on the tip of my tongue. The large man has laid his ball dead in four strokes, and goes in in five. I expect little—shall we say M. for the little man, and B. for the large one?—little M. to hole his ball; he is making tremendous preparations. He has taken a short thick club called a putter, and is carefully examining the ground between his ball and the hole. A speck of sand is carefully brushed away. He has walked twice round the hole, and inspected the ground from every point of view. Now he is going to strike. No, some one spoke; silence! Now, then. Well, my friend, you have managed to commit the gravest offence! How in the world did you contrive that the shadow of your head should fall upon M.’s ball; and why in the name of all that’s unlucky did you wag it just as he played. He has missed his stroke, and takes five strokes after all to get into the hole. It can’t be helped; but do take care. How fiercely he is scowling at you. Please don’t laugh, or I shall have to take you home again.

I dare say you are not aware of the fact, but golf is one of the most nervous and fidgety games imaginable. Some men cannot hit a ball if any one near them is speaking or moving. And a story is on record regarding an enthusiastic lover of the game, who positively refused to play with a man who had the misfortune to have on a pair of light nankeen inexpressibles. He said that they dazzled him.

B. and M. are getting on very well this hole. But at last the gallant little player is caught up in one of these sand-holes or bunkers, as they are called. Whereupon he seizes the largest of the iron-headed clubs and leaps into the hole. A mighty swing, a thud, a cloud of sand, and lo! out of the cloud the ball emerges, and falls on the turf. He has regularly disembowelled that bunker. Woe to the next man whose ball gets into the hole M. has made. B. gets into the hole (proper) in six strokes, which, with five for the first hole, makes eleven. And M. gets in in seven, which, with five, makes twelve strokes for the first two holes. B. is one stroke ahead. You see now how they count.

Now let us stand at one of the holes, say the fifth, and see the various pairs come up. What fun it is to watch the different faces. Some are almost white with excitement, some hopeful, some stern yet confident, and (what’s this?) young Webster smoking; that’s a very bad sign; “How are you getting on, Webster?”

“Very badly; I got into a rabbit-scraping last hole, and took eleven to it.”

That is the worst of this counting of strokes; every hit at the ball counts a stroke, even although you do not move it.

Here comes a great crowd; they are accompanying two favourites. One of them has done these five holes in twenty-six strokes, which is very great play. That last stroke up to the hole was a beautiful one. The ball was lifted high into the air over that large bunker, and fell on the green, scarcely rolling a yard after it alighted.

But I dare say you have seen enough of this. In the meantime, let us go back and get some lunch, and then come out and see the finish.

All is over. Time 3.15, The medal has been won by that tall handsome man in red, in ninety-five strokes. So now to lunch all ye disappointed, tell how but for whin-bush or bunker you must have won. Tell how your favourite club broke at the critical moment, how a man stopped your ball from going into the hole, how through nervousness you missed holing your ball three times, when perfectly dead. And may it soothe your gallant and wounded spirits.

Then set to and make up matches for yourselves in which you cannot fail to win!

A short lunch, a glass of beer, and a cigar, and off they go again, and this time they go out for the most part in parties of four; two playing as partners against the other two. Each pair of partners has only one ball between them, which they hit alternately. The game now is, not who will go round the course in the fewest strokes, but who will win most of the holes. That is, as far as strokes go, they start fresh at the beginning of each new hole.

Talk of ill-assorted marriages. I never remember to have seen a party of four in which each man was perfectly satisfied with his partner’s performances.

“Did you win your match, Bruce?”

“I win? we win? how could we? I never in my life saw a fellow so utterly off his game as Forbes was that last round.”

Or else.

“Well we did win by a miracle; if I had not been playing a topping game (for me), I don’t know where we should have been; for, as for, &c.”

Now here are four worthies trying to arrange how they shall play, each trying to make a good thing of it for himself.

They cannot agree.

“Doctor, do you think that you and I can hold our own against Campbell and the Major?”

“Not unless they give us odds.”

“Well, then, will you and the Major play Campbell and me?”

“Yes, I’ll do that.”

“That’s no match,” says Campbell, and so the dispute goes on. At length something is settled, and off they go.

A foursome in which each man implicitly believes in his partner, and is not perpetually watching his adversaries’ proceedings with a critical and jealous eye, is only to be hoped for in a golfing millenium.

The most ominous sign of all is, when, after his partner has been making a series of mistakes, missing his balls, sending them into bunkers, whins, and burns, the face of the player, which