Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/167

136 place. In summer there are hard lumps of clay, stones, and every variety of small obstruction, the grass is often longer than it should be, while if it is wet the neat-lofted ball sometimes stops almost dead. Approaching thus on inland courses has elements of luck in it which it does not possess at the sea-side. But luck may, and often does, unduly favour the wild approach shot, and the bad player to his astonishment finds himself holding his own, at what some people think the hardest part of the game—approaching. If the running-up shot is played on rough links it is frequently found to be a case of "as broad as it is long." If a lump of clay or a stone turns the ball to the right one bound, another friendly lump at the next bound turns it to the left, and, on the whole, as the dying lawyer said who was troubled by the idea that he had frequently been the cause of innocent people being found guilty till he remembered that he had been equally fortunate in the case of the guilty being found innocent, justice is done. But the lofting shot is often, from no fault of the striker, badly punished, and this is especially trying to the good player.