Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/188

Rh call absurd and pettifogging low-attorney sort of rules. It would be far better that the rule about brushing the green lightly with the hand on the line of the putt were abolished altogether. If there are players who take a mean advantage and flatten down a lump when they should only be brushing away loose bits of dust or stones, such players had better be provided for if such a thing can be brought about without hardship to the sportsmanlike golfers. The benefit to the putter of brushing away dust or small stones is, in my opinion, infinitesimal. Greens are kept in good order by the greenkeeper, so let every player take his chance of the green, and make it unlawful to brush away dust or remove what is not growing, and the swindler will be defeated.

The whole question of rules in games is interesting. Some rules there must always be, but if a game is to be played in a right spirit the fewer there are the better. At golf there are so many rules which seem to be both pedantic and absurd that in a friendly game they are quietly ignored. Nobody of proper feeling will claim a hole because his opponent's caddie has sheltered the ball from the wind with his body, or because