Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/207

172 a lovely shot being sacrificed on the ground of score.

The one dangerous and unhealthy development of golf then, to my mind, consists of the too great prominence given to score. I have seen some players who really almost seem indifferent about what the result of the hole play is, provided they are not taking more than five to every hole, and are doing a good score. I am also painfully aware that our likes and dislikes, our partiality for medal or match play, our being in favour or the contrary of this, that, and the other rule, is largely determined by the effect it has on our own individual play. Mr. Hilton, for instance, has twice won the open championship by strokes, but up to 1900 he has not pulled off the amateur championship, which is played by tournament. He would possibly argue that the best type of golf is to be found when playing for a score, and human nature being what it is, nobody could wonder at this.

I am trying to put forward what I cannot help thinking tends to the good of the game, and I think that anything which promotes medal or score play unduly and depresses match