Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/227

188 therefore, you can with truth remark that the match cannot be won by the bad driver.

Closely connected with the question of nerve is that of temperament. It is not proposed to make this a treatise on the game: if it were I should begin with the truism that it is wise for a golfer to keep his temper. One great value of games is that they are the finest discipline for the temper. There can be no doubt that golf is terribly trying to a man. The hideous feeling of discomfort that comes over a player when he has topped his ball and made a deep hole in it, the terrible persistency with which ball after ball is sliced, the missing of one or two really short putts, the bad luck that attends him when putting really well, the way the hole is missed by a tenth of an inch, the frequent bad lies—all these combine to make life a burden. But though golf may be more trying to the temper than any other game, every game has its trials. Tennis, for instance, when you first fail to win a short chase, or your opponent keeps on serving nicks; billiards, when your ball is always under a cushion, or the balls dead safe time after time; cricket, when an umpire has given you out by a