Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/230

Rh youth to try and avoid these pitfalls, and realise while still young and in the heyday of his success, that the inevitable hour must come sooner or later, and make it a duty to meet it with philosophic calm.

We all know the golfer with fads. I have played at many games, but golf is played by more faddists than have been returned to the House of Commons during the past ten years. To write of these fads, just to state in bold English what they are, is enough to show their absurdity. One man insists on having his caddie and everybody he may be playing with, fixed behind his back and nowhere else—on the absurd ground, I suppose, that if they take up their position in any other spot they catch his eye. The batsman at cricket protests in vain if he asks short-slip and point to move to short-leg because when he plays the ball they catch his eye. There are other players who have a fit if, when they have the honour, they find their opponent's ball teed up before their caddie has put their own on the tee. Why they cannot move their opponent's ball if it is in the way, or if it prevents them from placing their ball in the