Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/232

Rh on the links, you must grin and bear it.

To ingenuous youth I observe that all these fads are absurd, and nobody who possesses any self-discipline need fall a victim to them. Don't let a youth suppose that, because a golfer of great skill is a victim to one or more of these fads, it is necessary that he should be so also. Every youth should be told by some candid friend that to be a faddist is silly, and if the desire be resisted when he is young it will never prevail. Drinking is apparently pleasant to many, judging by the Excise returns, but ingenuous youth is told by a wise father that he must not give way to it, and he does not. In like manner, if a young golfer makes up his mind that he will not allow himself to be disturbed if a rook flies across the line of play, or his opponent talks to his caddie, he will find that such things will not disturb him and he will enjoy the game more himself and be a far pleasanter companion and opponent to everybody else. You can let anything grow upon you if you permit it to do so, and why should we expect a man to have disciplined himself in his youth to avoid gluttony or any other pleasing vice,