Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/250

Rh carry a bunker 140 yards from the tee. A course, if perfect, should never be open to the charge that it is no good So-and-so going to play there, because his drive is not far enough. That may be the reason why it is difficult for him to win certain holes, but there ought to be other holes where compensation is possible; and the long-driving youth being forced to use restraint, is punished for attempting this wholesome discipline, and the middle-aged man may smile.

The thing we plead for, therefore, may be said to be the scientific power of restraint as opposed to mere muscle and power. Youth must always have an advantage in so far that it is always within the bounds of possibility that the young man may learn to play the scientific short game; and if he happens to be a long player as well, then he deserves all the success he gets. But it is absolutely true that after forty years of age there is an appreciable diminution in length of drive and power, and though fortunately there is no reason why golf should not be enjoyed as much as ever, it would be a misfortune if the honours of golf should altogether be denied to the man of mature years merely because the stress of time had taken