IX
In the dampest and gloomiest days of the British winter, the golfer’s fancy often flies to Riviera and Egyptian courses; and a while later the golfer follows his fancy, so that he may have a dry game in the sunshine again. Golf in Egypt is a thing to itself. “Through the green” it is mere sandy desert, for bunkers there are chiefly mud walls, and the putting “greens,” which vary a little on the different courses, are generally made of rolled mud. Yet this golf is eagerly participated in and most thoroughly enjoyed by the large British population. They would not be without it for a thousand Pyramids. They have their competitions and they have a championship of their own. Egyptian golf has a curious history. It is nineteen years since the game was first played in the Land of Pyramids—that is to say, since two players drove from a tee and holed out on what they called a “green”; but some time before that a ball was hit by a golfer. The circumstances are remarkable and are worthy of the baptism of an ancient country like Egypt to a Royal and Ancient game. Rameses II. and Cleopatra would have approved.
This is the true story. A full-blooded Scottish golfer, imbued with all the best traditions, and all the better for being a clergyman, none other than the well-known Rev. J. H. Tait of Aberlady, went for a holiday to Egypt, and duly climbed to the top of the Great Pyramid. Arrived there he rested, and to do so the more effectually he put his hands into his pockets, when, curiously enough, he felt a golf ball in one of them. In a moment the golfer was ablaze in the parson, and he determined that right there on the summit of the Great Pyramid of Cheops he would play the game for the first time in Egypt. So he teed up the ball and addressed it most elaborately and conscientiously with his umbrella, for, of course, he had no clubs with him. There were none in Egypt. Then he made a bonny St. Andrews swing: the ball went spinning away through the fine desert atmosphere and was never seen again—by the man who hit it, at all events. There were some great jokes about this shot afterwards. They said that in future days some old antiquary would find this ball in the desert sand, and would try to make out the hieroglyphics (the name of the maker, Tom Morris) upon it. As they would then be indistinct it would be suggested that they stood for Moses, and the inference would be that the lawgiver of Israel was a golfer.
Some years after that a course was laid out near Cairo. The men who made that course and played the first golf were none other than Mr. J. E. Laidlay, twice Amateur Champion, and Sir Edgar Vincent, who won the Parliamentary handicap in 1905. This was in 1888, and Sir Edgar had only had one taste of golf previously, that being in the previous summer, but he thought it would be as well to take his clubs with him to Egypt. Mr. Laidlay, going to Egypt also, thought the same thing; but when they got there they found there was no golf at all. They did not know each other; but Sir Edgar knew Mr. Laidlay by reputation, sought him out, and they conferred together on the miserable character of the situation. Mr. Laidlay was famishing for some golf, and stirred up a great enthusiasm in the other, so they agreed that they would go out into the desert together and make a course.
“We made a survey of the outskirts,” said Sir Edgar, “and found the material to be of the most unpromising description—seven parts sand and one part scrub everywhere. There was one comforting fact, and that was that our bunkers were ready made, for there were bunkers everywhere. Mr. Laidlay’s enthusiasm overcame everything, and by dint of hard labour and perseverance we soon had a nine-hole course laid out. In this way we were certainly the pioneers of golf in Egypt, and, as I believe, in Africa.” When Mr. Laidlay went home again he entered for the Amateur Championship and won it for the first time. One of the first converts to golf in Egypt was Lord Cromer.
There are now nine clubs and courses in Egypt. At Cairo the round usually consists of twelve holes, although there are two more which are very seldom played. It is desert golf, and the “greens” are brown patches of puddled earth, over which sand is sprinkled daily to true them up and slow them down a bit. Some say that the golf at Helouan is the best in Egypt, and others prefer the Assouan course, in the making of which Mr. John Low had much say and which he has visited since. Here the greens are made of rolled Nile mud. But most prefer the Mena House course, which is laid out on a bit of the very small area of grass there is in Egypt, which is so precious that players are requested to play only in rubber-soled shoes for fear of breaking it. For part of each year the course is under water. Not only is there grass here, but the course is laid out alongside the Great Pyramid, the shadow of which is thrown across it. This Great Pyramid—2,000,000 cubic feet of stone—gives golfers a queer feeling if they catch sight of it when swinging for their drive. When Napoleon was beginning the battle of the Pyramids hereabouts, he said to his men, “Soldiers! from the summit of yonder Pyramid forty ages behold you.” That is so, and the golfers may wish they did not. They may think it is no game for spectators of this kind.