VI
Now and then a section of the golfing community has the appearance of fretting for a new government of the game. The freedom that it has always enjoyed, and in which it is superior to any other game that has a right to be compared to it for quality, interest, and popularity, has become irksome. It is felt that there can be disadvantages in too much freedom, and so these people sigh to be placed under a yoke—a yoke of their own choosing, but none the less stern and powerful and, above all, active. These agitations, if they are to be dignified with such a name, commonly begin in the dullest days of winter, when both links and livers are abnormally heavy, and they flicker out again in the spring. Usually the establishment of a new county golfing union is the signal for the commencement of the argument in favour of the deposition of St. Andrews and the establishment of a new parliament of golf. By this time county unions are no novelty. The Yorkshire and the Nottinghamshire Unions—and particularly the former—are now old-established and flourishing institutions; but latterly this movement towards unions has much increased, and Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, and others have joined in it and settled their constitutions. Then there are in existence the Welsh Union, the Sussex Union, and various others of smaller activity. The formation of these unions has been in itself a proceeding of some significance; but the establishment of the new Midland Association is greater, for here you have three or four unions making common cause for the furtherance of their own ideas and projects, and becoming a compact, circumscribed, and very nearly autonomous community, taking a considerable piece of the golfing map to themselves, and embracing no small or unimportant section of the golfing population. First you had the county unions; now the grouping of these unions into associations. Obviously, the next and easy step will be a combination of associations. Yorkshire and Wales might come to an understanding with the Midlands, and before one could shout “Fore!” there might be the whole country under the guidance, not to say domination, of a union of associations. Members of clubs would per se be affiliated to it, and would give tacit allegiance to it. That is simply a possibility of evolution.
So far the programmes of the unions and associations are simple and unpretentious. They will start country competitions, inter-county tournaments, standardise handicaps, regulate local rules, and so forth. Unpretentious in a sense these matters are; but yet they will make for much in the whole sum of golf procedure. Then there are no authoritative rules for bogey play which many people want; the associations may make them for themselves, and make them binding upon their members, and give rulings upon points of dispute or difficulty that may arise in regard to them, since St. Andrews will have nothing to do with bogey. They will do all the many things that St. Andrews is too indifferent to do.
There you have it! How about the coming of the day when, old-established, firm, and powerful, the combined associations find that they are doing nearly everything, and that St. Andrews is doing almost nothing? Will it not be an easy thing, and one which will suggest itself, to cut the knot that ties them to the old and respected guardian of our golf, and to go forth with a new and revolutionary programme of government, which shall include even the very championships and the rules themselves? This is not a fanciful speculation; it is logical and—as some who have brought themselves to the serious study of the future would say—almost inevitable. It would be according to the natural processes of history.
Let them disclaim as they please, be as loyal to the existing order of things as possible, it is still the fact that these unions and associations are a menace to St. Andrews. By evolution from them rather than by direct establishment is a British Golfing Union likely to come about, if one ever does. This is essentially a democratic movement. With the vast influx of new players the feeling in golf is infinitely more democratic than it was five years ago, and the people are now chafing at the indifference of St. Andrews and the championship group of clubs, and are calling for a ruling body that will give them new and simpler laws, that will regulate the championships better, and hold them on a greater variety of courses, organise inter-county competitions, and so on. St. Andrews—by which is meant the Royal and Ancient Club—is the old and self-established, almost hereditary House of Lords that dozes and does not mind, with no second chamber between it and the people. The people say they want a representative and active House of Commons. This allegory works out perfectly to the point that Ireland is fuming and fretting at the neglect with which she is treated.
Shall the golfers’ House of Lords be mended or ended? There are three parties in the great state of golf—the old Tories, who want things to remain as they are, and who regard the St. Andrews House of Lords as the finest form of government imaginable, chiefly because it does not govern; the reformers, who want St. Andrews to become more active and to seek the co-operation of some of the leading clubs in the country; and the democratic revolutionaries, who want a new governing body elected by the people and the clubs. The first party is in a hopeless minority, and will always remain so. The present state of affairs may go on for some time yet; but the golf world is too big and important, and the questions pressing upon it are too weighty, for it to be regarded as permanent.
The Royal and Ancient Club of St. Andrews is a most worthy, distinguished, and conscientious institution, full of all the most blue-blooded traditions. One may disagree with the idea that the Club entertains of the duty and responsibility towards the great world of golf which time and circumstances have cast upon it; but no golfer of understanding would speak disrespectfully of this Club, which in many respects is the finest institution of its kind in existence, and is entitled to the very utmost veneration. Chiefly by its efforts there has been given a dignity to the game of golf which has had much to do with its established greatness. Every golfer everywhere owes a debt to the Royal and Ancient Club.
Yet as an authority nobody ever sanctioned it; like Topsy, it simply grew. Of course, it was wanted; somebody had to make laws. It is almost equally certain that the club never aspired to an active command over such an extensive golf world as there is at present, and that its present disposition is that it “cannot be bothered,” that the British golfers must take it as they find it, or—do as they please.
To some extent allied with St. Andrews in the government of the game are the clubs who regulate the championship. To some minds the Royal and Ancient and these other clubs that rule the championships, have sometimes seemed to be in league with each other against the new spirit and new tendencies in golf, and it is not surprising that the worm is turning. The “common people” of the golfing world say that they have had enough of this sort of thing, and all these airs and graces, that they are in the majority—which is perfectly true—and that they will act.
Now what shall be done? Shall the golfers’ House of Lords be mended or ended? In course of time some change is inevitable, democracy will have its way, and all those who have the interests of the game most at heart must, on reflection, come to the conclusion that for the time being, at any rate, it will be for good if the House of Lords is reconstituted on slightly more popular lines. Therefore it would seem to be desirable that the Royal and Ancient and its associates, the golfing House of Lords, should recognise the feeling that is undoubtedly abroad in the country, and should take the initiative now, when it would lose nothing in dignity and gain everything in influence, in establishing the government of golf on a firmer and more satisfactory basis than that on which it at present exists. The rules need remodelling, the system of the championships needs rearranging, the question of county tournaments, standardisation of handicaps, and so forth, call for some consideration, and the interference of the commercial side of the game needs to be looked into. St. Andrews alone and without a mandate has neither the will nor the power to grapple with all these difficulties. On the other hand, a democratically elected governing body would almost certainly be given far too much to something in the nature of vandalism, and for a certainty golf under its authority would lose much of the dignity that is at present one of its very greatest charms. What one has seen of the ways of even some big provincial clubs, such as might have loud voices in a new democratic government, and the tone that animates their game, gives one no confidence that they would preserve its best traditions intact. There would be a tendency towards unnecessary innovations and vulgarism. Nobody who has any adequate knowledge of the manner and system of golf as practised by the good old-fashioned clubs would care to risk placing the future of the game entirely in the hands of the revolutionaries.
The world of golf is not ready for a great revolution. The fact is that we want as little legislation as possible, but what there is should be good and adequate, and the tendencies and needs of the times should be systematically considered. The best solution to the difficulty, perhaps, would be for St. Andrews to relax a little from its aloofness, recognise that circumstances impose a moral duty upon it, and seek the assistance of a few of the chief clubs, seaside and inland, throughout the country, who among them would form a kind of joint board to which all other clubs would declare their allegiance. We should expect to find such inland clubs in the south as Sunningdale, Woking, Mid-Surrey, and Walton Heath represented on this board, and it would approach all the questions of the time in a progressive spirit and do its best to remove existing grievances. If the Royal and Ancient took the initiative in this matter, it would gain in dignity and respect, and would have the knowledge that it had done its duty. If no such step is taken, if matters are allowed to drift on as at present, then a revolution of some kind is likely. A point too frequently overlooked in these discussions is, that the Royal and Ancient club is in its membership and constitution very fairly representative of golf throughout the country, as is no other club. The rights of its position at the head of the game are, of course, indisputable.