VII
The man who has the courage to enter upon a medal round or a match with a keen opponent and play with a cheap, or cheaper, ball, is a rarity, and an admirable one. Faith goes for a long way in these matters. Give a man the most expensive ball on the market to play with, and he feels that he has got something which will do justice to his capabilities, and occasionally let him off with light penalties for some of his errors. Let him have a cheap ball and he is uneasy, with the idea that nothing is likely to go right for him. When he has faith in his ball—his expensive ball—he plays accordingly, that is to say, he plays with confidence, and the probabilities are, of course, that in such case he will play better than he would otherwise do, especially if he makes a good start. If he has not so much faith in his ball—because it is cheap—he will not play so well, because he will play without confidence. This is really a truism which is emphasised over and over again on the links every day. As this player cannot test his balls accurately and show for a certainty which one is better than others, he has naturally faith in the more expensive, because it ought to be better, whether it is or not. So one comes quite logically to the conclusion that the most expensive balls are the best. Now suppose that the makers of any of our leading brands of florin balls were at this stage to reduce the price of their specialities to a shilling each. What would be the attitude of these golfers to that ball? They would say to themselves, or suspect, that these makers were taking something out of the quality of their wares, and if they suspected that, they would almost certainly find innumerable happenings in their next match, which in their opinion would give the utmost possible support to their theory. Every drive that fell short of the proper standard would be put down to the makers of the ball; this really very funny golfer would shake his head and say that it was a great pity, and so forth, but that he would have to give up this shilling ball, of which at two shillings he was so very fond. And he would do it. But all the time there may not be a particle of difference between the old two-shilling ball and the new shilling one.
Once again one is tempted to the fancy that there is a good future for a reasonably good ball to be sold at five shillings. It would not be a popular ball, because there is a large proportion of players to whom this one would at last be too expensive; but all who could afford to play with it by making some little sacrifice, such as by cycling to the links instead of going by train, by carrying their own clubs two or three times a week instead of employing a caddie, or, simpler still, by reducing the weekly or monthly allowance for domestic purposes to the lady of the household because of the hard times, would certainly do so. And as the rich golfers would play with it also, it would have a good sale, and if it cost no more to make than the florin balls it would be very profitable to the manufacturers. All the ordinary golfers would play well with it. They would feel that they had the very best, that at last they could do themselves justice. They would have confidence. Queer world this of golf!