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When you think of it, there is no inconsiderable portion of our golfing lives that is spent in travelling to and from the links that are far from home, by railway and by motor-car, and if one falls into a reflective mood there are many experiences, some curious and some trying, that are to be called to mind in connection with these journeys. On the whole, perhaps, the reflection does not make for much joy, except in the knowledge that these are things of the past and are not likely to be repeated. When the assemblies for the championships are being made, there is less talk of current form than there is of adventures in travelling. Oh, the horrors of a wait at Dumfries in the small hours of a cold morning, when the mistake has been made of trying to get to Prestwick that way! Turned out from the comfortable, warm, snug sleeping-car at Carlisle, even the blanket and pillow that were vouchsafed to you on parting from the express are begrudged you now at this most icy, inhospitable Dumfries. With that curious, dirty, dazed feeling as of being a boiled owl, you watch the men throw the mails into the van that is to take them and you on to Ayr, and listen to them joking about the events of the previous night as if it were now really morning. You tell everybody what you think about Scottish common sense in not having a fire in any waiting-room and no place available for any refreshment, and the Scots themselves are too courteous to say what they must think of your common sense for a golfer in making this journey in this weird way. Then you get into a smelly, dirty carriage, and with jerks and jolts the train drags itself out of the station and slowly away along the line. Stop, stop, stop every two or three miles, but at last it is Ayr, and the worn-out golfer, cursing himself for his folly and others for their heathenism, gets out and steps forth into the land of Burns. But it is yet only a little past five o’clock, and all Ayr is fast asleep, and there are no fires, no refreshments, and no ways of getting to Prestwick just yet. This is to be a golfer! But all things end sometime except eternity, and at last you are at Prestwick, and the finest thing you ever did in your life was then to keep your first ball straight and uninfluenced by the gravestones in the churchyard, and to squeeze a heartening if a little fluky 3 at this first hole. My reader, be assured that the night train through Carlisle, and changing there and at Dumfries, is not the way to go to the west coast of Scotland where are Prestwick and Troon. Run through to Glasgow and down again, as indeed everybody but those crazy people who are always finding new ways of doing things, always do.
But generally night-travelling is an excellent thing when you get used to it, and it spares a day to golf. It is a fine thing to pack your bag of clubs away lovingly in your berth after a dinner at the London terminus, and before you turn off the light you look at them and think a “Good-night!” to them in a cheery way as of old and trusted companionship. “Off again, my friends!” you seem to say. “We have done this sort of thing before, eh? We know what we are going to do, you and I, eh? Yes, you are the fellows. Bonny boys, you are! Where? Didn’t you know? Why, North Berwick, of course! Now, bye-bye! Let’s sleep. Play in the morning.” And then you switch off the light, and slip away into dreamland where there are glorious holes on seaside courses, and presently there is a big thump on the door and that dream is spoiled and dispelled by a man’s gruff voice. But the next moment is one of those most worth living. The dream is realised or is in the realisation, for the caller brings you to your joyful senses by declaring that in fifteen more minutes you will be wheeling into Edinburgh. In those dreams which were helped by a soothing lullaby from the wheels below, the London was slipping away four hundred miles from the tail of the train, and here is Golf, its own rare land.
And what feats one can perform on a motor-car! And does. Just finished our putts on the home green at St. Andrews, and the sun going down, and up comes one of our impulsive party and says it is ordered that we go to Gullane to-night by car! Goodness! But it has to be, and in half an hour we are bowling along those Fifeshire roads, and we are ferried across from Burntisland in the gloom and run into Edinburgh. Good supper, some talk in a tone of suppressed excitement as if great adventures are afoot—as they are—and history is being made, and then we hoot-hoot away into the blackness of the night. And it is black farther on. And the blacker it is the faster that dare-devil man at the wheel makes her go. Running along roads the width of the car and stone walls on either side, while branches of trees are almost scraping the tops of our heads, and one might swear the speed-gauge has its finger on the fifty. “Mrs. Forman’s!” you say to the man beside you, to show you are not thinking of the awful risks as we dash by Musselburgh. Farther on a cap is lost in the black and windy night, but nobody complains. It is enough that all survived that terrible twist round the corner at Gosford. Aberlady! That is a fine thing to hear. “Will you stop here to-night, or come on to Gullane?” It is the end. You have indeed come through a great ordeal, and it is a great thing to be standing there in the night with your bag of clubs under your arm, and to be able to answer a greeting as it ought to be, and to let your thoughts slip away soon to the golf of the morning that is coming.