GOLF NOTES.
(With acknowledgments to Mr. A.C.M. Croome.)
Approaching.
Taylor—or was it James Braid?—begins one of his classic and illuminating chapters with the quotation "Ex pede Herculem," nor can even we of the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society venture to differ from so eminent an authority or grudge him so apt a phrase. Verb. sap. and, let me add, sat. To those, few perhaps in actual reckoning (though I, wearing of right the wine-dark vesture—were there half Blues in Homer's time?—cannot compete with John Low et hoc genus omne, Cantabs confessed, in the prestidigitation of numerals and weird signs of values)—to those, then, few, but of many parts appreciative, who followed a certain foursome at Addington last week, my premiss should be intrinsically incontrovertible. Partner, whom I had "made" with a drive well and truly apportioned—ex carne ictum—partner, after much self-searching and mental recursion to the maxims of Tom Morris and La Rouchefoucauld, took his ball on the—O horribile dictu (or shall I say horresco referens?)—well, to be meticulously exact, partner shanked it. And it is just here that those who have also enjoyed a University education will pick up—even as partner failed to do—what I, who write, am driving at.
Remembering how dear old W.G.—in those halcyon days when Gloucester was worthy of the cheese whereof she is now so chary a producer—used to score with that heavy cut between point and cover, I too, greatly daring, cut it and laid it (the ball, not the cheese) dead. De mortuis ... For assuredly it was good.
The one adornment of this episode should have been a quotation from Aristophanes. It is not, however, given to all men always to remember. Non cuivis, in fact.
Of Impact.
It was at the ensuing consumption of Bohea, or of its substitute as provided by a paternal Government, that one of the party, with the rashness of a d'Artagnan, reverted to the question of weight of clubs. Abe Mitchell's driver, of course, gave him a handle; but himself he, unaided, gave away. For it is not to be boasted by every man that he has been blessed with an Alma Mater, and that consequently logic is to him even as hair and teeth—save only that these twain be not false. For, said this unhappy wight, increase the weight and the corollary is length increased.
Then arose a certain justly eminent author, whose list of tales is equalled only by the tale of his handicap, and demonstrably discounted weight without pace.
It was then agreed that a test ad hominem should be applied, and that the result of such test should determine the individuality of him who should settle with our Ganymede. Partner and I pushed—gemitu et fremitu—a bulky sideboard against a paper ball. The inertia of the object was barely overcome.
Then the man of letters flicked it across the room with finger and thumb. And the original theorist became the poorer by the commercial estimate of four teas and jam.
Putting.
It has been said elsewhere, yet may not therefore be wholly lacking in elemental veracity, that putting is the devil. Systems more numerous than dactyls and spondees in Classic verse, patent putters outnumbered only by howlers in Oxford responsions, bear witness to this graceless statement. Quite lately in these columns have I confessed—pulvere cineribusque—that our side had twice failed at the inconsiderable distance of two yards, even after discarding the small thirty-two. But that further confession will be forthcoming is now wildly and preposterously problematical. For I have discovered the true exorcism for demoniac influence in putting. It is this: First catch your putter. Put the whole length of the shaft up your sleeve. Then—but I must retain something for next Saturday's notes, and, besides, I fancy the secretary of the Club where I am inditing these words has his frugal eye on the consumption of the note-paper. But what I have written I have written. Litera scripta manet.
Eminent London Architect (submitting his designs to our Village Victory Memorial Committee and warming to his work). "...and, surmounting the whole, a graceful figure of Victory, with wreath—so."