I.—GOLF.
The Fairies who came to my Christening provided me with a large collection of toys, implements, and other articles. There was a heart, a tender one, a pen of gold, a set of Golf-clubs, a bat, wickets, and a ball, oars and a boat, boxing gloves, foils, guns, rifles, books, everything, except ready money, that heart could desire. Unluckily one Fairy, who was old, deaf, plain, and who had not been invited, observed, "It is all very well, my child, but not one of these articles shall you be able to use satisfactorily." This awful curse has hung heavy on my doom. With a restless desire to shine and excel, at Lord's, on the river, on the Moors, in the forests, in Society, on the Links, bitter personal experience and the remarks of candid friends, tell me that the doom has come upon me. I am "an all-round Duffer," as my youngest nephew, ætat. XI., freely informed me, when I served twice out of court (once into the conservatory, the other time through the study window). I was a Duffer at marbles, also at tops, and my personal efforts in these kinds were constantly in liquidation. But what are marbles and tops! The first regular game I was entered at was Golf. Five is not too early to begin, and I began at five by being knocked down with a club which another small boy was brandishing. This naturally gave me an extreme zeal for the sport of MARY STUART, the Great Marquis of MONTROSE, CHARLES EDWARD (who introduced Golf into Italy), DUNCAN FORBES of Culloden, Mr. HORACE HUTCHINSON, and other eminent historical characters.
Almost everybody now knows that Golf is not Hockey. Nobody runs after the ball except young ladies at W—m—n! The object is to put a very small ball into a very tiny and remotely distant hole, with engines singularly ill adapted for the purpose. There are many engines. First there is the Driver, a long club, wherewith the ball is supposed to be propelled from the tee, a little patch of sand. The Tee and the Caddie have nothing to do with each other; nobody but a flippant Cockney sees any fun in plays upon words which, in themselves, are only too serious. Then there is a weapon called a Brassey. It is like unto a club, but is shod with brass, and is used for hitting a ball in "a bad lie" among long grass or heather. A small tomahawk, styled a Cleek, is employed when you don't know what else to play with. The same remark applies to an Iron, which is very good for missing the ball with, also for hitting to square leg when you meant to go straight. A "Mashy" is a smaller "iron." The skilful use these when the ball lies in sand, in gorse, or when they wish to make the ball soar for a short distance and then fall dead. A Putter is a short thickish club used for jogging the ball into the hole with. There are plenty of other kinds of clubs, also spoons, but these are enough to break the heart of any Duffer.
I am an old player, of forty years' standing, but, like Parolles I was "made for every man to breathe himself on." When my form is espied near the links, the players shirk off as if I were a leper. They are afraid I may want to make a match with them, and there is no falsehood from which they will shrink, in their desire to escape me. Even Ladies,—but this is a delicate theme. Beginners breathe themselves on me, and give me odds after two or three engagements.
Yet I don't know why I am so bad. True, I am short-sighted, never see the flag at the hole, play in the wrong direction, and talk a good deal on topics of academic interest during the round. The Golfer's mind should be a blank, and generally is "blank enough," like Sir Tor's shield. My mind is, perhaps, too active—that may be what is the matter with me. It is the same thing at whist—but of this hereafter. My Caddie, or arm-bearer, has his own views about the causes of my incompetence.
"Ye're no standing richt. Ye haud yer hands wrang. Ye tak' yer ee off the ba'. Ye're ower quick up. Ye're ower slow doun. Ye dinna swing. Ye fa' back. Ye haud ower ticht wi' yer richt hand. Ye dinna let your arms gang easy. Ye whiles tap, and whiles slice, and whiles heel, or ye hit her aff the tae. Ye're hooking her. Ye're no thinking o' what ye're doing. Ye'll never be a Gowfer. Lord! ony man can lairn Greek, but Gowf needs a heid."
Here are fifteen ways of going wrong, and there is only one way of going right! Fifteen things to think of, every time you take a driver in hand. And, remember, that is not nearly all. These fifteen fatal errors apply to long driving. You may (or at least I may, and do) make plenty of other blunders with the other weapons. Say the ball lies in sand—"a bunker," technically. If you hit it whack on the top, it disappears in a foot-mark. If you "tak' plenty o' sand," why, you get plenty of sand in your mouth, your eyes, down the back of your neck, and the ball is no forwarder. If you strike her quite clean, she goes like a bullet against the face of the bunker, soars in the air, falls on your head, and you lose the hole! Oh, Golf is full of bitterness!
Suppose we play a round. The ball is neatly "tee'd" on a patch of sand. I approach, I shuffle with my feet for a secure footing, I waggle my club in an airy manner. Then I take it up and whack it down. A variety of things may occur. I may smite the top of the hall, when it runs on for twenty yards and lies in a rut on the road. I may hit her on the heel of the club, when she spins, with much "cut" on, into the sea. I may hit her with the toe of the club, when she soars to square leg, and perhaps breaks a window. I used to try running in at the ball, as if it were a half-volley at Cricket, but that way lies madness. However, suppose that, in a lucid interval (as will happen), I hit her clean. She soars away, and falls within forty yards of a meandering burn. The hole, the haven where one would be, is beyond the burn.
I seize a cleek or an iron, it turns in my hand, cuts up the turf, and the ball rolls half a dozen feet. My opponent has crossed the burn. I try again; a fearful misdirected shot; the ball soars over the burn and lands in a road behind the hole. There is no hitting out of this road, or, if one does hit a desperate blow, the ball lands in an eccentric sand-hole, called the Scholar's Bunker. We start for the next hole. Même jeu! Now we are in the gorse, now among the Station Master's potatoes, now in the railway, where all hope may be abandoned, now in bunkers many, now missing the ball altogether, when you feel as if your arms had flown off. As for "putting" the short strokes on the green, near the hole, if I hit sharp, the ball runs over the hole yards and yards beyond, or if I hit mild, it stops with an air of plaintive resignation, after dribbling for a foot or two. And the worst of it is that, sometimes, you will play as well as another for half-a-dozen holes. Then one thinks one has The Secret! But it falls from us, vanishes, we are topping and slicing, and heeling, and missing again as sorrily as ever.
The beauty of Golf is that there are so many ways of going wrong, and so many things to think of. A person of very moderately active mind has his ideas diverted by the landscape, the sea, the blossom on the gorse, the larks singing overhead, not to mention the whole system of the universe. He forgets to keep his eye on the ball, in devoting his energy to holding tight with his left, and being slow up. Or he remembers to keep his eye on the ball, and forgets the other essentials. Then an awful moment comes when he loses his temper. Thereby all is lost, honour (not to mention "the honour,") and everything. People in front, old people, are so provoking. They potter tardily along, pass ten minutes in considering a putt, shout and swear if you hit into them, and are not pleased if you sit down and smoke while you wait. The only entity that I don't lose my temper with is my partner. The worse he plays, the better am I pleased to have a brother in adversity. The subjective Golfer, however, is certainly a bore. He is "put off" by every simple circumstance, by his opponent wearing an unbecoming cap and the like. Afterwards, he will hold forth for hours on all his sorrows and all the sins of others. The Duffer is more modest and less apologetic. He is kept always playing (as I said) by the diabolical circumstance that he has lucid intervals, though rarely, when he plays like other people for three or four holes. I once, myself did the long hole in—but never mind. Nobody would believe me. The most amiable of Duffers was he who, after ten strokes in a bunker, cut his ball into three parts. "I am bringing it out," he said, "in penny numbers."
The born Duffer, I speak feelingly, is incurable. No amount of odds will put him on the level even of Scotch Professors. For the learned have divided Golf into several categories. There is Professional Golf, the best Amateur Golf, Enthusiasts' Golf, Golf, Beginners' Golf, Ladies' Golf, Infant Golf, Parlour Golf, the Golf of Scotch Professors. But the true Duffer's Golf is far, far below that. A Duffer like me is too bad for hanging. He should be condemned to play for life at Chorley Wood, or to bush-whack at Bungay.
FREE AND EASY THEATRES.—We have no sympathy whatever with the idea of a Théâtre Libre or with a Free-and-Easy Theatre, but we shall be very glad when all Theatres are made Easy, Easy, that is, as to sitting accommodation, and Easy of egress and ingress. But if the space is to be enlarged, will not the prices have to be enlarged too? 'Tis a problem in the discussion of which The Players, which is a new journal, solely devoted to things Dramatic and Theatrical, would find congenial employment.