Ambrose's ball was four feet from the cup. He walked up to it, took one look at the line, one at the hole, and made the shot without an instant's hesitation—a clean, firm tap that gave the ball no chance to waver, but sent it squarely into the middle of the cup. MacQuarrie himself could not have shown more confidence. MacNeath's caddie replaced the flag in the hole, dropped both hands to his hips, and moved them back and forth in a level, sweeping gesture. His sign language answered the question uppermost in every mind. Still all square! A patter of applause gave thanks for the information and Ambrose looked up at us with a quizzical grin. I caught his eye, and the rascal winked at me.
He was first on the seventeenth tee, and this time there was no sign of nervous tension. After a single powerful practise swing he stepped forward to his ball, pressed the sole of his club lightly behind it, and got off a tremendous tee shot. I noticed that his lips moved; and he did not raise his head until the ball was well down the course.
"He's countin' three before he looks up!" whispered a voice in my ear; and there was MacQuarrie, the butt of a dead cigar between his teeth, and his eyes alive with all the emotions a Scot may feel but can never express in words.
"Then he's really been playing good golf?" I asked.
"Ay. Grand golf! They both have. It's a dingdong match, an' just a question which one will crack fir-rst."
MacNeath's drive held out no hope that he was about to crack under the strain of an even battle. He executed the tee shot with the machinelike precision of the veteran golfer—stance, swing and follow-through standardised by years of experience.
Our seventeenth hole is a long one, par 5, and the approach to the putting green is guarded by an embankment, paralleled on the far side by a wide and treacherous sand trap, put there to encourage clean mashie pitches. The average player cannot reach the bunker on his second, much less carry the sand trap on the other side of it; but the long drivers sometimes string two tremendous wooden-club shots together and reach the edge of the green. More frequently they get into trouble and pay the penalty for attempting too much.
The two balls were close together; but Ambrose's shot was the longer one by a matter of feet, and it was up to MacNeath to play first. Would he gamble and go for the green, or would he play short and make sure of a five? The veteran estimated the distance, looked carefully at his lie, and then pulled an iron from his bag. Instantly I knew what was passing in his mind—sensed his golfing strategy: MacNeath intended to place his second shot short of the bunker, in the hope that Ambrose would be tempted into risking the long, dangerous wooden-club shot across to the green.
"Aha!" whispered MacQuarrie. "The old fox! He'll not take a chance himself, but he wants the lad to take one. '"Will ye walk into my parlour!" says the spider to the fly.' Ay; that's just it—will he, now?"
Ambrose gave us no time for suspense. MacNeath's ball had hardly stopped rolling before his decision was made—and a sound one at that! He whipped his mid-iron from the bag.