Waddles versus Cyril; Jay Gilman versus the Major.
Cyril had won his matches quite handily and without being pressed, but the Major had caught a brace of seasoned campaigners, one of whom took him to the twentieth hole before he passed out on the end of a long rainbow putt.
Gilman had played his usual steady game—nothing brilliant about it, but extremely dependable; and, as for Waddles, he had staggered along on the ragged edge of defeat both morning and afternoon, annoying his opponents as much as possible and winning quite as much with his head as with his clubs.
The time has come to say a few brief but burning words about the way friend Waddles plays the royal and ancient game of golf when there is anything in sight for the victor. I trust that when he reads this he will have the decency to remember that he had already cut my handicap to the quick, as it were.
To begin with, Waddles has no more form than an apple woman or a Cubist nude. He is so constructed that he cannot take a full swing to save his immortal soul. Everything has to be wrist and forearm with Waddles, but somehow or other he manages to snap his foolish little tee shots straight down the middle of the course, popping them high over the bunkers and avoiding all the traps and pits. The special providence that cares for taxicab drivers, sailors and drunken men seems to take charge of Waddles' ball in flight, imparting to it a tremendous overspin that gives it distance. I never saw Waddles square away at a drive without pitying him for his short, choppy swing; but he usually beats me about ten yards on account of the run that he gets. I never watched him jab at a putt without feeling certain that the ball was hit too hard to stay in the hole; but stay it does. Waddles actually putts with an overspin, and his ball burrows like a mole, dropping into the cup as if made of lead.
His brassy shots are just pusillanimous—there is no other word which describes them accurately—but somehow they keep on bouncing toward the pin. His irons run half-way and creep the rest of the distance. He always gets better results than his shots deserve, and complains that he should have had more. This one little trick of his is enough to drive an opponent crazy. Every golfer knows the moral—no, immoral—effect of going up against some one who gets more out of every shot than he puts into it, and still is not satisfied. It is like sitting in a poker game with a man who draws four to a deuce, makes an ace full, wins the pot, and then wolfs because it wasn't four aces.
I never played with Waddles without feeling certain that I could show him up on the long game, and it was straining to do it that ruined me. Trying to pick the tail feathers out of that lame duck has ruined many a golfer, the secret being that the duck isn't as lame as he looks. Waddles makes 'em all press—a big factor in his match play; but there are others, and not nearly so legitimate.
Playing the game strictly on merit, observing all the little niceties of demeanour and the courtesies due an opponent, Waddles would be a desperately hard man to beat; but he does not stop at merit. When he is out to win he does not stop anywhere. He has made a lifelong study of the various ways in which an opponent may be annoyed and put off his game, and he is the acknowledged master of all of them.
For instance, if he plays Doc Jones, who is chatty and conversational and likes to talk between shots, Waddles never opens his mouth once, but plods along with a scowl on his face and his lower lip sticking out a foot. Before long the poor little Doc begins to wonder whether he has said anything to hurt Waddles' feelings—and that is the end of Jones. But if Waddles plays Chester Hodge, who believes that the secret of a winning game is concentration, he is a perfect windmill, talking to Chester every minute, telling him funny stories, asking him questions, and literally conversing him off his feet.
Bill Mulqueen is nervous and impatient and hates to wait on his second shots; so when Waddles plays him he drives short and takes five minutes to play the odd, while Bill fumes and frets and accumulates steam for the final explosion, which never fails to strew the last nine with his mangled remains. On the other hand, old Barrison is deliberation itself, and Waddles beats him by playing his own shots quickly and then crowding Barry—hurrying him up, nagging at him, riding him from shot to shot, trying to speed up an engine that can't be speeded without racking itself to pieces. Joe Bowhan hates to have any one moving about the tee when he is setting himself to drive. Waddles licks him by washing his ball fresh on every hole. Joe can't see him, but he can hear him scouring away behind him. "Hand-laundered out of the contest again" is what Joe tells us when he comes into the clubhouse.