"After you, sir," said the boy, short and sharp. He knew that he was getting "the work," and he resented it.
It always suits Waddles to have the honour. He likes to shoot first because his tee shot usually makes an opponent sore. He popped one of his dinky little drives into the air, but instead of dropping into the bunker it floated beyond it to the middle of the course and ran like a scared rabbit.
"No distance!" grumbled Waddles, slapping his club on the tee. "No distance. I'm all out of luck to-day."
Well, that was no more than rubbing it in by word of mouth. It produced the desired effect, because Cyril nearly broke himself in two in an attempt to beat that choppy half-arm swing. He swung much too hard, didn't follow through at all, and the ball sliced into a trap far up to the right.
"Do you know what you did then?" asked Waddles. "You tried to kill it, you didn't follow through, and——"
"And I sliced. I know perfectly, thanks." And Cyril started down the course, with Waddles tagging at his hip and telling him what was the matter with his swing. Coming from a man who never took a full-arm wallop at a ball in his life, criticism must have seemed superfluous. I couldn't see Cyril's face, but his ears reddened.
Waddles slapped a brassy to the edge of the putting green, but Cyril, trying for distance out of a heel print, took too much sand and barely got back on the course again. His third reached the green, whereupon Waddles promptly laid his ball dead for a four. Cyril missed a twenty-footer and lost the first hole.
Again Waddles spatted out a drive that narrowly escaped a cross bunker, but it struck on a hard spot and ran fully one hundred yards before it stopped. Waddles knows every hard spot on the course and governs himself accordingly.
Cyril followed through this time—followed through so vigorously that the ball developed a hook. A cross wind helped it along into the rough grass, leaving him a nasty second shot over shrubbery and trees. It hadn't stopped rolling before Waddles was talking again.
"You know what you did then? Too much right hand; and your club head——"