But the most remarkable thing about his preparation for driving is his grip, which is unique. He does not employ the overlapper. He likes the right hand to be under the shaft; but this is the main point—that the first fingers are almost entirely free of the shaft, with the tips resting on the leather, curled inside the thumbs. Both thumbs are pressed firmly against the sides of the first joints of the second fingers, forming a locking device which prevents any possible turning of the shaft. He is an utter believer in this detaching of the first fingers from the club, and declares he could not play in any other way, his theory being that it permits better freedom of the wrists and enables him to get greater power into the stroke without deflecting the club-head from its proper sweep in the swing to the ball. With his driving iron he is a supreme master, and with it alone he has played a round of a difficult course in America, Montclair, in 77. When I watched him win his third championship I decided that in whatever else he might excel he had a finer temperament for match play than almost any other player I had seen. Silent, imperturbable, not a trace of feeling in his countenance, he seemed to be mercilessly forcing his way to victory all the time. Only once since he became established as a champion kind of golfer have his nerves ever failed him, and that was on an occasion of supreme importance, and yet one when the strain upon nerves was not, or should not have been, unduly severe. I saw him lose his match to Mr. Palmer at Sandwich in 1914, and there was something nearly as mysterious about that occurrence as there was about the victory of Mr. Ouimet at Brookline—far more than there was about the defeat of the latter at Sandwich by Mr. Tubbs, for then Mr. Ouimet simply played a poor but not a timid game. But in the Palmer-Travers match the American for the first time for years was afraid. Half way round, all the watchers were saying so, saying his nerves were catching at his shots. Knowing the man, having seen so much of him in America, I could not believe it then; but before the round was ended the truth was clear. His nerves had failed, and it was responsibility that had caused them to do so. He could not possibly have played so poorly otherwise. It was not the real Travers who played that day.
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The middle-aged business-man golfer is an important individual in the general golfing scheme of things in the United States. He is that elsewhere, but he stands out most in America. Well enough does he know how the game is good for him. The early American golfers (those of from ten to twenty years ago) adopted the game enthusiastically, because it answered exactly to certain requirements they had in mind in regard to creating and preserving physical fitness. The American business man leads a quick life and a hard one and, in recent years particularly, his pursuit of this physical fitness has become something of a craze with him, for the reason that through it he seeks to bring the human machine to the highest point of working efficiency and, at the same time, enable the human man to derive more enjoyment and satisfaction from the pleasures of life. This is not a vague, subconscious idea in the American; it is a clear, definite scheme, adopted by thousands and thousands of those who have devoted themselves to the game. Hence their generous support and excellent enthusiasm. The country swarms with men, two-thirds way through an ordinary lifetime, who have only been playing the game for five or six summers and no winters—for in very few places in the northern parts of the United States is any play possible between the late fall and the spring—and who can play a good six-handicap game, British reckoning, for in America they have a system of handicapping according to which scratch is the lowest, and their six handicap is about equivalent to our two or three. The majority of our middle-aged men seem to resign themselves to the idea that in no circumstances can they ever become really good players, and they pretend they are satisfied to make their way round the links merely for the sake of the health and exercise that they obtain from so doing. Perhaps in a sense they are wise, but still it is certain that more than half of the joys and pleasures of golf are missed by those who never feel any improvement being made, who never rise above a steady mediocrity, and who never feel the thrills of playing above their ordinary form.
The business-man golfer is seen at his best at the country clubs near to the great cities. There is nothing elsewhere which for its healthy, honest pleasures and the satisfaction it yields is comparable to the American country club and the life that is pursued there. It gives to the busy man the ideal relaxation he could not obtain in any other way. I spent several days at one of these country clubs, a railroad journey of an hour or so from Chicago, and the experience was illuminating. The American business-man golfer works in the city for part of the day in the summer and spends the rest of his time at the country club, where the predominating features of the life are golf, rest, and sociability. These country clubs are provided with a large number of bedrooms, and are surrounded with cottages, nicely equipped, which generally belong to them and are let for periods to the members. The vitality of the man of whom we are thinking is enormous. He is out of his bed at the club at about six o'clock in the morning, and goes through a process of shower baths, with which the establishment is splendidly appointed. By seven o'clock he is dressed in the thinnest flannels, and sits down to breakfast with thirty or forty other members at 7.15. At this time he is jacketless, and all in white. A large glass of iced water is laid before him to begin with, and then the half of a grape fruit or a cantaloup, with a piece of ice stuck in the middle, is presented as the first course. These things, as we get them in America, are very delicious. At once an argument begins round the table about the qualities of different balls and clubs, and I am closely questioned about the way we do things in England. Next, there is oatmeal porridge laid before us, with tea or coffee, and the men begin to match themselves for the afternoon round. Mr. A says he will play Mr. B for a certain stake, but the latter finds he is already engaged to play Mr. C for a higher one. Eventually, Messrs. A, B, and C agree to play a three-ball match for still more dollars. Such extensive wagering is not the rule, but it is frequent. After the porridge, bacon and eggs, calf's liver and bacon, or something of that kind, is served with a baked potato, a little more iced water may be called for, and there is marmalade with toast and sweet cakes, and, then at a quarter to eight, all get aboard the club motor-omnibuses and are whizzed away to the railroad station, light jackets very likely carried on their arms.
Before nine o'clock they are hard at work in the big city. Some early birds were even there by eight o'clock. They work very hard, no dawdling of any kind, and by one or two o'clock they have finished for the day and are off back to the golf club as fast as they can go. Frequently they are back in time to lunch there. Soup, some meat done in American fashion, an American salad, blueberry pie, iced water, and a glass of cold tea with a lump of ice in it and a piece of lemon, finishing up with a large supply of ice cream, and then a big cigar, are what the American golfer goes out to play upon. The caddie whom he takes out to carry his clubs costs him tenpence an hour—always paid by the hour, during which he is in the golfer's service, and not by the round. By this time the player is in thinner and lighter clothes than ever, and he has been cooled down by more shower baths. His round is played very much as it might be done in England. He is very keen on his game. But he takes a little more time on the consideration of his stroke when once he has reached his ball than we do, and he is most deeply painstaking. Towards the end of the match he may develop an idea for playing the enemy for a number of dollars a hole for the remainder of the round, and when it is all over, everybody is quite satisfied with everything. More shower baths, a lounge, and a cigar, and then a long American dinner, with vegetables very fancily done, corn cobs, sweet salads, plenty of iced water, ice creams, "horses' necks"—ginger ale with lemon and ice—and so forth. Long arguments on the verandah upon the respective merits of British and American golf, and at ten o'clock this busy golfer of the United States gets himself off to bed. He never sits up late. He sleeps, of course, with his windows wide open, with a wire netting arrangement to keep out the flies and mosquitoes, and as he falls away to his slumber he feels that golf is the best of games, that America is the chief of countries, and that this is the most agreeable of all possible worlds. Here I have been writing in general terms, but I should add that each and all of my details are taken from the life, from personal experience at one of the best of these country clubs.
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There are some interesting characters in American golf as everywhere, and the very wealthy golfer in the States is often to be considered. Mr. John D. Rockefeller, the "Oil King," is, as all of us know, an extremely rich man. He is also a business man, if ever there was one. And he is extremely fond of golf. His case may have as little to do with the matters just discussed as you may think, but I shall present it as I found it out. A few years gone Mr. Rockefeller, who has a capacity for giving advice of a very shrewd and worldly character, announced his intention of retiring from the presidency of the Oil Trust and of devoting a fair part of the remainder of his life to playing golf. Since then he has discovered that it is easier to make a million dollars than to hole a five-yard putt, for the Rockefeller millions now make themselves and the putts are as unholeable as ever. His methods of playing, and his moralisings on the game, are not like those of any other man. Readers must judge for themselves as to whether they have anything to learn from them; I think they may have something. Take this case for an instance. One day when playing the game he made a very good shot on to the green, and, ever ready to draw a moral from the game of golf which would apply to the greater game of life, turned to his companions and said: "Waste of energy I regard as one of the wanton extravagances of this age. Rational conservation of energy and temperance in all things are what the American nation must learn to appreciate." Mr. Rockefeller is now seventy-five years of age, and he was nearly sixty before he first began to play. He became an enthusiast at once, and, as with most other men, his golf aggravated him, goaded him, tantalised him, and made him ambitious and determined. He began to find things out and to invent new ideas as rapidly as any of us have ever done. He said the game changed his life. Made him happy. Brought back his youth to him. His friends when they played with him declared that he was not a cantankerous old man, but a really charming fellow. Golf was doing him good. It was making a new man of him, as it does of all others. But he did not get on at it as quickly as he thought he ought to do. He found that there were rather more things to remember in a very short space of time when making his shot than he had ever had to remember before, and that for the first time in his life he was liable to forgetfulness on the most important occasions. Then he acted on the business man's principle of getting others to do things for him. He got others to do the remembering. For a time whenever he went to play a match he had three caddies attending on him; even now he generally has two. He employed them for other purposes than carrying clubs. When he was about to make a stroke No. 1 Caddie stepped up to him and said respectfully but firmly: "Slow back, Mr. Rockefeller, slow back!" He might otherwise have forgotten to take his club slowly back from the ball at the start of the swing. This adviser having moved away, Caddie No. 2 went forward and said: "Keep your eye on the ball, Mr. Rockefeller, keep your eye on the ball!" Then, in turn, Caddie No. 3 advanced and spoke warningly: "Do not press, Mr. Rockefeller, do not press!" So, reminded of the common faults, the Oil King made his stroke and did not commit them, but was guilty of several others, and realised a little sadly when the ball did not travel as it should that he needed a hundred caddies for warning, and not three. Still, there is some good sense in this method, and the man who made it a strict rule to say to himself always, just before a stroke, what Mr. Rockefeller hired the boys to say to him would make fewer bad shots than he does.
Mr. Rockefeller has a very nice course of his own on undulating land at Forest Hill, on the edge of Cleveland, Ohio, and there he has parties to play with him constantly. He is fond of cycling, and instead of walking after his ball when he has struck it, he takes his cycle on to the course with him, jumps on to it, and wheels himself along to the place from which the next shot must be made. By this means he not only saves much time, and gets more golf in an hour than we do, but considers that he derives more physical benefit from the combination than he would from golf and walking. More than this, he knows exactly how far he has hit the ball every time, for he counts the number of turns of the pedals he has to make in cycling from point to point, and calculates accordingly. He does not lose his temper when he makes a bad shot or a series of such, as some have suggested, but he is quite ecstatic when he makes a good one; and, despite his seventy-five years, has been known to leap high into the air when the result of his efforts has been specially good. He is a most thoughtful player, and takes the utmost care always to note effects and to try to attach causes to them. "Now gentlemen," he has said, "that was really a very good stroke that I made then. You observe that I am learning to make better use of my left arm. It was that Scotchman who told me of the trick, but somehow I have never been able to use it advantageously until now." He has a large number of clubs in his bag, including all the most usual implements, while two or three have been made according to his own special ideas. One of his caddies also carries a large sunshade to hold over him while playing when the weather is uncomfortably warm, and it is the duty of this boy also to give a hand at pushing the bicycle when the line to the hole is uphill and Mr. Rockefeller finds the pedalling too much for him unaided. So you see that there is nothing that is conventional about Mr. John D. Rockefeller and his golf. You would hardly expect it.
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Now for the public or municipal golf in America; it is one of the strong features of the game in the United States that impressed me most. The average player in Britain, where the municipal golf movement is making slow headway, may be surprised to know that there is such a thing across the Atlantic; let him understand, then, that public golf in America is far ahead of public golf in Britain. Some Americans of great golfing experience, not confined to their own country, have not hesitated to say that they will "make America the greatest golfing country in the world." If we disregard such a challenge, there are yet circumstances and forces in operation in America of which serious notice must be taken, and the first of them is this great movement that is progressing in favour of municipal golf. The whole vast country is taking to it. The leaders of the people are appreciating the necessity of it and preaching it. They say that the times are desperately strenuous, that an antidote is needed, an ideal relaxation for body and nerves, a perfect recreation and diversion, and that, having tried everything and thought of other possibilities, they have come firmly and decisively to the conclusion that golf is the only recreation that meets the requirements of the times. Therefore they say that it must be provided for everybody, for the "common people," and given to them absolutely free with every inducement put forward for them to play it. The result is that public golf in America is already advanced to such a state as is almost incredible to those who have not seen it there. I have seen it. In New York, Boston, Chicago, Kansas, Louisville, Milwaukee, Elgin, Toledo, and a host of the smaller places, there are good public courses. In the large cities there are often two or three. Chicago has now three and a fourth was being made when I was there last, a fine long course in the Marquette Park. Two of the existing courses are in the Jackson Park, one being eighteen holes and the other nine. The third is in Garfield Park. The full-sized course in Jackson Park is quite an excellent thing. The turf and the putting greens are well tended, the views are pleasant, and the play is absolutely free to all who obtain the necessary permit from the Parks Commissioners. The regular player may have the use of locker and dressing-rooms in the pavilion, and good meals may be obtained at a reasonable cost. How shall we wonder then that the Americans take kindly to this game and are becoming overwhelmingly enthusiastic at it, or that more than a hundred thousand games are played on one single course at Jackson Park alone in the course of a year? Though for the best part of the winter there is snow on the ground and play is impossible 105,000 games were played on the long course at Jackson Park during 1912 up to the beginning of October, and the news just reaches me that on one day at the very beginning of this season of 1914 nearly 900 tickets were given out! On a fine morning in the summer there will often be a little crowd of players waiting at the first tee for their turn to start at the dawn of day, and as many as two hundred have been counted there at seven o'clock in the morning. Having finished their game on ordinary mornings these people go off to their work, and they "hustle" all the more for the shots that they have played and hope to play again before the falling of the night. It is the same in the Franklin Park at Boston, in Van Cortlandt Park in New York, and everywhere. In this matter these Americans have sense. If public golf in England is ever to be a good and useful thing we must do as the Americans do, and if we do not the people will be the poorer, and we shall be sorry. Corporations must provide free golf, and they must be satisfied with the good done to the people, and not take the narrow view that the balance-sheet must show a direct profit apart from the indirect one that is certain. They must also put their courses in central and convenient places where people will be attracted to them, and which will not take the greater part of the time available to reach them. The game must be played in central parks which will then become more useful than they have ever been so far, and for the first time will be a real joy to the people who pay for them. I may be an enthusiast in golf, but I have gone deeply into this matter and studied it in its every bearing, and I know that I am right.