Once again one is tempted to the fancy that there is a good future for a reasonably good ball to be sold at five shillings. It would not be a popular ball, because there is a large proportion of players to whom this one would at last be too expensive; but all who could afford to play with it by making some little sacrifice, such as by cycling to the links instead of going by train, by carrying their own clubs two or three times a week instead of employing a caddie, or, simpler still, by reducing the weekly or monthly allowance for domestic purposes to the lady of the household because of the hard times, would certainly do so. And as the rich golfers would play with it also, it would have a good sale, and if it cost no more to make than the florin balls it would be very profitable to the manufacturers. All the ordinary golfers would play well with it. They would feel that they had the very best, that at last they could do themselves justice. They would have confidence. Queer world this of golf!
VIII
“The course is black with parsons,” was said one fine Monday at the outset of his game by a man who had been kept waiting for a most unconscionable time while a minor canon and a plain vicar had been worrying away in bunkers on opposite sides of the first short hole. In this observation there was some evident exaggeration, but it is being borne in upon us every day how more and more popular is this diversion becoming with the cloth, as indeed it should and might be expected to be, since golf makes its greatest appeal to those of the most thoughtful and philosophical temperaments, such as clergymen should possess. Excellent is this association, and it is a poor and threadbare humour that is constantly fancying the cleric in such exasperation with his game that ordinary modes of expression are insufficient for him. Having heard of the worthy divine who was horribly bunkered and in a heel-mark at the Redan at North Berwick, to whom the most excellent of caddies, “big” Crawford observed, “Noo, gin an aith wad relieve ye, dinna mind me”; and of the other one who was reported as repeating the Athanasian Creed at the bottom of “Hell”—the bunker of that name on the St. Andrews course—one would wish to go no farther with such stories. The celebrated Bishop Potter of New York was playing golf on the course at Saranac, and he made a mighty attempted drive that topped the ball, and another one that tore up the turf, and yet a third that almost missed the ball, and each time he uttered a soothing “Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh!” But the caddie was himself a golfer of a very stern and human school, and in his great annoyance he exclaimed, “Man alive! sh-sh-sh-sh won’t send that ball where you want it to go to!” The Rev. Silvester Horne, who is one of the keenest of the clerical golfers, and has been known to captain a side of parsons occasionally, once drew up a system of conduct to be observed by brother clergymen when playing the game, and a very excellent system it was, with severe adjurations against the doing of many things such as are common with the ordinary golfer, and certain small licences permitted to make the path a trifle less difficult than it might otherwise be.
There was a worthy rector who was given to golf, and was somewhat sensitive upon the subject of the large scores that were made by his foozling. He had a pretty way; he did not count his score himself, though who knows what subconscious ideas he may or may not have formed as to its dimensions? But be that as it may, he would say to his caddie as at last he flopped the ball on to the green at the short hole, “Now, my boy, how many have I played this time?” The caddie, being official counter to the rector, would say at once, “Six, sir!” Then the reverend gentleman would stop suddenly in his march forwards, and would turn upon this miserable little boy with a severe and awful frown, and would say, or almost shriek, “Six! six! six! Whatever are you saying, my boy? Have you been watching the game? Do you really mean six?” The caddie was utterly cowed. “N—n—no, sir,” he would stammer, “I’m very sorry; I m—m—mean five!” “Ha! That is better,” his reverence smiled. “Yes, no doubt it is five; five, certainly. Let it be five. But”—and this very seriously—“my boy, it is of the greatest importance to count the strokes correctly at this game, and let this be a warning to you. Take great care with the counting.” And yet it was six.
But, tell us, why is it that the clergyman, with all his magnificent opportunities, is so seldom anything like a good player, so often has a handicap deep down in the teens? You may see him on the links six days a week, and yet he goes on from year to year no nearer to the degree of scratch, still driving his short and very wayward ball with that nervous, fearful stance of his, that slow, hesitating swing. I can almost tell the clergyman on the tee, however he may be disguised, he is such a doubter. Yet, with his opportunities, the Church ought to be by way of finding a candidate for the championship. Can it be that the philosophical temperament in excess kills keenness and makes a man content in his own little kingdom of foozling and shortness—
“Contented if he might enjoy
The things that others understand.”
There can be no other explanation. But it is to be set down perhaps to the clergyman’s credit that he is so often unorthodox in his methods. On the links he is the broadest-minded man alive, and he is tolerant of all things. Why, if ever in London one wants to be reminded of just the way in which the Barry swing is done, one might seek out none other than the Bishop of London, for if ever a man performs that fall-back, bent-kneed swipe it is Dr. Ingram, as photographs will prove. If this is to be, then an archbishop might play no stymies, and how then shall a curate become a champion?
IX
We have not that form and ceremony in the management of our golf clubs that our ancestors had, nor is there so much idea and sentiment employed. Golf in these days seems often to be regarded too much as a work-a-day affair, so that at few places besides St. Andrews is there any real preservation of the old feeling. Else, the true spirit dominating, why should there not still be chaplains to all the old-established golf clubs? How much the chaplain counted for in the great golfing days of old may be gathered from the minute of the Honourable Company which they made when settling an appointment to the office. The club then had its home at Leith, the date being 1764, and it was entered in the book—“The Captain and Council, taking into their serious consideration the deplorable situation of the Company in wanting a godly and pious Chaplain, they did intreat the Reverend Doctor John Dun, Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl of Galloway, to accept the office of being Chaplain to the Golfers; which desire the said Doctor, out of his great regard to the Glory of God and the good of the Souls of the said Company, was Religiously pleased to comply with. Therefore the Company and Council Did and Do hereby nominate, present, and appoint the said Rev. Doctor John Dun to be their Chaplain accordingly. The said Reverend Doctor did accept of the Chaplaincy, and in token thereof said Grace after dinner.” Whether the general company of golfers is at present in as “deplorable situation” as the Honourable Company was at this time, is a nice point which need not be inquired into.