We boast constantly of the traditions of our game of golf, and well may we do so, for they are glorious, and they bring with them a great responsibility for their perpetuation. Some day in the distant future a far-off generation may be moved to build a Temple of Golf. There is the nucleus of the idea already within the house of the Royal and Ancient Club. In stone and on canvas it will tell the story of the great deeds of the heroes of the past as it is told in the national palaces and halls of England and of France.
In the path that will lead from the gates to the doors of the temple there will be a giant monument of the fairest hero of them all. It will show in white marble a lithe-limbed player at the finish of a St. Andrews drive with his features alight with the full joy of the game at the richest time of his youthful manhood—a fine, a happy, a lovable face. On one side of the pedestal there will be depicted the trophies of the links. On the other side there will be a terrier, of whom it shall be indicated that his name was “Nails.” On the back of the pedestal there will be a group of golfers, representing in them the golf world far and wide, and they will be showing by their manner and their actions that they are acclaiming their hero, and that they esteem him for his golfing and manly worth and all his noble qualities. And on the front of the pedestal there will be cut a scene of war, with the Riet River flowing by, and in the shade of the trees on the bank there will lie a prostrate figure with a smile still left on the happy face. It will tell that a great soldier-golfer has done his duty, and that from the African veldt his soul has gone forward to the consummation of its greatness. No words will need to be carved on this monument of glory. It will bear the simple inscription, “F. G. Tait. Died 1900,” and the men who gaze upon it in the far-off time will bare and bow their heads, and will walk silently into the temple.
There will be things to wonder at within. There will be the Hall of Kings. Giant canvases will show Charleses and Jameses playing their game of golf on the links of Leith, and there will be Mary Queen of Scots with clubs in her hand on St. Andrews course. Further on there will be King William IV. and his consort Adelaide, giving their countenance to the game on historic occasions; and then there will surely be another picture with the simple title “1863,” upon which will be recognised the Prince of Wales, who became King Edward VII., being then in office as captain of the premier club. Paintings of more modern date will show Kaiser Wilhelm giving some encouragement to the golfers of the Fatherland, and the King of Spain first wooing a British princess on the course of Biarritz, and then paying his royal respects, but still humble and sincere, to the game itself at San Sebastian. Kings and queens, princes and princesses, golfers all, and earnest ones, players of a right royal and ancient game.
There will be a Hall of Founders, in which will be immortalised the great men who in the early times laid the foundations of the game, and of its most historic institutions. The largest frame in the room will hold a painting bearing the title “Magna Charta, 1553,” and the picture will depict a scene in which the Provost and Magistrates of St. Andrews are granting leave to Archbishop Hamilton to place rabbits on the links at St. Andrews. The Archbishop is writing his signature to the parchment which, with the authority of the chapter, ratifies and approves the rights of the community to the links, more especially for the purpose of “playing at golff, futball, schuteing at all gamis, with all uther maner of pastyme.” There will be a fine picture of a man of noble countenance, a wig upon his head and robes around him, as he is seated in his chair with his hand upon a table where rests a mace. This is Duncan Forbes of Culloden, Lord President of the Court of Session, and first captain of the Gentlemen Golfers—now going by the name of the Honourable Company—in 1744. A great man was Duncan Forbes, and he played for the Silver Club. A poet of his own time sung of him:
“Yea, here great Forbes, patron of the just,
The dread of villains, and the good man’s trust,
When spent with toils in serving humankind,
His body recreates, and unbends his mind.”
There is evidence that he played for the club in 1745, and it is believed that this must have been his last round, for the rising of the clans just at that time compelled him to set out for the north, where he exerted the utmost of his influence to prevent them from joining the cause of the Young Pretender. There will be a picture of Francis, fifth Earl of Wemyss, ancestor of great players, himself playing the game at Gosford, and there will surely be recovered for that Temple the canvas that we know, showing one of the most famous and the most worthy of the fathers of golf, and another captain of the Company, William St. Clair of Roslin, of whom it was said that his skill at golf and archery were such that the common people thought that he must be in league with Satan. “A man considerably above six feet, with dark-grey locks, a form upright, but gracefully so, thin-flanked and broad-shouldered, built it would seem for the business of war or the chase, a noble eye, of chastened pride and undoubted authority, and features handsome and striking in their general effect. As schoolboys we crowded to see him perform feats of strength and skill in the old Scottish games of golf and archery.” That is what was written of William St. Clair of Roslin by Sir Walter Scott, and Sir George Chalmers painted the picture of him addressing a golf ball, the picture that they must have in the Temple. And there will be many others, all telling of the excellence and the dignity and even the skill of those great golfers of the first age of the game.
Then there will be a Hall of Science, and there will be a fresco on the wall showing the great Professor Tait with compasses and instruments calculating strange curves, many golf balls strewn about the ground.
And there will be one main Gallery of Masters, and there will be perpetuated the names and forms and feats of the men who went farthest in their skill at the noble game. There will be Allan Robertson and old Tom Morris in a great foursome, and there will be a young man with a wild look of fear on his face, stepping into a boat at North Berwick to be sailed across the water to St. Andrews, where a loved one lay dying. There will be Jamie Anderson and Bob Ferguson, triple Champions, and there will be John Ball, Open and Amateur Champion at once and six times Amateur Champion. He will be painted mounted on a charger going to the war. There will be many masters besides.
In the centre there will be three statues grouped together. One of them will be sculptured on an Athenian model. It will show a fine player at the finish of his drive, and there will be on the base the simple inscription “Style.” That will be Harry Vardon. Another will show a man of stern countenance with thick wrists tightened upon a mashie, and that will be named “Accuracy.” The man is Taylor. And the third of these figures will show a man of solemn look, like that upon some ancient busts. That will be “Perseverance,” and surely the people will know that it is James Braid that is meant. The famous Triumvirate! Those future golfers will walk their way through these halls and through the gallery of the Temple of Golf that will be raised, and a great awe of the game will come upon them. It is as if generations, ages of great golfers will look hard but not unkindly at these passers-by, and will seem to cry aloud, “We made it! We made it! Preserve it! Preserve it!” Not the game alone, but its glory—its tradition.