A.J. Balfour.
Crawford.
Dispenser of refreshing drinks and counsel.
We had great fun on the short North Berwick course, in those days, where nothing really paid you but accuracy in the pitch, developed to a nicety by Johnny Laidlay, who was always there. And besides him were Walter de Zoete, poor John Penn and many good golfers besides. I think it was with me as partner that Arthur Balfour first played that foursome against De Zoete, and Penn, which afterwards, with Johnny Laidlay taking my place, was played times without number. "Mike" Mitchell was one of the regular frequenters, in the Eton holidays, and playing with him as partner he and I once did three successive holes in two each on that old short course.
CHAPTER XVI
THE SECOND AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP
In 1887 we were back, for the amateur championship, on that Hoylake links which was the arena of the preliminary trial trip that Macfie won in 1885. I see that Arthur Molesworth was in that tournament of 1887, and survived until the fourth round, where he was beaten by J.G. Tait, eldest brother of poor Freddy. Another name of note is that of a small boy, appearing in such big company for the first time, Harold Hilton. He was beaten in the third round by Mr. John Ball, "old John Ball," as we called him for many years, although when I first went to Hoylake he was only John Ball the second, his father and Johnny's grandfather being still alive. One of the most remarkable points in the championship of the year was the game that Johnny's father put up all through it. It never was a showy affair at all, that game of his, but it was wonderful how effective it was on the Hoylake course which he knew as well as the inside of his own pocket. He beat Hilton, as noted, then he knocked out J.G. Gibson, the Black-heathen, who had been going strongly and had defeated Henry Lamb the round before; and in the fifth round, which was the semi-final, I came up against him. I had only survived the previous round by the skin of my teeth, and remember all about it well. It was against Mr. Gregor Macgregor, a sound player, and a Scot, as his name suggests. I was getting on fairly comfortably with him, with a hole or two in hand, when he played a stroke in which I was morally sure that he hit the ball twice. I did not know whether to claim the point or not, and, not being possessed of the ideally equable temperament, was upset by the incident and played the last holes very badly, halving the round and being rather lucky to win the nineteenth hole. I forget whether, in point of fact, I did claim that foul, which I knew that Mr. Macgregor was quite unconscious of making, but what I do know is that I received from him afterwards one of the very nicest letters ever written, saying how sorry he was that anything of the kind should have happened, and that I should have been upset at all. So the conclusion of that nineteenth hole left me with John Ball, the elder, to play in the semi-final; and meanwhile that other John Ball, whom we distinguished as Johnny, was knocking Jack Tait out in the other semi-final. They were playing ahead of us, and as we went to the seventeenth (now the sixteenth) hole old John Ball was one up on me. And I had not played at all badly; only he had played in the most gallant way and had really hardly made a mistake. He was one up sheerly on the merits.