POSTSCRIPT TO PREFACE
(Written in 1919)
Reading the above "foreword," and also the pages which follow it, after the immense chasm cleft in our lives and habits by the War, I find little to modify as a result of the delay in publication. What does strike me with something very like a thrill of terror is the appalling egotism of the whole. I can truly say that I feel guiltily aware and ashamed of it. I cannot, however, say that I see my way clear to amend it. If one is rash enough to engage in the gentle pastime of personal reminiscence at all, it is difficult to play it without using the capital "I" for almost every tee shot. I will ask pardon for my presumption in plucking a passage from one of the world's great classics, to adorn so slight a theme as this, and will conclude in the words of Michael, Lord of Montaigne:—"Thus, gentle Reader, myselfe am the groundworke of my booke: it is then no reason thou shouldst employe thy time about so frivolous and vaine a subject."[1]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Montaigne's Essays, Florio's translation.
CONTENTS
| chap. | page | |
| I | The Beginning of All Things | [11] |
| II | How Golf in England Grew | [17] |
| III | Of Young Tommy Morris and other Great Men | [23] |
| IV | The Spread of Golfing in England | [29] |
| V | The Weapons of Golf in the Seventies | [35] |
| VI | How Men of Westward Ho! went Adventuring in the North | [41] |
| VII | Golf at Oxford | [47] |
| VIII | The Start of the Oxford and Cambridge Golf Matches | [53] |
| IX | Golfing Pilgrimages | [59] |
| X | Westward Ho! Hoylake and St. Andrews in the Early Eighties | [65] |
| XI | First Days at St. Andrews | [71] |
| XII | The Beginnings of the Amateur Championship | [77] |
| XIII | On Golf Books and Golf Balls | [84] |
| XIV | The First Amateur Championship | [90] |
| XV | Mr. Arthur Balfour and his Influence in Golf | [96] |
| XVI | The Second Amateur Championship | [102] |
| XVII | The First Golf in America | [108] |
| XVIII | How I Lost the Championship and Played the Most Wonderful Shot in the World | [114] |
| XIX | Johnny Ball and Johnny Laidlay | [120] |
| XX | A Chapter of Odds and Ends | [126] |
| XXI | A More Liberal Policy at St. Andrews | [132] |
| XXII | The First Amateur Win of the Open Championship | [138] |
| XXIII | Golf on the Continent and in the Channel Islands | [144] |
| XXIV | About Harold Hilton, Freddy Tait and Others | [150] |
| XXV | The Coming of the Three Great Men | [156] |
| XXVI | The Revolt of the Amazons | [162] |
| XXVII | The Making of Inland Courses | [168] |
| XXVIII | Various Championships and the Wandering Societies | [174] |
| XXIX | The Comic Coming of the Haskell Ball | [180] |
| XXX | An Historic Match and an Historic Type | [186] |
| XXXI | The International Match | [192] |
| XXXII | How Mr. Justice Buckley kept his Eye on the Haskell Ball | [198] |
| XXXIII | The Amateur Championship of 1903 | [204] |
| XXXIV | Travis's Year | [210] |
| XXXV | How Golf has Gripped America | [216] |
| XXXVI | The End of the Round | [223] |