When we had walked back half a mile or so from where the curmudgeon of a conductor put us off, we discovered the club-house. It is a very handsome building, impressively combining the characteristics of a munition-magnate's bungalow and a summer hotel. Obviously it had been built long before Prohibition became a serious menace.
We looked all about for our friend. He was nowhere in sight. Several gentlemen in soiled negligee roamed aimlessly about the grounds, dragging what looked at a distance like short lengths of drain-pipe. We discovered afterwards that they were golf-bags and these gentlemen were doing their own caddying—the caddies, we presume, being all engaged as bell-hops in the club-house.
Finally, a very hot and dusty and particularly disreputable gentleman, dragging a reluctant bag by the nape of the neck, came towards us. We recognized our friend. He looked tired and unhappy, and his eye had the dull stare of a somnambulist. We have since learned it was merely a mild form of golf-face.
"Come on over to the tee," he said.
We brightened up at once—our throat really was rather dry. But that wasn't the sort of tea he meant. Instead, he took us over to a little square terrace. Gouging a handful of damp sand out of a box, he made a tiny mound and set the ball on top of it. Somehow or other it looked very small and pale and pitiful—especially as it was already pretty badly scarred up. Then he wiped his hands on his trousers—in view of their condition perhaps it would be more accurate to call them pants—and drew out of his bag a long stick with a wooden head about the size of a small cocoanut. It was certainly an awesome weapon.
Stepping up to that miserable ball, he carefully assumed one of the most awkward positions we have ever seen a human being adopt. His feet were about a yard apart and his toes were pointed with elaborate care. Then he laid the cheek of that murderous club alongside the ball, waggled it a few times, gazed long and earnestly at a point in the landscape a mile or so away, and finally brought his eye back again and fixed it on the ball with a hypnotical glare. We thought we could see the ball tremble. Our own heart was palpitating frightfully. We had no idea of the strain of watching a man play golf.
Slowly that ponderous club arose. Higher and higher it went. But never for a fraction of an instant did our friend cease to glower at that unfortunate globule. Then, just as the strain was about to become unendurable, he swung. The mighty knob on the end of that stick shrieked through the air. It made a complete circle and a half and nearly threw our friend off his feet. We have since learned to recognize this as the "follow-through."
So interested were we in our friend's extraordinary movements—we had never seen him act like this before—that it was almost a full minute before it occurred to us to look for the ball. It was still there. Missed? Could it be that he had really—but no!
"I always make a trial swing," he said with a smile decidedly wan and unconvincing. "Helps a fellow to get the force into it, you know." We didn't know, and we had strong suspicions, in spite of our entire ignorance of golf.
Once more he went through the performance, waggles and all. Once more the big club swung up, and once more it came down. This time it hit the ball—hit it with a vengeance. Tearing a nasty gash in the top of that miserable pellet, the club sent it bounding in agony along the ground for about forty yards.