We had gone right around the course, and had finally got back to the club-house and the first tee. We had duly admired the scenery of the grounds, which were really far too beautiful to be delivered over to a lot of feeble-minded golfers. Our friend threw down his bag of clubs with a grunt of relief.
"Better take a shot or two," he said, "while I slip into the office to have a word with the secretary."
That was the moment of doom. That was the time when, breathing a brief prayer to such of the saints as we still have a pull with, we should have sprinted down the road to the car-line. We should have begged our friend to take the things away with him. We should have broken every stick in the bag and burned the pieces. We should have thrown ourself down in a fit. We should have done anything rather than run the risk we actually took. Alas, we knew not what we did.
Heedless of impending doom, we laid our new hat on the ground. We playfully extracted the big club with the swollen head and the brass bottom. We clawed out of the box a handful of wet sand and made with it a neat little pyramid, on the top of which we carefully placed the ball. Then we stepped back and contemplated it. It was a very pretty thing—a nice little pyramid and a nice little white ball. It looked shamefully easy.
The club felt rather queer, and it wobbled in our grasp. If we had recognized the omen, there might still have been hope for us. But we were cheerfully, idiotically irresponsible. No time was lost on the proper "stance." We stood any old way. Our only desire was to knock that ball off that silly little pile of sand; and we simply made a swipe at it—crack!
Did we hit that ball?—O Lord, did we hit it! The birds around Barborough must still tremble when they think of the way that blessed ball went whizzing among the clouds. Don't ask us how we did it. We don't know. We just swung the club as hard as we could at the ball, heard a nice, crisp crack, turned around two or three times, almost putting our legs out of joint in the process, and then recovered in time to see that locoed spheroid sailing along like a racing aeroplane, a mile high and going due north. Just missing a crow, it vol-planed to earth and lay shimmering like a diamond in the sun. How far away? We won't tell you—you wouldn't believe us if we did.
"Some drive!" said a voice at our back. It was the club professional! Our cup of pride filled up with a rush and slopped all over our soul. Hastily seizing an iron, we ran after the ball. We didn't hit it hard. We didn't want to break the windows in the club-house. But a couple of brisk taps dropped it dead on the tee again. We weren't trying to play the hole, of course, but were merely batting the ball around. If we had tried to play it, we would probably have done it in about three.
Naturally, we repeated the performance several times. We were in a fever of delighted excitement. We couldn't miss the ball if we tried. We had it tamed and domesticated. It would eat right out of our hand, sit up and beg, and lie dead. And all the time we didn't suspect for a moment that this exhilaration was merely the first symptom of that dreadful and incurable disease—gawfitis!
We have since learned that this is not at all unusual with beginners. Every golfer we have discussed the matter with tells us that he had a somewhat similar experience. In fact, one fellow assured us that the first time he ever had a club in his hand he played the first four holes in par—he was holing putts forty feet long as though there was no place else for the ball to go. But we didn't know this. We didn't suspect that the demon of golf lures his victims on. We simply took it for granted that we were a natural master of the game, and that all we had to do was to devote an occasional afternoon to it and we would soon have our room filled with silver cups big enough to bath the dog in.
Our friend came out of the club-house and stood for a few minutes with the professional watching our work. But the presence of a "gallery" did not disturb us. We were beyond all that. We had Colonel Bogey down and were thumping the life out of him. When we had finally and reluctantly finished—it was time to go in and get something to eat—our friend told us that the professional had said: "That man has the makings of a real golfer in him."