“All ready!” said his host, cheerfully.
“Just a moment,” said Mr. Wellaway. He was taking his papers from his coat-pockets and putting them in the hip-pocket of his trousers. A man cannot be too careful.
IV
MR. WELLAWAY’S host used a Scotch-plaid golf-bag, without initials painted on it, and when the two men issued from the club-house the bag was leaning against the wall immediately under the outside bulletin-board. One list on the board was headed “Applications for Membership,” but there were no names entered later than a month and a half old, and all these had the word “Elected” written after them. When Mr. Wellaway caught sight of the other list his face brightened.
“My handicap is eighteen,” he said, looking through the list of members with the handicaps set opposite the names.
“Two better than mine,” said his host. “I play at twenty.”
“Twenty?” said Mr. Wellaway, running his finger up and down the handicap list.
“But I haven’t been given a handicap here yet,” said his host. “They don’t give you a handicap here until you are a member.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Wellaway, and turned away. He had no further interest in the handicap-list.
The course was clear for the entire first hole. Mr. Wellaway got away with a clean drive, but sliced his second into the rough, while his host sliced his first into a sand-pit, got out with a high niblick shot, and lay on the putting-green in three. Mr. Wellaway wasted a stroke chopping out of the rough, and put his ball on the green with a clean iron shot in four, close enough to putt out in one, making the hole a five. His host took two to hole out, doing another five, but winning the hole on his handicap, which gave him one stroke on the first hole. It was good golf, par golf, and Mr. Wellaway was elated. To do a hole in par on a strange course, after getting into the rough, was better golf than he knew how to play, and the loss of the hole after such playing made him only the more eager to play his best. He forgot Mary’s jealousy and his annoyance at not knowing the name of his host, and played golf as he had never played it before. The professional’s clubs seemed to work magic in his hands. At the ninth hole he was still one down, but his host did the first hole on the second round in eight, to Mr. Wellaway’s seven, and it was seesaw around the course the second time, with all even when eighteen holes had been played.