Fifty Years of Golf Part 2

and was living abroad, so he only came down occasionally. There was a small local contingent of very zealous golfers, men who never missed their two rounds every week-day--we had no Sunday golf.

Thus we bring down the story to a point at which golf is really launched in England with a full sail, and myself having a taste of just so much success as to make me firmly believe henceforth, for some years, that success in golf was the one thing worth living and working for. I might still have a hankering after the occasional fox and badger, to say nothing of the rabbits, partridges and wild fowl; but these began to seem only the relaxations, and golf the true business of a well-spent life.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: He died during the War.]

CHAPTER V

THE WEAPONS OF GOLF IN THE SEVENTIES

You could not travel about with golf clubs in the seventies without exciting the wonder and almost the suspicions of all who saw such strange things. I am not quite sure that you would not excite almost equal wonder if you were to travel now with a set of clubs such as we used then. In the seventies, and in my own teens, I was laboriously, and with rigid economy, working my way to the possession of a variety of wooden clubs such as it would puzzle the modern golfer even to name.

There was the driver or play-club--that is understood. Then there were the long spoon, the mid-spoon and the short spoon: they may be understood also. But then, besides, between the driver and the long spoon, making such a nice gradation that it was really hardly to be distinguished, came what was called the "gra.s.s" or "gra.s.sed" club. I hardly know which was the right name. The idea, I think, was that, being almost of the driver's length and suppleness, but with the face not quite so vertical, it could be better used when the ball was lying on the gra.s.s--not teed. At the same time we used to talk of a club being "gra.s.sed" with the technical meaning of having its face set back a little. So I hardly know what the right nomenclature was, nor does it matter. This "gra.s.sed" or "gra.s.s" club was rather a refinement: it was only the golfer who was very determined to have no gap in his armour that would carry it; but the three spoons were almost _de rigueur_. No self-respecting golfer could well be without them. It may surprise the student of history not to find the "baffy" put down in the list; but as a matter of fact the baffy had pa.s.sed out of common use by this date. A few men of the old school, as Sir Robert Hay, continued to play it to admiration, but the genius of young Tommy Morris had already initiated a whole school of disciples into the mode of approaching with iron clubs, so that the baffy was out of vogue. The professionals that came from the north to visit us at Westward Ho! as well as our resident Johnnie Allan himself, were all followers and exponents of the relatively new mode of jabbing the ball up to the hole with the iron clubs and with a great divot of turf sent hurtling into the air after the ball. Thus the green was approached; and up to just about the date of which I am writing the subsequent operations of holing out were always performed with a wooden putter. There was also a weapon known as the driving putter, which was just like the ordinary putter save that its shaft was longer and more supple. It became, in fact, very nearly a short shafted driver, and its special purpose was to drive a low ball against the wind when there was no bunker to carry. Of iron clubs there were the cleek, the iron and the niblick. It was even then possible to go into the niceties of driving-iron and lofting-iron, but many a golfer thought his set perfect and complete with a single iron, for all purposes.

Now you will see, from this list, both what superfluities of wooden clubs it held, according to modern notions, and also what essential instruments, to our present thinking, were lacking. There was no such club as a mashie. Young Tommy, ever an innovating genius, is credited with being the first to use the niblick for lofting approaches, but the niblick of those days was peculiarly ill adapted to such delicate uses.

It was very small and very cup-shaped in its head. The head was only a very little larger in diameter than the ball. Therefore it required extreme accuracy to hit the ball rightly with it and avoid that disastrous error of "piping"--hitting the ball with the hose--of which many of us have been many a time guilty with clubs whose relative breadth and length of blade make such error far less pardonable. The recognized club for the approach stroke was the iron, the ordinary "maid-of-all-work" iron, unless you were one of those extra particular people who had two grades of the iron. And another conspicuous absentee from the list is the bra.s.sey. Such a club was not known, but I can remember that about this day I became the proud owner of a club just then coming into vogue under the name of the wooden niblick. Its head, made of wood, was very short, like that of the iron niblick, for the purpose of fitting into ruts. It was the original of the "bra.s.sey," for the idea of a rut suggested the idea of a road. There were more roads then than now, in proportion to the rest of the golfing hazards in the world--as at Blackheath, Wimbledon, and Musselburgh. And the purpose of the bra.s.s on the club's sole was to protect it from the stones, etc., of the road when used for play off such unfriendly surface. The bra.s.sey was just the wooden niblick with a sole of bra.s.s, and as all wooden niblicks began to be brazen upon the sole their very name pa.s.sed into oblivion and that of bra.s.sey superseded it.

I have written here of all putters being of wood; and so they were. But somewhere, at some time, some inspired craftsman of the mystery of Tubal Cain must have bethought him, even before this, of making a putter of iron, for the following reason. In the old Iron Hut at Westward Ho! on days when the rain kept us in and the time hung heavy, we used to solace its tedium by bringing out our clubs from their lockers and trying to do a deal with each other, whether by exchange or by sale and purchase, and during one of these barterings an utterly unknown weapon was brought out with the rest of his bundle, by a young Scot of the name of Lamont, brother of that Major Lamont as he now is, who until quite lately lived at Westward Ho! and to whom I owe a great deal of the golf that I picked up as a boy. He was the Lamont of Ardlamont, the estate in the Mull of Cantyre, which came into fame in consequence of a certain notorious criminal prosecution in the Scottish courts. The strange weapon which this younger brother of his unearthed, on that day of rain, was, though we hardly knew then how to name it, an iron putter. It was inches deep in rust. Nevertheless, as I handled it, I liked the feel of it. I gave for it, in exchange, an old and much mended spoon, and it was that iron putter which I have used for forty years since, which has been copied countless times, of which the replicas are in many hands and many lands, and one copy of which, adorned and glorified, used to lie, and may so lie still, for all I know, on the table on the occasion of the dinners of the Match Dining Club. At that first date of its resurrection (Mr.

Lamont could give no account of how it came to his possession) it was greeted with unhallowed laughter, and so too whenever I brought it out to putt with it. But I used to be rather a good putter as a boy, and that club is still the best balanced (though its old shaft has been broken and the new one is less good) that ever came out of a club-maker's shop, and I soon changed those sounds of derision at its appearance into a more respectful form of greeting. That was the first iron putter ever seen in the West, and I believe it to have been the virtual parent of every iron putter that ever has been seen since.

It was the wooden age of golf clubs, as of battleships, and I hope the wood of our ships was better seasoned than that of our clubs. Shafts, as a rule, were of hickory then, as now, though we made strange experiments of ash, of lance-wood, of green-heart and divers species. For the hard b.a.l.l.s of those days you had to have a certain softness in the heads of the wooden clubs which is not wanted with the resilient rubber-cored b.a.l.l.s. Beech was the wood for the heads, though apple and other kinds were tried; but beech, and of a soft quality at that, drove the most kindly. And if a man were at all a hard hitter, and had a fit of heeling or toeing, the head of the club was sure very soon to show a crack across it, which would spread wider at each successive mis.h.i.t. And even if you kept hitting the ball "dead centre" every time, a hole in the club-face would gradually be worn out by that repeated hitting, especially if the ground were wet and the gra.s.s long. Then we used to go to Johnnie Allan to have him put in a leather face, that is to say a patch of leather where the face was worn; and this would drive just as well, except it got sodden with wet, as the original wood. So, with so many of the clubs made of wood, and not always like the b.u.t.ter used by the Mad Hatter for watch greasing, the best wood, and the b.a.l.l.s so hard and stony of impact, it is no wonder that golf was rather an expensive game for a boy whose shillings were not many. Though the ball only cost a shilling, while the modern ball costs half a crown, the club-smashing abilities of the shilling's worth made it a much dearer ball, to say nothing of the longer life of the half-crowner. And just about this date they introduced a novelty in the b.a.l.l.s also--the "hammering," as we used to call it, that is to say the nicking or marking of the ball's surface, being done by indentations engraved in the metal moulds in which the b.a.l.l.s were cast. This obviated all that labour of "hammering" the nicks in by hand, which was the ancient fashion. Yet it was some while before these "machine-hammered" b.a.l.l.s, as we called them, found general favour with the golfing public, certain Conservatives a.s.serting that the "hammering" was essential to the right tempering of the stuff of the ball, while others, like that great little man Jamie Anderson, then at the top of his game and fame, confessed, with a perfect knowledge that the reason was only subjective, that "he could na' strike" a machine-hammered ball. He soon learned to strike it, however, as the further course of golfing story sufficiently testified.

CHAPTER VI

HOW MEN OF WESTWARD HO! WENT ADVENTURING IN THE NORTH

In the year 1875, I having then arrived at the advanced age of sixteen, and being admitted as a member of the Royal North Devon Golf Club, in the autumn committed the blazing indiscretion of winning the scratch medal which carried with it the Captaincy of the club. How glaring the indiscretion was may be gathered from the fact that this Captaincy, thus conferred, entailed the obligation of taking the chair at the general meetings. I do not know that I made a much bigger hash of it than any other boy forced into the same unnatural position would have done. It had not been contemplated, apparently, that a schoolboy was likely to beat all the reverend seniors, and one good effect was that the regulation was altered, and winning this medal did not much longer confer on a person who might be the least fitted for it the function of presiding at the meetings. But it had given to me a dignity which could not be changed by legislation. At the spring meeting of that very same year I had received no less a handicap than twelve strokes, so I must have been very much of that nuisance to the handicapper, the "improving player." I became a "scratch player," however, from the autumn of that year. In those days, before handicaps were fixed, golfing society was divided into two cla.s.ses--those who were scratch, and those who were not--and there was no idea of such a thing as a penalty or _plus_ handicap. Some of the so-called "scratch" players of the day were exceedingly scratchy ones, and only supported their dignity at a considerable expense: there was one in particular of whom it was said that it cost him three hundred a year to be a scratch player or, that is to say, to play all and sundry amateurs on level terms.

Beside this event of my winning this medal, which was no doubt an affair of more importance in my eyes than in those of anyone else, the autumn of 1875 was big with great issues, under the management of the enterprising "old Mole," who went up to Scotland with his three sons in search of adventure and with a great programme before them. Captain Molesworth had been playing a good deal with Mr. (later Sir) W.H.

Houldsworth, and gave the challenge that he would bring up his three sons and play Mr. Houldsworth and any three Scots amateurs that Mr.

Houldsworth should choose in single matches, the side that won the largest aggregate of holes to be the winner of the stakes. Now the Mole had the better of Mr. Houldsworth: that was really, though no doubt tacitly, acknowledged on both sides. Arthur Molesworth was likely to win his matches, no matter who was brought against him. But George, the second brother, though a brilliant player at times, was very uncertain, and Reggie, the eldest, and slightly lame, was the weakest vessel of the three. Say that the Captain and Arthur should gain some holes, it was the hope of Scotland that an equivalent number, at least, might be hammered out of the other two brothers. Unfortunately for Scotland it was the former part of the calculation which was realized more fully than the latter. The matches were played at St. Andrews and Prestwick. I think there is little doubt that at that time, as indeed for many years, Leslie Balfour (later Balfour-Melville) was the strongest amateur player in Scotland; and at St. Andrews Mr. Houldsworth's team was himself, Leslie Balfour, Dr. Argyll Robertson and J. Ogilvie Fairlie. Arthur Molesworth won two holes only (they were thirty-six hole matches) off Leslie Balfour, and Argyll Robertson took seven holes from George. But then Reggie rather upset calculations by beating Ogilvie Fairlie by two holes. Lastly came in the father of the flock with nine holes to the good, and that settled it. At Prestwick, Mr. Syme, a minister of the Kirk, and Andy Stuart took the places of Dr. Robertson and Leslie Balfour, and here Ogilvie Fairlie got back his own with interest from Reggie Molesworth, winning by seven holes, and Mr. Syme beat George by two, but Arthur knocked six holes to the family credit out of Andy Stuart and the Captain came in again with his big balance--ten up on Mr.

Houldsworth.

So they carried through that adventure with credit and renown, and, I suppose, some profit, and then later in the same year, Arthur Molesworth, with his father as backer and henchman, went up to St.

Andrews again to do battle on his own account.

This adventure came about owing to an idea very prevalent, though I hardly know whether it had existence in fact, that Young Tommy had a standing challenge open to back himself at odds of a third against any amateur. Captain Molesworth took it up on behalf of Arthur, and to St.

Andrews they went again, in the dreary month of November, to bring the matter to an issue. Altogether they played for six whole days, two rounds a day, and all through the piece Young Tommy had the better of it. I cannot believe that in this match Arthur Molesworth did himself full justice. It is true that during the latter days snow lay on the ground, so that the greens had to be swept and the game really was not golf at all, but then it is no less true that Tommy held the advantage just as consistently in the days when real golf was to be played as on those when the snow spoilt it. An onlooker did indeed tell me that Young Tommy showed his skill wonderfully in lofting off the snowy ground to the small circles that had been swept round the holes. "Molesworth could loft there just as well," he said, "but Tommy, using his niblick, made the ball stay there as if it had a string tied to it, whereas Molesworth's ball was always running off on to the snow on the other side." But, be that how it may, and crediting Young Tommy Morris with a full measure of that genius for the game which all who have seen him reported, I am not going to believe that the golfer ever was born, be his name Morris or that of any Triumvir, who could give a third and a sound beating (for it was no less than this that Young Tommy accomplished) to Arthur Molesworth when he was playing his true game--and this, with all due allowance made for Tommy's knowledge of his home green. There was a peculiar pathos attaching to that match and Young Tommy's triumph, for it was his last. His wife had lately died, and interest in life, even in golf, had gone out for him. It was in November that he was thus beating Arthur Molesworth, and on Christmas Day of the same year he followed his young and loved wife. His memorial, recording a few of his greater victories--he was four times in succession open champion--is in the St. Andrews' graveyard. Indisputable was his genius for the game; impossible to calculate is the comparison between his skill and power and that of Harry Vardon, let us say, to-day. Doubtless he was a far better putter, for while he was so good at all points of the game he was at his strongest of all on the green. I do not think we shall get a better account than that which Leslie Balfour gave when an Englishman asked him how he thought Young Tommy would compare with the heroes of to-day. Leslie thought a moment, and then he said, "Well, I can't imagine anyone playing better than Tommy"--and at that I think we had best leave it.

After that year Arthur Molesworth was not so much at Westward Ho! He went to London, to an architect's office, and at once begun to win medals at Wimbledon, where Henry Lamb and Dr. Purves were perhaps the best of the older men. The next year some of them made a match for me to play him at Westward Ho! and this was a great affair for me, being the first "big match," as we called these set encounters, for a money stake, that I ever had a hand in. We started in a bad fright of each other, if I remember right, and neither played his game, but I had the fortune to get really going first and won rather easily. About the same time Johnny Allan, finding his work growing, had down his two young brothers, Jamie and Mat, to join him in the club-making and the playing. They brought in a new element of interest, for even as a mere lad Jamie Allan, in particular, was a wonderful golfer. He had been there but a short while when Captain Molesworth, always the enterprising spirit, issued a challenge on his behalf to play any man in the world on four greens, two rounds on each. Poor Young Tommy being no more, Bob Kirk was the great man, for the time being, at St. Andrews, and he was chosen as the Scottish champion. The first part of the match was played at Westward Ho! We hardly knew how young Jamie Allan would carry himself, in this his first match of importance, but he delighted us by showing that faculty of rising to a great occasion without which no golfer, however fine a player, can win fame. That first round of his remains in my mind still as an exhibition of just the most faultless golf I ever saw. They said hard things about poor Bob Kirk afterwards when he came up to Scotland, and especially to the last stage, at St. Andrews, a beaten man. I believe that in that last phase his play was contemptible. But the Scottish critics, who were not there to see, made a vast mistake when they said that he did not play anything like his game all through the match. What he did at Hoylake and at Prestwick, whither, necessarily, they journeyed and golfed, I do not know, but I do know that at Westward Ho! he played quite a sound game. But a sound game was not enough to give him a chance of standing up to the sample of golf that Jamie Allan produced against him. Hole after hole slipped away from him, just by a stroke each, as they will when the one man is playing with more than human accuracy. That was the story of that match--it was won by Jamie's extraordinary golf at the first encounter. But that is not the way in which the Scotsmen have heard the story told.

CHAPTER VII

GOLF AT OXFORD

When I went up to Oxford in the Christmas term of 1878 I found that Royal and ancient city sunk in an ignorance that is scarcely credible in regard to all connected with the royal and ancient game. I do not mean to say that golf was altogether unknown. There was already a University Golf Club in being, which I quickly joined, and we used to play on the cricket fields in Cowley Marsh. That, of course, implied that there was no golf in the summer term when the marsh was occupied by the cricket.

But the golfers were very few. Mr. "Pat" Henderson (now Wright-Henderson) the Wadham don, was one of the most moving spirits.

Then there was the Princ.i.p.al of Hertford, there was Jim Lockhart, a fellow of Hertford and a lecturer at my own college of Corpus, and Lodge, then history lecturer at Brasenose. These and a very few others of the dons used to play, and of undergraduates the ones I best remember were Cathcart of Christ Church, son of old Mr. "Bob" Cathcart the Fifeshire laird and for very many a year Convener of the Green Committee of the Royal and Ancient Club, Baynes of Oriel, now a bishop, Pearson of Balliol and several more. But their doings were a black mystery to most of the undergraduates, and either the game was not heard of by them or it was believed that the golfers practised some unholy rite in the not very cheerful surroundings of Cowley Marsh.

I had known Jim Lockhart before I went up, for he was one of the Westward Ho! lot and a cousin besides of Jack Lamont, to whom I owed very much of my golfing education; so he saw to my election to the Club as soon as I came to Oxford. Considering the nature of the ground on Cowley Marsh, how singularly well it was suited by its dreary name, and that the only hazards were the cricket pavilions and the occasional hedges, it is wonderful how much real interest might be got out of the golf there. Whatever else a cricket pavilion may be as a golfing hazard, it is an uncompromising one. You have to be beyond or to the side of it.

If hard up against it, even the strongest driver cannot send the ball through it; and it gives occasion for pulling and slicing round it which are good fun and good practice. Jim Lockhart was a friend of my tutor at Corpus whom we irreverently called "Billy Little," and it was on the occasion of his taking his fellow don up to Cowley to be introduced to golf that Little delivered himself of the immortal definition of the game as "putting little b.a.l.l.s into little holes with instruments very ill-adapted to the purpose." In later years I have heard this brilliant definition attributed to Jowett. It is thus that sayers of good things attract to themselves, magnet-like, and increase their credit, with many good things said by others.

At that time of day all who were golfers reared on the seaside links had a very high and mighty contempt for all in the shape of inland golf. In spite of the antiquity of Blackheath, the art and labour by which an inland course can be brought up, when the weather is favourable, to a condition almost rivalling that of the seaside links were quite unknown.

One of the earliest founded of the inland type--of course long ages after such an ancient inst.i.tution as Blackheath--was the course at Crookham, near Newbury; and thereby hangs a tale of tragedy and comedy commingled, a.s.sociated with my golfing days at Oxford. There was a certain trophy, open to all amateur golfers, given by the Club, and called the Crookham Cup. The conditions were that it was to remain as a challenge prize to be played for annually unless and until any man should win it thrice: in which case it should become his property. Poor Herbert Burn, who met his death not so very long after in a steeplechase, had won this cup twice, and I was invited to go to Crookham to see if I could put a check on his victory and keep the cup for the Club. We were hospitably put up for the meeting by Mr. Stephens, the banker, at his place near Reading. I had the luck to win the cup, and again, going down the next year, won it again. If I should win it a third time it became my very own, and, strong in the zeal of pot-hunting, I went down the third year too. I remember that on this occasion, for some reason, Mr. Stephens did not act host for the meeting, but Captain Ashton and I stayed with Major Charley Welman at a little house he had near the course; and what fixed the visit very firmly in my mind is that Ashton and I returned to the house, after a round on the first day of our arrival, with "dubbed," not blacked, golfing boots. It appeared that there was no "dubbing" in the house, for the next morning our boots were sent up to us black-leaded--with the stuff that grates, I think, are done with. The effect was splendid. We went forth quite argentine as to our understandings, like knights in armour clad, and, thus glistening, I contrived to win that cup for the third and final time, which made it my own. Now we come to the tragi-comedy of the story. On the way back to Oxford there was the inevitable change and wait at Didcot Junction, and there whom should I see, with golf clubs under arm, but George Gossett? He was then living at Abingdon. I greeted him and asked with interest where he was going.

"Well," said he, "there's a cup to be played for at Crookham, near Newbury, to-morrow. I've won it twice and I'm going down to see if I can win it again, because if I do I keep it."

"Oh dear," I had to reply, "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you must have made a mistake in the day. It's to-day it was played for, and what's more I'd won it twice before, too, and I won it again to-day, so that it's mine now, I'm afraid," and I opened its case, which I had in my hand, and showed it to him. I was obliged to tell him; for it would have been worse still if he'd gone on all the way to Crookham to find he was a day behind the fair. As it was, it was comedy for me, but rather cruel tragedy for him. No man ever took a knock more pleasantly: he was the first to start a laugh against himself and to give me congratulations, and express grat.i.tude for being saved the journey to Crookham. So he took train to Abingdon and I to Oxford, and shortly after, whether as the effect or no of this blow, he went out to New Zealand, where he won the championship of that country more than once.

What used to astonish all my friends in College almost more than anything else, when I used vainly to try to describe to them what manner of game golf is, was the fact that I did not "dress" for it. "Undress"

is rather what they meant. You see, they were accustomed to cricket, where you flannelled yourself, and to football, rowing and athletic sports wherein the mode of dress was to have as little of it as might decently be, and that one should go forth in the very clothes in which you might attend a lecture and play a game in them seemed hardly thinkable. They used to take up the clubs and regard them curiously.

They began to think there must be something more than they had supposed in the game when I showed them the Crookham Cup. They wanted to see how it was done. The quad of a small College like Corpus makes rather a small golf course. The only way was to tee the ball well up and flog it out over the College buildings into Christchurch Meadows, or wherever else it might choose to fall. Occasionally we used to try to astonish Merton by a bombardment. But it meant a lavish expenditure of golf b.a.l.l.s, for there was no prospect of getting any of them back again. The best possible tee to use, if you are driving, or ironing, off a hard surface like a quad, is a clothes brush. It hoists the ball well off the ground, so that you can do anything you like with it--that is, always supposing you have had the blessing of a sound golfing education. But there was not one of my friends of Corpus who had enjoyed this blessing.

On the other hand, it appeared to them a very simple matter to hit a ball thus standing still: some of them were quite skilful at the job of hitting b.a.l.l.s in quick movement at various games. So of course I must give them the club and they must have a hit at the ball too. They were humiliated to find how possible it was to miss it altogether, but infinitely terrified at the result when they did happen to hit. The quadrangle was inadequate as a golf links. Nevertheless it was of more than ample size as a racquet court. Yet that golf ball, stoutly, if unscientifically, propelled, would fly round those old grey walls, rebounding from one to other with a terrific force and pace. Finally its career would generally terminate by a crash through somebody's window or a resounding knock on the President's door, after which the golf meeting broke up, like a dispersing covey, and disappeared till any suspicions aroused by the outrage were calmed down.

About the middle of my time at Oxford we had a mighty accession to our golfing strength in "Andy" Stuart. He came up to Christ Church, and took part with me, not very gloriously as I am able to remember, in the first Inter-University match against Cambridge.

CHAPTER VIII

THE START OF THE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE GOLF MATCHES

The inst.i.tution of the Inter-University Golf Match was due to the genius (which we will define in this instance as the zeal and enterprise) of one of the very finest putters that ever put a ball into a hole, Mr.

W.T. Linskill. Linskill was the inspiration of the golf at Cambridge, and he did a great deal more than any of us at Oxford to get the Oxford and Cambridge Golf Match going. We only followed. And it "went," in a very small fashion at first. I remember it all now--the start in an early dawn from Oxford, a long journey to London, then a long drive from Paddington to Waterloo, then train to Putney, then drive up to the London Scottish Iron Hut--some luncheon there, and then a round of golf.

In that single round the golfing fortunes of Oxford v. Cambridge for the year were decided. It was not altogether satisfactory; especially as we had to do the journey all over again, the reverse way, and had to get back to Oxford the same night. It may well seem a question to-day whether it was worth going through so much for the sake of so little--as Mr. Weller said in respect of marrying a widow--but still it was, at all events, a start.

It cannot be said that so far as some of us of Oxford were concerned it was a very good start. I think that "on paper," as is said, we had by far the better of it. I forget all the team, but I know we started with Andy Stuart and myself and I also think I know that neither of us had any idea we were going to be beaten by anything that Cambridge would bring against us. The others were all good fighting men, and should at least hold their own. In the event, as for myself, I was not only beaten--by Mr. Paterson, whom I regret that I have never met since--but beaten rather disgracefully, for I was several holes up--I think three--with only five to play and lost every one of the remaining five.

Then as to Andy Stuart: he had to play Linskill, and I suppose that at St. Andrews, where both were practically at home, Andy would have given him a half--certainly a third would not have brought them together--for though Linskill was just about the best putter I ever saw, the rest of his game was not very formidable. They arrived at the last hole just before the Iron Hut--I can see the scene now in my mind--all even, and Linskill had the better of the hole. He was dead and Andy had quite a doubtful putt to halve the match, and I can remember a doubt arising in my own mind as to whether I wished him to hole it or not. Of course I did not want to see another match lost to Oxford, as well as my own; but still, if the news should have to go to St. Andrews that Andy had been beaten by Linskill, level, it would be such a fine joke that it was almost worth the lost match. However he holed that putt with the courage of a lion--he was always a good putter at the last putt of a match--and so the match was halved. The fortunes of the rest of the team were vastly better. On the whole, as I see by the record, Oxford won by twenty-four holes on balance, on that first encounter, so our evil deeds did no great harm. This was in the autumn of 1878.

Next year the match was played again at Wimbledon. Indeed, it is not very evident where else it should have been played, unless perhaps at Blackheath. There was in existence that course at Crookham, near Newbury, which would have been convenient to us, from Oxford; but it would not at all so well have suited the Cambridge men. Besides there was little play on it except at the meeting times, and the course was not permanently kept in any order. It is worth mentioning that for one of the holes, a short hole, the play was over an avenue of tall trees.

In the years since, while inland courses have been multiplying, so too have the tree hazards; but they are generally brought in as flanking hazards, at the sides. Here we had them in a line right across the course, and you had to be over. It was not a "blind" hole, for you could just get a glimpse of the flag between the stems. Some of our course constructors might make a note of this hole; and might do worse than copy it. At the same time, I should say that one of its kind, in a round, would be enough. I see that this Crookham is given rank in Nisbet's _Golf Year Book_ as the "third oldest course" in England, but I do not know whether we can allow it such a venerable claim as that, remembering Blackheath, Westward Ho! Wimbledon and Hoylake, to say nothing of the old Manchester Golf Club which carries its history back to 1818. But I am not sure but what the history of this last has its breaks in continuity, its silent places.

The Oxford and Cambridge match continued to be played at Wimbledon right up to 1896. I have some recollection of the second match of the series, in 1879. We started it, I think, from the Wimbledon end, not the Putney end of the common. For my own part I did better than in the first year, beating Mr. Welch, who afterwards was a mathematical don at Cambridge and used to keep the record and the medals at Macrihanish in his pocket for many years. I much regret that I never encountered him again, any more than my opponent of the first year of the match. On the whole transaction in 1879, Cambridge beat us by ten holes, and yet we had some good men. There was Archie Paterson, who was President of the Boat Club afterwards, A.O. Mackenzie, who was also in the 'Varsity boat, and, I think, Sir Ludovic Grant, now a professor at Edinburgh University and Captain in 1912 of the Royal and Ancient Club. Ernest Lehmann, who writes so well and pleasantly about the game, was a member of the Cambridge team that year.

I have no recollection whatever of the 1880 match, nor even whether I took part. I may have been ill or in the Schools or doing something equally foolish, but I see that Oxford won that year by eight holes. In 1881, for no reason that I can remember, no match was played--and that was the end of me as an Oxford undergraduate golfer. I had pa.s.sed the last bunker and taken my degree before the next year's match.