The Happy Golfer Part 10

Now, here, he did a thing which to the best of my belief and after a searching of all the records had never been done before, and that was in an open championship compet.i.tion of the first order, decided by four rounds of stroke play and with the best players of the world arrayed against him, he as an amateur led the whole field for three consecutive rounds. Mr. Ouimet in America did not lead for three rounds, no amateur had led for three rounds in any open championship before, and it is not often that any professional has done so either. Mr. Gillies has enormous powers for concentration and effort, and, as one might say, he can strain himself at the game until he nearly drops. In his third round he had a wicked piece of bad luck which cost him two most valuable shots--not the sort of bad luck that one gets through finding a specially nasty place in a bunker, but the much worse variety which is the result of a grave error in course construction. After one of the finest drives one might wish to see, at a hole just after the turn he found his ball lying on a road which had to be treated as a hazard, and from here he was bunkered. He knew that Duncan was pressing him hard, and that he had not a stroke to spare. Still by an enormous effort he kept his lead, and at the end of the third round it looked as if it would still be a lead of two strokes, when alas! on the home green he lost a stroke in putting. Instead of having a lead of two over the terrible George for the last round he had now a lead of only one. There is not much difference between one and two--it may all be accounted for by the very smallest of putts--but in a case of this kind the moral effect is very great. You see, when you lead by two strokes you realise that you can afford to lose one of them and still be leading, but when you only have an advantage of one there is the cold truth that you cannot afford to lose anything at all or the lead will go--the lead that Mr. Gillies had held all the time. One may be sure that he felt this, for coming off that home green some one said to him quietly, "You still lead, Gillies," and he turned with a little melancholy and responded, "Yes, but one stroke is not much to lead Duncan by, is it?" The effect was visible at the first tee in the afternoon. He knew the responsibility. He took an infinity of pains, far too much. He addressed his ball until he was sick of looking at it any more, and then he topped it into the bunker in front of him. Good-bye, Open Championship of France! But there it was, a brilliant achievement for all that, and if he had won, as once he seemed likely to do, no man could have done justice to the golf history of that year with amateurs Ouimet and Gillies as Open Champions.

Surely Mr. Gillies is one of the most interesting studies in the game at the present time. Born in New Zealand, he became a boat-race Blue at Cambridge, and is the only one who has won a high position in first-cla.s.s golf. Now he is a surgeon in Upper Wimpole Street, already with a high reputation as a specialist in matters affecting throat, ears, and other organs of the head. He is evidently a man of immense will-power, with a most enviable capacity for concentration and for obliterating from his mind completely what is not essential to the business of the moment. He will work at his profession continuously for a week or a month and only just remember golf, and then he will suddenly appear in a great compet.i.tion, perhaps a championship, and be a golfer and nothing else whatever. That is as it should be, as it is always supposed to be in golf, but few men can exchange themselves to this extent. When he won the St. George's Cup at Sandwich he had not touched a club for ages, but somebody insisted on motoring him down there for the occasion. He had no idea of going to Chantilly, but was at Wimereux when an entry form was sent along to him there, and he said to Mrs.

Gillies, "Let us go and watch the professionals," but they watched him instead. He is always going to courses he has not seen, and when he has not been playing golf for a long time, and then doing wonders on them.

Tall and athletic in build, in demeanour he is solemn, and I have heard it said that his att.i.tude at times somewhat suggests that he is about to put his opponent on the operating table--which in a sense he often does.

He belongs to the hard thinking and slow playing school. Although he has a keen temperament, and is a man who at his best plays largely from inspiration, yet he is much of what we call a mechanical golfer, and is very measured and deliberative in his movements. He has studied and satisfied himself about what are the essential principles of this mysterious game, and he applies them to the best of his intense ability.

He keeps himself steadier on his feet than almost any other player I can recall. Those who have had the necessities of pivoting on toes drilled into them from their first day at golf should make close observation of the Gillies way and see how well that way pays. He swings his club backwards but a little way and very slowly, but finishes the swing at great length. As is often the case with players of his att.i.tude towards the game, his iron strokes are plain and they can be depended on.

But the most interesting feature of his system and his principles is the remarkable steadiness with which he holds his head during the making of his stroke. We understand very well that of all principles this is the most imperative, and that he who disobeys it is completely lost. When we have foozled we know well that the presumptive cause was a little movement of that most restless and anxious head. We know also that head movement disturbs the general balance, and induces body movement, and have not troubled to consider why. A reason seems vaguely obvious, but Mr. Gillies knows more about matters of the head than other people, and from his surgical knowledge he has come by one of the most interesting theories that have been propounded in connection with this game and believes in it absolutely, which is one reason why he has decided that, when driving, whatever happens his own head shall be absolutely motionless. This is not a matter for a layman to explain or guess at, and so I have gone to Mr. Gillies himself and begged from him his theory. He says to me, then, that he has always felt that keeping the eye on the ball is certainly the key to the situation, but in recent times he has realised that the importance of so doing is really in keeping still the delicate balancing organs of the head when executing the shot. These organs or semicircular ca.n.a.ls are intimately connected with the eye, and also give one the sense of position. The least movement of the head upsets the fluid in these ca.n.a.ls, so that the sense of position is more or less lost, according to the amount of movement.

Without the sense of position the stroke is almost sure to fail. "I take it," he says, "that your visual memory is good enough to remember the position of the ball, if you shut your eyes just before hitting it; but if you move the head at the moment you cannot hit the ball correctly.

Swaying the head in putting, as Tom Ball does, is probably not very disturbing owing to the movement being so slow that the fluid in the ca.n.a.ls does not get jerked. At the same time I can understand him requiring a great deal of practice to perfect the sway." To the layman this theory is very remarkable, and it is impressive for two reasons, one being that it is backed by expert scientific knowledge, and the other that it is emphasised by successful application.

And if Mr. Gillies is one of the most interesting figures that have arisen in amateur golf in recent times, most certainly George Duncan is the most interesting of the newer professionals. Here is an artist at the game if you will, the greatest genius of golf that has come up since Harry Vardon rose to fame. I am convinced that in the new period that is beginning with the inevitable decline, to some extent at all events, of the old triumvirate, George Duncan will be far and away the most conspicuous figure. He is a great golfer, and is in every way admirably fitted for supremacy. A more fascinating player to watch and study and think about afterwards has never driven a ball from the tee.

When he first came out it was declared that he was the fastest golfer who had ever lived. It was said that he walked up to his ball and hit it away before anybody had time to realise that he had taken his stance. He was likened unto hurricanes, lightning, and racehorses. I remember that Mr. Robert Maxwell, being once partnered with him, in an Open Championship I think, remarked afterwards that it was the most violent and disturbing experience of fast golf he had ever known. All this was true. Duncan never seemed to find it necessary to think as we do, and not merely we with all our doubts and hesitations, but those far better than we are, men who have won championships. He dispensed with all alternatives, those fatal alternatives that ruin our own game. We often fail because there are not only so many ways of doing the same thing in golf, but because we try to think of too many of them when we have a stroke to play and change from one to another and then to a third, until our increasing indecision can be no longer tolerated and some sort of shot has to be played. a.n.a.lyse your own emotions and experiences, and you will discover that this vacillation has been the cause of many disastrous failures. But George Duncan never suffered in this way. He is a man of lightning decision, of peculiarly sound and valuable inspiration, and he is one who, having once decided, does not swerve from his determination no matter what may be the allurements in the way of alternatives. Duncan does not know the alternative. He has no use for it. He does not recognise it. He believes that first thoughts in golf are best, and he abides by them. He decides and he acts. And he does all such thinking as is necessary for his decision while he is walking from the place where he played his last stroke to the place from which he will play his next, so that when he reaches his ball there is nothing to do but get to business without any waste of time. All these were features of the early Duncan just as they are of the present one, and they have been developed and perfected during the ten or dozen years that he has been out in the professional world.

But the Duncan of the early period had a fault of temperament in that he would go wild. He would at the moment of crisis lose his head, think of impossibilities and try to do them. He would lose his grip of his game.

Elation and despondency would alternate too quickly in his mind. He would be careless; he would forget consequences. Who that ever saw it will ever forget the way in which he let the Open Championship at St.

Andrews in 1910 slip from his grasp in that terrible last round? He had done rounds of 73, 77, and 71, the third being then and still the record of the course. Another 77 would have given him the Championship. Instead of that he did an 83. The next year at Sandwich he did very much the same sort of thing in his third round. It has seemed that in each of the last four or five years he was good enough to win the Championship, and that it was largely his own fault that he did not do so. That is why we used to say of him that ambition should be made of sterner stuff, that these weaknesses of his temperament were inexcusable and must be stamped out.

Duncan has cured that fault of temperament now. He has stamped it out.

The other day when he and I were discussing his predecessor in the same flesh, he said, "All that is past and done with. It is gone behind me.

There is no more of it. I am quick still. I shall always be quick because that is I, Duncan, my nature. I cannot be anything else. And why should I not be quick? Are there not too many slow golfers in the world?

But for the rest of it I am steady now. I feel hold of myself and the game. I do not forget." Championships should come quickly to him now.

CHAPTER XI

RIVIERA GOLF, AND WHAT MIGHT BE LEARNED FROM LADIES, WITH A CONSIDERATION OF THE OVERLAPPING GRIP.

One who will only play on summer days is a little less than half a golfer after all. Golf at the full demands resource, good heart, some courage, and a settled nerve, and it is of its principle that in the matter of places, times, and weather the game shall be taken as it is found. Hence the real golfer should not only tolerate the play in the bad seasons when there are howling winds and drenching rains, and much of life seems damp and sad, but he might be expected even to feel some occasional satisfaction in it. One who can hold himself up to the big wind and drive a ball that whistles through it to the full drive length, then play a good second and all with fine allowance and good wind work with his irons, so that the game works out well enough for any day, is one whose contentment is a state to be envied. Rarely does one feel the thrills of the golfing life better than when playing well in a lashing wind, with clothes that soak and stick; the sense of mastery is magnificent. Yet of such luxuries of winter golf one may sometimes tire.

The strong would be gentle again; and sunshine comes well after storms and leaden skies. Swearing in December that this winter shall see us stay at home the season through, playing on our east coast links throughout, January finds us hesitate, and in February, if we wait till then, there is a journey being made away through France to the sweetness of life by the blue Mediterranean Sea. It is an unforgettable change. We have spoken wrongly when sometimes after, at the end of a winter season, we have declared we tired of it. Never.

We have returned to London weary at the end of a January day from Sunningdale or Walton Heath, or it may have been just back along on the underground from the Mid-Surrey course at Richmond, which seems as well in winter as any, and much better than most others. But London is murky and dirty. It is cold, it is windy, there is a drizzling rain, and the streets are very dirty. It will be three-quarters of an hour before we may be seated at the dinner table. Oh, we become a little tired of this!

Troubles never come singly, and probably on such a day a match or matches have been lost. Those who are not of the community do not understand what worries make up the full agony of this game, and that is why the loss of two matches was considered by the gentle lady with her friend at tea to be the cause complete of the horrid din as of breaking furniture in the hall, the barely-stifled awful words, the yelping and limping of the little dog that suggested some sudden and unexpected injury, and the general impression that was conveyed throughout the household of havoc and disaster. "It is nothing," said gentle f.a.n.n.y of the perfect understanding as, with her toes in pink satin on the fender, she poured another cup for Mrs. Larcombe. "Really, it is only George, who, I can tell, has lost _both_ his matches, dear!"

But it was not the matches only. It was the waiting lone and weary for Marmaduke at the beginning of the day; it was the lame excuse of Marmaduke for his tardiness; it was the aggravating manner of the man throughout and the stupidity of the caddie; it was the stickiness of the greens; it was something wrong with the fateful golfer's lunch that made it all worse in the afternoon; the slicing that was more frequent and farther into the rough; the pitch shots that were topped still more; and the putts that ever lipped and stayed outside. It was the luck that went viler all the time, the cruelty of circ.u.mstance, the misery of it all; and after the twin defeat the sad discovery and reflection that if one little thing--perhaps only the pressure of a finger--had been remembered about some big things that were wrongly done, it might all have been avoided. It is realised again that of all the sad thoughts the saddest is: "It might have been." It is then that the agony of golf is experienced; it is then that the golfer is not happy. And it is then, on the retreat to town, that one may seem to hear the Mediterranean call, and see a vision of a sun glistening on a flowered and song-laden land where golf is played. Take the chance, unhappy man; make the change then if you can.

The strongest emotions often arise from the widest and most sudden contrasts. Our beautiful English summer comes to us too slowly and gradually through the vicissitudes of spring for the fullest delight.

One may step out from the mist and drizzle of a London street into the greater darkness of a theatre, and it is all blank and gloom and nothingness, but there is a quick expectancy. A few moments, and there is the tinkling of a bell, the curtain is rolled up, and there is a blaze of light with a pretty picture, perhaps, of summer with a full suggestion of Arcadia. Music and song, love and gladness, and younger again is the heart in years. Thus for a while the load is lightened. It is like that when one wanders to the Riviera for golf in the depth of England's winter. We leave London when it rains and is cold and heavily depressing; the spirit is weary from the trials of the season. Charing Cross--the Channel--Paris, hardly less gloomy than her sister Londres,--the plunge into the rumbling darkness of the fast train on the P. L. M.--sleep and dreams. And in the morning the bell rings and the curtain of the new and sunny world rolls up, and it is glorious summer.

Nothing in the way of change of scene is quite so good as this. Those who do not know the Riviera may try to imagine it, but in the clearest vision they cannot approach the grand reality of this sudden change.

Ma.r.s.eilles--Toulon--Hyeres--Costebelle; and there is the sunshine, the flowers, and the game. A rest of a day, quiet slumber through the night, and in the morning drowsily one hears a beat, beat, beat upon the window-panes, and, not being then awake to Hyeres, or Costebelle, it seems perhaps but the dismal tapping of the London rain. But later it is discovered to be the tapping of the leaves and rosebuds on the gla.s.s.

Breakfast on the terrace, the contenting cigar whose smoke rises wreathingly through a still atmosphere upwards to the blue, and then an effort to lift oneself from a summer languor. Clubs in possession again, a walk for a little way along a rose-fringed road, and then a plunge through a coppice along a broken stony path that thousands of golfers have trod before. Through a field of narcissi, through the planted violets, past a little vineyard on to the plain below--there the golf course is. Then play the game all day, and mount to the hotel again when the afternoon is nearly spent. But in the earlier afternoon at Costebelle I would rather climb back through the little wood after my single round, enjoy this perfect illusion of summer, and read and rest in laziness. Tints of lemon and citron come into the sky when the sun falls to its setting. Out beyond the plain is the sea and then the Iles de Hyeres, or the Iles d'Or as they have been called, because the sun will shine upon them when it has left the mainland for the day--Porquerolles, Portcros, t.i.tan, Bagaud, and Roubaud--a pearly-coloured group. You may make a short journey to them, to the blue Mediterranean which is so very blue. There is the delicate blue of the sapphire, and the richer blue of the turquoise. There is the wide blue of the Italian skies, and a wonderful blue in some women's eyes. But there is no blue that is so deep, so glorious, so soulful as that of the Mediterranean Sea, as in fancy I see it now. We gaze upon it and are content. All is so peaceful and pleasant. Over the hills comes a booming sound; it must be naval gunnery at Toulon. Grim realities of life and strife press even into this sweet scene. Yet they are French guns, and they are not meant for England either. I love Costebelle. For the simple sunny happiness of the life that is led there it is incomparable.

And this happiness in scene and sun, be sure, is the greater part of the golf on the French and Italian Riviera. There is often much doubt by those who have not been there upon the quality of Riviera golf. It varies. It once was poor; it was bad. It is now much improved, and it is improving still as the demand for it has quickened, as the people of southern France who depend so much upon their British visitors have come to realise the full meaning of "the golf boom" and the education and bettered tastes of the golfing people who leave Britain in the winter time. It is now, as golf of the inland kind, quite tolerably good, which is to say that in degree it might rank fairly well up in the second cla.s.s of British inland golf. It is no better than that; it is sometimes not so good. Climatic difficulties on the Riviera are somewhat desperate. In the summer there is a continuous baking heat, and this is followed by days of warmth and nights of frost, and in such confusion of temperatures the golf courses have to be grown afresh for every season.

Until recent times the putting greens needed to be newly sown and cultivated for every winter season, and I believe that it was at Nice that Mr. Hay-Gordon, secretary of courage and discernment as he is, first gave battle to the destructive climate and determined he would hold his putting greens--which at Nice are better than at almost any other place in southern Europe--right through the suns of summer and keep them on from one season to another. At Nice, again, thanks to gold, and thought, and enterprise, they have what the guardians of other Riviera courses do much envy, a magnificent supply of water, and this is lavished upon the turf through the dry time when the golfers are back at their homelands. The experiment of Nice, which was a fateful one, proved successful, and since then it has been copied by other clubs out that way, and greens are kept on and are much the better for it. In the old days it was a painful thing, as I remember it, to tread upon those tender new-born blades of gra.s.s, thin and scarce they were, and unfit for such usage as golfers give. It is far better now. Then also the construction of the courses has been much improved; but it must be remembered again that conditions and circ.u.mstances do not encourage or even agree with ideas of length and bunkering as we of Britain entertain them. Yet these things do not matter. We need no six thousand yards and no bottle-neck approaches when we wander southwards to the sun. Life shall be taken simply then; the press of existence shall be relieved, the game shall be made a little gentler than at other times, the nerves shall not be unduly tried. So we discover that there is a virtue in what is little more than five thousand yards, a generous amplitude of short holes, and enough to satisfy of those that can be done with a driver and an iron of sorts. In a mood of ease and languor, when even strong men who like the game find joy in a mixed foursome, we come to admire the Riviera system; and we may find men at nights hard in argument upon the points and delicacies of the fifth hole or the fifteenth, the aggravations of the sixth and the sixteenth, when they would disdain to think of such like in their golfing life at home. That comes of the influence of the sun; it soothes and satisfies, and it makes contentment.

Then there is this good thing to be said for the Riviera golfing way, that it yields a very full variety, and it might well be advertised that it embraces something to suit all tastes. Not only does it vary in the kind of course, but in the way of life that is attached to it. The manner of living at Hyeres and Costebelle is more of the English country kind and more sporting healthily open-air, with less of the flummery of fashion, than it is at other Riviera places, not meaning by that that there is not enough of good music and social entertainment for evening hours. The sea is a distance off, and there is next to nothing of promenading. Here we live well and are happy, and the sun is very warm.

R. L. S. lived at "La Solitude" at Hyeres, and he loved it. The golf in some respects is as good as elsewhere on the littoral; in some ways it is even a little better. There is the course of Hyeres flanking one side of the quaint old town, and there is Costebelle with the chief hotel on the hillside on the other, and its golf course on the plain below.

Hyeres is a gentle course, pretty, smooth and nice, and much improved in recent times. The turf is good for southern France, and some of the holes are remembered, as where we play through an avenue of trees with silver bark. Golf is younger at Costebelle and it is quite different, but if one were led to make comparisons, as from which we shall refrain, it might be said that often youth is no harmful thing. Golf architecture had already advanced to a science when this course was first made, the first planning being done by Willie Park, and such as Mr. John Low have advised upon its improvement since, while M. Peyron has lavished much money and attention upon it too. Even if there are still some rawnesses apparent, golf at Costebelle comes near to being the real thing. Then it is a good point in favour of this end of the Riviera that here we have the golf almost at the door of our hotel as it is scarcely to be had at any other place. It is something to walk down to the first tee, and pluck a rose by the wayside as we go.

That of Cannes is a pretty course. The Grand Duke Michael has done much for it and here he is a king. Society is high at Cannes, the people come along to La Napoule, six or seven miles from the town, in their motor-cars in a long procession, and it is the proper place for the luncheon party and such social entertainments as go well with a verandah, sunshine, and the flowers. One would go to the golf club at La Napoule even though one did not golf; many do--perhaps too many. Those who eat and chatter, kiss hands and smile, but never take a divot are losers of something that is heartening. A river runs through this golfing land, and twice we cross it by a famous ferry worked by hands upon a rope that is stretched across the stream. On one side of the river there are twelve holes laid and on the other there are six; but the six may be considered to be better than the twelve for the pleasure that they yield. First we play three of the batch of twelve, and then we are floated to the precious six. Here there are big sand bunkers of a natural kind, and they are nicely placed. The fairway is tolerably good, and there are putting greens in pretty places.

If this were all it would be good; but the course of Cannes gains a splendid charm from its magnificent situation which cannot be ignored.

There is a promise of beauties to come when we approach the club-house by that long avenue of golden mimosa; later there are glimpses of almost heavenly scenes. If the golf at these continental places is gentler than at home, such things as scenery may count for a little more. I have never had full sympathy with the suggestion that the golfer cares nothing for scenery or sparkling air except when he is off his game and then falls back upon them for compensation. There is not only hypocrisy in this, but in suggesting the player to be scarcely above the savage it is unfair to a healthy taste that has had some training in appreciation of natural beauties. One does not dwell upon cloud effects nor let the mind loose upon a panorama when the strokes are being done and there is a man to beat, but sunlight and sweet scenes have always their strong effect subconsciously, and it would be a pity if they had not. I shall not place the course of Cannes at La Napoule in that warring and jealous company, many clubs strong they are, each of which claims that it is the most beautifully situated in the world. I have played upon three or four of such courses, and indeed their claims have appeared to be strong. It is enough that Cannes is very beautiful. It will be well if there are a few moments for waiting caused by a slow-going match in front when your ball has been placed on its little pinnacle of sand on the fourth teeing ground, for spread out in the distance there is a glorious panorama of the snow-capped Maritime Alps, on whose last spur there lies glistening white in the sunshine the little town of Gra.s.se where sweet perfumes are distilled and where, as they say, twelve tons of roses are crushed to make a quart of essence. Gra.s.se rests on that hillside like a linen sheet dropped there by the G.o.ds. When we have done this hole and face about, there are the pearly-tinted Esterels ahead. Hereabouts the holes are chiefly laid out through avenues of fir trees, and here and there, especially when one is approaching the eighth green, the picture is one that bears some suggestion of an Italian charm. Elsewhere in the round the Mediterranean is presented, as once when we look across the bay in which Cannes is placed to Cap d' Antibes at the opposite corner from La Napoule. By comparison some of the concluding holes are a little dull in looks; but when we play them in the afternoon the sun is setting behind the Esterels in front, and then there is indeed a sunset to be seen.

Again, the course of the Nice club is at Cagnes some miles out from the town. It is different from the others of the Riviera, and it has its special advantages. I recall an example of one of them which was the more impressive since it was made on the occasion of my first visit to the course. That was years ago, and we had been held up at Nice for five days and five nights by continuous and heavy rain during the whole of that long time, and it was in February too. Such a spell of Riviera wet seems almost incredible, but it happened, the oldest inhabitants, for the credit of their country, declaring that such a thing had never been before since the world as they knew it had begun. When this kind of thing happens on the Riviera there is only one thing to do, and that is go to the casinos; and it was bad for us in every way that this rain came down like that even if it was good for the Casino Munic.i.p.al and the others at Nice and for M. Blanc at the adjacent Monte Carlo. When the five days and five nights had been endured, when the heart had grown sick of what happened at the tables, when our thoughts had turned to Sicily and Egypt--for during this period of the flood I had made one voyage (we should call it a voyage though the journey was done by motor-car along that glorious Grand Corniche) to the Riviera of Italy, and there at Bordighera and San Remo (and what a pretty little course it is at Arma di Taggia) found it to be raining still--the sun came out again and the question of golf arose to life. But surely, it seemed, golf would be impossible for some time; courses would need to dry.

However, we argued that a stroke with a driving mashie is better than no play, and so we took the car at the Place Ma.s.sena and soon were out at Cagnes, and there we played on a course that was as dry as any course need ever be though the rain had been pelting down to within three or four hours before. In one or two hollow places there were little pools of casual water, but otherwise the state of things was such that we might sit upon the gra.s.s when the opposition was badly bunkered and needed time for his recovery. Others knew that Nice recovers quickly, for when we were out in the middle of the course we espied some figures a couple of long holes away, and about the att.i.tude of one of them there was something strangely familiar. There was a manner of walking on the course not so much stiff as small and quite precise, and there was a club being carried vertically, head high up as if it were a gun and the carrier were one of a line of infantry. I can recall only one man who sometimes walks with his club like this--not that there is anything against it--and, knowing him, I still regret that opponent had not courage to accept a wager of anything from five francs to fifty that I could name the man at that distance of seven hundred yards, having no knowledge that he I had in mind was on the Riviera at all. It was Mr.

Arthur Balfour, ex-Prime Minister, who, chafing for lack of golf after his own five days' shutting up, had motored over from Cannes at the moment that the rain held up.

There is a certain plainness about many of the holes at Nice, but others are interesting. The first is appetising, the eighth is a mashie shot over a belt of trees, and the ninth is one of the longest I know, quoted on the cards at 605 yards and stretching away to the west, parallel with the sea-sh.o.r.e, and quite close to it so that a highly extravagant slice might deliver one's ball to the Mediterranean. However, we get there very quickly, and the hole is not so long as figures make it seem, for there is much run on the ball at Cagnes. One of the prettiest holes follows this one. The sociabilities here are excellent, and Nice itself, being rather a place of tumultuous excitement and very much within the Monte Carlo zone and influence, you may find it a beneficial thing in many ways to get out to the golf club as frequently as you can.

In recent times they have effected a great improvement to the course at St. Raphael, and up at La Turbie, overlooking Monte Carlo, and in one of the finest situations conceivable, they have made a new one with considerable luxury of appointment. The climatic difficulties which they had to encounter here, at a height of nearly two thousand feet, were such that they had not dreamt of, much less reckoned upon, and for a time an appreciable portion of the money was being lost on the greens that was being gained through the reds and blacks in the casino down below, the two organisations not being without a.s.sociation with each other. The construction of this course stands out as one of the great engineering feats of golf. The top of the mountain on which it was determined that it should be made was a bare rocky waste. There was not even the necessary soil to grow the gra.s.s on. It was determined to take up the soil from a neighbouring valley, and three hundred men were employed to do the work. There was no railway, no horse or mule traction would get the stuff properly up that hillside, and so it was carried in baskets on the backs of those three hundred men. Next, rocks were blasted, the soil was spread, seeds were sown, and a result was awaited with anxiety. Then came down some tremendous rains, and down the hillside that soil was washed away, and most of the carrying up had to be done all over again. But labour and perseverance conquered, and at last the gra.s.s was made to grow, and the plain truth is that here now they have a course that for the Riviera is quite pa.s.sably good, and most extraordinarily beautiful in its situation, the Alps being in the picture on three sides of it, and the Mediterranean down below on the fourth. On a fine day Corsica can just be seen. Now it is clearly indicated that the man who would demonstrate a perfect alliance with happy fortune must accomplish a grand double event. He should break the bank at Monte Carlo in the morning, and he should hole in one at La Turbie in the afternoon.

This course and that of Sospel are a new and separate feature of Riviera golf. Formerly the whole strength of the golf of the littoral lay at its western end, and it was down near to the level of the sea. Now Monte Carlo and Sospel, chiefly Sospel, have moved the balance a little nearer to the east. Sospel is agreeable; and here again the construction of the course and its improvement to its present good state stand for a great triumph of skill and perseverance. Sospel is some thirteen miles behind Mentone in a valley of the Alpes Maritimes, and it is a quaint old place. If one never golfed at all, the journey there with all its thrills and excitements, and the picturesque little town that is at the end of it, are well worth a day of the time of any man. That journey may be made by motor-car, or now by tram, and one may safely say that there is no other golfing journey of its kind that can compare with it. As to the course, it possesses turf which is as good as anything to be found in the vicinity of the Mediterranean, and though the round is only a trifle over five thousand yards, and there is no hole of so much as four hundred, it is nice golf for all that, and the wooden club is needed frequently for the second shots.

Here and there by this Mediterranean sea new courses are being made.

They have one at Gra.s.se. There will be others soon. The truth is that dawdling on the Riviera has gone quite out of fashion, and it has come to be understood at last that this wine-like air and the golden sunshine are better than the dim light and dank atmosphere of the gaming rooms. A few persons who go to the Riviera in the winter seem to be nervously afraid of giving up much of their time to golf. I have heard them say to themselves and others: "Is not the golf of London better than anything by the Mediterranean, and why then do we pay hundreds of francs to come here merely to play golf, and almost forget that we are in the south of France?" You will not forget that you are by the blue sea to the south of Europe. Not only is the glory of this part of the world in winter better understood and better appreciated by those who golf than by those who don't, but by far the most is made of their time by the players of the game. I do not see what is the use of going to the Riviera unless one golfs.

It may seem a strange reflection, but it is the truth, that when at the Riviera for any length of time in the winter, and especially when at such a place as Hyeres, one is inclined more to a thorough overhauling of one's game, a study of its weaknesses and a determination upon certain improvements, than at any other time. A good explanation is, however, possible. At holiday time like this one has the play continually. One is detached from all the workaday considerations of life at home. And then again one is thrown among new golfing friends from all parts of the world, people of infinite golfing variety and all charged with their own new ideas. We see every kind of style and every degree of skill, and if much of the style is bad and the skill is often deficient, there is something always to be learned or suggested. And it has been found as a matter of practical experience that at such places the majority of people fall to thinking of their ways of driving, often because their driving at the beginning out there is very bad, and that in turn is often due to the difficulty at first of sighting the ball properly in the pellucid atmosphere. But the whole system of driving is overhauled, and one would dare to suggest that proportionately to the number of players involved there are more conversions made from the plain grip to the overlapping on the Riviera in the season than anywhere else. Only this very morning as I write--a bitter cold morning when I shiver in proximity to an east coast links, and sigh for the pa.s.sing of a few days more when the Channel shall be crossed and a glad journey south made on the P. L. M.--a letter comes up to me from a friend at Hyeres demanding that all possible information printed and otherwise shall be transmitted on the subject of the grip, for there is a drastic revolution to be made in the case of one anxious golfer! In this matter, one of the most important in all practical golf as it surely is, there is a suggestion of great value to be made.

The advantages of this grip as they are being discovered by more converts than ever before, are greater driving power owing to wrist work being easier, and also the fact that the left arm and hand pull the club through better and drive the ball as it ought to be driven, the overlapping reducing the right hand to a low subjection. No matter how good and careful the player may be, he who uses the two-V grip is certain sometimes to be in trouble with his right hand, which will constantly attempt to establish a lordship over the left, which when done is fatal to the good swing and the straight ball. Straight driving along a good, low trajectory, getting a ball with plenty of run on it, might almost be said to be characteristic of the overlappers, who are certainly off their drive less frequently than their brethren. These being the advantages of overlapping, how is it to be gained by those who have all along been addicted to the plain two-V way of gripping, and now find it impossible after many trials to convert themselves, these trials having been made in the most obvious way by hard practice on the teeing ground and with a bra.s.sey through the green? This is a good question to ask, but the answer is too often disappointing. Those who have started their golfing lives as old-fashioned two-V men seem fated to remain as such. As it happens, I believe I have come by the simplest and most effectual way of making the conversion; at all events, it is one that has never failed, though it has been tried in very many cases. It is simplicity itself. Nearly every man who tries to adopt this grip does so with his driver. It is natural, because it is for the driving that he most wants the grip, and he never thinks about it for anything else. In these experiments, however, he feels in constant danger of missing the ball--and sometimes does miss it--is most extremely uncomfortable, entirely lacking in confidence, and sooner or later comes to the conclusion that the overlapping grip, whatever its merits, is not for him. The sure and certain way is to begin with the putter, which is easy and also valuable, because the experience of the best players is that the overlapping grip improves one's putting at least as much as it does one's driving. You may become accustomed enough to this way of gripping the putter on the first day to try it in the most important match or compet.i.tion. After two or three weeks of this way of putting, let the grip be tried for short running-up approaches, which will be satisfactorily accomplished after a very little practice, and then, after another week or two, let it be used for short lofted shots. The crisis comes when a swing of such length has to be made that the head of the club has to be raised more than elbow-high. A difficulty will be experienced at this stage, but it will soon be overcome, and when it is the way to overlapping with the driver is opened. Within a week the man is a complete and happy convert.

On the general question of grips and gripping, which is high in the minds of golfers preparing for their season's campaign and setting their bags in order, one does feel that points of detail are not generally considered as they should be. In many cases the grip has really more to do with the effectiveness of a club than the head thereof, and yet perhaps not more than one golfer in four is properly suited. In general the grips are too short, too thick, and their thickness is too uniform.

A very thick grip tends to take weight from the head, to spoil the feel and balance of the club, and to reduce the sense of control over it, but thickness in moderation is good for weak hands and fingers. Thin grips throw the weight into the head, give extra control, and improve the feel, but in excess need strong hands and fingers. The professionals nearly all use quite thin grips, their hands and fingers being very strong. But remember that the right hand and its fingers are stronger than the others, and also that that hand has less work to do in gripping, while as it is mainly concerned with steadying and guiding it is best suited by thinness of grip. Clearly, then, the grip should be thicker for the left hand than for the right, should, in fact, taper.

This morsel of theory is overwhelmingly justified in practice, and that is what we mean when we say that most grips are too uniform in thickness, for they are nearly as thick for the right hand as for the left, and end suddenly with a kind of step just beyond the place where the right forefinger is applied. For hands of moderate strength let the circ.u.mference at the top for the left hand be 2-11/16 in. in diameter, and at the place where the right forefinger holds on let it be 2-1/2 in.

From this point let it taper off gradually for about 4 in. until the leather has nothing underneath it, and then half an inch of wrapping on the bare stick brings the grip, as it were, to fade away into nothing.

The full length of a grip of this kind may be about 12-1/2 in., and the tapering conduces greatly to the improved feel of the club and to a look that somehow makes for confidence. In the case of iron clubs the length and the decreased thickness towards the bottom are very good when taking a short grip of the club.