The Spirit of the Links Part 10

And there will be one main Gallery of Masters, and there will be perpetuated the names and forms and feats of the men who went farthest in their skill at the n.o.ble game. There will be Allan Robertson and old Tom Morris in a great foursome, and there will be a young man with a wild look of fear on his face, stepping into a boat at North Berwick to be sailed across the water to St. Andrews, where a loved one lay dying.

There will be Jamie Anderson and Bob Ferguson, triple Champions, and there will be John Ball, Open and Amateur Champion at once and six times Amateur Champion. He will be painted mounted on a charger going to the war. There will be many masters besides.

In the centre there will be three statues grouped together. One of them will be sculptured on an Athenian model. It will show a fine player at the finish of his drive, and there will be on the base the simple inscription "Style." That will be Harry Vardon. Another will show a man of stern countenance with thick wrists tightened upon a mashie, and that will be named "Accuracy." The man is Taylor. And the third of these figures will show a man of solemn look, like that upon some ancient busts. That will be "Perseverance," and surely the people will know that it is James Braid that is meant. The famous Triumvirate! Those future golfers will walk their way through these halls and through the gallery of the Temple of Golf that will be raised, and a great awe of the game will come upon them. It is as if generations, ages of great golfers will look hard but not unkindly at these pa.s.sers-by, and will seem to cry aloud, "We made it! We made it! Preserve it! Preserve it!" Not the game alone, but its glory--its tradition.

II

There are many full-blooded golfers who, if in the light of knowledge and experience they could have their choice to live their golfing lives over again, with the special advantage of picking their own period and place for play, would hold up their hands for Leith and the closing years of the seventeenth century. They could be greatly earnest about their golf in those days, and there was colour and richness about it.

Here it was that King Charles was playing his game when the news came to him, according to famous tradition, of the insurrection and rebellion in Ireland. And another future King of England is generally believed to have played great games on Leith links, and perhaps the most interesting monument of ancient golf that remains to us to-day is still to be found in Edinburgh, commemorating a great game that was once played, in which James, Duke of York, afterwards James II., had a hand. This house is that old one in Canongate which is numbered 77, on the north side a little above Queensberry House. On the wall above what at one time was the doorway of this house there is a stone bearing this inscription in Latin: "c.u.m victor ludo scotis qui proprius esset ter tres victores post redimitus avos patersonus humo tunc educebat in altum hanc quae victores tot tulit una domum"; and, separately, there is the line in English, "I hate no person," which effectually settles the name of the man most concerned, as the letters of these words are nothing more than an anagrammatical transposition of the letters of the name of John Patersone, who is the hero of the story of the great game. High up, near the top of this five-storey building, is another tablet bearing a coat of arms, on which there are three pelicans and three mullets, while for crest there is a dexter hand grasping a golf club, and the motto is "Far and sure." The point of the story is that this house was built by a poor cobbler out of a share of the proceeds of a wager won by the Duke on a foursome, in which he, the cobbler, was his partner.

The generally accepted story, in which there is no hole to be picked, is that one day, during their attendance at the Scottish Court, two English n.o.blemen, who had played a little golf in their time, had a discussion, in which the Duke of York joined, as to whether it were more of an English or a Scottish game. Eventually it was determined that the question, so far as their own satisfaction was concerned, should be decided by an appeal to the game itself, that is to say, the Englishmen, who affected to be of mind that it was an English game, agreed that they would play the Duke and any other Scotsman that he would choose to partner him for a large stake of money. The Duke conceived that he could do himself a little good in the affair, since his acceptance of such a challenge and his standing forward in the name of Scotland would be good for the sustenance of his claim to the character of a Scot, and would please the people of the country. So the match being made, the Duke sent out agents to scour the town in search of the best partner for him that they could find, and when found he was to be brought forward, irrespective of his circ.u.mstances or his station in life. Eventually the man whom they selected for this onerous task was the poor shoemaker who went by the name of John Patersone. He was very fearful as to how he should perform with so much responsibility depending upon him; but the Duke was evidently a good golfer, to the extent that he encouraged his partner and did his utmost to make him feel comfortable, whereupon Patersone braced himself for the struggle and said that he would do his best. The Duke and the cobbler were easily victorious, whereupon the former gave his partner the half of the stake that he had won, and with this money the house in Canongate was built, the Duke himself causing the escutcheon, bearing the arms of the family of Patersone, to be fixed in the wall.

III

It must be seen to that the canker of commercialism is never permitted to eat its way into the game, for if it were the game would be ruined, as other games and sports have been ruined in that way. It is not that there is any serious danger of golf coming by such a fate, for its people are too well imbued with what might be called the moral sporting sense, and have too much discrimination to permit themselves to be deceived by the insidiousness of the temptations of the commercial adventurer. But it is well that the situation and its weaknesses should be fully realised, so that all players and lovers of the game, of high and low degree, and of long experience and short, may be fully alive to them, and so on their guard. And it must be considered, at the outset of any reflection upon such matters as this, as the most simple and elementary principle, and that which is most indisputable, that there is money in everything in which ma.s.ses of people take an interest, and the greater the interest the more money is there in it--money for the adventurers who come forward to feed that interest in whatsoever guise they may come. Golf has become a pa.s.sion with a large section of mankind, and therefore there is much money in it for those who will humour this pa.s.sion, and there are many evidences that the outside world is not unappreciative of this circ.u.mstance.

It is said by some of the best judges of golf, that the rubber-cored ball has spoiled the game. That is a matter upon which opinions to some extent differ; but at all events it can hardly be held that the new ball has improved the game, that is to say, that it has made it any better game than it used to be, though it may be admitted that, by making it easier to play, it has resulted in greater enjoyment being given to a vast number of people than would have been if it had never been introduced. But, in any case, why have we the rubber-cored ball in practically exclusive use at the present time, when the feeling of the golf world on its first introduction was overwhelmingly against it? It is due entirely to commercialism, to that and to nothing else. If enterprising business men who cared for their bank accounts first and their golf afterwards, had not seen that there were fortunes in the rubber-cored ball if it were forced on the players, there would have been no rubber-cored ball to-day. The golfing public was quite compelled to use it, though it may not have been realised at the time, and one result was that the game had to pa.s.s through a period of unrest and inconvenience lasting for three or four seasons, while courses were being altered and lengthened, the new ball was being improved, and its various manufacturers were engaged in the attempt to exterminate each other, and there was a foolish interest generated in the breaking day by day of the record scores of courses. All this upheaval was due entirely to the introduction of an alien element into the spirit of the links, the element of commercialism. Of course one must admit that it is this commercialism that brings about many of the greatest aids to our completer civilisation and comfort, and it has not to be regarded as an enemy to all things. It is the moving spirit of progress and improvement; but it is not generally welcome to golf, because we want neither progress nor improvement in the actual game of golf, but simply the game as it has been handed down to us. In this matter we are entirely and wisely conservative. With the rubber ball in vogue, the case now is that a great industry has been built up, in which there are hundreds of thousands of pounds of capital involved, and in the outer zone of golf there is a desperate war being waged by rival manufacturers. The golf world has to take care that this war is kept where it is, and perhaps all the better if it goes on.

Generally such a thing is to the benefit of the golfer; but all the time there are guerilla raids into the inner zone, and while the amateur player has not been in any way affected by this commercialism, that can hardly be said of all others a.s.sociated with the game. Business is not sport, and sport is not business, and to a certain extent the legitimate interests of the golfer and the ball manufacturer are opposed in this matter. Just as it was with bicycles in their "boom" days, and as it is with motors now, it is to the interests of manufacturers to get their specialities used on important occasions, and when successes are likely to be made with them. The certificate of merit which is thus given is very valuable and is talked about. The less thoughtful public says to itself, "Surely, then, this thing is better than others," and buys it accordingly. Such a conclusion is not logical, and, of course, is quite unwarranted. Successes achieved with it certainly indicate that there cannot be anything wrong with an article, but they do not prove superiority. They could only do that if it were established beforehand that the human element in the equation were either inferior or not more than equal to the human elements in opposition. It is the same as if they were to advertise and make a great point of the fact that the winner of the Derby was saddled with a particular make of saddle. But in the racing world they believe primarily in their horses. The case with golf at present is not in the least serious. One may feel sure there is no danger of amateur players giving way to money temptations of any sort, or temptations in kind either. The sporting sentiment of the game is too strong for that. If it were not for that the fear for the safe future of golf would be great. Every sport that has been attacked in this way has been killed from the point of view of good health and purity.

There is another possible contingency, though as yet a remote one, in which commercialism may infringe injuriously upon the game, and that is in exploiting it as a spectacle and charging "gate money" to the public.

Some people say that golf is not a game that can be used as a spectacle like football and cricket; but that is not entirely true. The interest that is created in cricket and football matches is largely of an artificial and manufactured character. A good drive at golf is quite as fine a thing to look at as a snick to the boundary on the cricket field.

Where the difference comes in from the public point of view at present is in the fact that in the case of an important cricket match the public are brought to understand that an enhanced value is attached to each stroke, and therefore there is the more interest in watching it played.

Would there not be at least as much public interest in watching a great player attempt to hole a curly two-yard putt if a championship or a side wager of a couple of hundred pounds were depending on it? The temperament of the spectator counts for something in this question of what is a good game for a spectacle, and it has to be remembered that the temperaments of the British sporting crowds have been trained towards cricket and football. Fifteen years ago there was not more than a tenth of the number of spectators at the big football matches as there are in these days, though there were practically as many of them played.

And that golf has an attraction, which might very easily become an overpowering one for the spectator, was proved when the international foursome between the leading professionals for 400 was played in 1905, when, on three courses in different parts of the country, there was an average attendance of spectators of about ten thousand each day. That was simply because the match had been talked about and a special interest had become attached to it.

On one of these courses "gate money" was charged, and again in 1906, on the occasion of another professional foursome, a charge for admission to the course to see the play was made by the local club. It has been mutely understood as a principle that no such charges should ever be made, being a violation of the spirit in which golf is played--the spirit that suggests that the game is for the men who play it, and for n.o.body else--and it can be fancied that the success of the "gate" on these occasions may have put ideas into the minds of enterprising commercial people, as indeed it is known it did. There is the danger, then, that some time an attempt may be made to hold golf matches as a show. If it were successful it would mean a complete upheaval of the game. If the professionals found that they "drew" to the extent of hundreds of pounds at a time, they would naturally be discontented with moderate fees for playing. They would demand shares of the gate; they would receive perhaps hundreds for playing on important occasions, and the modest, una.s.suming working professional, as we know him now, would exist no longer, the cohesion between the two sections in our little state of golf would be loosened, amateurism might suffer if only by the sense of mediocrity that would be thrust upon it, and the game would not be the same. All the tricks of trades would come into golf at once--"signing on," bartering, bluffing, and even cheating. Considering the enormous "boom" in golf that is going on at present, and the millions of money that are spent on it in one way and another, it is wonderful that it has retained its purity,--not wonderful, perhaps, when you take the moral sporting quality of the golfer into consideration,--but still wonderful on an ordinary reckoning. Its continued purity may have given rise to an exaggerated sense of security. Certainly none of us can believe in the possibility of its sinking to the state which has just been suggested; but it is better to realise that the facts are as stated, and that there is the chance of such a thing happening at some future time, so that at the first sign of the enemy's advance the golf world may be armed and ready to attack and kill it. It is one of those evils that will come insidiously when it does come, and will have gained a hold before we are aware of its presence.

Another feature of this increase of commercialism in relation to golf is in the realisation of the magnetic power of the game by promoters of building estates, and private persons who exploit the game in one way or another, chiefly through the medium of new courses. In these cases there is no great harm done, but they are an infringement in some sense of the principle that the game should not be played for the benefit of other people. Everywhere speculators in estates are making golf courses first and building houses afterwards; and the other day, when such a course, made with this object, was established not far from London, there were "press views" and all the other accompaniments of the launching of a commercial undertaking, while it was announced that to promote its future success matches would be arranged between leading professionals, and efforts would be made to enlist the sympathy of the public in them--to the advantage of the speculators who were sinking their money in the development of this estate. We do not like the look of this. Here the game is to be played not for the sake of the game altogether, but for these proprietors of land and houses. It is most obvious commercialism. And it is certainly not golf.

Some golfers may say that after all they are not very much affected by this sort of thing so far, and are not likely to be. Is it worth while bothering about? they may ask. A man who has the true spirit of the links within him will not ask the question, nor will he think that this writer has laboured the warning that is hereby conveyed. Of all the things in golf that matter the most for its future welfare, this is the most important, for it might conceivably be a question of life and death with the game, and it is time that the whole of the golf world understood and appreciated, and then at every opportunity henceforth, in small matters as well as in large ones, set itself against all influences that are not for the good of the game. It is right and proper that the makers of golfing goods should practise their commercialism to the utmost extent of their capacity outside the area of the game, but not inside our doors. It is ultimately to the advantage of the players that they should do so. But except those who make these goods, we deny that others who do not play have the right to make money out of our game, if they might spoil it for ourselves in so doing.

IV

Just lately certain desperadoes, whom one need hardly say had no connection with the premier club, held a bogey compet.i.tion over the new course at St. Andrews. A while previously some others were reported to have held a similar contest over the old course itself, which was worse.

Here in St. Andrews it is almost held as a sin merely to mention the name of bogey, or even to refer to it somewhat indefinitely as "the Colonel." All know that the Royal and Ancient Club will have nothing whatever to do with the idea of bogey compet.i.tions, and though they are common enough in these days, you generally find the best cla.s.s of golfers of the old school fighting shy of the idea, and to the best clubs, quite apart from the R. and A., the idea is still taboo. The standpoint which these clubs and these men take is that ordinary match-play is the true golf, and when it comes to needing a variation from it for special purposes, there is the score game in reserve. These two, they say, are ample for all purposes, and any other forms of golf that may be invented are not real golf; they are more or less of travesties, they are needless complications, and for the most part they are the inventions of faddists, which, if universally sanctioned by the community, would lead to the production of other fads even worse, so that innumerable fantastic changes would be rung on this fine, simple game of golf to its undoing, since it cannot possibly be better than, or even so good as, in its simplest form. Already in some parts of the country there are four-ball foursomes against bogey being played, and some wild ideas for new-fangled compet.i.tions have been sent across the Atlantic to us from America. That is why bogey is never so much as mentioned at St. Andrews, and why the surest way that the Southron, on making his first visit to the cla.s.sic headquarters of the game, may be made to feel uncommonly small and to wish that he had not been so inquisitive, is to ask on playing the first hole--which often enough leaves you a pretty stiff carry over the Swilcan Burn from your tee shot,--whether it is a bogey 4 or 5. The town authorities notify you by printed placard that they have the power by by-law to fine you for playing on the old course with iron clubs only, and also for practising putting on the eighteenth green, and one would never be much surprised if it were made a matter of ten shillings and costs, or a week in default, for playing there against old bogey. Certain it is that there are many good golfers there who would be glad to hear of such a penalty.

The experienced man who tries to take a broad view of this minor question of golfing politics generally comes to the conclusion that the anti-bogeyists are quite right, and that we do not want any complications in the game, and he takes it particularly in mind that the bogey system is entirely the result of the modern craze for pot and medal hunting, since it was designed solely and exclusively as a new form of compet.i.tion. One would not dream nowadays of going out to play a game with a friend, each man playing his holes against bogey. Therefore there is nothing friendly and nothing sociable in the idea, and it is not golf, and it is condemned all the more inasmuch as its special object is to release erring players from the penalties of their errors, such as they would have to pay for in stroke play. It is therefore an encouragement to mediocrity. At the same time our broad-minded critic would agree that this bogey has been in for a good many years now, has outlived the attacks that have been made upon it, and has certainly established a place for itself in the golfing scheme of things which nothing seems likely to disturb. You generally find that as a golfer gets on in experience he cares less and less for bogey play, if he ever cared for it at all; but the new generation like it apparently, and will have it. Therefore we must tolerate it. It is a matter of some satisfaction to notice that more and more do clubs begin to make a standard reckoning of the value of their holes on the par system instead of the bogey. There is no sort of sense in saying that the bogey of a particular hole is 4 or 5, or anything else that it may be put down at.

The majority of "bogey 5's" are real 4's, and it is difficult to see what is the object of placing a standard value on a hole unless that standard represents faultless play by a good man, as the par figure does, and not such play as may include two half-spoiled shots or one completely foozled one, as the bogey figure frequently allows. It is often the case that at a "bogey 5" on a suburban course a good player can make a complete bungle of his second shot and still do the 5 with some ease. What, then, is the use of this sort of valuation of the holes on various courses?

So what with his somewhat surrept.i.tious appearance at St. Andrews, and many violent attacks that have been made upon him, some men saying with withering sarcasm that they think they have heard of him before somewhere, the poor old Colonel has been having a rather exciting and not entirely happy time of it in recent seasons, and one feels a certain amount of pity for him, recognising that he really has given much pleasure to many players. In this sympathetic mood one may listen patiently to the story of his career. He has seen considerable service now, for he became attached to golf at the beginning of its boom days.

The origin of the a.s.sociation was curious. Although some have it that bogey was born at Elie, a Coventry gentleman, Mr. Hugh Rotherham, is more generally believed to have been the first to come by the germ of the idea. This was in December 1890, when what was called the scratch score of the Coventry course was taken, and there was given to each hole a figure which was supposed to represent the scratch value. This was called the "ground score," and some six months later, when the idea had become well a.s.similated, Mr. Rotherham offered a prize for a compet.i.tion in which the players would play against this ground score; while in the autumn of the same year the club put up a challenge cup for annual compet.i.tion on the same lines. Thus already the idea was established, but not the name.

About this time some of the members of the Coventry club went as a party to Great Yarmouth, where the idea was explained to Dr. Thos. Browne, R.N., honorary secretary of the club. He thought well of its possibilities and advantages, and, taking considerable interest in it, wrote to various prominent golfers asking them their views of the advisability or otherwise of introducing this "ground score" into the general routine of compet.i.tion golf. For the most part the replies were favourable.

Now one day Dr. Browne went out to play against a friend of his, Major Charles A. Wellman, on this system, and that winter the "bogey man" song was the hit of the pantomimes in the music-halls.

"Hush! Hush! Hush!

Here comes the Bogey man!

So hide your head beneath the clothes, He'll catch you if he can!"

were the words of the refrain that gave a creepy feeling to the little children of the day. "He'll catch you if he can!" There was the idea of bogey in golf, and it flashed across the mind of Major Wellman when he was playing this game and getting caught by bogey. "Why," said he to Dr. Browne, "this player of yours is a regular bogey man." In that chance remark a considerable piece of golfing history was made, for bogey was made for golf. Dr. Browne thought this name was excellent, and should be adopted, as it was by the Great Yarmouth Club.

A little while afterwards he went on a golfing holiday to the south coast, and playing one day at the course of the United Service Club at Alverstoke in Hampshire, he informed his hosts that he had brought with him a friend who was a very modest, quiet fellow and a steady golfer, who played a uniformly good but never a brilliant game. He prayed that he might be permitted to introduce him to the United Service Club as an honorary member, and accordingly, in the continuance of his little pleasantry, he presented him, in the way of an explanation of the "bogey man game," to the late Captain Seely Vidal, R.E., who was honorary secretary of the club, and to Dr. Walter Reid, R.N.

"Capital!" they said; they would certainly have the bogey man as a golfer, and after working out a score for him for that course they went out to play with him.

"Stay!" said Captain Vidal at the moment of starting. "We must proceed in a proper service way. Every member of this club has a proper service rank. Our new invisible member, who never makes a mistake, surely ought to be a commanding officer. He must be a colonel." And then saluting, he added, "Colonel Bogey! We are delighted to find you on the links, sir. I couldn't well say see you."

After that, wherever Dr. Browne went in the course of his golfing pilgrimages, he introduced "his friend" in the name of Colonel Bogey.

Several bogey matches were played at the United Service Club, and they were reported in the papers, with some explanation of the new system. So the Coventry, Great Yarmouth, and United Service Clubs had all a hand in the establishment of the idea, and Dr. Browne, Major Charles Wellman, and Captain Seely Vidal were Bogey's G.o.dfathers in his baptism. Is is quite likely that the golfers of Elie worked out a bogey of their own independently.

V

"Ever let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home."

So Keats did sing. And, alas! there are even strange golfers who are sighing always for newfanglements, feeling that the things they cannot or must not have, are much better than the things they are blessed with.

Yet are the things that are in golf better than the things that might be if out-and-out Progressives had their way, and in this matter we shall sing a hymn of praise to the old school and its famous traditions, being something of a brake on these Progressives. Consider what were otherwise the possibilities of the game if it fell into the hands of innovators.

Lately a story was printed and spread all about, that in some secret fields a great champion was practising with a new ball of extraordinary manufacture, with which he was constantly getting at least fifty yards farther with his drive than he could with the ordinary rubber-cored affair, that is to say, he was regularly driving from 250 to 300 yards!

Now, some of us have heard of that ball before, but shall believe in it only when we see it, and shall then cry aloud for its extinction, even if that dreaded Golf Union has to be established for the purpose, as probably it would need to be. But some people ask why it is wrong to sigh for more and more length in the drive; why should not our old men drive all the long holes in two, and our young men do them with a drive and a pitch, and play the short holes with their putters? They say there is enormous pleasure in length, and that the rubber-core has given increased enjoyment to scores of thousands of players. Which is true, the last. But the more length you get the less golf there is in your play. If length is all that is wanted, why not go shooting instead of golfing? You can shoot a bullet a whole mile, and are not bothered to trudge after it. Fatal points against the 300-yard ball are, that a large proportion of golfers would lose sight of it before it came to rest--and where would be their pleasure then?--and that it would upset the construction of all our courses, since all the bunkers would be in the wrong places, and the links would all be too short. More land and huge sums of money would be needed by every club. The clubs had one experience of this when the rubber-core came in; depend on it they will not have another. By all means improve our present sort of b.a.l.l.s, which is what makers are doing, and incidentally they are making them go a little farther, which is excusable. But no more revolutions. As it happened, the story of the professional and the new ball was untrue.

The news of something that took place recently in golfing India came over the sea, and the committees and members of very small clubs were fired with a new idea. They are rather whimsical with their golf in our colonies and dependencies at times, and it has been said facetiously that the ships that come home from there ought to be put in quarantine near St. Andrews for a while, to make certain that there are none of these ideas on board. The Royal Bombay Club, thinking possibly that bunkers in the same places always are monotonous, and moreover that, being in the same place, they upset one's calculations so much when the wind changes, went in, according to report, for movable bunkers! They made them from hurdles, and they could move them about the course according to the weather and the committee's fancy.

In some places, as already hinted, they have been trying a strange kind of game called "a four-ball foursome against bogey," being a blend of many things most objectionable to the old spirit. This is the kind of golf that would be exceedingly popular if people generally went mad with the revolutionary idea and held executions in Trafalgar Square. In the meantime it does not "take on." And a new kind of multi-match lately came over from America. They play, say, six a side, but only one ball to each side, the whole dozen players starting off together. They do not play alternately, but each man is chosen for the team according to his special abilities. One man is a specialist in long driving, another in his bra.s.sey play, a third with his irons, a fourth with the short approaches, a fifth with his niblick, and a sixth with his putter. When within fifty yards of the green the captain sings out for No. 4, and No. 5 is wanted when the ball is in a gutter. A man might not have a shot to play the whole way round. Great skill would be needed in the selection of the team. For a match on a short course the wise captain might leave out his bra.s.sey man and put in, say, a fisherman, if there were many water hazards on that course. But it is not golf, and never will be.

From the same source there emanates another idea in compet.i.tions. This is for stroke play, and all the men who enter play the first hole, one after the other. Those men who take most strokes to it retire from the compet.i.tion. The others proceed, and there is the same weeding out process at the second hole, and so on until there are only two players left, and then the first man who wins a hole from the other wins the compet.i.tion.

A possibility, which is none the less dreadful because there is some good common sense in the idea from which it springs, is that there will be examinations in the rules, which all must pa.s.s either before being elected to full membership of a golf club or before being allowed to take part in compet.i.tions. It is a certain fact that two golfers out of every three--at least--are hazy on many important points in the rules.

Three British clubs have already held such examinations, with startling results. Scratch men were plucked! How curious it would be if the favourite for a championship were disqualified in this way. Of course the examiners would trip up the candidates by tricky riders to the rules, and as my artist friend, Mr. E. W. Mitch.e.l.l, suggested, good questions will be: "A is your ball, B is your banker's ball, and C is the hole (all being within a circle ten inches in diameter). Play one off two and lose!" Also, "What happens when a bull sits on your ball--(1) in match; (2) in medal play?"

As it is said, there is no telling what we may have next, particularly as a patent was recently applied for on behalf of a new club which had a sliding lid bottom, covering a receptacle in the head of the club, in which the golfer might keep his matches and his money!

VI

Now and then a section of the golfing community has the appearance of fretting for a new government of the game. The freedom that it has always enjoyed, and in which it is superior to any other game that has a right to be compared to it for quality, interest, and popularity, has become irksome. It is felt that there can be disadvantages in too much freedom, and so these people sigh to be placed under a yoke--a yoke of their own choosing, but none the less stern and powerful and, above all, active. These agitations, if they are to be dignified with such a name, commonly begin in the dullest days of winter, when both links and livers are abnormally heavy, and they flicker out again in the spring. Usually the establishment of a new county golfing union is the signal for the commencement of the argument in favour of the deposition of St. Andrews and the establishment of a new parliament of golf. By this time county unions are no novelty. The Yorkshire and the Nottinghamshire Unions--and particularly the former--are now old-established and flourishing inst.i.tutions; but latterly this movement towards unions has much increased, and Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, and others have joined in it and settled their const.i.tutions. Then there are in existence the Welsh Union, the Suss.e.x Union, and various others of smaller activity. The formation of these unions has been in itself a proceeding of some significance; but the establishment of the new Midland a.s.sociation is greater, for here you have three or four unions making common cause for the furtherance of their own ideas and projects, and becoming a compact, circ.u.mscribed, and very nearly autonomous community, taking a considerable piece of the golfing map to themselves, and embracing no small or unimportant section of the golfing population. First you had the county unions; now the grouping of these unions into a.s.sociations. Obviously, the next and easy step will be a combination of a.s.sociations. Yorkshire and Wales might come to an understanding with the Midlands, and before one could shout "Fore!"

there might be the whole country under the guidance, not to say domination, of a union of a.s.sociations. Members of clubs would _per se_ be affiliated to it, and would give tacit allegiance to it. That is simply a possibility of evolution.

So far the programmes of the unions and a.s.sociations are simple and unpretentious. They will start country compet.i.tions, inter-county tournaments, standardise handicaps, regulate local rules, and so forth.

Unpretentious in a sense these matters are; but yet they will make for much in the whole sum of golf procedure. Then there are no authoritative rules for bogey play which many people want; the a.s.sociations may make them for themselves, and make them binding upon their members, and give rulings upon points of dispute or difficulty that may arise in regard to them, since St. Andrews will have nothing to do with bogey. They will do all the many things that St. Andrews is too indifferent to do.

There you have it! How about the coming of the day when, old-established, firm, and powerful, the combined a.s.sociations find that they are doing nearly everything, and that St. Andrews is doing almost nothing? Will it not be an easy thing, and one which will suggest itself, to cut the knot that ties them to the old and respected guardian of our golf, and to go forth with a new and revolutionary programme of government, which shall include even the very championships and the rules themselves? This is not a fanciful speculation; it is logical and--as some who have brought themselves to the serious study of the future would say--almost inevitable. It would be according to the natural processes of history.

Let them disclaim as they please, be as loyal to the existing order of things as possible, it is still the fact that these unions and a.s.sociations are a menace to St. Andrews. By evolution from them rather than by direct establishment is a British Golfing Union likely to come about, if one ever does. This is essentially a democratic movement. With the vast influx of new players the feeling in golf is infinitely more democratic than it was five years ago, and the people are now chafing at the indifference of St. Andrews and the championship group of clubs, and are calling for a ruling body that will give them new and simpler laws, that will regulate the championships better, and hold them on a greater variety of courses, organise inter-county compet.i.tions, and so on.

St. Andrews--by which is meant the Royal and Ancient Club--is the old and self-established, almost hereditary House of Lords that dozes and does not mind, with no second chamber between it and the people. The people say they want a representative and active House of Commons. This allegory works out perfectly to the point that Ireland is fuming and fretting at the neglect with which she is treated.