The Compulsion of Habit
Sir: Gentleman with two golf clubs in his hand stepped into an elevator in the Railroad Exchange. After the car started up he yelled “Four!” The man standing in front of him ducked his head.
E. F. W.
Meditating on the fact that the English have beaten the Scotch at their own game of golf, a correspondent writes, “Is there, in the whole history of games, another case like this?” Sure. There’s polo. It originated in Asia.
We do not wish to add to the already extensive list of words and phrases used in writing of golf, but it occurs to us that “led the field” would be a serviceable phrase in reporting a qualifying round.
Suggestion to crack golfers: Why not get photographed in the act of finishing a drive?
“Keep your eye on the ball,” writes Arthur Taylor, the w. k. golfer. And he adds, quizzically; “Which eye?” It makes a difference.
Speaking of golf (which we do on the slightest encouragement) the Pall Mall Gazette has been considering the best hole in a choice of 50,000. The experts do not agree, naturally, but they do agree that the best “blind hole” is the Alps hole at Prestwich.
At a meeting of 10,000 Chicago golfers, it was agreed that the most attractive hole was the nineteenth.
In his preface to his book, “The New Golf,” P. A. Vaile writes: “Unless one can play, or at least talk intelligently about golf, one has to miss about three-quarters of the conversation in any country club—and many other places in America.” That were indeed a deprivation.
As for the instruction in the book; the essence of it is that one should grip the club tightly and think of nothing except hitting the ball. Sound advice; there is no better. It is almost impossible to explain the golf stroke because of its simplicity. One might write a book explaining how to swim, but if the novice persisted in throwing up his hands he would go under. Similarly, if the golf novice persists in attacking the ball in a complex and unnatural manner, elaborate treatises on the simplicity of golf will do him no good.
A large part of Mr. Vaile’s book is taken up in pooh-poohing the theories of other writers, which are for the most part pooh-poohable. The question arises, what would Mr. Vaile and the others do for material if the game were not enveloped in mystery, and the simplest club shot considered as solemnly as the ordination of a bishop?
A golf bag that does not require a caddy is among the season’s novelties. It is, we assume, so contrived that every now and then it slams itself on the ground with sufficient force to break the shaft of the driver or brassie.
A popular fallacy, usually cherished by the missus, is that a man can get as much physical good from weeding a garden as from playing eighteen holes of golf.
From Milwaukee comes the regret that we have deserted the r. and a. game for a mere automobile. We found that hauling on a wheel ruined the delicacy of our approaching game.
Nineteenth Hole has a yarn to tell. His opponent drove a ball under a low-limbed thorn apple, and as he crawled into the thicket on his tum, N. H. said j. l. t. “Keep your head down!”
There is nothing surprising in the news that a caddy found a diamond necklace on the links. A caddy is likely to find anything except the thing you pay him to keep an eye on.