Asides
Davy: A light golf ball (floater) will rise fifteen or twenty feet higher than a heavy ball. A light ball should always be used when you have to “hold the green.”
L. V. B. Your experience coincides with that of many people. Putting cannot be taught; not because it is too hard, but because it is too easy. It is like instructing a duck in the art of natation.
After a round of golf a man might acquire a reputation for originality by announcing, in the locker room, that “at this time of year the shower bath is the best part of the game.”
“I must have looked up,” said our friend, A. E. D., as he replaced a divot. And he added: “Why don’t we have a list of such remarks, numbered to save time?” “Why not, indeed?” said we, who are nothing if not helpful. And so we offer a short list which golfers may extend as they wish:
1. “I must have looked up.”
2. “I tried to knock the cover off.”
3. “I should have used an iron.”
4. Omitted to avoid confusion with “Fore!”
5. “High like a house.”
6. “Some drive, that!”
With such a list agreed on, when a man topped his driver he would merely ejaculate, “Two!” and sit down.
All true golfers believe in a golf hereafter. Brand Whitlock was okaying St. Andrews with a famous “pro” who remarked, of a certain putting green, that there was none larger or finer, and Whitlock’s aged caddy added: “Not in this world.”
One of the pleasures of playing golf at Old Elm is a notable absence of small bets in the matches such as a ball a hole or a piffling “syndicate.” Old Elm golfers play for blank cheques.
A gentleman writes us that our look-at-the-hole theory works all right in practice, but breaks down in actual play. We beg to assure him that that is his fault not the theory’s. The test of every stroke is what you do with it in practice, when the muscles are relaxed and you function almost mechanically.
Frexample, the Worthington Ball Company does not employ a crack golfer to test its products; it has a mechanical driver at its plant in Ohio. If the ball flies straight they know it is perfectly round; if one brand flies farther than another, they know that that is the longest ball. There is nothing “psychological” about it.