Housefly Golf
Sir: On Sunday, after the company had gone, the Missus and I played a twosome of your new game of bughouse golf; but on the first hole—“kitchen”—after a good drive off the sink, I foozled my approach into some water from an overflowing drip pan under the icebox. I claimed a right to lift out of casual water, but wifey said I’d forgotten to empty the pan for several days, and that the puddle constituted a regular hazard. Is she right?1 Then, on the fourth hole, up the hill over the dining table, I sliced my brassie into the sand pit, alias the sugar bowl, and though I could get out with my mashie the ball went back into the pit again and again and I had to use a baffy spoon. After that I got several bogies, and didn’t blow up till I came to the “nursery,” when I laid my approach shot dead against the kid’s toy balloon. I must have pressed a bit, for I couldn’t find the ball afterward.
G. B. M.
Sir: Your new “fly” game, as a substitute for golf, should become very popular with those who have had trouble with the old-fashioned outdoor sport. After spending most of my time on hands and knees in the tall grass, peering down gopher holes for eighty-five cent disappearers, I find the new game a refreshing diversion. Have already one good score to submit—
Played the bedrooms in 4, 6, 5, and 3 respectively; parlor, seven; dining-room, five; kitchen, nine; and finished the bathroom in bogey. The flour barrel and range were some trouble, but bunkers add zest to the game. The chandeliers and my wife were mental hazards, which I shall become accustomed to or remove. A friend of mine says the sport is particularly enjoyable out at Calumet, where the flies have nine legs and stand so high they don’t have to be teed. I am open to challenges.
J. H. C.
“O wild west wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing”—
And, as Arnold Bennett would say, with those cadences singing in his head a man will go out and quarrel with a golf ball.
“Golfers sleep on Grounds.”—Lead, South Dakota Call.
Nothing uncommon. Our friend B. L. M. takes a nap over every putt.
A reader mentions casually that he took sixteen shots for the first hole at Skokie, with three balls in the pond. It doesn’t seem possible. Still, it might be done this way: Three in the pond is six strokes; the seventh was over, the eighth was topped, the ninth was in the bunker; two chops make eleven, out in twelve; thirteenth on the green or thereabouts; and three putts. It’s a great game.
By sheer nerve a golfer with a handicap of twenty-something played through all the threesomes and foursomes ahead of him, on the Skokie, holding them all back, blowing up the entire course, and putting everybody out of humor. When last seen he was smoking a seegar on the club porch, entirely at peace with himself. It must be great to have a hide like that.
The cost of golf balls is to be inquired into. For a reasoning creature, man spends an intolerable time in needless investigation. The manufacturers charge a high price for golf balls because they can get it. There is absolutely no other reason.
Notes
1 Referred to Mr. Joe Davis.