The Compleat Golfer; or, The Idle Man’s Recreation
[A discourse betwixt a Golfer and one that would have knowledge of the game.]
Introductory
Golfator. A fine morning, sir, as fresh as when this world was young. I mark you have a sack of golfing tools upon your back. Are you for the links thus early?
Scholar. Ay, sir, for I am resolved to learn this game, of which you spake so bravely yester-night, and rose betimes to buy these tools; and I do entreat you to instruct me in the art of striking the ball, that I may be well launched upon my adventure.
Golf. Well, sir, as for that I am at your pleasure, yet I am loath to launch any man upon so great a sea of troubles, but would persuade him rather to forego the hazard.
Schol. Nay, I am not to be persuaded, but am impatient to be at the business, and to strike a ball that it may fly to a great distance.
Golf. Marry, sir, consider well, there is yet time to withdraw. Have you a wife?
Schol. Not I, nor do I contemplate such folly.
Golf. I am rejoiced, for what is your loss is some maid’s gain. A woman that has a golfer for husband might as profitably be wed to a sailor, or to an adventurer in polar lands. Haply you have a business that will suffer.
Schol. Not I, again. My worldly goods are all in stocks and bonds, and I have nought on my mind of greater import than the learning of this ingenious game. Let us then to the links, and be at it.
Golf. In good season, Scholar. I pledge you I am in no haste to watch your antics, and since you are but of a middle age there is great store of time before you. Come, let us sit beneath this tree, in the branches of which a robin is chirping, and we will speak further of the adventure to which you are committed.
First, you are to know that the chief end of golf, as I view it, is not to strike the ball with greater skill than your adversary, but to give strength to your character, and, if it be needed, to reform it. Patience and a good temper, courtesy and a pleasant speech, these be marks of the true golfer, yet are they virtues that one may put on as a mask, whereas I would have you wear them honestly.
Schol. Master, I am all ears, like an ass, and I entreat you to fill them.
Golf. Clap then a hand to one of them, that my counsel may not escape you. You are to reflect, Scholar, that in tennis, or in a passage at foils, or in any other game of great movement, there is not the space of a moment in which to desire ill luck to your adversary, but this golf is a game of so great deliberation, that whilst you address the ball I may pray fervently that you top or founder it, or that you miss it entirely, and this I hold to be no true spirit.
Schol. Would you beseech heaven that your adversary strike the ball with greater cunning than yourself?
Golf. Marry, sir, I would hope that he struck it fairly, and that I struck it fairly in my turn, and that good fortune might attend us both.
Schol. Sir, I will endeavor to give such current to my thought. Shall we not seek the links now? I am impatient to have knowledge of this great game.
Golf. The which you will presently be as impatient to be rid of, and seeking to dispose of this sack of tools for a tenth of their cost. Marry, sir, when I reflect on the tribulations in store for you I could weep, as a mother regards her female babe, and laments the ills that it is heir to. Here is as fine a morning as ever broke upon this world, with a sweet wind from the south, and birds calling from the greening boughs; yet must you mar your day and mine. But since there is no help for it, let us to your undoing.