The Fifth Hole
Golfator. You are to observe, my honest Scholar, that although your iron is a shorter tool than your wooden, you may do quite as much mischief with it; nay, sir, more, I warrant, for the head of the club being of metal, you may hack a ball to pieces with it in a few wild strokes. Wherefore it is that the experienced golfer plays his iron shots with less frenzy than he brings to his drive, striving to hit the ball cleanly and with exactness.
Scholar. Sir, I shall endeavor the cultivating of this virtue, in accordance with your wise counsel.
Golf. You are to observe again, that in the free stroke of the drive ’tis all one whether the ball fly ten yards to this side or that of the true line of its flight, but as you draw near to the flag this true line becomes a matter of first importance. Marry, sir, if your desire for knowledge of this game were deeper than yonder ditch, I would have you to begin at the edge of the putting green, and to withdraw by degrees to greater distances, until you reached a point where the wrists no longer sufficed to propel the ball, by the which time they might be trained to some purpose.
Schol. Nay, Master, my desire for knowledge of this ingenious game is as deep as any well.
Golf. Then, sir, I have read you wrongly, for I mark that you clutch your iron with impatience, and gaze into the distance, and then upon this ball at your feet, and you do have the seeming of one that would smite the ball most lustily. Smite it, then, good Scholar, and have done with it. Ah! A most marvelous slice! The ball hath flown far into the wood, as a startled quail. Come, let us follow it, and though we find it not we may happen upon matter of more importance.
Schol. The ball cannot be far in the wood, Master. I marked it by this dead tree, yet we find it not.
Golf. ’Tis most cunningly hidden. Do you sit down, honest Scholar, and rest your eyes, for much searching for a lost ball doth weary them. See, here is a brave array of trilliums, nodding welcome to us, as jocund a company as the poet’s daffodils. Here, too, is columbine, that begins to show itself, and Bethlehem’s Star, and many other wilding flowers.
Schol. Sir, I thought to walk directly to the ball, since I saw it drop among these trees.
Golf. Marry, sir, believe your ears sooner than your eyes, and your nose before either; but not one of the senses is to be trusted. Yet if mine eyes serve me now, here is yellow lady’s-slipper, that I have not seen before in this countryside, and it were well worth losing a ball to come upon this solitary plant, for I see no others of the family. I have found them in great number farther north, where, too, I chanced one rememberable day on the orchid Arethusa, that grows in bogs, and is the loveliest of plants. Mark you the gold in the sunlight, shewing that the summer draws on; and hearken to that thrasher overhead, who would have you to believe that singing is the chief business of life.
Schol. Think you that the ball struck upon a tree and was flung deeper into the wood?
Golf. ’Tis conceivable, for I never saw ball that had less notion of whither it was flying. Let us press farther into the thicket, for ’tis a rare place to loiter in. This, you are to observe, is the compensation for a foolish stroke at golf, for he that plays straight before him sees nought but a strip of turf, and ever his thought is of his next stroke, whether he shall take wood or iron to it.
Schol. Good fortune, Master! Here is the ball, among these trilliums, the which it is very like in color.
Golf. And fairer to your eye than any flower. I observe, sir, that you have the makings of a golfer, and are not to be diverted by the babbling of brookwater, and the twittering of birds, and other natural distractions. Let us return, then, to the fairgreen, where you may make further trial of your iron.