ALICE IN BUNKERLAND.
“The golfer is about the only mortal proud of being in a hole.”—Philadelphia Ledger.
Zazzo? A cribbage player holes out as gleefully as a golfer.
No department of the game discloses more variation than iron work. For example, some players take turf; others take to the woods.
“The really interesting question is, why will not men listen to women?” says Alice Duer Miller. It’s this way, lady. After a hard day on the golf links a man gives reluctant ear to discussions of the music of Ravel and DeBussy, the Epicureanism of Marius, the influence of democracy on Greek culture, and other subjects which the ladies persist in introducing. Collectively, women are rather strenuous. Individually they are easy to listen to, especially if they are easy to look at. And if they punctuate their discourse with taps of a fan and what are known as speaking glances, they may disquisish on any topic, from figs to futurism.
The farmers around Brook, Ind., have voted to keep their clocks at the old time. Comrade Ade will likely use both times—the old for his farm, and the new for his golf course.
ANOTHER NOTED MEMBER OF THE FAMILY WAS A COLONEL.
[Ad in an Ohio paper.]
For Sale—Bookcase and doctor’s library, including skull of Lucretia Bogie, a noted murderess. W. H. Garnette, East Monroe, O.
“Golf,” again we read, “is a game that demands courtesy and politeness.” Makes us think of coal at the present writing. The demand exceeds the supply.
“Golf Playing Is Newest Cure for the Insane.”—Newspaper Headline.
As the Latins used to say, Similia similibus curantur.
Our golfing ambition may be stated in three words: Length without strength.
SHAKESPEARE ON THE AMATEUR QUESTION.
There are two theories to explain the steadiness of champions in gruelling (to coin a word) tournament play. One is “heart of oak,” and the other is head of the same material.
THE TURF-TEARERS.
Demos has taken to golf in America. In Lincoln Park, Chicago, Demos wears suspenders and a derby, and Mrs. Demos has been seen pushing a perambulator from hole to hole. For the delectation of Demos, golf links and books are multiplying, and eventually every town will have at least two libraries—the Carnegie and the Golf.
HELPFUL HINT NO. 640.
When in doubt pronate the forearm.
To Inquiring Golfer: Qualifications for membership in the Lincoln Park Golf Club are a derby hat and a coupla clubs. No one is allowed to tee off unless he is thus equipped.
Golf magazines are showing spring fashions for players; effete east stuff, chiefly. A natty make-up which will be seen at the Lincoln Park Country Club is exhibited in the accompanying illustration.
We were sitting on the porch of the clubhouse at Brae Burn, listening to a discussion of the prohibition of Sunday golf at other courses. A gentleman who looked like a substantial pillar of the church offered his views. “Cut all your church subscriptions,” said he. “That will put a stop to this nonsense.”
Mr. Ouimet qualified with a score of 79 and a temperature of 103. That established the temperature record for the course, which is uncommonly difficult.
When, one day, we engaged a caddy to walk around with us, although we carried only a midiron, we fancied we had reached the Height of Affluence; but we know a man who drives a Ford and carries a chauffeur on the rear seat.
DEGENERATE DAYS.
Golfers, the days are growing shorter. Get out after dinner and save some daylight for the farmers.
“Golf has its jokes, undoubtedly,” says Dr. Francis Hackett, “but it has no joke such a joke as golf itself.” If Francis were thirty or forty years younger he would yell “Fore!” whenever he saw a man going along with a bag of clubs.
We have frequently wondered why we play such a messy game on a golf course new to us. Mr. Vardon explains. “The perspective of the course” at Inverness bothered him.
When Harry Vardon relates that he putted from the edge of the green, and “thanks to the fates of golf” the ball fell into the cup, he means that he made a damned good putt and is wholly aware of the fact.
Mr. Harding, we read, shoots Chevy Chase in 95, “but is known to be ambitious to reach par,” which is 71. Any golfer should be able to get a laugh out of that.
WONDER WHAT THIS OISEAU DID?
From the Morris, Man., Herald.
To the Editor: Kindly allow me to make a public apology in your paper concerning my conduct in a game of ball between Emerson and Morris. I feel very sorry and ashamed of myself for losing my hasty temper. I could not have been in my right mind to do just as I did, to allow such a provocation to make me do as I did. It seems like a bad dream to me and never will forget it. In my 24 years of playing I never lost control of myself before. I forgive the player who was the cause of my weakness, and hold no ill-will to any one. It will be better for me to say no more.
Jim D. McLean.
The gentleman could not be more regretful if he had tanked up and punched somebody at the Lambs’ Club.
ON THE OTHER HAND—
From the Kansas City Star.
It is a tribute both to the game of golf and to those who play—the fact that you never read of two players getting into a brawl over the golf table and hitting each other on the head with a golf cue.
Those persons who feel sorry for Chick Evans because he can’t putt may like to know that Vardon and Ray, interviewed when they returned to England, agreed that “Evans with his new club is the best putter in the United States.”
Paying club dues for the three months beginning January first used to be our notion of zero in entertainment. We are obliged to lower the temperature twenty degrees since the war tax was added to the dues.
One of the things in golf most difficult to explain is “the feel of the clubhead.” We have tried to convey an idea of the sensation to persons who have solicited an opinion, but without success. Perhaps this will explain it: Take a full swing with the mashie for a chip shot of ten or twenty yards. Practise that for a while, and you will begin to discover that there is something at the end of the shaft.
The young woman with the golf club who appears on magazine covers or in railway folders is shown, as often as not, holding the implement in an exceedingly awkward manner. Artists of yesteryear were better observers. A reproduction of a painting, “The Golf Players,” by Pieter de Hooch (1630-1677), represents, for one item, a child holding a club as a Vardon of that period might have grasped it.
Mr. Topping is a well known American golfer, and the mention of his name has evoked many smiles and decrepit jests. It is not generally known, however, that he is related on the paternal side to the Hookers and on the other wing to the Slicers, two other celebrated clans whose lineage details occupy many pages in the Almanac de Golfa.
After prayerful consideration the Western Golf Association has ruled that as long as a golfer depends on the literary merits of his articles to sell them, he will retain his amateur standing. One could almost whittle a wheeze out of that.
THE DUB.
When the Preacher observed that there was no new thing under the sun, he articulated a mouthful, as a contemporary slangily remarked of Demosthenes. A Denver man relates in the Golfer’s Magazine that he keeps his eye off the ball, instead of on it, from the drive to the putt. Unlike the feat which we recently noticed on an oratorio programme, “Rest in the Ford,” this can be done. Several years ago we demonstrated to our own content that it was possible to use a mashie accurately while scrutinizing the flag, and during one season we putted while glaring at the hole; but in the longer shots we preferred more freedom of the neck—ours not being of the giraffe type—and so maintained an “eyes front” attitude. About that time Mr. Charles Clarke, professional to the Rothersham Club at York, published his “Common Sense Golf,” which contained this admonition:
“And most important of all, for putts of six feet and under, look at the hole and not at the ball. I know it is a very unorthodox thing to say, and it will require no little courage at first to get used to the method. But the difficulty exists only in the imagination; the lie of your ball is as nearly as possible perfect, and all the preliminary adjustments have been made. A back-swing of a few inches, and a short, firm tap is all that is required. Personally I have improved my holing out enormously since adopting this method, and there are days when I can scarcely miss a two-yard putt.”
Our hypothesis, which we arrived at independently of the Rothersham pro (as Adams located the planet Neptune “unbeknownst” to Leverrier) was challenged by Grantland Rice and Jerome Travers; and so we arranged a test with Mr. Rice. But a heavy shower interposed, and we agreed to try the thing on a new dog—Mr. Ring Lardner, who up to that time had not trifled with a golfing implement. He was required to putt eighteen holes while looking at the hole, and to repeat while looking at the ball. The result was slightly in favor of the latter method, but this was fairly attributable to increased familiarity with the putter. Personally (sic), we can putt as well one way as the other, and all that we ever maintained for the eye-on-hole style was that it would improve the work of one who putted badly. If a man putts well by any method, let him keep the even tenor of his way, nor heed the rumble of a distant drum.
Golf is advised for training camps by the War department, to counteract the tension of intensive training. The beneficial effect lies in the mental rest during the swing; from the moment the ball is addressed until it is struck the mind is an absolute blank. The poorer the player, the more strokes he takes, and the greater the mental rest.
WE’VE TRIED IT ON A GOLF BALL, BUT IT DOESN’T WORK.
Sir: In the Rotarian for this month: “Like a rubber ball, the Spirit of Rotary will not be cowed by any one.” Did you ever try to cow a rubber ball?
R. C. S.
The Empory Gazette admits that something is to be said for golf; that “a man can play the game without being hooted and abused as though he was a wife beater.” But the same can be said for every other game except baseball.
Isn’t the weather provokingly delightful? Here we have a compilation of verse, a novel, and a few smaller matters planned out, and the golfing weather persists out of reason.
HAVING THEIR SLICE OUT, MEBBE.
[From a Rockford contemp.]
GOLF SEASON CLOSES.
H. S. Wortham underwent a minor operation at Rockford hospital yesterday morning.
L. D. Ray underwent a minor operation at Rockford hospital Sunday.
Time to put away your golf tools. Navigation on the Yukon river has closed.
Economically war is much more wasteful than golf. In war a waster bullet is a total loss, but when you lose a golf ball somebody else finds it, and eventually your initials are worn off it. By the way, has the question been discussed, and settled, whether it is good sportsmanship to stamp your initials on a ball? We never stamped more than a dozen, and none of these, when lost, was ever returned to the shop.
FRENZIED JOHN.
(Note: This poem was never finished by Mr. Taylor. Ed.)
Mr. Pradt of Wausau, Wis., writes to us: “One day last summer I found my ball, after a fine approach, lying in a hole on the back of a toad. Would you hold that the ball was teed up?” We should hold, off hand, that it was toad up.
STYMIED.
Sir: This is the situation at a summer resort course in Wisconsin:
Chorus of Young Ladies: “Oh, is that the professional?”
Caddie: “Yes, but he’s married.”
J. G. L.
Did you happen to see this wheeze in a recent issue of London Punch:
“In New York a club has been started exclusively for golfers. The others insisted on it.”
The headline, “Finds a Husband on Golf Links,” reminds us of the lady who observed sagely: “There is one good thing about golf. You always know where your husband is.”
Young Mr. Ouimet’s feat of holing out in one iron shot contains a helpful hint for the novice. When the hole is only 243 yards away take a midiron. A driver might put you over the green.
OVERHEARD AT A SMALL-TOWN BALL GAME.
Umpire: “Boy, that’s certainly some tear you gave your pants when you slid.”
Casey (colored): “Shuah is. Mighty near havin’ to call this game off on ’counta darkness.”
Whit.
THE GOLFER.
“The only man who can play a good game of golf is he who has no brains.”—Andrew Lang.
According to Mr. Jim Barnes, whose new and really valuable book of golf-swing photographs has just left the press, one can get more fun out of golf by knowing what he is about when wielding the various clubs. But according to Capper & Capper, “How to Get More Fun Out of Golf” depends on wearing athletic union suits with swiss-ribbed bottoms.
Observe how easily the Western Golf Association, confronted, like the peace conference, with the problem of the stymie, reverses its perplexity! The player of the ball nearer the hole may play it or lift it, at his option.
DOES TOBACCO AFFECT YOUR GAME?
We are not sure whether smoking has an adverse influence on our game, such as it is; but we felt a bit concerned the other day when we missed a thirty-foot putt. For—
AN EXTREMELY INTELLIGENT DOG.
Sir: I have a remarkable dog, a Scotch terrier, bought of a caddy at St. Andrews. This dog has seen some pretty good golf, and is a bit of a critic. I took him to the links to watch my game. My approach to the second flag was within five yards, and the dog disconcerted me by sitting by the hole and alternately watching it and me. My putt went wide and seven or eight feet past. The dog arose and began digging frantically at the hole to make it larger. Intelligent?
Brassie Cleek.
PROBLEM OF CONDUCT.
A drives. Before A reaches his ball B drives, and his ball strikes A in the back. A waits for an apology. B comes up and says: “Why didn’t you duck, you rummy? That’d been a peach of a drive.”
What should A do?
WHY GOLF DIVOTEES GO INSANE.
DO YOU KNOW THIS ONE?
[From Tom Daly’s department in the Philadelphia Ledger.]
Somebody, probably our favorite story-teller among golfers, narrated to us the tale of a man whom the same John D. invited to play on the Rockefeller private course at Cleveland. The guest had neglected to provide himself with balls. “Lend Mr. Blank a couple of old balls, George,” said the host to his caddie. “There’s no old balls in the bag, Mr. Rockefeller,” replied the caddie. “No?” exclaimed the host, and after a pause, “well, I guess you’ll have to lend him a new one, then.”
We have wondered ever and anon—and sometimes as frequently as now and then—where the illustrators get their golf models for the decorating of magazine covers. Perhaps on public links, where there is no grip or stance so absurd that it may not be observed.
WHY GOLF DIVOTEES GO INSANE.
(Concerning the use of the mashie)
| “The blade is better for being deep.”—Mr. Travis. | “Better results can be obtained by using a mashie with a narrow face.”—Mr. Travers. |
| “The ball has to be picked up rather abruptly.”—Bernard Darwin. | “Follow through as in the drive.”—Mr. Travis. |
| “Draw in the arms a trifle immediately after the ball is struck.”—Mr. Travis. | “There is no drawing in at the moment of crossing to produce the cut.”—P. A. Vaile. |
| “The player must take turf after hitting the ball.”—Mr. Travers. | “It matters very little whether the player takes ground with him or not.”—Simpson, Bart. |
| “The back-swing is long or short, according to the distance from the green.”—A multitude of authorities. | “Many will remember the wonderful accuracy Jamie Anderson acquired, hitting a full blow at all distances, and regulating the length of his loft by the inches of turf he took behind the ball.”—Simpson, Bart. |
| “Keep your eye on the ball.”—Chorus of pundits. | “Keeping the eye on the ball is not of first importance.”—George O’Neil. |
GUFFLE FOR GOLFERS
For the benefit of golfers who depend on this department exclusively for their tips on the game, we have engaged Mr. Donald MacBawbee, the famous professional at Prairie Dog, as first aid to the helpless, and we feel safe in promising that he will add delightfully to the complications of the sport.
Mr. MacBawbee is 5 feet 11⅜, and carries the conventional clubs, with the addition of two implements which he calls a soakum and a pushum. The first is a bludgeon of wood, and is employed for dispatching the ball from the tee; the second is an iron for push shots. The grip of this iron is tapered to a point at the end, so that when the hands are pushed forward, which Mr. MacBawbee claims is the proper way to make the shot, the chance of the hands slipping is reduced to an irreducible minimum.
The Prairie Dog pro is committed to heavy clubs, and consequently he prefers lignum vitae to the conventional hickory. Concerning the length of the implements he has very decided opinions. No golfer, he says, should attempt to wield a club taller than himself or shorter than his golf bag. A happy medium, he suggests, will prove most satisfactory.
Mr. MacBawbee lays much emphasis on the matter of stance. Two ways of confronting the ball, he says, are the ramrod stance and the cab-horse stance. The first is to be avoided, as several cases are recorded of players who have broken a leg in swinging. The cab-horse stance is easy, graceful, and relaxing. As an arch is stronger than a straight line, the firmest of all stances, says Mr. MacBawbee, is the hoop stance, but this is possible only for very bowlegged golfers. For this stance he advises that the feet be placed rather near each other.
Says Mr. Jock Hutchinson, who is illuminating the arcanum of golf for the benefit of the Dub Family Robinson, “I am 5 feet 10¼ inches in height, weigh 137 pounds, and carry twelve clubs.” That bag would bar him from the Lincoln Park Country Club.
Hon. Jock’s arsenal of irons includes one which he calls a “stopum.” Percy Hammond’s bag includes a peculiar instrument which might be called a “topum.”
Besides a “stopum” every bag of golf clubs should contain a startum, a topum, a sliceum, a hookum, a sclaffum, a killum, and, for general utility, a dubum.
Doc Hammond’s golf bag has two new clubs in it besides his topum—a lose-um and a wet-um.
Home-bound from the links, we were thinking, for the somethingth time, that golf was a great waste of time and money, when we observed a citizen starting out to break a few hundred clay pigeons. Everything is relative, as Box remarked to Cox.
FAMOUS LAST LINES.
“The shower bath is the best part of the game.”