THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY GOLF.
THE "pure Scot" that is in Mr. Balfour has good reason to glory in what he terms the gradual Scotification. of England by means of golf, for never before has any fashion or fancy so swiftly and so completely led the English nation captive as has the cult of the golf ball and the club. The victory was not effected without a struggle, and even to-day there yet remain some faithful protestants,—cricketers who denounce with unmeasured scorn a game which their pride will only describe as "Scotch croquet," and cautious gentlemen who view with dismay the excesses and extravagances of the golf-maniac. But it is with bated breath that these now raise the voice of dissent, for they already feel that the mania knows no stay, and that their own time must surely come. Mr. Balfour was pleased to say that the English, as a race, are not very quick to learn ; so explaining what to him was otherwise an inexplicable fact, that golf for so many centuries should have been played. upon one side only of the Tweed. We should hardly have said that Englishmen were slow to learn, when the lesson was, a new game. Croquet and lawn-tennis quickly found devotees, and spread, from one end of the Kingdom to the other, with a rapidity which left nothing to be desired, even though they failed to hold their victims in so close a thrall as that which, is exercised by golf. Nor could it have been altogether ignorance of the game which hindered our full appreciation of golf, for, as a matter of fact, there have been golf-links in some corners of England for a long time past. But it would be vain indeed to seek for our reason in not having adopted this good thing more universally before, when we cannot now assign a reason for the strange enthusiasm—not to say frenzy—with which we have adopted it to-day. Regarding it from the point of view of the uninitiated few—a body that grows more scanty day by day—we are fain to recognise in golf an abiding influence over its votaries, which we have witnessed. in no other game before. A man may play cricket, croquet, or lawn-tennis and yet remain unscathed ; he can even play all three games together, and, profess an equal liking for them all. But let him once play golf, and thenceforth there is no other game for him in all the world. Will Mr. Balfour explain the meaning of the passion with which his favourite pastime ie pursued, and of its jealous hold upon its players P Of cricket• and of cricket " shop " sooner or later there cometh satiety; of golf and of its conversation there is no end. A cricketer recognises the limits of age and of the seasons; neither in the November of the year, nor in the November of his own days, will he persist in recalling the matches of the summer that is past. Not so the golfer, who never wearies of professing the faith that is in him and of testifying to its strength. The winter of the year and the winter of his own age are power- less to chill his ardour; he will play golf as long as he can walk a round ; he will talk of it as long as the breath is in him. No one who has not listened for long hours together to the talk of golfers, can realise what a hold a mere pastime may take upon the human imagination, and how demoralising its influence may be to all the interests of truth. Let two or three golfers foregather, and forthwith the world to them is nought but links, over which are paraded bygone " foursomes " in most wearisome procession, and- with a most lamentable confusion of fact and fiction.
The golfer is a lost man. Men have been reclaimed from other games ; from golf, never. And the approach of the disease is as insidious as its grip is tenacious. It is curious- to watch the first symptoms of golf in the unsuspecting. victim. Innocently be accompanies a golfing friend, and says. in his heart that the game is foolishly easy, and his friend an unconscionable duffer. Then he will take a club in his own hand and swing it gingerly, while he listens to the traitorous. suggestion that he, too, should make the attempt. He weakly assents, and almost from that very moment becomes a slave in a bondage from which there is no release. By dint of hard hitting and patient perseverance, he accomplishes his first half-round of nine holes in some one hundred and fifty strokes, while behind him broken clubs and carved-out frag- ments of turf bear witness to his energy. After some few months, during which, obedient to some fatal fascination, he returns to it again and again, he will have mastered the game sufficiently to go the whole round in one hundred and twenty, —to be, in fact, a very tenth-rate player. He will never be the• same man again : but he is quite unconscious of his fall, and glories in the unhallowed knowledge that be has acquired. He &novas now the difference between a niblick and a putter—if there is any difference between them—and talks glibly of the rival merits of wood and iron, of bulgers and decks. He knows that " caddies" are not, as the Daily Telegraph -surmised, " silver-mounted,"—he knows them to be ragged -and very supercilious young gentlemen whose scornful -services he has himself to buy with silver. Meekly he bears with their contempt, and strives to profit by their -criticism; and even has it in his heart to envy them, and would give largely of his possessions to acquire their uncon- 'scions science. Bunkers haunt his dreams ; in his waking moments he wears out his wife's patience and carpets by con- everting the latter into putting-greens. While the first fever is upon him, he is useless for all practical purposes to his friends and relations ; even after its force is somewhat -abated, he is liable to periodical relapses. And what is the -attraction of this game that it should so beset a sober man ? As a rule, it needs but a short experience to convince a man of middle-age that it is a game in -which, for want of an early (training, be can never hope to excel ; and yet the yearning to attain excellence never leaves him, and is not to be discouraged, 'though he sticks fast for ever in the slough of despondent inefficiency.
Golf has certain advantages over other games, it is true ; but none so great as to more than compensate for its obvious 'disadvantages. One would have thought it needed far too ',elaborate a preparation to be ever really popular. A game that requires some acres of space wherein to be played, is likely to be out of most people's reach. On the other hand, there is a certain charm in the actual movement of the game that gives it a roving appearance of freedom by the side of the strict and stationary character of cricket. Some links there are where it is a pleasure to walk, even when one is unconcerned in the hazards and excitements of the game. Where the land goes down to the sea in billowy undulations of sand-dunes, covered with the green bent grass and fringed with the grey sea-thistle; where the glint of the Lying ball shows white as the sea-gull's wing against the blue sky ; and where the air sweeps in fresh from 'the surges that thunder on the very boundaries of the game, there is an exhilaration in the scene that needs mo golf to make itself felt, though no doubt the game is doubly enjoyable on its account. It is with an uplifted spirit that the golfer starts from the first teeing-ground, and with mind and body refreshed that he arrives at 'the last hole. Even bunkers wear a less distasteful aspect when they are obviously difficulties of Nature. But the secret -of golf cannot lie in the beauty of its surroundings; for how should one then account for the suburban golfer who pursues the pastime with equal passion across the dreary waste of a suburban desert P Surely, in spite of all Mr. Balfour may say as to the necessity of beginning golf at an early age, it is precisely because most players begin late in life that it so appeals to the average player. It is true, one must suppose, that to obtain a certain freedom of swing, it is necessary to prac- tise with boyish muscles ; but apart from this, the game needs neither great bodily activity nor great bodily strength. It is, golfers tell us, not only a game of scientific skill, but even a game of which the full science has yet to be studied and which still offers unsolved problems in dynamics to the mathematical player. It is not devoid of chance—of chance, that is to say, that brings good luck to an opponent and misfortune to one- 41elf—and is likely to exercise somewhat severely one of the most prominent of the Christian virtues. But if charity be rare upon the golf-links, there is no lack of hope, which 'springs eternal on both sides of every hazard. Nevertheless, with all due deference to Mr. Balfour, we are still at a loss to account for this golfing madness. Perhaps—solvitur -ambulando—it is a question that can only be solved by playing oneself.
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