IN THE ROUGH.
Last week, on the very day when yet another proof of the inability of British golfers to win any championship open to competitors of other nationalities was bringing down grave charges of decadence on their heads, a golfer in Uganda was attacked by a hippopotamus. The incident suggests a remedy for that softening of the moral as well as the physical fibre to which many critics attribute the ill success of our match- play. We ourselves have always regarded golf as too sheltered a pastime ; in no other outdoor sport, with the possible exceptions of shrimping and bowls, is the element of risk, the invigorating spice of danger, so nearly non-existent. Our criticism of the game is summed up in the reflection that the last thing you would expect to hear of a man playing golf is that he had been attacked by a hippopotamus. It should not be the last thing. Club Secretaries who have the interests of the game at heart must take their cue from Whipsnade. The more powerful and irritable of the tropical fauna must be imported wholesale, and without delay. Hardihood and resource will be required, as never before, of the player whose tendency to slice may embroil him with a jaguar : while to drop a ball no more than the statutory club's-length from a bush known to harbour puff-adders will breed in him those powers of self-control which count for so much in the critical
atmosphere of a championship. From the aesthetic stand- point, a fairway swarming with such mammals as Proudfoot's gazelle, Sibley's gnu, and the delightful, though little-known, puki will present an unforgettable sight. The presence of these creatures will, no doubt, be necessary to supplement the diet of the carnivora.
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