CHAPTER XXIII
REFLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS
Good golf to come—Giants of the past—The amateurs of to-day—The greatness of "Freddy" Tait—Modern professionals—Good sportsmen and good friends—A misconception—The constant strain—How we always play our best—Difficult tasks—No "close season" in golf—Spectators at big matches—Certain anecdotes—Putting for applause—Shoveling from a bunker—The greatest match I have ever played in—A curious incident—A record in halves—A coincidence—The exasperation of Andrew—The coming of spring—The joyful golfer.
Ithink that every good golfer of experience reflects upon his past history with mingled pleasure and sorrow—pleasure when he calls to mind all the many glorious matches in which he has taken part, and sorrow when the thought arises that all that golf has been played and done with, and can never be played again. But we have all this abiding consolation, that even if we cannot retain our very best form to the end of our days, we can hope still to play a good game to the finish, and there is the heroic example of rare old Tom Morris to stimulate us in this hope. Much is given to golfers,—perhaps more than to the participators in any other sport,—but they are rarely satisfied. The wonderful fascination of golf is indicated in this eternal longing for more. Sometimes when I glance over the records of the history of the game, I feel a twinge of regret that it was not possible for me to play with, or even to see, such giants of the past as Allan Robertson, David Strath, the Dunns, Willie Campbell, Willie Park, senior, or the famous young Tom Morris. Golf is great to-day, but it must have been[Pg 260] great in those days also, even if there was less of it than there is now.
But I have had the good fortune to play with all the well-known amateurs and professionals of my own time, and it is pleasant to think that they are nearly all still alive, and that therefore I may sometime or another play with them again. There is one great exception—Mr. Fred Tait, who was killed in South Africa. I don't think anyone could ever have the smallest doubt about the reason for his enormous popularity. I had the delight of playing against him two or three times, and I thought that he was not only a very fine golfer indeed, but one of the very finest gentlemen that I could imagine. It is something for me to remember that I played in the last important match in which he figured before he went out to the war—an international foursome, England v. Scotland, that was played at Ganton, Willie Park and Mr. Tait representing Scotland, while Mr. John Ball, junior, and I were for England. From all the amateurs with whom I have ever come in contact I have always received the very greatest kindness and encouragement, and I do not know a single one with whom I would not like to play again some day or other. It has always seemed to me that there is something about golf that makes a man a good fellow whether he is amateur or professional.
I wish to speak in the same way about my professional brothers as I have done about the amateurs. I have always found them all first-class sportsmen in the strictest and best sense of the word, and some of the best friends I have in the world are among them. There are some very fine players among the professionals of to-day. I have often watched and greatly admired the splendid skill of such friends and constant opponents as J.H. Taylor, James Braid, Alexander Herd, Jack White, and many others whose names would fill a page, not forgetting my own brother Tom. I have from time to time been indebted to many of them for various acts of kindness. There is a fine spirit of[Pg 261] freemasonry amongst us professionals. Whenever we play against each other each of us does his level best to win, and gives no quarter with a single stroke, but it has been my invariable experience that when the match is over the loser is always the first to congratulate the winner, and to do it not as a mere matter of form but with the very utmost sincerity.
And here I should like to say a few words with the object of removing a misconception which still seems to linger in the minds of followers of the game. "Dear me, Vardon, what a grand time you fellows have, travelling all over the country in this manner, and doing nothing but playing golf on the very best courses," is the kind of remark that often greets me when I have just returned from playing in one match or tournament, and am due to start for another in a day or two. But I am not sure that we have such a grand time as those who say these things seem to think. We enjoy it just because we enjoy everything connected with golf, and particularly the playing of it; but playing these exhibition matches is not quite the same thing as going away for the week-end and having a quiet round or two with a friend, however hard you may try to beat him. Some people entertain a fancy that we do not need to strain ourselves to the utmost in these engagements, and that therefore we take things easily. I can answer for myself, and I am sure for all my brother professionals, that we never take things easily, that we always play the very best golf of which we are capable, and that if a championship rested on each match we could not play any better. It must be remembered that when we are invited by any club to play an exhibition match, that club expects to see some golf, and thus it happens that the fear of a great responsibility is always overhanging us. We dare not play tricks with such reputations as we may have had the good fortune to obtain. We are always well aware that there are very good golfers in the crowd, who are watching and criticizing[Pg 262] every stroke that we make. Therefore we keep ourselves in the very best of condition, and do our utmost always to play our best. How difficult is our task when sometimes we are not feeling as well as we might wish—as must occasionally happen—I will leave the charitable reader to imagine. Has he ever felt like playing his best game when a little below par in either mind or body? This is where the really hard work of the professional's life comes in. There is no "close season" in golf, as in cricket, football, and other sports. When a cricketer plays indifferently, after two months of the game, his admirers cry out that he is stale and needs a rest. But there are eleven players on each side in a cricket match, and constant rests for all of them, so that to my mind their work is very light in comparison with that of the golfer, who enjoys no "close season," and has all the work of each match on his own shoulders. Surely he also must become stale, but such a state on his part is not tolerated. Again, one often hears that a certain match between professional players has been halved purposely—that is to say, that it was an arranged thing from start to finish. Such things may have happened in other sports, but take it from me that it never, never happens in golf. One man never plays down to another, whatever disparity there may be in their respective degrees of skill. It does not matter how many holes one is up on one's opponent; there is never any slackening until the game has been won. It makes no difference if the man you are playing against is your very best friend or your brother, and one has sometimes to pass through the trying ordeal of straining his every nerve to win a match when in his heart of hearts, for some particular reason, he would like the other man to win. I intrude these affairs of our own in these concluding reflections only for the purpose of indicating that, though we love our game and always enjoy it, professional golf is not quite the same thing as that played by amateurs, and must not be judged from the same standpoint. I think it is[Pg 263] because of this continual sense of a great responsibility, and the custom and necessity of always—absolutely always—trying to play our very best game, that the leading professionals are constantly a stroke or two better than the most skillful amateurs, even though the latter practice the game quite as much, and have apparently just as much opportunity, or even more, of making themselves perfect.
I have mentioned the spectators. I have generally found the crowds who follow a big professional match round the links both highly intelligent and exceedingly considerate. But sometimes we overhear some strange things said. Taylor and I were once fulfilling an important engagement together, and when my opponent had a particularly difficult shot to play, two ladies came up quite close to him and persisted in talking in a loud tone of voice. Taylor waited for a little while in the hope that their chatter would cease, but it did not. Then, in a feeling of desperation, he attempted to address his ball; but the task was hopeless. The conversation went on more loudly than ever, and he was doomed to certain failure if he attempted his stroke in these circumstances. So he stood up again, and looked round in the direction whence the voices came. "Oh," said one of the ladies then, "you can go on now. We've quite finished." We must be thankful for small mercies. James Braid and I were once playing down at Beckenham. At one of the putting greens we were both a long way from the hole. My ball was a trifle the more distant of the two, and so I played the odd, and managed to get down a wonderfully fine putt. Then Braid played the like and holed out also. These were two rather creditable achievements with our putters. When his ball had trickled safely into the hole, and the spectators were moving towards the next tee, Braid and I were amused, but not flattered, by the words of a man who was speaking to a friend in such a loud voice that we could all hear. "Oh," he exclaimed deprecatingly, "those fellows only do that sort of thing for the sake of the applause!" How happy we[Pg 264] should be if we could always make certain of those long putts without any applause at all! It was with Braid also that I was playing in a match at Luton towards the close of last year, when I overheard a singular remark. I happened to be bunkered at the fourteenth, and took my niblick to get out, but lost the hole. We walked on together to the next tee, and Braid was taking his stance when we heard two gentlemen eagerly discussing and explaining the recent bunker incident. Evidently one of them was supposed to know something of golf and the other nothing at all. "You see," said the former to his friend, "there is really no rule in the matter at all. Vardon or any other player could have used a shovel in that bunker and have simply shoveled the ball over on to the other side." I was surprised that Braid got his next tee shot in so well as he did. And how very often have I heard the question asked in the crowd, "Why do those fellows chalk the faces of their clubs?" and how invariably has the answer been, "So that they can see afterwards where they hit the ball!" When I write my recollection of these things, I do not wish it to be imagined that I am making any sort of accusation against golf crowds generally. They are excellent from all points of view; but it must inevitably happen that there are some people among them who know little of the game, and others who do not appreciate what a trying ordeal a hard-fought match usually is.
Such questions are often put to me as, "Vardon, what was the greatest match in which you ever played?" or, "What was the most extraordinary occurrence you have ever seen on the links?" and so forth. They are questions which it is difficult to answer, for is not nearly every match that we play brimful of incident and interest, and at the time do we not regard many of the incidents as most extraordinary? It would, then, be too serious a task to attempt a selection from such a huge mass. But, looking back over the last few years, it seems that my £100 match with Willie Park[Pg 265] is that which remains uppermost in my mind, and the one that I am least likely to forget. There was more talking and writing about it than about any other match in which I have played. The "gallery" that followed this match was the greatest I have ever seen or heard of. And as I am questioned also about the curious and the singular in golf, I may say that there was a coincidence in this game that struck me at the time as being quite unusual. In a closely-fought match it is often interesting to notice how nearly each player's ball often follows the other. Frequently they are side by side within one or two clubs' length after the drives from the tee. But in the first stage of this match against Park, after he had driven a long ball from the tee at the eleventh hole, I drove and my ball pitched exactly on the top of his! The Messrs. Hunter were kindly serving in the capacity of forecaddies, and they were both positive upon this incident. My ball after striking his rebounded slightly, and then stopped dead about two feet behind. Its position rather affected my follow-through, so that I duffed my stroke and lost the hole. This record—if it was a record—was also the means of eclipsing what I believe was another record in first-class golf. The first ten holes in this match were halved, and it was the incident of which I have just been speaking and the duffed stroke that followed it that led to the breaking of the sequence.
"Now, Vardon, how often have you holed out in one?" they ask me also, regardless of the fact that this event demands not only a perfect shot but a perfect fluke, and that the professional player is no more likely to accomplish it than anyone else. Well, I have only been guilty of this fluke on one occasion—and that was not so very long ago—and when it happened it was at a hole a little over two hundred yards in length. On one occasion, also, I have enjoyed the coincidence of holing out with my mashie approach at the same hole twice in one day. That was in the course of a tournament at Elie, in which I had the good[Pg 266] fortune to finish first. As it happened, Andrew Kirkaldy, who hoped to end high up in the list, was my partner for the first round, and it came about also that he was watching me play when the holing-out process was accomplished for the second time. Then he lifted up his hands in horror and delivered himself of his famous remark, "Ye're enough to break the heart of an iron ox!" During the last round of this same tournament Andrew, who was playing some holes behind me, and was then himself in the running for the first place, was kept posted up by a friend as to my score for each hole. He did not seem to derive much encouragement from the reports, for when the last one was carried to him he asked the friend who brought it if he thought that there was nobody who could play golf besides Vardon, and intimated at the same time that if anyone else brought him any more of those tales he would strike him with his niblick! Of course we all know what a really fine fellow is Andrew Kirkaldy, and how much poorer the golf world would be without his presence and his constant humour.
And now I think I have holed out on the last green and this long match is finished. After all it is better to play golf than to write or read about it. What anticipation is more gloriously joyful than that of the man who handles his driver on the first tee on a bright morning of the spring-time! He has all the round, and all the day, and all the spring and summer and autumn before him. And at this moment another spring is breaking brightly, and the golf that is before each of us promises to be as momentous and soul-satisfying as any that has gone before.
