~ CHAPTER 6. ~

Golfing Humours.

One would think that the humours of golf was a topic that had been worn rather thin at this time of day, seeing that they have formed part of the theme of every scribbler that has laid his pen on the game; but happily the game, no less than human life itself, ever unfolds some new phase of humour as the years roll on, so that the clew is never likely to be all unwound. Nevertheless it is to be confessed that here, as perhaps elsewhere, the best of the new humour is apt to be unconscious.

Of this unconscious vein of humour, marked effects are to be seen in the advertisements of various country houses to be let, one and all of which are described as being adjacent to “first-class golf links.” The best of these first-class golf links are generally found, upon inspection, to be of the rankly pastoral kind, and the worst generally have their sole being in the lively imagination of the house-agent, who explains his statement by showing you a paddock in which he glibly tells you “first-class links could be made.” Of course, there is the alternative of supposing the he knew all the while that the links were not “first-class,” and deliberately imposed upon you, but this is to suppose him a man who would never succeed in carrying that parlously named bunker at St. Andrews, beyond which lie the pleasant Elysian Fields. It is kinder to embrace the more charitable supposition that this poor man was a golfing ignoramus, whose education had been so neglected that he really knew no better; though your charity will be severely taxed if he subsequently takes you out for a game on the “first-class links” and gives you a severe beating. No properly constituted house-agent, however, would dream of doing such a thing as this; he would be most careful to let you win, whereby your opinion of the merits of the course would be naturally much increased. There is no man to whom knowledge of human nature is more valuable and more patent than a house-agent—unless it be a golf caddie.

THE WELL-SPRING OF GOLFING HUMOUR.

The caddie himself, of course, is the well-spring of much of that humour which is as salt to our golfing life, and surely a fine field must be open in the exploitation of the Irish caddie! Little justice has been done him yet: surely there must be some fine tailings to be picked from him. The ore of the Scotch caddie’s humour is generally of the deep level grade—what the Englishman calls “dry,” and the Scotchman “pawky.” Irish humour is not of this quality—it is ebullient, effervescent, on the surface. To decide which form is the higher would be to risk a breach of international courtesy—perhaps to perpetrate yet another “injustice to Ireland.” The humour of the foreign caddie generally takes a practical turn. The caddies of Cairo pick up your ball out of a bad lie with a prehensile anthropoid toe and put it on a good lie—which is ingenious, but it is not golf. At Guernsey the little girl caddies spit on the ground, by way of exorcism, and make the sign of the cross over the line of your putt—that is to say, your opponent’s caddie does this over your putt, and your own caddie follows suit over the putt of the opponent to prevent the ball going in. Faith works wonders, but on the whole the Egyptian method is more to be relied on. These matters, however, verge on the serious. But either practice is to be preferred to that often in vogue with caddies at home of putting your own ball, or your opponent’s, indifferently, into their pocket when they think you are not looking. This is practical humour of the worst possible taste, and expensive wherewithal. A girl caddie, however she might exorcise and practise magic, would never be so wicked as this.

“THEIR ‘GAME.’”

There is a deal of humour, again, of the unconscious kind, in the reverent solemnity with which men of a certain golfing class—and ladies also—speak, with bated breath, of “their game.” It is an undiscovered entity—value x—in many cases, but how deeply they respect it! The care with which they cherish it, wrapped in cotton wool and seclusion, declining to play with any inferior partner, “for fear they might spoil it,” is very touching. Its value is evidently quite differently estimated by themselves and by others—and the most singular problem it presents is how in the world they arrived at their conception of it.  On this point the author has a theory which he believes may be the true solution: They put together a series of the best strokes they ever made and call this compound “their game”—that is the glorious standard to which they nobly think they should attain; but it is misleading when they speak to others, who do not know them, of this quality of golf as “their game”—intending the term to be taken in its normal sense as implying the quality of golf that they may be reasonably reckoned to produce. Said a warrior, very angry, on a certain occasion: “It is an extraordinary thing, I’ve played golf now for seventeen years, and I’ve never yet played my game!”

Now, how in the world did that man arrive at what his game might be, seeing he had never played it? No one can tell; nevertheless the contemplation of that pure ideal no doubt afforded him the highest satisfaction, and did injury to no one; nay, it was rather of infinite service to his opponent, if he made his matches on the basis of “his game,” as he was pleased to call it.

Golf has lately found a new home in the United States, which has received it with all the ardour of recent proselytes, and there we may hope to find a new and untried field of golfing humour, for it is a humourous people, and of a humour that differs a little from the fun of the Irishman, the jocosity of the Englishman, and the causticity of the Scot. Its essence is its extravagance and surprise; we have not yet seen this quality of humour applied to golf, and wait the event with expectation. America is as yet too serious be humorous over golf, except with that unconscious humour that always sticks to ultra seriousness.

“I am afraid, my dear boy,” said a grave old Scottish golfer, lately, alas! passed away, “that the game is losing its solemnity!”

“CHAMPIONSHIP” HUMOURS

He found the modern manner rather light, almost ribald, for the treatment of a theme so serious; but had it not an element of unconscious humour in itself, this mouth-filling, tremendous “solemnity”?

Surely there is a certain element of this unconscious humour in the urbanity with which certain people enter for the great events of golf—the Championships and the rest of them. To many of these, more daring than angels, the champions could give a half, or a stroke—the latter is not too big a handicap for some who competed in the earlier years of the Amateur Championship. Some of these, it is true, entered from the sportsmanlike motive of paying their entrance money for the winner’s benefit—a liberal notion which entitled them to get off scot-free of laughter. The humorous point is the grim seriousness of other hopeless entrants. The Open Championship provides yet further illustration of the humour of some who are least conscious of it. Surely it is unkind of the Committee which has the management of that great institution to put a measure, even, of check on such aids to laughter, by enacting that none shall play on the second day of the championship whose score on the first day has been greater by more than twenty strokes that the lowest score returned. There used to be much humour, always unconscious, in the way that some of these incurables would struggle on until the end. But the action of the executive, which has put a stop to the spectacle, has been taken in the interest of the mass of competitors, and not less in the interest of the unfortunate amateur, whose kindness might have let him in for scoring for a pair of these hopeless cases. He, unfortunate man, found it very much too much of a good joke, and not at all humourous, to be dragged round the links, twice over, behind a funeral procession of this kind.

“I tell you what it is,” said one of these markers once to his pair of would-be champions, “if you fellows don’t play a little better than this I’ll take off my coat and play the best of your balls myself”—and probably he could have done it too.

ANENT PATENTS AND PATENTEES.

Again, for a scene of unconscious humour the following incident is hardly beaten: A certain man had invented a patent club. It was not a bad patent club, and it would drive the ball as far as any other iron club known, and was quite a good weapon for the approaching and putting withal. A certain professional had holed one of the classic links in a low score with this club and none other. Therefore the inventor bethought himself of approaching the professional and buying his services to play with this club, and this only, in the Championship. It would handicap the professional’s chances of a good money prize, but, on the other hand, what a splendid advertisement for the patent club, if, playing with it alone, he could take a good place on the list! It was worth the inventor’s while to pay him handsomely. So, when the great day came, off went the professional, with the inventor following closely to see his patent work. Unfortunately, the professional, in his enthusiasm for his patron’s health, had toasted it rather too frequently, with a result that was disturbing to his accurate eyesight. In a word, nothing could be more pernicious than the way the poor man played, to the common distress of himself and the inventor. And the wrath of the latter, freely expressed as he went along; and gathering fury with each misdeed of the performer, whom the severest taunts could only rouse to an occasional retort, made up a total of amusement for all the onlookers that could scarcely be beaten. It was an aggravation of the matter that the patentee had assembled a large clientele of his friends to see the new club work, and when it declined to work in its present hands he was fain to explain to them, in very audible accents of wrath, that the club was not having a fair trial because the wielder was “drunk”—which horrid epithet flew like an arrow barbed with the sting of truth to the ears of the wretched player, who forthwith replied fiercely that the statement was false—though he put it more shortly—and that the club was not worth a “monosyllable.”

No doubt this scene was only incidentally humorous—it was not essentially a golfing humour, for the man could not be depended on to be drunk. The unconscious humour of golfing patentees, however, is another matter. Their astonishing lack of knowledge of the likely demand for their inventions is quite of the essence of the best unconscious humour, which usually depends on ignorance of some aspect or other of human nature. The name of such inventions is legion; it only needs to complete the list that someone should invent the much-talked-of-putter, with a musical box in its head, that shall play a tune when the ball goes into the hole. This club we should all buy, as it would make it so unlikely that the opponent would hole his putt subsequently while the music played.

UNCONSCIOUS HUMOURISTS.

Terrible atrocities, from which a sense of humour would have preserved people, have been perpetrated in the sacred name of golf in these latter days. Watering places have advertised themselves by virtue of their golf grounds, which are generally found to be a pasture field or an unredeemed sand-drift; great golfers, even “Old Tom” Morris, are imported down to open the new course under the fearful eyes of the mayor and corporation in all their robes and chains of office. It is all very well meant and public spirited, but there is a deal of humour about it too—about the ceremonial, and the health drinking, and the mutual congratulations on the opening of “our magnificent links. When the mayor in person elects to hit off the ball himself we touch a higher point of humour, but to this the civic authorities will seldom deign to lend themselves.

But ever since the round world began, the most terrible of unconscious humourists have been the children. It is, in fact, its utter unconsciousness and absence of intention that gives their humour its peculiar point. We are all aware of the fact that it is far easier to hole a putt when we have two for the hole than when the result depends on the single stroke; but it seldom happens to us to put the case so clearly and so crudely as a little innocent put it to her father, asking him: “Why is it, Father, that when they say you have two for the hole you always put it in one, but when they say you have one for it you always take two?”  This sort of enquiry of the enfant terrible is a painful method of receiving wisdom out of the mouths of babes.

Much, however, too, and again of the purely unconscious kind—but, this time, of that peculiar species that comes back, boomerang-wise, on the person of its perpetrator—is afforded by the spectacle of those who preach, on the ground of a two years’ acquaintance with the royal and ancient game, sermons on its theory and execution. Especially are they insistent on this or that delicate point for decision that it is, or is not, “golf,” arrogating to themselves a special knowledge and power of definition of all that this great word connotes, peculiarly edifying to those who have had enough experience to know how slight their knowledge is. But, if all this “rushing in” of certain persons, where others, more angelic, would “fear to tread,” contains elements of undoubted humour, it also arouses in the spectator a pitiful feeling, not altogether making for laughter, and similar to the sentiment expressed by Dr. Johnson when he said, “Sir, these are the kind of questions that make a sensible man wish to go and hang himself.” Nevertheless we are not all sensible men after the estimate of Dr. Johnson, and there are some who feel inclined, under stress of these afflictions, to “go and hang,” not themselves, but these others, the foolish enquirers and the arrogant dictators. Comedy and tragedy are always very close to each other, and nowhere do we see their affinity more strongly demonstrated than on the golf green, where what is comedy to one man, the spectator, is very apt to be real tragedy to the other man, the player.

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