The Happy Golfer Part 9

In the biggest dictionary that I can find neither the word "futurism"

nor "cubist" is given a place, and yet these words, meaning certain movements, are probably on the tongues of art folks with much frequency in these times. In the same way the word "subconsciousism" and "subconsciousist" are not in this or any other dictionary; but they may yet be coined and made legitimate to fill certain vacancies, and they represent definite golfing systems. The principle of subconsciousism in essence, then, is that of showing a visionary picture to the mind for a moment, banis.h.i.+ng it, and, in a certain measure, forgetting all about it, and then going on with the game as if the incident had been closed.

But the mind retains its record more or less vaguely always; and the picture thrown on the mental screen makes an impression there which stays; and that impression is an influence upon the succeeding physical actions. Subconsciously the player does something--it may be little or much--to imitate the movements in the mental picture that he saw. He cannot avoid it; the influence upon him cannot be wholly resisted. If, as it were, he saturates his mind with impressions of this kind, of the strokes he would like to play, of the way he would like to play them, he will gradually and almost surely begin to play them just like that. It has been recognised for ages that the best golf is that which is played entirely subconsciously, that is to say without conscious effort, and without thinking in detail of the stroke that has to be played. When a man is "on his game" he has none of this thinking to do, and does none.

There seems to be only one way of playing the shot, and that way is unavoidable to him and quite natural. He does not need to shuffle about to find his proper stance, and he is not anxious about any part of his swing. The moment a clear consciousness of detailed action a.s.serts itself, and the man does think about the movements of his swing, and does shuffle about for his stance, he goes off his game, and the stronger the consciousness the more he goes off. These points are disputed by n.o.body. A little while since a new writer on the game declared that the golfer at the beginning of his swing thought of the advice of one professional; half way up he thought of the suggestion of another; at the top he remembered the recommendation of a third man; and coming down, the hint of a fourth flung itself into a mind that must have been working with amazing rapidity in the most difficult circ.u.mstances. What the result of such strokes is was not suggested; but if any number of golfers carried out their scheme of swinging in this way we should know exactly why it is that so much bad golf is played. As a matter of truth n.o.body has ever been able to mix up his plans in such a manner; but the statement suggests the extreme of consciousness, and fear with it also. With subconsciousness there is no fear, no hesitation, and no doubt.

Now we can show how our subconsciousism, when unaided and not encouraged (there is nearly but not quite a contradiction in terms here), has had its effect upon the player hitherto. If a man watches the play of any golfer much better than himself, say a first-cla.s.s professional, very closely for some time he takes a little of that man's style into his own system without knowing it, and, it may be, without making any conscious effort to imitate it. He is much more likely to succeed in this way than by making any deliberate attempt to copy. Again, you will often find players telling you, that after a week of watching a champions.h.i.+p meeting, and without having paid attention to any player in particular, certainly without attempting to imitate any one, they find on resuming their own game that a new influence is upon it; that in particular they address the ball in a more businesslike way, with more confidence; that their swing is less flabby, and that they play their iron shots with much greater sense of wrist, and with more firmness. This has been noticed over and over again, and it is a most interesting result of the influence of impressions involuntarily recorded on the mind. Consider another way in which the impression acts. A player may be removed from the game through illness or some other reason for a time, and during that period he works some of the problems of golf out in his mind, and constantly pictures a new and particular way of playing a stroke that has troubled him. When he returns to the links he plays the stroke like that without any effort to do so, or perhaps without even thinking of it. Another remarkable example of subconsciousism was afforded to me recently by a good golfer, who said that to develop a certain stroke which he had found beyond his best efforts--conscious efforts--he had three enlarged photographs made of that stroke as executed properly by a first-cla.s.s man, one showing the beginning, the other the top of the swing, and the third the finish. He had these pictures placed alongside each other on one of the walls of his room, and there they were all the time, not to be avoided. He made no effort to study them, but his mind simply absorbed them, and then subconsciously he found the stroke coming to him until in the end he played it just like that. In these matters subconsciousism is shown to be at work without being understood or at all suspected.

Having this valuable agency at command the next thing is to apply it, and make it of more thorough practical effect without permitting it to change to interfering and dangerous consciousness. In the cases that have already been cited certain methods are plainly suggested. Here is another which has, as I know, proved amazingly effective at times. The player, we may say, is not driving as well as he should, or in the way he would like to do. At the moment of taking his place on the teeing-ground he runs through his mind, as it were, a cinematographic picture of his favourite model player doing the drive. He sees, in imagination, the man taking his stance, swinging the club back, down on to the ball again, and finis.h.i.+ng. He just sees it once, and bothers about it no more. Then he sets about his own drive without any further reference to the mental picture that his mind has absorbed. The mind does the rest. The drive may not be made in the ideal way that was imagined. It may be done in the old way. It may even be foozled. But there has been an influence at work, and if that influence is always employed in the same way the good result will come in time, always provided--and this is important--that the model is one that is suitable to the player, and can be copied by him. It would be useless for a man who is far past forty, very fat and very short, with no athletic quality in him at all, to take Harry Vardon and his graceful lithesome swing for his mental cinema show.

Another way in which practical subconsciousism may be made exceedingly valuable is by imagining a place to which the ball has to be delivered without looking at it when it ought not to be looked at, as when a very short running or pitching approach has to be made. The very best of men often find it impossible to keep the eye fixed on the ball until the stroke is done. A little while since there was the case of one of the finest amateur golfers of the time flopping his ball into the bunker guarding the green of the first hole at Sandwich from the bank thereof, when, if he had played an easy shot and kept his eye at rest, he would almost certainly have avoided this trouble, and then won the St.

George's Cup for which he was playing. I remember an exactly similar case in the final of the Amateur Champions.h.i.+p of 1908, at Sandwich, when Mr. La.s.sen, who did win, knocked his ball into the big bunker in front of the old tenth green there from the top of the cliff overlooking it.

What is needed in such cases, or in like cases when presented to inferior players, is something to keep the mind's eye contented, and it has been found to serve if a picture of the hole is flashed into the mind just before the stroke is made. This is what is certainly done, though unintentionally, when putting. The man does keep his eye on the ball when making his stroke this time; but yet it is most desirable that his mind should retain a very clear and exact impression of the place where the hole is, the distance of it, and the features of the green in between. In other games that may be compared with golf, the player has his eye on the object at the moment of striking; in billiards the very last glance is given at the object ball, and the eye is on it at the moment the stroke is made. That is because the player is sure of his way of striking, as in putting he is not. If you try a method of putting which was once attempted by some players, but was severely and properly discountenanced by the authorities, of lying down on the green and putting with the end of the club, billiard fas.h.i.+on, you will find that then the eye is on the hole when the stroke is made. In golf, the player's eye being wanted for the ball, a last look is given at the hole, and the picture of it is kept on the mind when the stroke is being made, and it influences the application of strength more than the player often realises.

This application of strength is always done subconsciously, and here again there is a part of professional teaching which does not recognise the fact when it ought to do. The teachers tell us that to strike the ball a certain distance with an iron, the club chosen should be swung back to a certain point, that to get twenty yards more it should be swung upwards so many more inches or degrees, for a farther distance so much more swing should be made, and so on, throwing the onus of swinging the proper distance on to the conscious effort of the player. By a moment's thought it will be realised that players do not consciously regulate the lengths of their swings in this way, that they could not do so, and that any deliberate stopping of their swing at a certain carefully calculated point would be ruinous to the stroke in hand. What is done is, that an estimate of the distance to which the ball has to travel is made; this is taken into the mind, and the mind, having much experience, influences the swing so that it is quite subconsciously made of the proper length, or at all events the length that the mind suggested. In this way the swing is certainly made short for short shots, and longer as the greater distance is needed; but it is wrong to suggest that the matter is carefully and consciously arranged by the player. The truth is that not one player in a thousand could tell you, when about to make a swing with an iron club, exactly how far he intends to swing, or having made the shot successfully, how far he did swing.

His mind subconsciously arranged the whole affair.

An interesting case was quoted to me some time since of the success a man achieved in lofting over stymies, and the reason why. This person never seemed to miss. He related that he found previously that his failures were due to looking at the other ball too much when in the act of making the stroke. He then found that he succeeded frequently when he did not look at either that ball or his own but at the hole itself.

Doing this enabled him to carry his club through, failure to do which is the chief cause of missing these shots. But he did not altogether believe in this system, which seemed dangerous, and he compromised by keeping his eye fixed on his own ball, but at the same time imagining the hole and seeing mentally his ball dropping into it. Since then his success has been wonderful. In much the same way and by the same principle it will be found that the best way in the world to encourage a good follow-through, and to stop jerky hitting with wooden clubs, is to look at the ball properly and yet imagine it a couple of inches farther on.

The principles of this subconsciousism suggest one earnest recommendation to the player who is bent on making a change in a faulty or ineffectual style, and it is that such change is better brought about gradually and in the way of a coaxing influence rather than by a quick drastic alteration. Thus the player whose swing is too upright and who wants to obtain a flatter one, or he who desires to change from a long swing to a short one, or the other way about; or again he who would bring the ball more over to the right foot (one of the most difficult of all changes to make for a player accustomed to have it nearly opposite the left toe, but a desirable one in these days when the rubber-cored ball shows no disinclination to rise as the gutty did); all these players would do better to make their changes slowly and gradually and by way of subconscious influence. If the ball is moved three inches to the right all at once the entire swing is upset and the whole driving arrangement is likely to go to pieces. But when done in the other way the gradual change is not noticed, and when the ball gets to the desired position it would be as difficult to play it from the old one, as the new one would have been, if a.s.sumed suddenly. It is sometimes said of golf that the most exasperating part of the whole thing is, that the more you try to succeed in it the more you fail. There is more truth in that sad reflection than may have been fancied, and a fine moral in it too. To "try" in this case means to make conscious effort.

After all, in this teaching about subconsciousism we are merely going back again to Nature, to simplicity, and to an original idea that there is undeveloped golf in all of us just because all the movements of the game are so natural, and natural because they are so true and rhythmical. In everything Nature encourages always the best in a man, and she likes most the graceful movement, the perfect poise, the equal balance. The easier, the more natural, and the more rhythmical our movements are in golf the more successful will be the efforts always.

The undeveloped golf is always in the system, and with fair encouragement or a hint that is sufficiently obvious the instinct will surely lead a young subject to its cultivation on good lines. Man when old becomes awkward and contrary, and so the aggravations of the game arise.

I have always maintained that if we placed a young boy who had never seen or heard of golf on a desert island and left him there with means for his subsistence for a few years, together with a set of golf clubs and a few boxes of b.a.l.l.s, the people who might be wrecked on those lonely sh.o.r.es thereafter would find him playing a good scratch game and in want of nothing but a caddie, for which part the arriving boatswain might be indicated. But these wrecked miserables, with their s.h.i.+verings and their grumblings, would jar unpleasantly upon the happy peace of this purely natural golfing youth, in all the ecstasy of the discovery of his own world. Probably he would wish the others--all except the boatswain--to leave him there when a white sail of relief was seen upon the horizon. A pretty speculation arises instantly. Suppose at the same time we had placed upon another desert island four thousand miles away another raw child, innocent of the simplest, vaguest thought of what golf is or could be, and left him also with clubs and b.a.l.l.s and directions for obtaining fresh meat and fresh water when the human desires in food were felt. He would surely take to the game in the same way as the other boy did, practise it and probe into its mysteries with just the same enthusiasm, would become a good scratch player also, and would probably make use of the same simple expression of condemnation when a s.h.i.+pload of people uncivilised to golf were wrecked that way. But here is the point: this second scratch desert-island boy would probably be just as good as the first scratch desert-island boy, no better and no worse, and if they were to play for the Champions.h.i.+p of the Most Lonely Islands, nothing is more likely than that their excellent match would have to go to the thirty-seventh hole or beyond it. They would, being good material to begin with, attain approximately equal results so far as playing the holes in a certain number of strokes is concerned, and each youth's system would be perfect for himself, but between the two there would be the very widest differences, and the basic principles that were common to the games of both players would be so encrusted with ma.s.ses of individual detail and coloured with temperamental att.i.tude that they would be scarcely discernible.

CHAPTER X

GOLF DE PARIS, AND SOME REMARKABLE EVENTS AT VERSAILLES AND CHANTILLY, WITH NEW THEORIES BY HIGH AUTHORITIES.

In front of the red brick club-house of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club at Hoylake, a citadel which by its tower and clock commemorates the great achievements of Hoylake's famous son, John Ball, there was a.s.sembled late in the afternoon of Friday, the 21st of June 1907 (being the forty-seventh year of the Open Champions.h.i.+p), a large gathering of golfing persons who by their speech and demeanour suggested some of the vivid unrealities of a stage crowd near the footlights. They had a self-conscious and somewhat artificial bearing towards each other. They muttered and beckoned. They gave the impression of being a little uneasy and nervous. Friends among them who essayed to conduct a conversation found themselves at a loss for appropriate comments upon what had happened and made remarks which had no clear or relevant meaning.

Professor Paterson, wearing the red rosette, came from the house and stood before the little table bearing a silver cup which had been held by the line of champions all the way from the time of Morris, the younger, and a familiar friendly figure in chequered garments moved about in a manner of official preparation. What had happened had indeed been dramatic; but the drama had had the living circ.u.mstance of full reality. We could not discuss constructions and readings, and suggest other endings. Here was the one gross fact, that Arnaud Ma.s.sy, a Basque, the professional attached to the leading club of Paris, a strong bonily built man with no British blood in his being, had just made himself the possessor for the year of that historic champions.h.i.+p cup, which hitherto had never been taken out of the United Kingdom. This was something which the gathering did with difficulty absorb into their golfing minds. They were good sportsmen, and they cheered because they knew that this Ma.s.sy was a fine fellow and a good champion; but it was all a little dream-like, and there was a spell that needed to be broken.

Ma.s.sy, the victor, with a big smiling face came forward. The gold medal was delivered to him. There was a little silence, a few muttered incoherent words, and then this splendid Ma.s.sy threw up his hands into the air and shouted out with a full blast from his l.u.s.ty lungs, "Vive l'entente cordiale!" The tensity was broken; the people cheered easily, naturally, and whole heartedly; they accepted Ma.s.sy as the true and proper successor to James Braid in the Open Champions.h.i.+p, and wished him thoroughly well--even though he were a Frenchman or a Basque. He had done the right thing.

This foreign player (never forgetting that he was trained to the game at Biarritz, which in golf is mostly British, though it lies under the laws of France) was brought to England and Scotland by Sir Everard Hambro, and was improved in golf at North Berwick with Ben Sayers a.s.sisting him.

He well deserved to win that champions.h.i.+p, and it should not be overlooked that, so to say, he has confirmed his victory by making a tie for the champions.h.i.+p again since then. He is the only man outside the great triumvirate who has done so much as twice to reach the top of the list in modern times. He was well on his own very good game. There was a crispness about his play with his wooden clubs that indicated the man who for the time being had full confidence and could hit his hardest.

And Ma.s.sy's putting, especially in the case of the most difficult and fateful of all putts, those of from five to nine feet--putts for the missing of which there is the fullest excuse, for whose holing there is enormous gain--had been splendid for a long time before and was most excellent then. At those putts of the kind I remark upon I do not think that Ma.s.sy in accuracy or confidence has his equal in the world. He strokes the ball into the hole as though it were the simplest thing to do; easily and gracefully he putts it in. In other ways he makes a fine figure of a golfer. Military training in France has given him a stiffer, straighter build than most great golfers have, for this game tends a little to a crouching gait and posture. Ma.s.sy marches from the tee to the ball that has gone before with a quick, regular step of the right-left-right military way, and when he comes up with the ball he does a right wheel round, presents his club, and plays his second with a quickness and lack of hesitation in which he is second only to George Duncan. Particularly in putting is Ma.s.sy a man of inspirations and quick impulse. And I must not now forget that there is in the world a charming little lady who is called Mlle. Hoylake Ma.s.sy, which is her proper name.

Providence is disposed often to be kind and generous to the strong and those who have well deserved, and that week Mme. Ma.s.sy gave to the man who was even then making himself the champion a sweet little daughter.

Having won the champions.h.i.+p, the next question was one of christenings, and, said Ma.s.sy to his wife, "Voila! Surely she shall be called our little Hoylake!" Which she was accordingly, Mme. Ma.s.sy, rejoicing in her husband's success, like the good, happy little woman of Scotland that she is, having cordially agreed.

And in France there were rejoicings among the golfers. My friend, M.

Pierre Deschamps, fine and keen sportsman (and the "father of golf in France," as we call him for the grand work he has done in establis.h.i.+ng the game so well at La Boulie, where he is president of the Societe de Golf de Paris, and encouraging it with all his heart and energy elsewhere in his country), rose and made a remarkable declaration that golf was to be the "national game of France." The national game of France, our Scottish golf of English development, started, as some still will have it, in Holland, played in some sort of way as _jeu de mail_ even in France, practised in Pekin, called the "national game" also, as I have heard it, in America--now it was to be naturalised and made the "national game of France!" Ubiquitous golf indeed! M. Deschamps, whose words are careful if they are quick, as befits one who is in the diplomatic service of his country, sat down and wrote an essay on golf in general, and Ma.s.sy's success in particular, and, addressing the new champion as if he were before him, said: "Et maintenant a vous la parole, mon cher Ma.s.sy; continuez votre brillante carriere, jouissez de votre belle gloire dont nous sommes tous fiers, comme Golfeurs et comme Francais; a cette heure, ou tant de links s'ouvrent chez nous, pour repondre aux besoins d'enthousiastes sportsmen, puissent d'autres professionels de notre race suivre votre example, unique encore dans les fastes du 'Royal and Ancient Game,' et contribuer a faire de ce sport un jeu national dans notre beau pays de France!" That was written. In victory you may be magnanimous, and M. Deschamps at this time would graciously waive all questions of origins and growths; he must have felt that then it mattered little that a kind of golf called _chole_ had been played ages back by the people of the north, and that it was possible the Scots had copied from them. It was enough that Arnaud Ma.s.sy was "le Champion du monde."

Disregarding all those doubts about the _jeu de mail_ and the game of _chole_, and considering only the real thing as we know it, taking its time from the stone temple by the Fifes.h.i.+re sea, it was away back in 1856 that the game was first played on the soil of France, and that was in the south by the Pyrenees at Pau. Yet at that time only the wintering British were concerned. Forty years went on before the French themselves made a fair beginning with the game. In 1896 the Societe de Golf de Paris was established, and it has been a splendid success. To-day in prestige and influence it stands for the headquarters of the game in the country, though since it was begun there have sprung up many clubs of great pretensions, with good courses, nice club-houses, distinguished members.h.i.+ps, and unlimited francs. Yet La Boulie holds her queens.h.i.+p still. Excellent golfing places have been made at Chantilly, Le Pecq, Compiegne, Fontainebleau. Out on the north-west coast at such resorts as Le Touquet, Dieppe, Deauville and Wimereux by Boulogne the game is established. Long years back I played at pretty open Wimereux when there was but a nine-holes course there, and not the excellent one of eighteen that has now been made. Shall it not be considered as a happy token that golf links are commonly found on old battlefields and at places where armies have encamped? Sometimes this is just because the soldiers play the game when they are abroad; sometimes it is because entrenchments are bunkers all prepared; but oftenest it is just coincidence. Whatever it be or why, it is the fact that there is golf where armies and battles have been in Egypt, in South Africa, in the United States and Canada, and at many places. Where there was the fury of flying sh.e.l.ls there is now only the peaceful hum of the rubber ball. One recalled when first at Wimereux that here the great Napoleon had encamped with his grand army, the same as was to cross the Channel to defiant isles and make a conquest of them. But playing neither the first hole nor the last do we need any reminder of what great Bonaparte wished to do, for by us there towers aloft the monument that he had erected to that successful invasion of Albion that never did take place. Hereabouts is indicated the place where the master-general in full satisfaction with the progress of things, and in remembrance of great achievements, distributed his military favours. And here all along are deep gra.s.s-covered trenches, and larger, rounder, shallow pits that once might have been kitchens or stables. All these that now are bunkers and hazards are where Napoleon camped and waited. And on a fine day our white-cliffed Albion is in full view. Sometimes there may even be a sigh as one reflects that the Corsican little dreamt of what should be done with his camping land when a hundred years were gone, that those sportsmen of Britishers would be playing their game about there, taking their divots and holing their putts, and striving for golden tokens given for compet.i.tion by the mayor and munic.i.p.ality of adjacent Boulogne! It was not for no reason that Arnaud Ma.s.sy called aloud "Vive l'entente cordiale!" In the heart of the country there have been more golf clubs and courses formed, and they are supported now mostly by the French. At Rouen and Rheims the game may now be enjoyed. It is spreading. M. Deschamps may yet be soundly justified. And indeed when we take our clubs to Paris we feel that he should, and heartily do wandering players echo the cry of Ma.s.sy, who by his victory signalised the fact that French golf had grown from babyhood to the strength of independence, and was now to be considered as an ent.i.ty. There is a subtle sweetness about a golfing expedition in Paris that there is about a little holiday for the game at no other place. One is not here suggesting that it is better for golf and other matters to go to Paris than elsewhere, only that it is quite different, intensely enjoyable, and easily convenient. We breakfast in comfort in London, read the newspaper afterwards, go through the pack of clubs to see that the roll-call is rightly answered, and with time enough for everything move along to Victoria. Had we dawdled less we might have gone much earlier from Charing Cross. We meet quite casually other golfers in our compartment on the South-Eastern, and inquire with no astonishment as to which of the Parisian courses will be scarred by their irons before their trip is done. From Dover or Folkestone we have a quick and comfortable crossing; we discover some people who are bound for Le Touquet and tell us of the excellent changes there, and then on the comfortable railway of the Nord we are swung happily into the heart of France, and are in the capital before the sun has set on a summer's day, and with time yet to go out to La Boulie, which is by Versailles, or Chantilly, and stretch our English arms and legs in preparation for matches of the morrow. We are at home as golfers without delay.

What one feels about golfing in Paris now is that while there is always that elevation of the spirits, that sense of extra life, that little superfineness of feeling that are induced by a sojourn in the capital by those who feel themselves somewhat akin to her, and there is a certain subtle difference in the golfing ways and systems, such as we not merely find but wish for, golf at Paris and the world over is really very much the same--the same not merely in the playing of the shots as in the general scheme of things, the going and the coming, the _tout ensemble_.

We settle ourselves comfortably in a big hotel in the Rue de Castiglione, and next morning we fling away the sheets before eight as alive as any Parisian _ouvrier_. The _cafe complet_ disposed of, the next question is that of clubs and b.a.l.l.s. If it is a fine day and there is time for the walking, we may stride through the corner of the gardens of the Tuileries, across the corresponding corner of the Place de la Concorde, over the bridge and into the station to the left by the side of the Seine and down the steps to the platform, where there always awaits us at the most convenient time what is in essence largely a golfers' train. Our golfing people are in full evidence. You cannot mistake their kind in a train of France any more than you can when they journey from Charing Cross to Walton Heath. They pervade. So on to the other end of the journey at Versailles, and there the carriages await us, and the brake for those who like it, and we are bowled and rattled along through that place which has seen much of the makings and undoings of France, and on to La Boulie, where we hasten to the first tee, fearful of any waiting. Or, alternatively, we take a taxi-cab that is outside the hotel in Paris, and let loose through the Parisian streets with it, across the Place Vendome, past the Opera, away along to the Gare du Nord with our inimitable Parisian taxi-man hurtling round the corners with all the fury of a charioteer in the races of ancient Rome, making us reflect that it is well there will be a rest of an hour before being called upon to do the first putting at Chantilly. So we perceive that the going and the coming are very much what they might be in England, with just that difference that gives a piquancy, while, after a day on the course, it is found to be quite excellent to have the gaiety of Paris at one's disposal. Those who have tried it generally agree that golf de Paris makes the finest change of the game, the most exhilarating that may be had by the player of the south of England, who is not too far removed from Charing Cross or one of the ports. It may be 444 miles from our metropolis to St. Andrews, and 383 to North Berwick, but it is only 259 to Paris, and despite the sea the journey lasts a much shorter time than the dash to the north by the fastest trains. We do not compare the golf of Paris with the golf of our historic and beloved seats of the game, but the courses of France, as inland courses, are good, and we think again of the virtues of the change complete, of the _tout ensemble_. Good things have come out of France in the days of long ago and in recent times; golf that is nearly of the best order rises in it now, and when we see Mr. Edward Blackwell and some others of the great men of the auld grey city who are most particular about all golfing things playing themselves on the slopes of La Boulie, over the plains of Chantilly, and through the forest of Fontainebleau, we know that things are moving tolerably well.

Upon our initiation at La Boulie, our curiosity is stirred and attention is attracted to many things. Perhaps M. Deschamps, or such a good sportsman as the Baron de Bellet--whose son, M. Francois de Bellet, has won the Amateur Champions.h.i.+p of France, while Mlle. de Bellet is the best of the lady players in the country--would conduct a guest about the place and show him many things that would interest him, and many more that as a golfer he would most honestly admire. La Boulie is not a great course despite all the champions.h.i.+ps that have been played upon it, but the Societe de Golf de Paris, which has a members.h.i.+p of 750 at a subscription of about 10, is quite a great inst.i.tution. Yet, let me hasten to say that in the first remark I was judging La Boulie on the highest inland standard, and even then the judgment must be qualified by the statement that if not great in the best sense La Boulie is good and is quite interesting. At one time it suffered much from the nature of its soil and turf, but greenkeeping science, the francs of France, and the loving and most a.s.siduous care of M. Deschamps, have changed much if not all of that. In the summer time it is quite one of the most beautiful courses I can think of with its wealth of trees, in which the nightingales sing soon after the golfers have done, and its majestic undulations, which come so near to being mountainous that herein, with so much climbing to be done and so many uphill and downhill shots, is one of the greatest faults of the course. But everything is well done at La Boulie, and human ingenuity and thoroughness are well applied. M.

Deschamps is a fine humanitarian, and exerts himself constantly for the welfare of the caddies, who are as good for their business as any caddies in the world. It was a happy idea on his part to have these boys trained under a semi-military system as he has them now. They are all housed in a building near to the first tee under the care of the club; they have to observe regulations of duty and life which are good for them, and they are dressed in a boy-scout khaki uniform with touches of red to brighten it, and the principles of boy-scoutism are worked into their young lives. This is excellent, and indeed it is the truth that already we have a little to learn in golf from France. By the way, one of the curious laws of the country--curious as it seems to us, though soundly sensible--is that boys are not allowed, when under about fifteen years of age, to carry more than a certain weight in the way of work, and this prohibits caddies from carrying a bag of clubs of more than fair extent. As a matter of detail you will find that the weight quant.i.ty allowed works out to something like ten clubs of an average mixture, but happily for some good friends of mine there is no weighing at the first tee and no officers of the Republic there to see it done.

They threaten to arrest us at St. Andrews if we play the game with iron clubs only, and they have the power through bye-laws ratified by Government to do so and send us to prison. Is it possible that a wandering player in happy France should be lodged in a modern Bastille for that on one eager day he defied ill omen and the law by carrying thirteen clubs in his bag, as both James Braid and Edward Ray have done when winning champions.h.i.+ps, the weight limit being exceeded and all the unhappiest consequences following? M. Deschamps took the initiative in founding the Golf Union of France, which is based completely on the American system and is likely to be a strong force in the golf of the future.

To the best of my knowledge they have only one plus-handicap amateur in France, being M. Francois de Bellet, who is rated at plus 1 at two or three clubs, but I have examined the handicap books at different places and find that there are a few scratch men, and that the number of players who have single figure handicaps is quite good in proportion to the whole, and is increasing. The fears we had that the French temperament was not good for the game prove to be unfounded; while the French enthusiasm is equal to anything that we know. There are cases of golf fever in France that are every degree as bad--or as good--as those we find here at home.

One muggy winter morning, when a friend and I teed up at the beginning of the round at La Boulie, we could with difficulty see the flag on the first green, short as was the hole. We surmised that we might be the only players; but, no, many holes ahead, having started early, was a match going on between a baron of France and one of his rivals. The baron was taking the game with exceeding seriousness, and the information was given to me that he played two rounds on the course every day of his life. "Sat.u.r.days and Sundays?" I asked my caddie.

"Toujours!" was the answer. "Even if it rains?" I pursued. "Toujours!"

the boy answered with emphasis. "Or snows or is foggy?" I persisted, and then the carrier of clubs replied a little impatiently and with finality, "Toujours!" intending to convey that in all circ.u.mstances whatsoever the indefatigable baron played his two rounds a day, and independent witnesses confirmed the statement of the boy. This surely is the French counterpart of what is considered to be the finest case of golf enthusiasm that Britain has produced, being that of old Alexander M'Kellar who played on Bruntsfield Links in the brave days of old and was known for his ardour as "the c.o.c.k o' the Green." He also would play always; when snow covered the course he begged and implored some one to become his opponent in a match, and if n.o.body obliged he would go out alone and wander the whole way round, playing his ball from flag to flag, the greens and holes being hidden. At night he would sometimes play at the short holes by the dim glimmer of a lamp, and golf by moonlight was his frequent experience. Once upon a time his suffering wife thought to shame him by taking to the links his dinner and his nightcap; but he was too busy to attend to her. M'Kellar is long since dead, but something of his soul survives in England--and in France. And there are old and experienced golfers in France. There are Parisians who are members of the Royal and Ancient Club of St. Andrews, and I have met others who could argue most deeply with me upon the peculiarities and merits of many British courses from Sandwich and Sunningdale to Montrose and Cruden Bay. I took tea at Fontainebleau with M. le Comte de Puyfontaine, who exercises a kind of governors.h.i.+p over the course, and he told me that he learned his golf twenty-three years ago at a place near Lancaster, and that since then he has played in many parts of the United States and elsewhere.

I have endeavoured to make the point that the French are worthy and thorough, that the Parisian golf and golfers must be taken seriously, and that it is a pleasure to go among them with our clubs. Their courses are nearly good enough for anything, and they are all different from each other in type and characteristics. Fontainebleau is cut out of the forest, and silver birches line the fairway, while some of the great boulders which are peculiar to the place stand out as landmarks near the putting greens--but not so near as to be useful to the erratic player.

Holes of all kinds are at Fontainebleau, and some of them make pretty puzzles in the playing. The teeing ground for the third is high up on a hill and the view is charming, but that may be of less account than the circ.u.mstance that the carry is farther than it looks, and the hole is a long one. The fifth is a catchy dog-leg hole, which the caddies of Fontainebleau do not call a _jambe du chien_, as you might expect them, but a "doc-lac." Soon the game will be Gallicised completely. The ninth, being a drive and a peculiar pitch, is a strange hole which worries the pair of us exceedingly. It looks one of the simplest things, but there is an inner green and an outer one, as one might say, and the former is on a high plateau. There is a secret about it which we did not discover in three full days. The tenth is a fine long hole, with a guard to the green that might have been brought up from the Inferno, and so on to the end in great variety. I like Fontainebleau. Chantilly has less character but more length. It is a better test of wooden club play, but not of pretty work with the irons in approaching. Yet it is well bunkered, the fairway is smooth and dry, as it is at Fontainebleau, all through the winter, and the putting greens are most excellent, fast and true. If most parts of the course are a little flat, there is a great ravine about the middle of it which gives a touch of the romantic and helps to the enjoyment. The turf at La Boulie does not winter so well as it does at the other places, though the club has spent many thousands of francs in applying real sea-sand to it for its improvement; but in the spring, the summer, and the autumn, golf here at Versailles is a fine pleasure.

Yet some will say that, much as I tempt them, they would not after all go to France for golf, that indeed they could never confess to others that they had been to Fontainebleau and Versailles and Chantilly for their game. But why may they not take their game and their historical views and reflections on the same days, as they may do better in France than elsewhere; though when we play at St. Andrews or at Sandwich, where Queen Bess visited, and Westward Ho! we wonder again how strangely this royal and ancient game does attach itself and cling to the old places of celebrity, and especially those whose fame was made for them by kings.

It is curious. The keen golfer is a man of thought and sense. We play on a morning at Fontainebleau, and in the afternoon we wander through the rich galleries of the wonderful palace where many kings of France held magnificent court, a place where the great Napoleon loved to rest a while between campaigns. There are relics of the Emperor in many chambers; and it was at the chief entrance here that he bade his last good-bye to the old guard and went lonely away, an emperor no more. The wonders and the glories of Versailles are known even to those who have never crossed the Channel; Chantilly has had its great romances of history also. The old castle was put up in the ninth century; here the Condes lived in fine state, and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the place was very famous. The good French have endeavoured to make their courses suit their places. Sometimes we seem to look even on these playgrounds for a touch of art, a little delicacy, a fineness and a high quality, and we think in just that way of the golf de Paris when the train of the Nord runs us homewards again.

The seaside golf in the northern and north-western parts of France is coming to be an important thing in the general scheme. Personal a.s.sociation and its seniority above all except Dieppe have led me already to mention Wimereux, but the golf of Wimereux is not the queen of the game of northern seaside France. In all honesty we must crown the slightly younger Le Touquet, on the other side of Boulogne, with that distinction. Here you may have one of the most charming changes of the game, and the most wholesome, delightful rearrangement of your general daily living system. Go to Etaples from Boulogne, then spin in the car through that splendid forest, skimming by Paris Plage and its casinos and evidences of lightness of life, and so through to Touquet, where there is a course for golf that is most excellent in every respect, lengths and character of holes, sandy nature of soil, quality of putting greens--everything. Some of the holes are a little tricky; but the course in general has been enormously improved in recent times, and it well deserves the champions.h.i.+p dignity that has now been accorded to it.

The girl caddies there are the best of their kind. I remember a little Marie for such an intuition regarding clubs to be used as I remember no other a.s.sistant: and after playing for a day through these avenues of fir trees with the great banks of silver sand in the distance, shutting off the sea, then dawdling among the coloured lights at Paris Plage listening to the music after dinner, and in the night sleeping in an upper room near to the links, and hearing at the last moment of consciousness the wind music floating in from the surrounding trees, one feels that this is almost an enchanted land, with the spirits of happiness and pleasure controlling a joyful cosmos.

Dieppe is good, and it is quite different. Here the golf is some seventeen years of age, the whole system of things is well matured and settled, and the golfing season goes along with a fine swing from the beginning to the end. It was Willie Park who first laid out this course, but it has been much altered and lengthened since then, and now there is a fine club-house and all that a player might wish for, and especially one who likes to contend in compet.i.tions. There is something for such challengers to do all the time; I know few other golfing places where there are so many compet.i.tions in August and September, and yet they are no nuisance to the people who say they hate such things. At Etretat the game has been making excellent progress lately; at Deauville by Trouville, where you bathe always except when you do not golf or sleep or eat, it has been long established, and the course there has recently been raised very high in quality; and at Cabourg and Havre, in the same region, there are courses also. There are at Etretat thirteen holes, and yet you may play a lucky round, and I am reminded that in the long ago, when golf near the sands of Picardy was first being thought of, a wise man of Cabourg sent for an English course architect, and, displaying to his view one nice field, said, "Voila! Make me a hole! Two if possible!"

But they know much better now than that, and Cabourg has its full eighteen. To golf, to lie down and sleep, to splash and tumble in the sea, to seem to do so much and yet to do so little except make a few drives and miss some putts--it is all a very happy holiday that you may enjoy at these places.

The champions.h.i.+ps of France, which began in a small and gentle way, have lately risen to be very important events, and they gain a most wonderfully cosmopolitan entry. In 1913, which was the greatest year for champions.h.i.+ps in general that the game has ever known--Taylor winning his fifth Open at Hoylake, Mr. Hilton his fourth Amateur, Mr. Travers his fourth American Amateur, Ouimet beating Vardon and Ray in the American Open--the champions.h.i.+ps of France did indeed rise to the first cla.s.s, and in both events, the Amateur at La Boulie and the Open which was held for the first time at Chantilly--and the first for it to be taken away from the mother course at Versailles--produced some most exciting business. I have never seen a more extraordinary final in its way than that in the amateur event at La Boulie on this occasion, when Mr. E. A. La.s.sen came to grips with Lord Charles Hope--and such grips they were! I was led to describe it at the time as a dramatic affair of four periods and a spasm, and that is just what it was. Lord Charles Hope, though not physically strong, has acquired a fine game, and in the first period of this thirty-six holes match we witnessed him playing some quite beautiful golf and exercising the most complete self-possession and steadiness, gradually piling up a big lead of holes upon his more experienced opponent, who has been once Amateur Champion of Britain and a finalist another time, and seeming to make himself a certain winner. The duration of this period was one whole round, and at the end of it Lord Charles had five good holes to his advantage. The second was a period of peace, in which we watched Lord Charles keeping a tight hold on his most valuable gains, while Mr. La.s.sen, if losing nothing more, was gaining nothing when it was absolutely necessary he should be gaining quickly if he was not to be the loser of the day. Time was flying and holes were being done with, and fewer of them being left for play and recovery. This period terminated at the turn in the second round, with Lord Charles Hope still four to the good and "still winning." The third period lasted from the tenth to the fourteenth holes in this round, and in it the man who had seemed to be very well beaten threw a new life into his game, tightened it up, made it exact, certain, and aggressive, while at the same time his opponent seemed to collapse entirely, his driving becoming soft and uncertain and his short game nervous. The Yorks.h.i.+re player won four of these five holes and at the fourteenth he was level with his man. Never was there a more extraordinary ill.u.s.tration of the truth that no match is lost until it is won; to some extent it recalled that amazing champions.h.i.+p at Hoylake, when Mr. Sidney Fry so nearly gained the t.i.tle after being at one time, as it appeared, hopelessly beaten by Mr. Charles Hutchings. Now it was surely Mr. La.s.sen's match; but in the crisis Lord Charles Hope came again and fought every inch of the way home. In this period every hole was halved to the end of the round, so that after the statutory thirty-six had been played the state of things was as at the beginning of the day. No business had been done, and each man might be said to have had his tail up quite as much as the other. The spasm followed. The thirty-seventh had to be played. Mr. La.s.sen teed up his ball, said to himself that he must keep it to the left as there was the dread out-of-bounds on the right that had been a constant trouble to him, swung, struck, and to his dismay saw the little white ball bearing slowly but surely to the right after all. It did not reach the trees, but, almost as bad, it fell into the big deep bunker out that way, and made recovery difficult. Lord Charles Hope seized his advantage. A good ball shot straight down the middle of the fairway, and the hole and the match were his. An extraordinary game indeed that was.

In the Open Champions.h.i.+p at Chantilly there was an entry that was nearly good enough for a champions.h.i.+p on British soil. Vardon and Ray, out across the Atlantic, were missing, but otherwise the cla.s.s was as numerous and good as need be, and there were a few of the best British amateurs. George Duncan won, as he had won the "News of the World"

tournament the week before, and so made it clear that he had come into his own at last. These two were his first really big victories in cla.s.sic open events, and they were brilliantly and indeed easily gained.

But it was not Duncan's victory, so well deserved as it was, that makes this champions.h.i.+p at Chantilly worth a place in golfing history. It was something else that very nearly happened. Among the compet.i.tors was an amateur in Mr. H. D. Gillies, who at different times in recent seasons has shown an immense capacity. At St. Andrews in the Amateur Champions.h.i.+p only a few months before he had made a brilliant display.