Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/194

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GOLF DEVELOPMENT
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rent, but even on this point it is by no means easy to say whether the modern appliances have made very much difference, or had much effect in making the game easier. Some people deny altogether that the game is easier, and the wonderful scoring that is now so common they put down altogether to the individual; the player, these critics remark, is the cause, not the weapons. The old school of players, on the other hand, say that the superior balls and clubs and greater width of course produced by the removal of whins and bushes, and much horse-rolling, all these facts have tended to make the game easier. I must here confess that I do not know enough of the game to express a decided opinion on these matters, but there are one or two points that ought to be kept in view, and which I cannot help thinking are too often lost sight of not only in golf, but in every game and sport when the weighing and comparison of the old and new is attempted.

At cricket we all know our old friend who shakes his head and makes comparisons between George Parr and Maclaren, much to the disadvantage of the latter. He saw both these