as they are called. They are fearfully and wonderfully made, and their name is legion. Any attempt at present to explain their various uses would unseat your intellect entirely. Only observe that the general cut of them is very much like that of a hockey-stick, long shaft and crooked head; the shaft is tapering, and the head, which is a remarkable combination of wood, horn, and lead, is firmly spliced on to the shaft.
Do you perfectly understand that you are not intended to hold by the head? That’s right. You hold by the end of the shaft, which is done up like the handle of a coach-whip with leather. Those clubs with iron or steel heads, which look rather like shovels, are intended for taking the ball out of sandy or muddy places. But it is of little use to explain all this to you till you see the game played.
Here we are on the links, or common, on which the game is played; the course stretches away to the left for about a couple of miles along the sea-coast. It is very narrow, and is lined with thick gorse, and studded with many hazardous and fearful-looking sandholes. Before us is the sea, dashing up into a little bay. About 300 yards to our right, is the beginning or end of the course, whichever you like to call it. What a crowd there is swarming about it. Let us cross that small burn and inspect it more closely.—Heaven and earth! Take care what you’re doing, you young scamp; you very nearly hit me just now. The little blackguard sent a ball uncommonly near our heads. You think it would not hurt you much? Feel that. It is rather smaller than a tennis-ball, and made of gutta-percha; and I can tell you it stings uncommonly. Do you fancy that if that ball, hit with a force which would carry it 170 yards in the air, were to hit you on the back of the neck at 10 yards’ distance, it would not hurt? Before this day is over, perchance you may have an opportunity of judging.
But, as I was about to say when I was interrupted, this is really a gorgeous spectacle. Crowded into a space of 100 yards square is a motley crowd—well-dressed ladies of all ages, badly ditto, old gentlemen, middle-aged gentlemen, young gentlemen, boys, professional players, cads, and blackguards of every description.
With regard to the male portion of the crowd, I must here draw your attention, if it has not been already drawn, to a strange phenomenon, observable as soon as you come within a radius of two miles of St. Andrews. The natives usually have hold of something in the shape of a stick, whether it be golf-club, walking-cane, umbrella, hoe, hedge-bill, or spade; whatever it may be, they manipulate it gingerly, wagging it about, and now and then making it whistle through the air. These alarming symptoms are accompanied with a morbid swaying of the body, and wild tossing of the arms. A lamentable indifference is displayed as to the vicinity of their neighbour’s head, or anything that is his. The monomaniacs fancy that they have golf-clubs in their hands, and they are practising what they are pleased to call their swing.—There! I knew that the young gentleman would hurt some one. He has swung one of the iron-headed clubs into that jolly-looking old boy’s waistcoat. You observe that gentleman with the confined swing. It is currently reported that he owes that short swing to practising the proper action, not within reach of his neighbour’s ears, but of his own furniture and crockery, in the solitude of his chamber,—a spiteful calumny.
There is the real attitude for you, knees together, toes turned in, club grasped firmly but not tightly, adjust it to the ball, bring it slowly up over your shoulder till the head appears, as the Scotch would say, west of your left ear, and then bring it down, shoulders, wrists, backbone, legs, and everything going into the blow.
The crowd is waiting for the ceremony of opening the meeting to take place. We’ll come back presently. I wish you to see our club, that snug one-storied building, at the head of these steps, which overlooks the course.
It is the Union Club of St. Andrews, sacred to golfers. The cheapest club I ever had anything to do with. There’s the reading-room; those coffin-looking cupboards which meet your eye in every direction do not contain the remains of the gentlemen whose names appear upon them. They are intended for the reception of the coach-whips when not actively employed. This is the parlour. But we must not stay, as business, and a ballot, and all manner of things are going on, and you’re a stranger; so come through into the billiard-room, and we’ll have a game till the real business of the day commences.
There goes the gun. They’re off. Let us out. Now, if you imagine that those respectable and, in some cases, portly gentlemen, are going to rush upon each other with uplifted clubs, hack, bully, and shin, and then tear away whacking the ball before them, you are mistaken. In order to play this game you need never stir faster than a three-mile an hour walk.
The moment has at length arrived when an attempt must be made to convey to the understanding of the Saxon a few of the elementary principles of the game.
You see that hole, four inches in diameter by six in depth, punched in the turf. The end and object of all that whacking of balls, swaying of bodies, and stretching of limbs, is to get that small ball into this hole after it has been at the bottom of seventeen other holes in succession. A series of these holes are punched all along the course at intervals of from 300 to 400 yards. The object of the game is to knock the ball from one hole to another in as few strokes as possible; and whoever goes the round of eighteen holes in fewest strokes wins the medal. The members of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews have just drawn for the order in which they are to play. They play in couples; each man counting the strokes of his immediate opponent and marking them on a card.
Now the first pair are just going to strike off. Behold the ball is mounted upon a little pyramid of mud which rejoices in the name of a tee, to the end that the smiter may get the more cleanly at it. A ball is only teed at starting from each hole; after each first stroke the player must hit the ball as he finds it. What an ordeal this is. All that