lustration: "It makes an ideal hazard"]

After carefully studying my putt I holed out from twenty yards, making
the hole in three after practically throwing my first shot away.

This ability to recover from an indifferent or unfortunate shot is one
of the strong points of my game.

The third hole requires a hundred-and-thirty-yard drive over the brook
where I used to fish when a boy, and on the fourth hole you must carry
the pond. I came very near being drowned in that pond when a youngster,
and I firmly believe that this is the reason I so often flub my drive on
this hole.

But it is unnecessary to describe all of the eighteen holes. The links
are 3,327 yards out and 3,002 yards in, a long and sporty course, the
delight of the true golfer and the terror of the duffer.

Woodvale is very exclusive. The membership is limited, and hundreds of
the best people in the city are on the waiting list. Our club house is
one of the finest in the country. In addition to the links we have
tennis courts, croquet grounds, bowling alleys and other games, but why
one should care to indulge in any game other than golf is a mystery to
me.

We also have bicycle and riding paths, flower gardens and all the
luxuries and artificial scenic charms possible from the judicious
expenditure of nearly four hundred thousand dollars. Nothing can surpass
it.

I live here during the golfing season, and one is unfortunate if he
cannot play nine months in the year in Woodvale. In the winter it is
safer to go to Florida or California, and I propose to do so in the
future rather than risk a repetition of last season's heavy snows which
made golf impossible for days at a time.

My suite of rooms in the club house is as finely furnished as any in the
city, and the service and cuisine are excellent.

One saves a vast amount of time by living in such a club house as that
of Woodvale. The hours expended by golfers in travelling between their
places of business and the links will foot up to an enormous total each
year. I remain here and thus save all that time.

Not that I neglect my business; far from it. Once a week my private
secretary comes to the club house from my office in the city. He brings
with him letters and other matters which imperatively demand my personal
attention, and I sternly abandon all else for the time being.

On the days when he is here I play twenty-four holes instead of the
usual thirty-six or more, but I find the change dive