y prospects that he felt himself
unequal to watching me, and during most of the time that I was doing my
four rounds he was sitting in a fretful state upon the seashore. I was a
thin and rather delicate boy with not much physical strength, but I was
as enthusiastic as the others in the games that were played at that
time, and my first ambition was to excel at cricket. A while afterwards
I became attached to football, and I retained some fondness for this
game long after I took up golf. Even after my golfing tour in America a
few years ago, when quite at my best, I captained the Ganton football
team and played regularly in its matches.

One day, when I was about seven years of age, a very shocking thing
happened at Grouville. All the people there lived a quiet, undisturbed
life, and had a very wholesome respect for the sanctity of the Sabbath
day. But of all days of the week it was a Sunday when a small party of
strange gentlemen made their appearance on the common land, and began to
survey and to mark out places for greens and tees. Then the story went
about that they were making preparations to play a game called golf.
That was enough to excite the wrathful indignation of all the
tenant-farmers round about, and without delay they began to think out
means for expelling these trespassers from the common land. A tale of
indignation spread through Grouville, and these golfers, of whom I
remember that Mr. Brewster was one, were not at first regarded in the
light of friendship. But they soon made their position secure by
obtaining all necessary authority and permission for what they were
about to do from the constable of the parish, and from that day we had
to resign ourselves to the fact that a new feature had entered into the
quiet life of Jersey. The little party went ahead with the marking out
of their course, though indeed the natural state of the place was so
perfect from the golfer's point of view that very little work was
necessary, and no first-class golf links was ever made more easily.
There were sand and other natural hazards everywhere, the grass was
short and springy just as it is on all good sea-coast links, and all
that it was necessary to do was to put a flag down where each hole was
going to be, and run the mower and the roller over the space selected
for the putting green. Rooms were rented at a little inn hard by, which
was forthwith rechristened the Golf Inn, and the headquarters of the
Jersey golfers ar