yet are unwilling to sacrifice half the
strokes of a round, as they do in the old game, and also because the man
who is on his game desires all his power and brilliancy to count, and
that they may not be interfered with by the possibly erratic procedure
of his partner. But this is a selfish spirit, and quite opposed to that
which should properly animate the men who play in combination. When a
golfer is thus anxious for the display of his skill, surely an ordinary
single-ball match is the proper thing for him. The four-ball foursome,
I admit, has much to recommend it when the partners are equally matched,
when both are really good players--more likely to do a hole in bogey
than not--and when the course is clear and there is no prospect of their
protracted game interfering with other players who may be coming up
behind. When a short-handicap man is mated with a long one, the place of
the latter in a foursome of the new kind is to my thinking not worth
having. Is it calculated to improve his golf, or to afford him
satisfaction of any kind whatever, if he plays his ball round in what is
for him very good form, and yet only contributes the halving of a single
hole as his share of the victory of the combination? Very likely after
such a game he will feel that he must fall back once more on that old
excuse of the golfer for a disappointing day, that at all events he has
had the fresh air and the exercise. The tasting of the pure atmosphere
and the working of limb and muscle are splendid things, enough to
justify any day and any game, but no golfer is heard to put them in the
forefront of the advantages he has derived from his day's participation
in the game unless the golf he has played has been miserably
disappointing. This new foursome is also a selfish game, because it is
generally played with too little regard for the convenience and feelings
of other golfers on the links. It is very slow, and couples coming up
behind, who do not always care to ask to be allowed to go through, are
often irritated beyond measure as they wait while four balls are played
through the green in front of them, and eight putts are taken on the
putting green. The constant waiting puts them off their game and spoils
their day.

Another objection that I urge against this kind of game is, that even
when there is nobody pressing behind and there is no particular reason
for hurry, there is a natural tendency on the part of each player to
make haste so