nothing but
playing golf on the very best courses," is the kind of remark that often
greets me when I have just returned from playing in one match or
tournament, and am due to start for another in a day or two. But I am
not sure that we have such a grand time as those who say these things
seem to think. We enjoy it just because we enjoy everything connected
with golf, and particularly the playing of it; but playing these
exhibition matches is not quite the same thing as going away for the
week-end and having a quiet round or two with a friend, however hard you
may try to beat him. Some people entertain a fancy that we do not need
to strain ourselves to the utmost in these engagements, and that
therefore we take things easily. I can answer for myself, and I am sure
for all my brother professionals, that we never take things easily, that
we always play the very best golf of which we are capable, and that if a
championship rested on each match we could not play any better. It must
be remembered that when we are invited by any club to play an exhibition
match, that club expects to see some golf, and thus it happens that the
fear of a great responsibility is always overhanging us. We dare not
play tricks with such reputations as we may have had the good fortune to
obtain. We are always well aware that there are very good golfers in the
crowd, who are watching and criticising every stroke that we make.
Therefore we keep ourselves in the very best of condition, and do our
utmost always to play our best. How difficult is our task when sometimes
we are not feeling as well as we might wish--as must occasionally
happen--I will leave the charitable reader to imagine. Has he ever felt
like playing his best game when a little below par in either mind or
body? This is where the really hard work of the professional's life
comes in. There is no "close season" in golf, as in cricket, football,
and other sports. When a cricketer plays indifferently, after two months
of the game, his admirers cry out that he is stale and needs a rest. But
there are eleven players on each side in a cricket match, and constant
rests for all of them, so that to my mind their work is very light in
comparison with that of the golfer, who enjoys no "close season," and
has all the work of each match on his own shoulders. Surely he also must
become stale, but such a state on his part is not tolerated. Again, one
often hears that a certain match between professional