P. G. Wodehouse

“ There was the man who addressed his ball as if he were stroking a cat, the man who drove as if he were cracking a whip, the man who brooded over each shot like one whose heart is bowed down by bad news from home, and the man who scooped with his mashie as if he were ladling soup. By the end of the first week Ferdinand Dibble was the acknowledged champion of the place. ”

“ Every time I think I'm in good mid-season form for putting my fate to the test, to win or lose it all, something goes all blooey with my swing and I slice into the rough at every tee. And then my self-confidence leaves me. I become nervous, tongue-tied, diffident. I wish to goodness I knew the man who'd invented this infernal game. I'd strangle him. But I suppose he's been dead for ages. Still, I could go and jump on his grave."
It was at this point that I understood all, and the heart within me sank like lead. The truth was out. Ferdinand Dibble was a goof. ”

“ The cab had drawn up at the door of the hotel, and on the porch George Parsloe was airing his graceful person. To Ferdinand's fevered eye he looked like a Greek god, and his inferiority complex began to exhibit symptoms of elephantiasis. How could he compete at love or golf with a fellow who looked as if he had stepped out of the movies and considered himself off his drive when he did a hundred and eighty yards? ”

“ At the hotel there he would find collected a mob of golfers—I use the term in its broadest sense, to embrace the paralytics and then men who play left-handed—whom even he would be able to beat. When I was last at Marvis Bay, the hotel links were a sort of Sargasso Sea into which had drifted all the pitiful flotsam and jetsam of golf. I have seen things done on that course at which I shuddered and averted my eyes—and I am not a weak man. If Ferdinand can polish up his game so as to go round in a fairly steady hundred and five, I fancy there is hope. ”

“ Many bad golfers marry, feeling that a wife's loving solicitude may improve their game. But they are rugged, thick-skinned men, not sensitive and introspective like Ferdinand. Ferdinand has allowed himself to become morbid. It is one of the chief merits of golf that non-success at the game induces a certain decent humility which keeps a man from pluming himself too much on any petty triumph he may achieve in other walks of life; but in all things there is a happy mean, and with Ferdinand this humility has gone too far. ”

“ The fact is, I've just discovered the next great secret of golf. You can't play a really hot game unless you're so miserable that you don't worry over your shots. Take the case of a chip-shot, for instance. If you're really wretched, you don't care where the ball is going and so you don't raise your head to see. Grief automatically prevents pressing and over-swinging. ”

“ The hotel was full of stout, middle-aged men who, after a mis-spent youth devoted to making money, had taken to a game at which real proficiency can only be acquired by those who start playing in their cradles and keep their weight down. Out on the course each morning you could see representatives of every nightmare style that was ever invented. There was the man who seemed to be attempting to deceive the ball and lull it into a false security by looking away from it and then making a lightning slash in the apparent hope of catching it off its guard. ”

“ But you must bear in mind that Jenkinson's is not an ordinary case. You know and I know scores of men who have never broken a hundred and twenty in their lives and yet contrive to be happy, useful members of society. However badly they may play, they are able to forget. But with Jenkinson it is different. He is not one of those who can take it or leave it alone. His only chance of happiness lies in complete abstinence. Jenkinson is a goof. ”

“ Giants of finance have to accept a stroke per from their junior clerks. Men capable of governing empires fail to control a small white ball which presents no difficulties whatever to others with one ounce more brain than a cuckoo-clock. Mysterious, but there it is. There was no apparent reason why Ferdinand Dibble should not have been a competent golfer. He had strong wrists and a good eye. Nevertheless, the fact remains that he was a dub. And on a certain evening in June I realized that he was also a goof. ”

“ As he crossed the links, for the nearest route to the water was through the fairway of the seventh, he was whistling happily and rehearsing in his mind the opening sentences of his proposal. For it was his firm resolve that night after dinner to ask Barbara to marry him. He was proceeding over the smooth turf without a care in the world when there was a sudden cry of "Fore!" and the next moment a golf ball, missing him by inches, sailed up the fairway and came to rest fifty yards from where he stood. He looked round and observed a figure coming towards him from the tee. ”

“ The Scooper, who had always scooped since the day when, at the age of sixty-four, he subscribed to the Correspondence Course which was to teach him golf in twelve lessons by mail, resented being told by a snip of a boy that the mashie-stroke should be a smooth, unhurried swing. The Snake-Killer——But I need not weary you with a detailed recital of these men's grievances; it is enough to say that they all had it in for Ferdinand, and one night after dinner they met in the lounge to decide what was to be done about it. ”

“ One can only wait and hope. It may be that in the years to come Ferdinand Dibble will acquire a nice lissom wristy swing with the head kept rigid and the right leg firmly braced and——"
"What are you talking about?"
"I was toying with the hope that some sunny day Ferdinand Dibble would cease to be a goof."
"You mean a goop?"
"No, a goof. A goof is a man who——" And I went on to explain the peculiar psychological difficulties which lay in the way of any declaration of affection on Ferdinand's part. ”

“ One of those unfortunate beings who have allowed this noblest of sports to get too great a grip upon them, who have permitted it to eat into their souls like some malignant growth. The goof, you must understand, is not like you and me. He broods. He becomes morbid. ”

“ The longer he waited the better, in one way, for every morning and afternoon that passed was adding new layers to his self-esteem. Day by day in every way he grew chestier and chestier.
MEANWHILE, however, dark clouds were gathering. Sullen mutterings were to be heard in corners of the hotel lounge and the spirit of revolt was abroad. For Ferdinand's chestiness had not escaped the notice of his defeated rivals. ”

“ It was owing to a girl, of course. The longer I live, the more I come to see that most things are. But as you will no doubt wish to hear the story from the beginning——"
The young man rose with the startled haste of some wild creature which, wandering through the undergrowth, perceives the trap in his path.
"I should love to," he mumbled, "only I shall be losing my place at the tee."
"The goof in question," said the Sage, attaching himself with quiet firmness to the youth's coat-button, "was a man of about your age, by name Ferdinand Dibble. I knew him well. ”

“ There is nobody so chesty as a normally unchesty man who suddenly becomes chesty, and I am very sorry to say that the chestiness which had come to Ferdinand was the aggressive type of chestiness which breeds enemies. ”

“ My advanced years carry with them certain pleasant compensations, one of which is that nice girls often confide in me. I frequently find myself enrolled as a father confessor on the most intimate matters by beautiful creatures from whom many a younger man would give his eye-teeth to get a friendly word. ”