Golf handicap

“ A man may be winning all his matches with two or three holes to spare, and if he is of a placid temperament and not given to any closely discriminating analysis of the details of his own game, he may often be living in a fool’s paradise with regard to the quality of his golf [103] and the accuracy of his handicap. It may be true that handicaps are provided chiefly for match-play purposes, and that if a man can win half his matches with the handicap that is given him, there is not much cause for fault-finding ”

“ One might perhaps gently remind the impatient expert that, after all, we long handicap men do serve some useful purpose; they, too, were once even as we are now, and, moreover, without us the spoils of the fortnightly ‘sweep’ would be distinctly lessened; now and again, also, one of us suddenly ‘comes on his game,’ and, if it be in a knock-out competition, spreads havoc and devastation among the players with handicaps of under six. ”

“ All the foolishness of nebulous advice, and all the quaint excuses which have been gathered together under the head of "the mystery of golf," are simply weak man's [16] weaker excuses for his want of intelligence and mechanical accuracy. Until the golfer fully understands and freely acknowledges this, he is suffering from a very severe handicap. If, when he addresses his ball, he has firmly implanted in his mind the idea that he is in the presence of some awesome mystery, there is very little doubt that he will do his level best to perform his part in the mystery play. ”

“ It was therefore laid down that the ball should go out of play on going out of bounds or striking the board, whichever happened first. In 1910 a polo handicap was established, based on the American system of estimating the number of goals a player was worth to his side. This was modified in the English handicap by assigning to each player a handicap number as at golf. The highest number is ten, the lowest one. The Hurlingham handicap is revised during the winter, again in May, June and July, each handicap coming into force one month after the date of issue. ”

“ And as I have said before, I would recommend that the game be learned backward—so to speak—with putter first, then with mashie, brassie, driver and down through the other clubs.
An adjacent golf course is a welcome requisite to a girls’ school or club. It is desirable for athletic associations or faculties to organize tournaments, as competition usually heightens interest. Where skill is unequal handicaps may be arranged by averaging a player’s scores and allowing the differences between the average score and par as a handicap. ”

“ I had been asked to play in a tournament, and at dinner the next evening I sat next to the girl who ought to have been my partner in the mixed handicaps, and we had meringues. No, it isn't safe, and besides one might always want to play golf. I think the best thing is to go once and trust to one's own skill not to be asked again. ”

“ Upon such a little depends, or seems to the eighteen-handicap to depend, excellence in golf.
And so, perfectly happy in our present badness and perfectly confident of our future goodness, we long-handicap men remain. Perhaps it would be pleasanter to be a little more certain of getting the ball safely off the first tee; perhaps at the fourteenth hole, where there is a right of way and the public encroach, we should like to feel that we have done with topping ”

“ I'm a member of the golf-club there, and was down at the clubhouse one morning looking at the papers when a fat middle-aged man, about my age, asked me if I cared for a game. I didn't, but in a spirit of self-sacrifice said that I should be very glad. 'I think I ought to tell you,' he went on, 'that I don't care about playing with a 18-handicap man, and that I always like to have a sovereign on the match.' Now I never was much of a player—too erratic, I suppose. My handicap has gone up from 12 to 18, and the last time I played it was about 24. ”

“ Gossett and his sons would be coming from the other direction, from Westward Ho! for he gave up the cure of Northam about this time and went to live at Westward Ho! and with others coming on the same line there would be a great re-union at the Iron Hut before starting out on matches—a great match-making too, for in those days we did not make our matches very long beforehand, and such things as handicap competitions were not known among us. They were soon evolved, but the idea of any fixed handicap, by which each man should know his value, was not so much as thought of. ”

“ The lofted fifty yards shot is perhaps the most difficult shot in golf, and what does the nervous golfer do in most cases? He either cuts it too fine and is very short in the attempt to lay it dead, or else, frightened of the bunker that lies so dangerously near to him, he determines to get over at all risks and overruns the green by forty or fifty yards. If you watch an amateur billiard-player in a handicap before a crowd, you will soon see whether he is nervous by the way he judges the strength. The most common failing of such players is that they hit too hard ”

“ Golfers of the old school scorn the idea that golf is a game for middle age and old age. If the question is sifted to the bottom, it may readily be said that inasmuch as golf can be played by men and women to really an advanced age, it is a game for age as opposed to youth. Rowing, football, hockey, and polo are really for the period of life that ends at thirty. Cricket in moderation may go on to forty, but golf may be played in foursomes, and one round a day style by men as long as they can walk. The drives become shorter and the handicap gets longer ”

“ There are many leading players who condemn the strategic aspect of golf. They only see one line to the hole, and that is usually the direct one. They cannot see why they should, as in dog-legged holes, be ever compelled to play to one or other side of the direct line. A bunker in the direct line at the distance of their long drives is invariably condemned by them, because they do not realise that the correct line is to one or other side of it. Why should not even an open champion occasionally have a shot that the long handicap man is frequently compelled to play? ”

“ Now this is precisely what the modern golf architect does not do; he in particular adopts a most sympathetic attitude to the beginner and long handicap player, but at the same time attempts to make the course interesting to all sorts and conditions of players. It is characteristic of the modern architect that he always leaves a broad and pleasurable road that leads to destruction—that is, sixes and sevens on the card of the long handicap player—but a straight and narrow path which leads to salvation—that is, threes and fours for the plus man. ”

“ There is one afternoon in the week set apart for all and sundry ladies, but besides this there is a permission for ladies whose handicap is four or under to play at any time and on equal terms with the men. This seems to meet the case admirably, for it keeps off the links the inefficient lady players who would be apt to block the green and whose right place is their own short course, while it freely admits those who are capable of appreciating the blessings of the long course and are quite as good golfers as the average of the men whom they will meet there. ”

“ Something in the expression of his face induced me to hasten on. "My dear Hollis, you may take it for granted that in everything which concerns golf I'm a novice."
"There are novices and novices. I call a man with a handicap of eighteen a novice."
"You may certainly credit me with a handicap of eighteen. I would remind you that you asked me to come to Littlestone in order that you might teach me golf." ”

“ Here as elsewhere, there are, of course, the two broad divisions into which the methods of doing all things are in the first instance classed—the right way and the wrong way—and, generally speaking, the wrong way has proved the more popular and is accountable for much of the very bad golf that one sees almost every day upon the links. There are two mistakes to which the beginner is much addicted, and to them is due the unhappy circumstance that in so many cases he never gets his club handicap down to single figures. ”

“ Golf, in itself, is quite sufficiently difficult. It is quite unnecessary to give the golfer, or the would-be golfer, an additional handicap by instilling it into his mind that golf is any more mysterious than any other game which is played. The most mysterious thing about golf is that those who really ought to know most about it publish broadcast wrong information about the fundamental principles of the game. Innocent players follow this advice, and not unnaturally they find it tremendously difficult to make anything like adequate progress. ”

“ An ideal hole should provide an infinite variety of shots according to the varying positions of the tee, the situation of the flag, the direction and strength of the wind, etc. It should also at times give full advantage for the voluntary pull or slice, one of the most finished shots in golf, and one that few champions are able to carry out with any great degree of accuracy.
Should an ideal hole be ideal for the plus, scratch, or long handicap player? As players of all handicaps play golf, a hole should as far as possible be ideal for all classes. ”

“ Recent championships and big matches have resulted in such wonderful scores, that some golfers are inclined to [Pg 220] ask despairingly whether we have any really first-class course at all; and links which in the past have been considered perfect are spoken of contemptuously as fit only for handicap men who want their golf made easy. ”

“ She may not be able to hit the ball quite so far, but once near the hole, where accuracy and not strength is required, she should be able to hold her own, and it is an old saying that many a game is won on the putting-green. Or again, she may be handicapped by an allowance of so many strokes, for in golf, as in billiards, handicapping does not detract from the interest as it does in tennis. There is no fun playing tennis against a very much weaker opponent, for you win rather on your adversary's mistakes than by your own skill, and this is fatal to true sport.
MODERN GOLF CLUBS. ”

“ You may lose at bridge, you may be defeated in chess, you may recall lost chances in football or polo; you may remember stupid things you did in tennis or squash racquets; you may regret undue haste in trying to secure an extra run or runs in cricket, but the mental depression caused by these is temporary and evanescent. Why do foozles in golf affect the whole man? Humph! It is no use blinking matters—say what the scoffers may—to foozle at golf, to take your eye off your ball, cuts down to the very deeps of the human soul. ”

“ The little truth that there was in the indictment against the game by the doctors' paper is that it is possible for some men, many of them, to have too much of it, when it becomes bad for the men and bad for their game, and holidays are rendered failures. There was a time when really good golf could only be had at the seaside, or very far away from the great centres of work and business. That is no longer the case, and the situation is that the golf we are having all the time at home is hard and strenuous, demanding great ability and thought. ”

“ One of the doctors' papers was well laughed at a little while since for suggesting that, on account of the nerve strain that it makes, golf is not an ideal game for everybody, especially busy folks with few hours and days for recreation. To quote: "If he takes his failures to play a good game to heart, it is doubtful whether his health gains very much. ”

“ There are few more picturesque spots in the whole of the countryside than the neighbourhood of the fourteenth tee. It is a sight to charm the nature-lover's heart.
But, if golf has a defect, it is that it prevents a man being a whole-hearted lover of nature. Where the layman sees waving grass and romantic tangles of undergrowth, your golfer beholds nothing but a nasty patch of rough from which he must divert his ball. The cry of the birds, wheeling against the sky, is to the golfer merely something that may put him off his putt. ”

“ There can be no doubt that golf is terribly trying to a man. The hideous feeling of discomfort that comes over a player when he has topped his ball and made a deep hole in it, the terrible persistency with which ball after ball is sliced, the missing of one or two really short putts, the bad luck that attends him when putting really well, the way the hole is missed by a tenth of an inch, the frequent bad lies—all these combine to make life a burden. But though golf may be more trying to the temper than any other game, every game has its trials. ”

“ There are, I admit, certain drawbacks attendant on their presence on the links. I shall not readily forget the occasion on which a low, raking drive of mine at the eleventh struck the ladies' tee box squarely and came back and stunned my caddie, causing me to lose stroke and distance. Nevertheless, I hold that the advantages outnumber the drawbacks. Golf humanizes women, humbles their haughty natures, tends, in short, to knock out of their systems a certain modicum of that superciliousness, that swank, which makes wooing a tough proposition for the diffident male. ”

“ So it is hope and hope all the way through the golfer’s life, and it is the most joyous, the most uplifting of all the instincts, and the most intensely human, and that which is given to man alone. It is because golf strikes always this chord in his nature that it makes the strong appeal to him. There is no other game or sport that permits him to hope [5] through failure in the same way, that leads him on, coaxes him, cajoles him, even fools him. ”