Chapter 20 Scientific Golf

People are continually writing to the papers--or it may be onesolitary enthusiast who writes under a number of pseudonyms--on thesubject of sport, and the over-doing of the same by the modern youngman. I recall one letter in which "Efficiency" gave it as his opinionthat if the Young Man played less golf and did more drill, he would beall the better for it. I propose to report my doings with theprofessor on the links at some length, in order to refute this absurdview. Everybody ought to play golf, and nobody can begin it too soon.

　　There ought not to be a single able-bodied infant in the British Isleswho has not foozled a drive. To take my case. Suppose I had employedin drilling the hours I had spent in learning to handle my clubs. Imight have drilled before the professor by the week without softeninghis heart. I might have ported arms and grounded arms and presentedarms, and generally behaved in the manner advocated by "Efficiency,"and what would have been the result? Indifference on his part, or--andif I overdid the thing--irritation. Whereas, by devoting a reasonableportion of my youth to learning the intricacies of golf I wasenabled . . .

　　It happened in this way.

　　To me, as I stood with Ukridge in the fowl-run in the morningfollowing my maritime conversation with the professor, regarding a henthat had posed before us, obviously with a view to inspection, thereappeared a man carrying an envelope. Ukridge, who by this time saw, asCalverley almost said, "under every hat a dun," and imagined that noenvelope could contain anything but a small account, softly andsilently vanished away, leaving me to interview the enemy.

　　"Mr. Garnet, sir?" said the foe.

　　I recognised him. He was Professor Derrick's gardener.

　　I opened the envelope. No. Father's blessings were absent. The letterwas in the third person. Professor Derrick begged to inform Mr. Garnetthat, by defeating Mr. Saul Potter, he had qualified for the finalround of the Combe Regis Golf Tournament, in which, he understood, Mr.

　　Garnet was to be his opponent. If it would be convenient for Mr.

　　Garnet to play off the match on the present afternoon, ProfessorDerrick would be obliged if he would be at the Club House at half-pasttwo. If this hour and day were unsuitable, would he kindly arrangeothers. The bearer would wait.

　　The bearer did wait. He waited for half-an-hour, as I found itimpossible to shift him, not caring to use violence on a man wellstricken in years, without first plying him with drink. He absorbedmore of our diminishing cask of beer than we could conveniently spare,and then trudged off with a note, beautifully written in the thirdperson, in which Mr. Garnet, after numerous compliments and thanks,begged to inform Professor Derrick that he would be at the Club Houseat the hour mentioned.

　　"And," I added--to myself, not in the note--"I will give him such alicking that he'll brain himself with a cleek."For I was not pleased with the professor. I was conscious of amalicious joy at the prospect of snatching the prize from him. I knewhe had set his heart on winning the tournament this year. To berunner-up two years in succession stimulates the desire for firstplace. It would be doubly bitter to him to be beaten by a newcomer,after the absence of his rival, the colonel, had awakened hope in him.

　　And I knew I could do it. Even allowing for bad luck--and I am never avery unlucky golfer--I could rely almost with certainty on crushingthe man.

　　"And I'll do it," I said to Bob, who had trotted up. I often make Bobthe recipient of my confidences. He listens appreciatively, and neverinterrupts. And he never has grievances of his own. If there is oneperson I dislike, it is the man who tries to air his grievances when Iwish to air mine.

　　"Bob," I said, running his tail through my fingers, "listen to me, myold University chum, for I have matured a dark scheme. Don't run away.

　　You know you don't really want to go and look at that chicken. Listento me. If I am in form this afternoon, and I feel in my bones that Ishall be, I shall nurse the professor. I shall play with him. Do youunderstand the principles of Match play at Golf, Robert? You score byholes, not strokes. There are eighteen holes. All right, how was /I/to know that you knew that without my telling you? Well, if youunderstand so much about the game, you will appreciate my dark scheme.

　　I shall toy with the professor, Bob. I shall let him get ahead, andthen catch him up. I shall go ahead myself, and let him catch me up. Ishall race him neck and neck till the very end. Then, when his hairhas turned white with the strain, and he's lost a couple of stone inweight, and his eyes are starting out of his head, and he's praying--if he ever does pray--to the Gods of Golf that he may be allowed towin, I shall go ahead and beat him by a hole. /I'll/ teach him,Robert. He shall taste of my despair, and learn by proof in some wildhour how much the wretched dare. And when it's all over, and he's tornall his hair out and smashed all his clubs, I shall go and commitsuicide off the Cob. Because, you see, if I can't marry Phyllis, Ishan't have any use for life."Bob wagged his tail cheerfully.

　　"I mean it," I said, rolling him on his back and punching him on thechest till his breathing became stertorous. "You don't see the senseof it, I know. But then you've got none of the finer feelings. You'rea jolly good dog, Robert, but you're a rank materialist. Bones andcheese and potatoes with gravy over them make you happy. You don'tknow what it is to be in love. You'd better get right side up now, oryou'll have apoplexy."It has been my aim in the course of this narrative to extenuatenothing, nor set down aught in malice. Like the gentleman who playedeuchre with the Heathen Chinee, I state but facts. I do not,therefore, slur over my scheme for disturbing the professor's peace ofmind. I am not always good and noble. I am the hero of this story, butI have my off moments.

　　I felt ruthless towards the professor. I cannot plead ignorance of thegolfer's point of view as an excuse for my plottings. I knew that toone whose soul is in the game as the professor's was, the agony ofbeing just beaten in an important match exceeds in bitterness allother agonies. I knew that, if I scraped through by the smallestpossible margin, his appetite would be destroyed, his sleep o' nightsbroken. He would wake from fitful slumber moaning that if he had onlyused his iron instead of his mashie at the tenth, all would have beenwell; that, if he had putted more carefully on the seventh green, lifewould not be drear and blank; that a more judicious manipulation ofhis brassey throughout might have given him something to live for. Allthese things I knew.

　　And they did not touch me. I was adamant. The professor was waitingfor me at the Club House, and greeted me with a cold and statelyinclination of the head.

　　"Beautiful day for golf," I observed in my gay, chatty manner. Hebowed in silence.

　　"Very well," I thought. "Wait. Just wait.""Miss Derrick is well, I hope?" I added, aloud.

　　That drew him. He started. His aspect became doubly forbidding.

　　"Miss Derrick is perfectly well, sir, I thank you.""And you? No bad effect, I hope, from your dip yesterday?""Mr. Garnet, I came here for golf, not conversation," he said.

　　We made it so. I drove off from the first tee. It was a splendiddrive. I should not say so if there were any one else to say so forme. Modesty would forbid. But, as there is no one, I must repeat thestatement. It was one of the best drives of my experience. The ballflashed through the air, took the bunker with a dozen feet to spare,and rolled on to the green. I had felt all along that I should be inform. Unless my opponent was equally above himself, he was a lost man.

　　I could toy with him.

　　The excellence of my drive had not been without its effect on theprofessor. I could see that he was not confident. He addressed hisball more strangely and at greater length than any one I had everseen. He waggled his club over it as if he were going to perform aconjuring trick. Then he struck, and topped it.

　　The ball rolled two yards.

　　He looked at it in silence. Then he looked at me--also in silence.

　　I was gazing seawards.

　　When I looked round he was getting to work with a brassey.

　　This time he hit the bunker, and rolled back. He repeated thismanoeuvre twice.

　　"Hard luck!" I murmured sympathetically on the third occasion, therebygoing as near to being slain with a niblick as it has ever been my lotto go. Your true golfer is easily roused in times of misfortune; andthere was a red gleam in the eye of the professor turned to me.

　　"I shall pick my ball up," he growled.

　　We walked on in silence to the second tee. He did the second hole infour, which was good. I did it in three, which--unfortunately for him--was better.

　　I won the third hole.

　　I won the fourth hole.

　　I won the fifth hole.

　　I glanced at my opponent out of the corner of my eyes. The man wassuffering. Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead.

　　His play had become wilder and wilder at each hole in arithmeticalprogression. If he had been a plough he could hardly have turned upmore soil. The imagination recoiled from the thought of what he couldbe doing in another half-hour if he deteriorated at his present speed.

　　A feeling of calm and content stole over me. I was not sorry for him.

　　All the viciousness of my nature was uppermost in me. Once, when hemissed the ball clean at the fifth tee, his eye met mine, and we stoodstaring at each other for a full half-minute without moving. Ibelieve, if I had smiled then, he would have attacked me withouthesitation. There is a type of golfer who really almost ceases to behuman under stress of the wild agony of a series of foozles.

　　The sixth hole involves the player in a somewhat tricky piece ofcross-country work, owing to the fact that there is a nasty ditch tobe negotiated some fifty yards from the green. It is a beast of aditch, which, if you are out of luck, just catches your second shot.

　　"All hope abandon ye who enter here" might be written on a noticeboard over it.

　　The professor entered there. The unhappy man sent his second, as niceand clean a brassey shot as he had made all day, into its very jaws.

　　And then madness seized him. A merciful local rule, framed by kindlymen who have been in that ditch themselves, enacts that in such a casethe player may take his ball and throw it over his shoulder, losing astroke. But once, so the legend runs, a scratch man who found himselftrapped, scorning to avail himself of this rule at the expense of itsaccompanying penalty, wrought so shrewdly with his niblick that he notonly got out but actually laid his ball dead: and now optimistssometimes imitate his gallantry, though no one yet has been able toimitate his success.

　　The professor decided to take a chance: and he failed miserably. As Iwas on the green with my third, and, unless I putted extremely poorly,was morally certain to be down in five, which is bogey for the hole,there was not much practical use in his continuing to struggle. But hedid in a spirit of pure vindictiveness, as if he were trying to takeit out of the ball. It was a grisly sight to see him, head andshoulders above the ditch, hewing at his obstinate colonel. It was asimilar spectacle that once induced a lay spectator of a golf match toobserve that he considered hockey a silly game.

　　"/Sixteen!/" said the professor between his teeth. Then he picked uphis ball.

　　I won the seventh hole.

　　I won the eighth hole.

　　The ninth we halved, for in the black depths of my soul I had formed aplan of fiendish subtlety. I intended to allow him to win--withextreme labour--eight holes in succession.

　　Then, when hope was once more strong in him, I would win the last, andhe would go mad.

　　I watched him carefully as we trudged on. Emotions chased one anotheracross his face. When he won the tenth hole he merely refrained fromoaths. When he won the eleventh a sort of sullen pleasure showed inhis face. It was at the thirteenth that I detected the first dawningof hope. From then onward it grew.

　　When, with a sequence of shocking shots, he took the seventeenth holein seven, he was in a parlous condition. His run of success hadengendered within him a desire for conversation. He wanted, as itwere, to flap his wings and crow. I could see Dignity wrestling withTalkativeness. I gave him the lead.

　　"You have got your form now," I said.

　　Talkativeness had it. Dignity retired hurt. Speech came from him in arush. When he brought off an excellent drive from the eighteenth tee,he seemed to forget everything.

　　"Me dear boy,"--he began; and stopped abruptly in some confusion.

　　Silence once more brooded over us as we played ourselves up thefairway and on to the green.

　　He was on the green in four. I reached it in three. His sixth stroketook him out.

　　I putted carefully to the very mouth of the hole.

　　I walked up to my ball and paused. I looked at the professor. Helooked at me.

　　"Go on," he said hoarsely.

　　Suddenly a wave of compassion flooded over me. What right had I totorture the man like this?

　　"Professor," I said.

　　"Go on," he repeated.

　　"That looks a simple shot," I said, eyeing him steadily, "but I mightmiss it."He started.

　　"And then you would win the Championship."He dabbed at his forehead with a wet ball of a handkerchief.

　　"It would be very pleasant for you after getting so near it the lasttwo years.""Go on," he said for the third time. But there was a note ofhesitation in his voice.

　　"Sudden joy," I said, "would almost certainly make me miss it."We looked at each other. He had the golf fever in his eyes.

　　"If," I said slowly, lifting my putter, "you were to give your consentto my marriage with Phyllis----"He looked from me to the ball, from the ball to me, and back to theball. It was very, very near the hole.

　　"Why not?" I said.

　　He looked up, and burst into a roar of laughter.

　　"You young devil," said he, smiting his thigh, "you young devil,you've beaten me.""On the contrary," I said, "you have beaten me."* * * * *I left the professor at the Club House and raced back to the farm. Iwanted to pour my joys into a sympathetic ear. Ukridge, I knew, wouldoffer that same sympathetic ear. A good fellow, Ukridge. Alwaysinterested in what you had to tell him; never bored.

　　"Ukridge!" I shouted.

　　No answer.

　　I flung open the dining-room door. Nobody.

　　I went into the drawing-room. It was empty. I drew the garden, and hisbedroom. He was not in either.

　　"He must have gone for a stroll," I said.

　　I rang the bell.

　　The Hired Retainer appeared, calm and imperturbable as ever.

　　"Sir?""Oh, where is Mr. Ukridge, Beale?""Mr. Ukridge, sir," said the Hired Retainer nonchalantly, "has gone.""Gone!""Yes, sir. Mr. Ukridge and Mrs. Ukridge went away together by thethree o'clock train."