The Best Golf Stories Ever Told

by Julie Ganz

A sense of faintness crept over me.

  As in a red mist I saw Lindsay strike the ball. I saw it travelling straight and sure to the hole!

  And then—heavens above us!—I saw the Cardinal take a quick and gulping breath, and blow with might and main against the skilfully directed ball! It reached the edge of the hole, trembled a moment on the brink, and then ran off at an angle and lay still on the turf a couple of inches from the hole!

  I had won the match.

  A tumult sounded in my ears, the sky turned a blazing scarlet, the crowd swam before my eyes, and of a sudden I fell prone on the turf with my nose plunged in the fateful hole!

  * * * * *

  When I came to myself I found kind friends grouped about me, and my head resting luxuriously in Mrs. Gunter’s lap. I think I should have been perfectly happy and content with this state of things, had I not unfortunately just at that moment caught a glimpse of the ubiquitous Cardinal standing ridiculously on his head and kicking his heels in mid air in an ecstasy of frenzied glee.

  The sight so upset me that I went off a second time into a dead faint.

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  THE STORY OF HOW THE QUAKERS BECAME RECONCILED TO THE GOLFERS

  SARAH GUNDERSON

  “ R achel, Rachel, my child, why dost thou not come and finish this sewing?”

  “In half a second, grandmother; only do come and see all these men in red coats. Wouldn’t it be fun if Farmer Jenkins’s bull got loose! But I wonder who they are, and what those funny looking sticks are for,” and the young girl sighed with curiosity.

  “Thy usual curiosity. Probably they are those town people who bought the Peterson farm. They are to use all those good fields for some foolish game—golf, I think they call it. I was reading about it this morning,” replied the old Quaker lady, with a sweet smile at her pretty granddaughter.

  “Well, I wish I knew about a game that takes up so much land. But now to that hateful sewing;” and then, in an undertone, “I wish it were in the mill pond, and Alfred Bitterson with it.”

  Alfred Bitterson was a quiet, homely man; a Quaker. He was about 28 or so, but one who frowned on anything frivolus; a man not likely to attract a young girl’s fancy. Mrs. Littleby, Rachel’s grandmother, had set her heart on having Alfred for a grandson, but Rachel wished otherwise.

  Within a month the passing of the golfers was no longer remarked on, only Rachel from her curtained bedroom window watched the busloads of prettily dressed women and red-coated men. By June numerous small cottages had been leased by these people, and gay parties more often passed the little white house. Mrs. Littleby supplied a few of them with fresh butter and eggs. One day Jonathan, the hired man, hurt his foot, and so could not deliver these things. The task fell on Rachel, who was only too glad to get a nearer glimpse of these fascinating people.

  Golf must indeed be an attractive game, for they played all day long. Even the most delicate-looking women could be seen on the hottest days with a long stick in their hands, hitting a small ball around the large farm. They wore dark-brown veils and short check skirts, which showed off to a great advantage their pretty ankles.

  The horse being hitched, Rachel set out and drove to a small house, where people by the name of Hackett-Jones were living. Mrs. Jones was a tall, attractive-looking blonde, known as one of the best players in S______. Rachel jumped out with the butter and rang the front doorbell. A neat maid came to the door and she handed her the butter, when a sweet voice from within the house said: What is it Anne?”

  “The young lady with the butter, ma’am.”

  “Ask her to come here.”

  The maid ushered Rachel into a small sitting-room, where Mrs. Jones was seated at a desk, writing.

  “Are you Mrs. Littleby’s granddaughter?” she asked.

  “Yes, Mrs. Jones—I mean, Mrs. Hackett-Jones,” answered the embarrassed Rachel.

  The woman laughed and said, “No, only Mrs. Jones; but are you a Quaker, like your grandmother? Yes? I wanted so much to speak to you, as I once knew your mother very well, and often I have thought of you. You are very like her, my dear. But now, I want you to come here a great deal. Will you? I am expecting a niece to visit me, who is about your age—19—and when she comes I want you to know her.”

  “Oh, I would love to, if grandmother is willing.”

  “Well, come and lunch with us on Monday, and we will go to the club and try to teach Louise and you a bit of golf. I will come and see your grandmother; but don’t mention it to her until I have my little say first. Good-by, dear.”

  “Goodbye,” said happy Rachel, who could think of nothing else but her invitation. “Oh, if grandmother is only willing; and Alfred will be worse than ever,” she thought.

  The Monday came, as also did numerous other days, when she went to the club and proved herself quite a little sport, in spite of her Quaker ways. Young Jack Carrington found that an especially attractive way of spending his time was in giving Miss Littleby pointers. He is a very nice man, thought Rachel, and so kind to help me improve my game.

  All this, you may be sure, was not going on under Mrs. Littleby’s eyes, but under those of the gracious Mrs. Jones, who thought that they would make a good match, and did all in her power to throw them together and appreciate one another. What woman is not a matchmaker? One day, while on the links, Carrington gave some pointers to Rachel about the state of his heart, and told her a story that made her very happy; but if a Quaker gentleman that we know could have heard, he would have been angry. Then she thought of her grandmother, and of Alfred, whom she hated, and her heart grew sick.

  When she arrived home she told her grandmother, who at once said that Rachel was crazy to even think of marrying one of those wild golf men, when there was honest Alfred that wanted her so much. One of those red-coated fools, as well as wicked! She forbade her granddaughter to go any more to the old ball club. Then she went and gave Mrs. Jones a piece of her mind, indeed, such a piece that Mrs. Jones no longer came to the house.

  Days passed and poor Rachel only heard from Jack by mail, as she was forbidden to see him, and was accustomed to obey. Alfred came to the house more often than ever. One night he offered to kiss her as he left, whereupon he received a slap in the face, which made him highly furious; but was also told that the door was open for him to leave, and not come back again. The next day Mrs. Littleby got a letter from him, saying that he did not care to have such a spitfire as her granddaughter for a wife. Mrs. Littleby asked Rachel what she had done, but she would not tell. Later, when Rachel began to grow pale and unhappy, Mrs. Littleby gave her consent to have Jack come and call. Jack made himself especially attractive to the old lady, who thought him a charming young fellow, even if he did play golf.

  The following winter there was a marriage between one of the golf coterie and one of the Quakers. Thus the Quakers were reconciled to golf.

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  THE STORY OF HOW RANKIN PLAYS “GOLF”

  MILES BANTOCK, Ed.

  Those who knew Mr. Rankin before his marriage would never have deemed it possible that he could so radically change. Those who knew him downtown during business hours felt that they had a pretty good conception of his character, and that they could decide to a nicety what he would be likely to do, but even they had reckoned without taking into consideration the great influence of the future Mrs. Rankin. Lofty superiority had been the keynote of Mr. Rankin’s own position as far as regards life away from the city. Brooklyn, if you had been so indiscreet as to mention it to him as a desirable place of residence, Brooklyn would have been met with a sneer. Jersey City, Hoboken—the sneer would have been changed to a snort. The suburbs—withering sarcasm would have been in order. So that, considering this narrow-mindedness of attitude, it is no wonder that a little start of surprise went the rounds when the news of Mr. Rankin’s marriage was followed by the intelligence that he had taken the lease of a “little place in Jersey” with the privilege of buying it for himself if he shou
ld so wish at the end of a year.

  The prophecies varied. Some said two months; others gave him six months in which to pine for town; but all agreed that he’d be tired of country life long before the end of the year, and that that privilege of buying the small estate was a good joke, at which they all smiled widely.

  It was early in the fall when the place in Jersey first welcomed the Rankins. Two months passed, and instead of wearing into town the jaded, worried look of a commuter, Mr. Rankin had the audacity to appear perfectly happy, smooth and smiling. The gibes and sneers with which his old associates tried to make his life a dream of bliss fell from him without so much as marring his equanimity, till at last his old associates were obliged to take refuge in the decision that the country isn’t so bad after all in the fall, but that winter is the time!

  To be sure, it was rather an open winter when it came, and on that account hardly a fair test by which to try his staying qualities, but at any rate the winter passed without forcing so much as a murmur from the newly-fledged commuter.

  The snowy days were few and far between and rarely stormy enough to prevent Mrs. Rankin’s walk to the station to see Mr. Rankin depart. At times the frivolous would ask him if he had been snowed in over Sunday, and how he had managed to get out. Sometimes, as if in search of information, they would ask how many times during the night he had to go down and stoke the furnace. But to all such queries Mr. Rankin turned a bland and smiling face that showed he really pitied the ignorance behind them.

  By spring patience had its own reward. The aggressive attitude of the confirmed New Yorkers began to change slightly. Mr. Rankin still looked happy, and besides every now and then he let out an alluring hint about the fine games he had on his grounds.

  “Old Rankin seems to have a pretty good thing of it out there. Plays golf.”

  That sort of remark going the rounds had much to do with the way his downtown friends viewed his suburban venture. The rumor grew on its way so that, as it happened, without making more than a few modest allusions to the successful games he had played on Saturday afternoon, his reputation as a golf player built itself up.

  “Mrs. Rankin plays too, I suppose,” some one might ask him.

  “Oh, yes, fine player,” would be the reply, followed by the generous invitation to come out some Saturday and have a game. Mr. Rankin was hospitable. Mrs. Rankin was also hospitable.

  One Friday night when Mr. Rankin went home he carried some news to his wife. Four of his downtown friends were coming out the next day. Mrs. Rankin was pleased.

  “We must show them what good times we have out here. I know they’ve laughed at you for living in the country, poor old boy.”

  Mr. Rankin admitted that they had tried to be funny about it; but let them laugh, he didn’t care, they were only jealous.

  And then Mrs. Rankin smoothed Mr. Rankin’s hair and Mr. Rankin kissed Mrs. Rankin’s hand, and they were both very foolish and very happy.

  “Of course they will stay to dinner,” said Mrs. Rankin. “You will bring them out when you come and we’ll have time for a few good games in the afternoon, and I’ll have such a good dinner. I guess they won’t feel so sorry for you after tomorrow.” In which sentiment Mr. Rankin evidently agreed with all his heart.

  The next day the country was on the best of its usual good behavior. The very youthful tree in front of the Rankin’s abode spread itself in an attempt to seem grown up and shady. The little plot of grass that lay between the tree and the neat front steps strove to look velvety and soft in spite of its sparseness. The air was mild and sweet with the scent of magnolias.

  When Mrs. Rankin came to greet her guests she found that only two of them had come out with her husband; the other two were coming on the next train.

  “You see, they had to go home to get their things,” one of those who did come explained.

  “We’re not much of sportsmen so we just intend to look on.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Rankin, and she wondered just what he meant.

  A sudden realizing sense of what it all meant came an hour later when the two tardy guests arrived in full golf outfit. Mrs. Rankin felt surprised and Mr. Rankin seemed embarrassed, but only for a moment.

  The conversation had drifted along smoothly for a short time when Mr. Rankin broached the subject.

  “My dear,” he said, “shall we take our guests out and teach them how to play?”

  In answer to this mild pleasantry Mrs. Rankin thought it might be a good idea. And Mr. Rankin led the way out of doors.

  That evening when the last train drew into the suburban station it found four men waiting to be taken back to town, two of them carried bundles of golf sticks. In silence, they tramped into the almost empty car and settled down for the ride. Finally the smaller of the two who carried golf sticks spoke up.

  “Croquet, by Jove,” he said.

  “Yes, by Jove, croquet,” ejaculated another of the party.

  “Poor old Rankin!” said a third.

  “Poor Rankin!” they all sighed together.

  They never laughed at him after that. They pitied him instead.

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  THE STORY OF THE LONG HOLE

  P. G. WODEHOUSE

  The young man, as he sat filling his pipe in the clubhouse smoking room, was inclined to be bitter.

  “If there’s one thing that gives me a pain squarely in the centre of the gizzard,” he burst out, breaking a silence that had lasted for some minutes, “it’s a golf-lawyer. They oughtn’t to be allowed on the links.”

  The Oldest Member, who had been meditatively putting himself outside a cup of tea and a slice of seed-cake, raised his white eyebrows.

  “The Law,” he said, “is an honourable profession. Why should its practitioners be restrained from indulgence in the game of games?”

  “I don’t mean actual lawyers,” said the young man, his acerbity mellowing a trifle under the influence of tobacco. “I mean the blighters whose best club is the book of rules. You know the sort of excrescences. Every time you think you’ve won a hole, they dig out Rule 853, section two, sub-section four, to prove that you’ve disqualified yourself by having an ingrowing toe nail. Well, take my case.” The young man’s voice was high and plaintive. “I go out with that man Hemmingway to play an ordinary friendly round—nothing depending on it except a measly ball—and on the seventh he pulls me up and claims the hole simply because I happened to drop my niblick in the bunker. Oh, well, a tick’s a tick, and there’s nothing more to say, I suppose.”

  The Sage shook his head.

  “Rules are rules, my boy, and must be kept. It is odd that you should have brought up this subject, for only a moment before you came in I was thinking of a somewhat curious match which ultimately turned upon a question of the rule-book. It is true that, as far as the actual prize was concerned, it made little difference. But perhaps I had better tell you the whole story from the beginning.”

  The young man shifted uneasily in his chair.

  “Well, you know, I’ve had a pretty rotten time this afternoon already—”

  “I will call my story,” said the Sage, tranquilly, “‘The Long Hole’, for it involved the playing of what I am inclined to think must be the longest hole in the history of golf. In its beginnings the story may remind you of one I once told you about Peter Willard and James Todd, but you will find that it develops in quite a different manner. Ralph Bingham. . . .”

  “I half promised to go and see a man—”

  “But I will begin at the beginning,” said the Sage. “I see that you are all impatience to hear the full details.”

  * * * * *

  Ralph Bingham and Arthur Jukes (said the Oldest Member) had never been friends—their rivalry was too keen to admit of that—but it was not till Amanda Trivett came to stay here that a smouldering distaste for each other burst out into the flames of actual enmity. It is ever so. One of the poets, whose name I cannot recall, has a passage, which I am unable at the mo
ment to remember, in one of his works, which for the time being has slipped my mind, which hits off admirably this age-old situation. The gist of his remarks is that lovely woman rarely fails to start something. In the weeks that followed her arrival, being in the same room with the two men was like dropping in on a reunion of Capulets and Montagues.

  You see, Ralph and Arthur were so exactly equal in their skill on the links that life for them had for sometime past resolved itself into a silent, bitter struggle in which first one, then the other, gained some slight advantage. If Ralph won the May medal by a stroke, Arthur would be one ahead in the June competition, only to be nosed out again in July. It was a state of affairs which, had they been men of a more generous stamp, would have bred a mutual respect, esteem, and even love. But I am sorry to say that, apart from their golf, which was in a class of its own as far as this neighbourhood was concerned, Ralph Bingham and Arthur Jukes were a sorry pair—and yet, mark you, far from lacking in mere superficial good looks. They were handsome fellows, both of them, and well aware of the fact; and when Amanda Trivett came to stay they simply straightened their ties, twirled their moustaches, and expected her to do the rest.

  But there they were disappointed. Perfectly friendly though she was to both of them, the lovelight was conspicuously absent from her beautiful eyes. And it was not long before each had come independently to a solution of this mystery. It was plain to them that the whole trouble lay in the fact that each neutralized the other’s attractions. Arthur felt that, if he could only have a clear field, all would be over except the sending out of the wedding invitations; and Ralph was of the opinion that, if he could just call on the girl one evening without finding the place all littered up with Arthur, his natural charms would swiftly bring home the bacon. And, indeed, it was true that they had no rivals except themselves. It happened at the moment that Woodhaven was very short of eligible bachelors. We marry young in this delightful spot, and all the likely men were already paired off. It seemed that, if Amanda Trivett intended to get married, she would have to select either Ralph Bingham or Arthur Jukes. A dreadful choice.