by Julie Ganz
But there is a subtler crime than that of miscounting his score, of which a man may be, and of which many often are, guilty in a bunker; and it is a crime which again raises another delicate point of etiquette. He may be touching the sand with his iron. Every golfer knows the rule that you must not touch sand in a bunker, with the club, as you address yourself to the ball—that you must not rest the club-head behind the ball. Almost every golfer does so, however, accidentally, now and again, and some do it habitually. Etiquette has its word to say, not about the touching of the sand, which is a distinct breach of a hard-and-fast rule of the game, but about the tempering justice with mercy in bringing the criminal to account. Let us first see what the custom is, in regard to breach of this rule, and let us then see what the custom ought to be.
With the first class, of those who touch sand accidentally, occasionally, the custom certainly is to continue playing on, lightheartedly, as if they were all unconscious of the rule and of their breach of it. And no one thinks of claiming the stroke as a foul one. Why?—because it is the custom not to claim it, and in the presence of this custom the man who claimed his rights, under the rule, would be regarded as a sharp practitioner. There are, doubtless, also many cases in which the player is himself quite unconscious of having touched the sand; he will indignantly deny having done so, and in the absence of a referee the just claim results in nothing but mutual irritation.
Next, what is the custom with regard to the habitual touchers of the sand? The first two offenses probably go unnoticed. At the third they are possibly cautioned. At the fourth a threat is made to claim the hole. Probably this is about as often as their opponent will have seen their bunker performances, and when the round is over they will tell all their friends what an ungentlemanly fellow their late opponent is, and will probably meet with a great amount of sympathy!
Altogether there is no so-called petty infringement of the rules about which there is so much custom-sanctioned laxity as in the matter of touching sand, and we greatly need that some of our leading golfers should inaugurate a change in that particular. But there are certain other little points wherein a laxity of custom sometimes appears, where a rigid application of the rules of golf would make the game far pleasanter, and far less liable to those little roughnesses of temper which at times crop up in the course of matches.
For instance, it will sometimes happen that, in spite of a player’s utmost carefulness in the removal of loose sticks and straws from the neighborhood of his ball, the latter will roll ever so little from its place. This, by clearly expressed rules of the game, counts against him; but there are those who, with full knowledge of the rule, instead of manfully paying the penalty, will appeal to you with a question as to “whether you want them to count that?”
This in itself is a distinct breach of etiquette, for it throws you who are innocent into a position in which a question of etiquette upon your side arises. Of course the proper and honest answer is “Yes,” because that is the answer given by the rules of golf, and because, at the moment, you are supposed to be playing golf. But it is just this latter fact that, your opponent does not seem to realize; and if you are too authoritative in pointing it out to him it is not impossible, in consequence of the laxity on these points introduced by custom, that he may, however absurdly, regard himself as rather hardly treated by your assertion of your rights. The very fact of his asking the question indeed is a suggestion that he will so regard it. What are you to say? Is the point at issue, and your respect for your own strength of mind, of sufficient value to compensate for the chance of losing your opponent’s good opinion?
These are questions which each will answer according to his temperament; but our great point is that such questions ought never to arise. Nor would they ever arise but for the reprehensible laxity in the application of the rules of the game, which thus gives openings for those very unpleasantnesses which their lax interpretation was presumably intended to avert. Let the rules be applied in their proper strictness; let us play golf according to the rules of golf, and in the strict game we shall find freedom from all such annoyance.
Broadly speaking, there is no breach of true etiquette in enforcing rules; the breaches of etiquette consist, for the most part, in the breaches of the rules.
There are certainly a good many golfers who consider themselves grossly ill-treated if they are asked to hole out a short putt; and, singularly enough, it is just those very golfers who most often justify the request, by missing the short putt, who are most indignant at it. You have a perfect right to ask a golfer to hole out every single putt; and no golfer ought to take offense at your so asking him. There are, of course, putts which it is positively vexatious to ask the veriest duffer to hole. Common sense ought, and does, draw a fair line in the matter. Perhaps one of the most offensive of all breaches of etiquette is committed by him who, after missing one of these little putts, says to his opponent, airily, “Oh, I thought you’d have given me that!” It is a remark one is very apt to make in the irritation of the moment, and it is a remark which it well becomes the opponent, in the magnanimity of his triumph, to forgive; but we can only excuse it to ourselves in proportion as we feel a shameful repentance for it afterwards.
It is impossible to frame rules which shall cover every possible contingency, and there should be, between gentlemen, a certain amount of give and take, such as will smooth off the rough edges of injustice or absurdity which in exceptional circumstances appear under the strict letter of the law. In a match played a few years back, a dog seized the ball of one of the players, as it rolled over the putting-green, and bore it off into a carriage which was standing near. According to the then law it was incumbent on the player to play the ball out of the carriage, where the dog had deposited it. This, surely, was one of those exceptional cases wherein the courtesy of the opponent might have suggested a fairer alternative to the, in this case, unjust requirement of the generally fair rule.
Possibly next upon the little list of these delinquents against the unwritten code of golf etiquette comes he who complains outrageously of the good luck which falls to his opponent’s share. We all know that there is a great deal of luck in the game; but we also know, in moments of sober reflection, that on the whole the balance of luck, good or bad, for us or against us, hangs very nearly even. Complaints of one’s own bad luck are in infinitely bad taste. But this class of offense is nothing compared with aggressive outcries against the good fortune of an opponent. If circumstances can aggravate a sin so intrinsically evil, it is even more criminal to complain of the good luck that befalls him with whom you are partnered in a scoring competition than your antagonist in a hand-to-hand match. Generally recognized etiquette goes so far as a kind sympathy and interest in the efforts of your partner for the medal round. A community of trials make you feel in a measure dependent upon each other like fellow knights-errant in a world peopled with monsters in the shape of all the other competitors. Usually a man is generous enough to feel that, if he does not himself win, he would prefer the victory of his partner to that of any other; and when his own fortunes have become desperate, he will lend that partner all the comfort of his sympathy and moral support. This is less the result of the prospect of any little reflected glory than of a genuine fellow-feeling for one passing through the same vale of bunkers as oneself.
The laws of etiquette prescribe for us a certain line of conduct not only to our partner in a foursome, and to our antagonist in a single, but also to our other neighbors on the golf links. One of the first things that the young golfer has to learn is that the prime requisitions for good golf generally are silence and immobility. If he be not careful to preserve these conditions, he will render good golf an impossibility not only within the circle of his own match, but also for the moment with any other of the matches which his own may chance to meet. He who rushes noisily up to a match, demanding with loud geniality “how you stand,” irrespective of whether anyone is playing a stroke at the moment, is a nuisance who ought to be abolished from th
e golf links. At least there is no law of etiquette which should restrain the terms in which such an one should be answered. It seems scarcely necessary to state so universally observed a maxim as that it is your duty to stand perfectly motionless and silent while another is playing. Any breach of this first law of golfing etiquette is, happily, of rare occurrence. Offenses are of that class with which we determine “never to play again.” But scarcely less obnoxious than the talker or the walker is he who rushes on wildly after his own ball as soon as he has struck it, partially obstructing our line of aim, and obviously only coming to a halt, at the moment at which we deliver our stroke, out of compulsory respect to the barest exigencies of golfing courtesy.
The proper course of proceeding is this: to drive off first, if it be your honor, and then to stand clear of the teeing ground, behind your adversary’s back. Do not stand close enough to him to annoy him, wherever you stand, and do not stand “behind his eye,” as it is called—that is, in a line which would be a prolongation, backward, of the line of flight of the ball he is about to drive. Find out where he prefers you to stand, if he be a nervous player; but it is a safe rule to stand, motionless, behind his back. There are men in the golfing world—gentlemen, in some respects—who appear to be not above taking the petty advantage which annoyance to an opponent, caused by neglect of these little points, brings. It is not much use writing on points of etiquette for such as these; but there are also a very large number of golfers who, blessed with prosaic nervous systems themselves, thoughtlessly do not appreciate that others can be affected by the trifles of their surroundings. It is to these that one may say a word which may be gratefully received. They should bear in mind that to be forced to make a complaint upon any one of these trifling conditions is no less trying to a man of finely strung nerves than is the very circumstance of which he complains. Seek, then, to avoid giving him reason for making the complaint.
If it be your opponent’s honor, it is far better that you should allow him to drive off from the tee before you think of teeing your own ball. Most teeing places are rather circumscribed, and even if you do not absolutely put down your ball upon its little eminence before your opponent has played, you are very apt to bother him as you crawl about the ground looking for the most likely spot. Let him have his shot in peace, and you may fairly expect him to show you equal courtesy in the happy event of your regaining the honor.
After all, what is courtesy but unselfishness and consideration of others? How grossly then does not he offend against every dictate of courtesy who scalps up the turf with his heavy iron, and leaves the “divot” lying, an unsightly clod of earth, upon the sward! What shall we do to such as he, as playing after him, our ball finds its way into the poor dumb mouth of a wound which he has thus left gaping, to call down upon him the vengeance of gods and men? In vain we print upon our rules that “it is the first duty of every golfer to replace, or see replaced, turf cut out in the act of playing”—in vain we post up the ever-forgotten truism that “golf is not agriculture,” with or without the addendum suggested by some cynical landlord—“though both are games of chance.” No—in spite of all our efforts, the scalps and divots still lie unsightly on the links, and “nobody seems one penny the worse,” though we curse with bell and book and niblick the sacrilegious villain who left the raw, gaping wound on the sacred soil. No golfer is worthy of the name who does not put back his divot. It is no trouble, and is indeed rather amusing, as we watch how, like a piece of a Chinese puzzle, the divot fits back accurately into the chasm from which it was carved. A divot well replaced is, in most conditions of the ground, as a divot that has never been cut.
Under the rules of golf, no player is allowed to drive from the tee until both the sides in the match immediately in front of him have played their respective second strokes. This prohibition contains the obvious implication that it is permissible to drive off the tee-shot the moment after the second shots of the preceding parties are struck. It is an implication which can scarcely be carried to its logical conclusion in practice without danger to life and limb. It is modified by the maxims of etiquette. Under the latest dispensation, this rule has been altered, or, rather, added to, so that it now runs—until those in front shall have played their second shots and got out of range. So that the lives of obese, short-driving old gentlemen are now safe-guarded by law. “Out of range ” is strictly a relative measurement. The worm, in the shape of the long driver, terribly kept back, will turn—will turn to and drive into the old and the feeble and the obese, until the latter observing too late the maxim which etiquette and courtesy should have suggested to him without the emphatic hints of the long driver, allows his rapidly traveling pursuer to go before.
But this is the sort of hint which the long driver is only justified in administering under special circumstances—that is to say, where the unwarrantable delay is the fault, solely and entirely, of those parties immediately in front of him whom his artillery will reach. If these parties, on the other hand, are themselves being delayed, it is of course at once a breach both of rules and of etiquette to drive before they are “out of range;” On a crowded green, moreover, it is not of the slightest use passing one couple, to be immediately kept back as badly as ever by the couple again in front.
But these hints should never be administered by the long driver unless the delay has really been of most unconscionable length, often repeated. They should rather be regarded as outbursts of temper, which can be pardoned in proportion as they are repented of. Under any other circumstances, save, perhaps, where a ball has been lost, it is entirely inexcusable to drive into a party along the green, on the putting-green, or before they have played their seconds. Where the parties behind have infringed this great commandment more than once during a round, any means combining due insistence on your rights with adequate courtesy to the offenders seem beyond the suggestions of human ingenuity. Perhaps it may be deemed, however, that players thus offending have forfeited all claim to courteous dealing.
With regard to standing at the hole, the proper etiquette is that the caddie of the player who is nearer to the hole shall go to it, for it is in favor of the striker to play with the chance of hitting the stick; the striker, therefore, should always wait before addressing the ball to give his adversary’s caddie a reasonable chance of taking out the flag, but it is a gross breach of etiquette to send on a caddie for this purpose after the player has commenced his “addresses.”
Spectators should always remember what is due to the players—silence and attention, if they are to pay the honor of watching the game at all. But it is no less true that a duty of courtesy is owed by the players to those who pay them the compliment of being interested in their performance. Moreover, golf links are commonly public places. The spectator has as good a right there as the most finished golfer, and the latter should not forget that if the former defer to the delicate requirements of his nervous system, it is but an act of courtesy, and should be received with the courteous acknowledgment due to such.
Modesty is a virtue, but the mock modesty, the pride which apes humility, was an occasion of much mirth to Satan; and it is a breach, rather than an observance, of etiquette, and even of honesty, so to underrate your game as to gain an unfair advantage in arranging the conditions of a match. Do not tell a player whom you have defeated that he would be sure to beat you next time. He may think so, but he will not believe that you do, and the remark partakes of the nature of an insult to his understanding.
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THE STORY OF LUCK IN GOLF
GARDEN G. SMITH
There can be no question that there is a deal of luck in golf. The extraordinary number of ways in which a badly hit ball can arrive, or the extraordinary number of badly hit balls which do arrive at a given spot, owing to the accidents of the ground, their own inherent eccentricity, and in a manner totally opposed to the intention of the striker, is sufficient proof of the fact. How often the missed iron shot scuffles over or through a bunk
er and finally rests near the hole. How many a topped putt lands up dead, to the silent joy of its perpetrator and the ill-concealed rage and contempt of his opponent! In addition, the most unfair treatment is often meted out to perfectly played strokes. How frequently a well hit ball despatched on the proper line and with the requisite force to reach the green, is kicked off on alighting either to right or left of the green, how often it drops dead without rolling, or, getting a downward fall, shoots forward over it, and lands in a hazard! This aggravating uncertainty as to what is to be the fate of even the best played strokes, has induced a pessimistic golfing friend to maintain that there is only bad luck at golf, and that good luck, inasmuch as it is only compensatory, and that to the smallest degree, ought not to be considered. Certainly the irritation provoked by certain kinds of bad luck at golf will almost justify this contention, but whether it be called good or bad the game is undoubtedly full of luck, and it is the precise mingling of chance and skill of which it is compound, the kind of pleasing anxiety that accompanies every stroke, that makes up much of the fascination of golf.
Nearly all golfers are superstitious, for golf in its ever changing fortunes is an epitome of life. Here the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, and the wicked too often flourishes like a green bay tree. It is the constant presentation of these painful facts that makes the game so difficult. He who thinks the fates are against him will do nothing well in golf, any more than in life. The man who has luck will at once gain courage, and attempt, and succeed at, things which with luck against him he would never have dreamt of essaying.
No doubt the best players are those who, like the average professional, have but little imagination, and if they have any superstition in their natures are not so subtly-minded as to apply it to golf. The writer does not know a single professional who ever regarded himself habitually as unlucky, though he may have complained about his luck on individual occasions. Many amateur players, on the other hand, are always complaining about their bad luck. They believe that they are born under an unlucky star, and are constantly on the outlook for the finger of destiny. This attitude of mind has, of course, a fatal effect on their game, both positively and negatively. For while it robs the golfer who adopts it of all courageous initiative, his game assumes a weak and pusillanimous character, that seems almost to invite the very thunderbolt which he lives in dread of.