Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1894-05-26
GOLF NOW THE GAME.
This Sport Has Taken Strong Hold Upon
Fashionable Clubs.
philadelphia Press)

! Like bowls" FOUNDERS" and a dozen
other old vilage-green games OF Merrie
England, golf fell into disuse. and was
only played by few old Scotchmen over
the heaths OF .helr north country.
IAwn-tenns ragged with such fury all
through England and the Continent from
/ 1870 up to within few years that there
was little prospect OF trying TO Introduce
| a new game. but by 1881 and 1883 lawn
tennis spent It's fury. and men began to
{ look about for some other game which
| did not require the science OF cricket or
] the force Of football, but which would
be free from the alleged namby-panby
| young ladyism Of lawn-tennis.
II was at this time that Arthur j. Bal
four. the Secretary FOR Ireland in the
! Salisbury Cabinet, began to become Ia
nous as a gOlf-player. \ Scotchman by
birth. a Woodworking politician by pro-
fession. he started in to play golf and re-
vlve the sport as being the most salutary
and becoming exercise for a member OF
her Majesty's Cabinet. His lead was
followed with that clannishness so char
acteristic Of the EnglIshman and especi-
allyF OF the Tory. Ii became the thing
for the Government side OF the House
TO play golf, and once introduced in Par
lament the game spread like wildtire all
over England.
Let the Grand Old Man WELD his axe
and hew his trees. said the Tory element,
but for US, give US our "Gryels ana Our
"puttefs" and we'll make the greensward
OF Old England fairly hum with our
sport.
80 1t came 10 pass that in 1889 all Eng
land was fairly golf-crazy. Clubs sprang
up in every town and hamlet. The sport
ing and daily papers began TO devote
whole pages Of letter-press and pictures
to the fashionable sport OF the day.
Cricket and football We're. OF course,
too deeply rooted TO be affected by the
novelty, but lawA-tennls got a very bad
attack Of sulks. from which 1t never
recovered, for very much the same
classes Of men and women who had chung
10 tennis were now deserving the old
game for the new.
The golf craze In England has shown
no signs Of decadence, and. OF course,
II was only a question OF time when the
game would be imported into this coun-
try.
We have no Irish Secretary, and our
politicians take more kindly to poker
and horse-racing than 10 individual
athleticism. but we have a large and
Influential number of citizens who dearly
love to do as the English do, apl who
stood quite ready to adopt golf AZ they
had adopted lawn-tennis, and a Aozen
other English outdoor sports.
1t was in the year 1899 that golf first
began to gain a foothold with US.
The first complete set OF golf-ciubs that
ever saw In this country were i'm
ported by Mr.. A. Belmont Purdy in that
year. He introduced the game at the
Meadow-Brook Club. but IL didn't seem
TO make converts among the hard-riding
men of that sporting community, and /
say right here that golf never will make
converts OF men as long as they are
accustomed to and can indulge In violent
exercise.
IL was at Southampton. on the SHINE
cock Hills. so like the downs OF Scotland.
that the first golf club was formally or
ganized, with a clubhouse. a uniform, a
book or rules. etc, In the summer Of 1881.
Southampton Is peopled In summer with
the rotund and easy-going wall-street
man and merchant, too wary to omit
some form OF exercise from his daily
regime. but too careful to expose his trea-
sured person to cuts and bruises, to
sprains and fractures.
To him golf cana In tha form Of q