The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-11-11
H CHARM OF GOLF.
Analysis to Show Wherein
1t Lies.

New York Evening Post.
When approaching winter drives the
sportsman indoors, golf almost alone re-
sists the progress of the seasons. For 1t,
in fact, winter is only a kind of glacial or
deal that brings out the true golfer warmed
by an inner fire of enthusiasm for the
game. The mere layman will be inclined TO
ask-why this martyr spirit, why this stern
devotion to a sport which is hardly good
walking even, and which consists, by the
definition of a scoffer. in hitting a ridicu-
lousy minute ball with implements wholly
il-adapted to the purpose? That this I'M
reasoning devotion to the game exists, and
is on the increase, seems beyond dispute.
No outsider who has once fallen among
golfers, and heard ordinarily sane people
talk for hours in a dull and unintelligible
Doric, will doubt the abiding fascination or
the game. Here is a mystery of infatua-
ton which the student of social conditions
for in play rather than in work men be-
tray themselves-must endeavor to fathom.
Now it would be easy to dwell upon the
utility of the game, it's value as exercise,
It's availability for players of all ages,
sexes, and previous condition OF decrepi-
tude, it's social and spectacular features;
0NN NAAO A10A C01 ~ 49,
escape any such analysis. It were absurd
to suppose that the members of fifteen
hundred clubs in our country and the great
army of unattached players are in it for
their health merely. for the social advan-
tages of the clubhome, for the privilege or
arraying themselves beyond Solomon in all
his glory. All these things count, but the
nub lies deeper. To get at ii we must be
allowed a moments depression on the
philosophy Of games in general.
Games are competitive or noncompet-
tive, and on the principle OF natural selec-
ton the competitive ones very soon drive
out all but the adept. 1t is very well to
strive to be a good loser, but to be a loser
all the time. there's the rub. Yet such fate
StareS at him who enters upon competitive
sport. Business and years soon impose q
non possumus on followers of the more
vigorous sports, or, kin lot, a rising
generation of sportsmen abridges unfeel-
ingly the work of nature. You may not
well abide that your grandson beat you In
the "preliminaries' nor that you remain a
KIN of athletic HelOt for the warning OF a
rising brood OF Spartans. Sooner or later
the transition must be made, even in the
milder sports, from the competitive TO the
nOncOmpetitive. One may be driven out or
racing, but pedestrianism remains; out of
TegattaS, but he may still pull a lonely oar.
Such consolation the gods allow. All this
goes to show that the gaudia certamlniS
are fieeting, and that in competitive sport
there Is no abiding habitation.
Now the appeal of golf lies in the fact
that IL is q nOncompetitive game. What,
some one will say, with the sporting pages
of every newspaper filled with strange nu-
merical scores and comment in an out
~petitive. even when it appears most to be.
BY an infraction of Its very spirit some
hunt mugs and fame, but the true golfer
is led astray by no such Interior motive:
cut his golfing salvation without reference
TO his fellow-golfer, comparing himself OF
t seIfa Sf S 9ely Ta5R a hls h IseG hepes of G himself ns@f
of the morrow. His own victor, victory
breeds no envy, for how can a man regard
h1s victor self with other than the most
generors feIicitation? Vanouished. defeat
has no bitterness. for how treat ones van
pushed self with other than the most in
dulgent consideration? You lose, 1T Is the
glorious you of the past that wins; you
win and you have merely risen on stepping
stones of your dead self to lower scores,
which is excellent golf, even If the meta
phOr rings Hibernian.
True, one usually plays round with an
other man, nominally his opponent, but this
is accidental, or at most a mere concession
To the gregarious instinct. What che is
really doing is playing against himself.
For the other mans game he cares not a
whit, and, if his soul is undefiled by the
passion of mu~g-hunting, IL is nothing TO
him that his opponent has him at the end
Of the round so many holes ''down"-noth-
ing. for that matter, to his opponent.
Should a pink-co3ted champion, calloused
by tournaments and elated by false sue
cesses over other men, boast of a VIC
tory over another, the true golfer has but
t. rebuke him in Emerson's words:
eff the red slayer think he Stays,
Or If the slain think he Is slain.
They know not we'll the subtle ways
L keep, and pass, and turn again"
For on the fair green, every man IS
Brahma.
1t is this fine egotism that is the very
soul of the game and prevents its going
the way of all competitive sports. The
rest-healthfulness, agreeable natural sur
roundingS, are merely accessory to the real
cause that promises to assure its lasting
popularity.