Evening star., 1901-08-31
AN EXCEPTIONAL CASE

AN EXCEPTIONAL CASE
'tGolfr' shifted the positive man to his
companion with the plaid stockings "Say,
don't talk to me about that game. 1t just
makes me ACHE the very name OF golf
does. Why don't you people play beam
bag or mumblety-peg, or I-spy, or puss-in-
a-corner, or prisoners base. or something
like that, hey? Golf! Why, I'd"
But" interposed his companion with the
plaid stockings, "did you ever
''Why, the very idea of the thing-its
nothing but shinny, so far as l can make
OUT broke in the positive man. Never
was so much disgusted in my life as have
been over all this talk about tees ana
brassies and puts and one-up-and-two-to-
play and galleries and fore and all that
sort o. rot. Why, one good game o SCRUB
ball out on a vacant lot has got five times
the excitement and go to 1t as all the games
of golf on earth, don't care Whether
they're played on St. Andrews links or
where they're played! It's just like the
folks of this country, anyhow, to get pug
house over some measly nanny
game brought over from the other side IKE
golf The golf bunch only indulge In the
milk-and- -watery pastime because it's tenn
porarily the thing to do, just as few years
ago it was the knk to ride bike, or as
before that it the caper to revolVe
around on roller skates. If there's any real
difference between this rainy-afternoon par
lor game Of ping-pong and golf, or any
difference worth speaking of between tld-
dledy-winks and golf, for the matter of
that, I'd like to know where it Is, that s
all! Huh! The idea of full-grown. men,
lot of 'em big enough brufsers to be In the
prize ring, by George, skating around
lot with a stick after a miserable little
gutta percha BALI If that amt laZlneSS
and Stiffness, then I'm UP in the air. that
all Golf is one of these counterfeit games
h tan
minutes practice; and when duck hnos
that he can get along decently at the same
he gets what they call the golf bug. and ne
eats, sleeps, drinks and dreams goh. Inc
only ~
Ibid you ever see a game of golf?' put
in the man with the plaid stockings.
Nope, but l.
Did YOU ever see golf links?'
Cant say that 1 have but we
"Isn't YOUR only information with re-
spect to golf that which you We read aoout
it in the papers, and haven't you pald par
ticular attention to the stories In the 1uhhy
papers about it?
.!Oh. / read the papers, of course, but
l."
.sWell. YOU see" said the plaid -stockinged
man. mildly, you don't know anytnins
about the game, of course, or you Wouldn
speak of it as you do. AS simple matter
of fact it's the most wonderfully fascl-
mating game in the whole range OF sports.
1t takes a-hold of you in most extraor-
binary way. and the longer you stay with
it the more you like it. There's nothing
Shy about it. It's more scientific than SCI
entific billiards, when you play 1t from the
inside, as the saying goes, and 1t takes
about a lifetime to learn how to play 1t
that way Now, 1 just want to prove to
you that golf isn't mere fad. want you
to take the afternoon off and come out 10
the links with me and play game. II,
after taking a turn around the links,
you're not pricing golf sticks and golf &C
couterments tomorrow, then III De the
most surprised man on earth
flush, mani" replied the positive per-
son. II wouldn't go out on golf links for
a million dollars. What's the use? Just to
see a lot @ fellows banging away at
poor little inoffensive ball, and
But" said the plaid-stockinged man,
1--WE got the hunch that you're just about
the build of man that'd be conspicuously
successful as a golf player, and | want
to see whether I'm right or not in this
idea.
This suggestion hit the positive mans
vanity a bit, and about an hour later he
was going over the links with the plaid
planning the game to him and illustrating
it's points. The positive man took try at
the thing and made out beautifully from
the start. In fact, such was his natural
ability at the game that before the close
of the afternoon he was able to play al
most as well his seasoned companion,
and he
Now, the regular cut-and-dried ending to
this story, if the indoctrination of the risi-
Bile massagers of the comic weekly press
We're to be strictly adhered to. would be
to portray the positive mans features as
lighting up with interest with every stroke
he made with his golf tools on his first
afternoon on the links, and to have him
exclaim, after awhile, by George. 1t is
to have his interest increase almost to a
fever heat as he continued to bang the
ball around, and to picture the plaid
stockined man as standing by with an Il
fpld -rnts rrr~iv,
positive man as capitulating totally to the
magnetic influence Of the game, to an ex-
tent that got him down town before Office
hours the next morning to purchase bag
of golf sticks and a golffng suit, and to
make arrangements for his initiation into
golf club. and thus to carry the thing
on to the 'Hoot, mon.' stage, finally de
picting the ex-positive man with golf
Of Scotch while he rolled out intricate golf
talk by the ream.
However. the indoctrination of the risI-
BILE massagers doesn't fit into the strict
truthfulness of all the affairs of life, and
1t didn't actually fit into this case by the
whole sum total thereof.
Its just as I thought and said" re-
marked the positive man, with great posi-
tiveness, after his afternoon on the links.
I've had a good chance to size up the
game, and you say at that that / haven't
made such hash Of 1t. and that I've got
the makings Of a decent golf player; but L
wouldn't give nickel with hole in 1t to
play golf from now until kingdom come
with diamond-studded golf sticks I'd
rather play tag any day. And the next
time consent to fiddle away an afternoon
on such an inane game as golf then I'll
have to be drugged into it. that's ALL
The stylus trainers of conventional stories
may be right, and golf may be more fasci-
mating and insidious than new government
bonds or old wine; but facts are facts
nevertheless, and this positive marr couldn't
be led again to a golf links with a rein
forced halter.
~
Perpetual Youth.
Paris COrrespOndencp London Exnrcss