The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1902-08-29
ANCIENT AND
HONORABLE
Game Of Golf Graphically Des-
Cribed by Uncle Abner.

Appetizer and UtiIizer of Waste
Land -PecuIiarities of its Devotees
How the Women Golfer Poises.
The advent of golf in the Granite
State is amusingly told by "Uncle
Abner" in the Portsmouth Herald
as follows:
"I'm cal l'latln, hereafter, to devote
my hull farm to golf, remarked
Uncle Abner to his old friend, Amos
Libby, who had come down from one
of the back counties of Maine to pay
him visit. Yes, they amt nothin'
else pays so we'll, an besides it's a
sure crop. Drouth, ner caterpillars,
ner chinz-bugs, ner 17-Year locusts,
ner early frosts, ner nothin' don't
have no serous effect on the golf crop.
1t jest goes right on maturin' regard
less o. wind er weather
Hain't it reached your place YETI"
asked Uncle Abner when Amos made
it known that he was still unfamiliar
with the game of golf "Wen, it
will fore long. It aspreadin' like a
forest fire on windy October day.
Last year them around this neighbor-
hood that takes in summer boarders
found out they needed all the land
they We got fer golf, an so this season
we amt goin' to grow no green stuff
at all, but We'll jest live on canned
goods an golf. Ulster be when sum-
mer vacationers was lookin' fer some
place to get took in the fust thing
they'd ask you would be if the mos
cutters was very bad, if they was any
malariar in the neighborhood, if the
nights was hot, if they was any fish
in nearby, if the roads was good, an
bout a thousand other questions.
'Tain't that way any more.
Now all they want to know is if
they's any good place to play golf
right handy, and if you've got the
right kind of golf grounds to show
'em that's all they want to know
they IL send for their trunks and begin
boardin with you from that minute.
We found out last season that if
they amt Eso very particular bout
any thing else Fore they'd been
in the house long enough to get their
trunks unpacked, they shouldered
their bags full o. golf sticks, that look
bout like broom handles with door
knobs on the end of 'em, an fore I
knowed what was goin ON they was
out in my pasture lot diggin' holes as
big as your two fists an as fur apart
as halfway from here down to the red
bridge
I'm less than no time the golf balls
was flying as thick as bullets at the
battle of Bunker Hill. / got behind
stone wall an watched the perceed-
in's. My pasture wasn't big enough,
so they circled clear round through
the neighbors' fields, takln all before
'em, like Sherman S march to the sea,
and bringin the neighbors' boarders
back with 'em. The next day they
peUitioned the village selectmen to
move the Gross Roads Baptist
Church, cause they wanted the site
it stood on fer putterin' green, er
somehin' O. that kind.
Didn't you ever see a golf ball,
nuther? Well it's about as big as a
pullet's egg an as tough as the kind
o. beefsteak you buy in restaurants.
It'll stand more abuse than a step
child. A golf ball is slyer' weasel.
Goes in bee line as fur as you can
see it, but as soon as it's behind a
tree, er q rock, er hill it switches
off an sneaks away IN some other
direction. Them as has played golf
good while alters locates jest where
golf ball orter be, so as to look for
it somewhere else. 1t amt fair, |
guess, to hit golf ball twice with
the same stick durin' the same game,
an it's agin the rules to try to knock
it over a stone wall with the same
kind of stick that you d use in get
tin it over a swampy place er a
brush pile.
"In playin' golf you've got to take
lot o. things into consideration,
continued Uncle Abner with the air
of one who had learned the secret of
the game. ''The folks who boarded
here last summer told me that the
position o. the sun, moon an stars,
the direction an velocity O. the wind,
the temperature an weather prognos-
tication fer the next twenty-four
hours, the latitude an longitude, have
all got to be figgered down to 10th
of cats whisker before golf play
er can tell what sort of golf stick
to use an how to use it.
can astronomer from Boston col
lege told me 1t was lots easier to
cal late al eclipse O. the moon fifty
J wears ahead than it is to tell Just how
Won on orter stand when strikin' golf
, ball lyin' on side hill A stranger
jest lookin ON an not knowin' any
thing about golf might think it's a
: simple sort of game, but when you
come to look into lit it's wuss than
, compound fractions. In golf every
thing depends on everything else.
"One rainy day when was playin'
checkers with one O. the boarders he
told rn1 confidentially that the man
who hain't never played golf, but
r thinks o. tryin' it orter think a lot
more before he takes the final leap.
You can't tell no more what there is
: in golf by locking at it from the out
side than you can what there is in the
package you bid on at church fair
auction. 1t starts in ON man easy
like SOS not to scare him, but once
' it gets hold of him it's regular ty-
5 rant
"One man says to another man.
DO you play golf2' No, l don t,
says the second. why not?' asks the
first. "Well,I don't feel as If IIcouId
spare the money to buy an outfit,
says the second. 20, you don't need
much, says the first Jest two er
three dollars piece clubll do. IN
go you," says the second, an he buys
] a few dollars worth an steals away
h somewhere an gets the golf poison in
, his blood, an fore he knows how It
happened he's playin on the high
s,,Ir iK,f a nina. dol IlQr