The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1916-08-10
The Ancient and Honorable.

the annual tournament of the Wiscon.
sin Golf Association. Time was when
men who went to athletic tournaments
were supposed to belong to some frater-
nifty not exactly in touch with -Four
best people, but circulating around
among the men at the golf tournament
one is easily convinced that golf has
taken hold Of a lot of men who do and
have done other things that drive the
gutta percha ball over the links. In
the list Of men attending the local tour
nament are men prominent in all the
professions, men who operate great
factories, men who teach and men who
preach and they are all men who learn
ed long time ago that all work and
no play makes Jack a dull boy. They
have learned that a reasonable amount
of play is q mighty good thing to keep
their blood running in one IS veins and
that the close companionship of the
ozone and the lake breeze that one gets
on the golf links is a mighty good thing
to keep the pep growing. There was a
time when men who played golf were
put oil III class by themselves and
people looked on them as just little
"queer." The young man who took
the sport was declared to be fritter-
ing away his time'' and the older man
who played golf over the hills and dales
was considered as on his way back to
his second childhood. Shinney' they
called it when they first imported it
from Scotland just because it looked a
little like the game so dear to our child
hood. Then more men took up the
game. Fellows began to see that the
lawyer who played over the course in
the afternoon had a clearer head and
tried case little better the next day.
They saw that golf made the eye keen
er and just a little brighter and that
it made the blood run little faster
and that men who played golf lived
longer and most of them lived better
than the other fellows who preferred
the stuffy card room or the back room
of the saloon to the call to the open
country. There are no longer any old
golfers. = Men who spend their leisure
time swinging the driver and the bras
sic and rolling them up with the knib-
lick and putter never know what it
means to grow old. True enough they
take on years but as the years come on
they lose no interest in the game and
after all it is interest in the game that
keeps men going. The man who gets
interested in the game of golf finds that
he is more interested in the game of
life and he plays both to- the limit. He
plays the code Of honor on the golf
links and this teaches him better the
code Of honor in his business life. AS
the game is ancient and honorable, so
are the men who play it-that is, some
of them are ancient and most all of
them are honorable. 1t IS the great
amateur sport of a lot of great nations.
Time was when the Scottish Highlands
monopolized the interest in the game,
but now wherever men want to live
long and be young until they die Trey
manage to find some forty acre field
where they can play golf. No sport
ever had such a growth in so short
time. Men who once play golf only
quit playing it when a bunch of his
fellow experts or buffers, as the case
may be, steal away from their favorite
game long enough to carry him out to
his last resting place and even as they
lay him to rest they will be found com
menting on what an excellent green the
grass about his grave would make.
This game Of golf makes enthusiasts
out of pessimists. The golfer is an OPP
timist who goes ON from day to day
always hoping that the score on the
morrow will be better than that of yes
terday He is always striving but he
never reaches the limit of his accom-
plishment. Lots of men have found in
golf the panacea for all their ailments
Tt brings rest to the tired mind and
brings exercise of all the muscles so
that the man who plays golf finds that
his physical and mental condition are
both improved. It is no longer a game
for the srick and the lazy. There is no
caste among golfers save the caste that
comes from superiority. The good fell
loWship which radiates on the tees and
on the fair green's and the green's is for
all the followers of the. game. Many
cities have seen the demand for the
sport and have met it with the building
of great public links. In our neighbor-
ing city Of Racine thousands Of men
and women are wooing and health on
the public golf links weekly and some
time Kenosha will see that a public
golf links is just as necessary as a pub
lie park.
You can not PROFESSIONALISM golf any
more than you can get a monopoly on
the light and the air. There may be a
few men who play the game for gain
but the great army of bearers of the
brassie and the mashie are men who go
out as amateurs not seeking fame or
gain but. seeking the rewards far richer
which comes from haalthfu1 badies