Douglas daily dispatch., 1928-01-22

The professor hadn't been member
OF the clup for more than week pe :
fore he began to trace things back to
their origins That was his way. lie
couldn't play without working. The
a series of studies of Choice and Chance
tirst night he played poker he ocgan
and Combinations and Pernutations
by which he said anybody could win in
the long run Fortunately for the pro-
lessor he has a private income, other
wise his studies could not have been
followed very far without, an endoW-
nlent by the Rockefeller Foundation.
But he stuck to his theory. Thine" he
said, ''iS nothing. In a period of play
covering one hundred years, / should
be able to make money at this game :
Golf Immediately intrigued the pro-
fesSor. Unlike the rest of us he had no
desire to win, or even to play well He
took lessons from the pro only for the
purpose of studying that Scots mental
make up The fact that Mac regarded
Bobby Jones as, a. greater man than
Bobbie Burns the professor took very
seriously. "A Scotchman," he told us,
learns from the cradle that Bobbie
Burns is the greatest man ever born IN
to this world. But Macs esteem for
Bobby Jones is deeper than that. Tt
is an instinct, and instincts are only
created by habit which is formed
through thousands and thousands Of
generations. !"
I tried to get the professor to pub
Msh the monograph on the origins of
golf which he wrote after he had fol-
lowed the game for three years and re-
read all his science in order to account
for it. He felt that it must be ac-
counted for in some rational way. That
apparently intelligent men should ne
glect their. business, absent themselves
from home and meals, make bets far
beyond their means, and seek through
years to remove physical inhibitions,
which were implanted in them at birth
in order to cut a few strokes from their
game he considered must be proof Of
insanity unless inheritance could be
held responsible for it.
At last, after he had played eighteen
holes in 207, and felt consequently that
he was beginning to master the game,
he came into the locker room and took
us into his confidence. Boys" he
said @ThiS has been a great day for
me- To celebrate it am going to take
drink, and as I have never taken a
drink before I cannot tell what it may
do to me. 1t may kill me. I notice in
the papers that drinks do xii; people
occasionally But do not want to
die without passing on to the world
the results of my researches INTO this
curious practice which you fellows look
upon as pastime. am the only liv-
ing man who understands golf, clear
back to It's origin. No one else knows
why it came about. So, if this drink
has lethal effect on me, I want you
to remember what have told you, and
pass it on to some scientist who will be
able to commit it intelligently to PRINT
which none of you of course would at
tempt"
go on with the story prof." said
Bill, never mind the knocks.
Very we'll It must have been soon
after the brain was sufficiently devel-
oped to harbor rudimentary thought
that golf came into existence. Doubt
less some prehistoric man, swinging his
club on the way home from hunt ac-
cidentally struck a smooth roundish
pebble, which skittered for quite dis
tance over the ground. When he
reached it in the course of his ramble
he hit it again, this time purposely,