And then there is the interesting system that was first set forth by a most eminent player who has been amateur champion more than once, by which the practiser wins half-crowns for his good play and loses them on his off days. He plays against bogey on terms that give him an equal chance. Then he establishes a money-box with two sections in it, one being for bogey and the other for himself, and into each section he deposits four half-crowns, which is very little to pay for all the enjoyment he is about to gain. When bogey beats him one of the half-crowns is lifted out of the man's section into the ghost's, but when flesh and blood prevail the coin comes back. The course of practice is ended when one side or the other has got all the half-crowns. If bogey has them there is something wrong with the game of the man, and he had better start another series; but when the man is triumphant he may depart for a holiday exultingly and spend the money on it, in the doing of which he will probably win some more, his form being so much bettered by his lonely practice.
THE OLD DIGNITY OF LONDON GOLF, AND ITS NEW IMPORTANCE, WITH A WORD FOR THE CHARM OF INLAND COURSES.
Perhaps in the middle ages of the game some rare old conservative of a player at one of the great Scottish seats of golf was told by another that a gentleman had just arrived by the coach from London and would like a match in the morning, and it is distinctly possible, if he was the excellent man we picture him, that he ejaculated, "And where, sir, is London?" The manner would have been Johnsonian, if not the sentiment. Should any one now be disposed to regard such lack of knowledge--though I think you would find it was only what might be called judicial golfing ignorance--or narrowness, or whatever it was, as merely stupid or a little culpable, he may hesitate. The pride of dignity, arising from conscious strength and superiority, was a fine thing among the Scottish golfers, and certainly was to be admired. That spirit, that sturdy consciousness of personal value, have helped to the making of a British empire. And sometimes a golfer would wander in the north and be discovered by the players there to have a wooden club with a brass sole, and thereupon he might be good-humouredly mocked for being the Blackheath golfer that he was, since it was on the famous course by London that the brassey was first used. Since then London has given other good things to golf, including many courses that are unequalled among their kind and a number of players of high championship rank. And sometimes there is more golf played in a day within twenty-five miles of Charing Cross than there is in the whole of Scotland in a week, and much of it is very good golf. But this is not a place for comparisons, and particularly it is not meant for one in which the English gratitude to Scottish benefactors for the gift of this remarkable game is to be lessened from the full. It is only suggested that London golf is now a thing of great account. That is coming to be understood; but one doubts if the Londoners properly realise that the game in the metropolis has rich history and traditions which make a match for those of nearly any other place. Except that the great players of the game of different ages were so little acquainted with it, Blackheath has golfing land as historic as any, and the Royal Blackheath Club, with its origin in 1608, is the oldest in the world. That is London. Some time since there was a fashion for open-air shows of pageantry, and if the golfers had then been so disposed they could have put forward a pageant of London golf that would have embraced most picturesque and impressive tableaux. There is King James the First of England and the Sixth of Scotland, keen golfer indeed, playing the game at Blackheath in the company of some of his nobles when the court was at Greenwich, and there is a charming scene to be imagined in which the monarch gives his royal sanction and authority to the Society of Golfers that is established at this place in 1608, as it is well believed to have been, and in varying forms to have maintained its existence ever since, being to-day the Royal Blackheath Golf Club, and highly respected. I think we should regard this King James as being the very first of our London golfers, and he makes a fine figure of a player for the distinction, keen enough in all conscience. Five years before the reputed beginning of the Society at Blackheath he appointed William Mayne to be the royal clubmaker, and a few years later gave one named Melvill a monopoly of ball-making at four shillings a time. Altogether this makes a good scene of golf.