Reminiscent 



found himself in his second day's play driving magnificently 

 and beating an unhappy visitor, who had played for some 

 time, by "seventeen up." This was an astonishing perform- 

 ance. Many a game after that we had together, and I was 

 always proud if I made a good match though I began the 

 game ten years younger than he was. He set a notable 

 example to all cricketer-golfers of real keenness and perfect 

 temper — the sign-manual of the genuine sportsman. Moreover, 

 he was wholly free from the unamiabilities which in those 

 days clung to most middle-aged players like a limpet. To 

 us in the " nineties " the game was a revelation of surprising 

 incompetence, especially to those who, like him, had been 

 proficients in cricket. We addressed ourselves to the apparently 

 childish problem of hitting a stationary ball, while our memories 

 recalled the mastery of the lightning deliveries of formidable 

 bowlers in days gone by. Imagine the humiliation of years 

 of bootless effort on the Links ! What a stern corrective of 

 human vanity was there! and how the initial effect was to 

 work havoc on the tempers, first and foremost of old cricketers 

 who never before had found themselves compelled to con- 

 centrate mind and will along with the eye on the ball ; and 

 few there were who did not succumb : but Richardson was 

 certainly one of them. To go round with him was to feel 

 your better self invigorated and braced up : the silliest egotist 

 — and we golfers are surpassingly silly sometimes — would feel 

 ashamed to maunder over the transparent fiction of the 

 excellence of his previous week's play, or to rave feebly at 

 the fiftieth repetition of his own pet blunder, or to button-hole 

 any one within reach to listen to the unending drivel of his 

 self pity. All this anaemia of golf was banished by his 

 manliness, his utter want of assumption or "swank," the 

 healing of his smile, the courtesy of his speech, and his eager 



201 



