GOLF 299 



able results, for I could always play one side con- 

 scientiously against the other. 



Croquet, however, is a selfish sort of game and not 

 worth looking at unless someone is really playing well. 

 I mention it only to suggest that I can play it to this 

 day, and that the modern players have made little or no 

 progress. 



There are, of course, other old games in which the 

 interest never flags, and one of these is bowls, in which 

 the oldest of us can take pleasure, but perhaps the best 

 of them, for all ages and conditions of men, is golf. 

 This for the purpose of taking admirable exercise, while 

 you are hardly conscious of doing so, is quite unrivalled, 

 certainly for middle-aged and old people. Even I have 

 played for a week during the last year on the Hindhead 

 Course, and those who have ever done so know what 

 desperate hill-climbing that means. So, too, I have, a 

 few years ago, played for several weeks at Sidmouth, 

 and occasionally carried my own clubs for eighteen holes. 

 That also is a severe hill-side effort, and I mention these 

 small incidents as showing how completely the mind 

 rises superior to matter when you are playing golf. I 

 could, I suppose, in a dour sort of way, carry a bag of 

 golf clubs up and down hill for five miles, but I should 

 be badly tired before I got to the end. When you are 

 playing golf, however, you can do this and be absolutely 

 unconscious of fatigue. You can do it morning and 

 afternoon even I can. Young people can carry on 

 all day. 



Pray, let no one imagine that I am posing as a golf 

 player for there are probably few worse but I am 

 just wanting to point out the advantage you can get 

 from playing, however badly. 



