2 'ROYAL AND ANCIENT' 



seemed no prospect of enlisting more than sixty, and 

 no certainty of keeping those who enlisted. Signs were 

 not wanting that the Southron was waking up to the 

 fascination of ' far-and-sure ' ; but the cycling craze, 

 which during two summers sent hundreds of fashion- 

 able folk wobbling round Battersea Park, was already 

 on the wane ; what if the passion for golf should prove 

 equally fleeting ? A hundred permanent members ! 

 The majority of the committee decided that was too 

 much to expect ; golden opportunity went by, and a 

 lease was secured of a few fields outside the demesne. 



Twenty years ago ! What have we not witnessed in 

 the interval ? Whereas then it was a rare occurrence 

 to find a leisured Londoner who could discern any 

 difference between a mashie and a putter, now it is the 

 exception to find one who is not ready to discuss all 

 the points in swing, the niceties of approach, and the 

 vices of pulling and slicing. 



A Londoner, said I ? Where and what is the civilised 

 community to whom all the quaint vocabulary of golf 

 has not become as household words ? This must mean 

 a great deal to Mr. H. S. C. Everard, forasmuch as, had 

 his History of the Royal and Ancient J appeared in the 

 early 'eighties, his readers south of the Tweed must 

 have been few indeed ; whereas, being published in the 

 year when the championship of the United Kingdom 

 has been awarded to a Frenchman (1907), his volume 

 commands attention from all parts of the civilised 

 world. 



1 A History of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, St. Andrews, from 

 1754 to 1900. By H. S. C. Everard. Edinburgh : Blackwood. 1907. 



