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Reflections and Recollections · The Complete Golfer

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  Chapter twenty three of The Complete Golfer. This is a LibriVox recording. All
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  LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
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  please visit LibriVox dot org. The Complete Golfer by Harry Varden, Chapter twenty
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  three. Chapter twenty three Reflections and Recollections. I think that every good golfer
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  of experience reflects upon his past history with mingled pleasure and sorrow. Pleasure when
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  he calls to mind all the many glorious matches in which he has taken part,
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  and sorrow when the thought arises that all that golf has been played and
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  done with, and can never be played again. But we have all this
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  abiding consolation that even if we cannot retain our very best form to the end
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  of our days, we can still hope to play a good game to the
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  finish. And there is the heroic example of rare old Tom Morris to stimulate
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  us in this hope. Much is given to golfers, perhaps more than to
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  the participators in any other sport, but they are rarely satisfied. The wonderful
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  fascination of golf is indicated in this eternal longing for more. Sometimes when I
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  glance over the records of the history of the game, I feel a twinge
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  of regret that it was not possible for me to play with or even to
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  see such giants of the past as Alan Robertson, David Strath, the Duns,
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  Willie Campbell, Willie Park Senior, or the famous young Tom Morris.
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  Golf is great today, but it must have been great in those days also,
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  even if there was less of it than there is now. But I
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  have had the good fortune to play with all the well known amateurs and professionals
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  of my own time, and it is pleasant to think that they are nearly
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  all still alive, and that therefore I may some time or another play with
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  him again. There is one great exception, mister Fred Tate, who was
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  killed in South Africa. I don't think anyone could have ever had the smallest
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  doubt about the reason for his enormous popularity. I had the delight of playing
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  against him two or three times, and I thought that he was not only
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  a very fine golfer indeed, but one of the very finest gentlemen that I
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  could imagine. It is something for me to remember that I played in the
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  last important match in which he figured before he went out to the war,
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  an international forsome England versus Scotland that was played at Ganton Willie Park, and
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  mister Tate representing Scotland while mister John Ball Junior and I were for England.
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  From all the amateurs with whom I have ever come in contact, I have
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  always received the greatest kindness and encouragement, and I do not know a single
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  one with whom I would not like to play again some day or other.
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  It has always seemed to me that there is something about golf that makes a
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  man a good fellow, whether he is amateur or professional. I wish to
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  speak in the same way about my professional brothers as I have done about the
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  amateurs. I have always found them all first class sportsmen in the strictest and
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  best sense of the word, and some of the best friends I have in
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  the world are among them. There are some very fine players among the professionals
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  of today. I have often watched and greatly admired the splendid skill of such
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  friends and constant opponents as J. H. Taylor, James Braid, Alexander
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  Hurd, Jack White, and many others whose names would fill page not forgetting
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  my own brother Tom. I have from time to time been indebted to many
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  of them for various acts of kindness. There is a fine spirit of freemasonry
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  among us professionals. Whenever we play against each other, each of us does
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  his level best to win and gives no quarter with a single stroke. But
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  it has been my invariable experience that when the match is over, the loser
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  is always the first to congratulate the winner, and to do it not as
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  a mere matter of form, but with the utmost sincerity. And here I
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  should like to say a few words, with the object of removing a misconception
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  which still seems to linger in the minds of followers of the game. Dear
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  me, Varden, what a grand time you fellows have traveling all over the
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  country in this manner and doing nothing but playing golf on the very best courses.
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  Is the kind of remark that often greets me when I have just returned
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  from playing in one match or tournament, and I am due to start for
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  another in a day or two. But I am not sure that we have
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  such a grand time as those who say these things seem to think. We
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  enjoy it just because we enjoy everything connected to golf, and particularly the playing
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  of it. But playing these exhibition matches is not quite the same thing as
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  going away for the weekend and having a quiet round or two with a friend,
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  however hard you may try to beat him. Some people entertain a fancy
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  that we do not need to strain ourselves to the utmost in these engagements,
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  and that therefore we take things easily. I can answer for myself, and
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  I am sure for all my brother professionals, that we never take things easily,
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  That we always play the very best golf of which we are capable,
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  and that if a championship rested on each match, we could not play in
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  better. It must be remembered that when we are invited by any club to
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  play an exhibition match, that club expects to see some golf. And thus
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  it happens that the fear of a great responsibility is always overhanging us. We
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  dare not play tricks with such reputations as we may have had the good fortune
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  to obtain. We are always well aware that there are very good golfers in
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  the crowd who are watching and criticizing every stroke that we make. Therefore we
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  keep ourselves in the very best of condition and do our utmost to always play
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  our best. How difficult is our task when sometimes we are not feeling as
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  well as we might wish, As must occasionally happen. I will leave the
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  charitable reader to imagine, has he ever felt like playing his best game when
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  a little below par in either mind or body. This is where they're really
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  hard. Work of the professional's life comes in. There is no close season
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  in golf, as in cricket, football and other sports. When a cricketer
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  plays indifferently after two months of the game, his admirers cry out that he
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  is stale and needs a rest. But there are eleven players on each side
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  in a cricket match, and constant rests for all of them, so that,
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  to my mind, their work is very light in comparison with that of
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  the golfer, who enjoys no close season and has all the work of each
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  match on his own shoulders. Surely he also must become stale, but such
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  a state on his part is not tolerated. Again, one often hears that
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  a certain match between professional players has been halved purposely, that is to say
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  that it was an arranged thing from start to finish. Such things may have
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  happened in other sports, but take it from me that it never never happens
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  in golf. One man never plays down to another, whatever disparity there may
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  be in their respective degrees of skill. It does not matter how many holes
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  one is up on one's opponent. There is never any slackening until the game
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  has been won. It makes no difference if the man you are playing against
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  is your very best friend or your brother, and one has sometimes to pass
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  through the trying ordeal of straining his every nerve to win a match when,
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  in his heart of hearts, for some particular reason, he would like to
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  see the other man win. I intrude these affairs of our own in these
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  concluding reflections only for the purpose of indicating that though we love our game and
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  always enjoy it, professional golf is not quite the same thing as that played
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  by amateurs, and must not be judged from the same standard point. I
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  think it is because of this continual sense of a great responsibility, that the
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  custom and necessity of always absolutely always trying to play our very best game,
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  that the leading professionals are constantly a stroke or two better than the most skillful
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  amateurs, even though the latter practice the game quite as much and have apparently
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  just as much opportunity or even more, of making themselves perfect. I have
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  mentioned the spectators. I have generally found that the crowds who follow a big
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  professional match round the links both highly intelligent and exceedingly considerate. But sometimes we
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  overhear some strange things said. Taylor and I were once fulfilling an important engagement
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  together, and when my opponent had a particularly difficult shot to play, two
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  ladies came up quite close to him and persist and talking in a loud tone
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  of voice. Taylor waited for a little while in the hopes that their chatter
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  would cease, but it did not. Then, in a feeling of desperation,
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  he attempted to address his ball, but the task was hopeless. The
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  conversation went on more loudly than ever, and he was doomed to certain failure
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  if he attempted his stroke in these circumstances. So he stood up again and
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  looked round in the direction. Whence the voices came. Oh, said one
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  of the ladies. Then you can go on, now we've quite finished.
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  We must be thankful for small mercies. James Braid and I were once playing
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  down at Beckenham at one of the putting greens. We were both a long
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  way from the hole. My ball was a trifle the more distant of the
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  two, and so I played the odd and managed to get down a wonderfully
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  fine putt. Then Bray played the like and hold out. Also. These
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  were two rather creditable achievements with our putters. When the ball had trickled safely
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  into the hole and the spectators were moving toward the next tee, Braid and
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  I were amused, but not flattered by the words of a man who was
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  speaking to a friend in such a loud voice that we could all hear.
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  Oh, he exclaimed, depreciatingly, those fellows only do that sort of thing
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  for the sake of the applause. How happy we should be if we could
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  always make certain of those long putts without any applause at all. It was
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  with Braid also that I was playing in a match at Luton toward the close
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  of last year, when I overheard a singular remark. I happened to be
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  bunkered at the fourteenth and took my niblick to get out, but lost the
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  hole. We walked on together to the next tee and Bray was taking his
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  stance when we heard two gentlemen eagerly discussing and explaining the recent bunker incident.
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  Evidently one of them was supposed to know something of golf and the other nothing
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  at all. You see, said the former to his friend. There is
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  really no rule in the matter at all. Varden or any other player could
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  have used a shovel in that bunker and have simply shoveled the ball over on
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  to the other side. I was surprised that Braid got his next tea shot
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  in so well as he did. And how very often I have heard the
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  question asked in the crowd, why do those fellows chalk the faces of their
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  clubs, and how invariably the answer has been so that they can see afterwards
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  where they hit the ball. When I write my recollection of these things,
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  I do not wish it to be imagined that I am making any sort of
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  accusation against golf crowds. Generally they are excellent from all points of view,
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  but it must inevitably happen that there are some people among them who know little
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  of the game, and others who do not appreciate what a trying ordeal a
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  hard fought match usually is. Such questions are often put to me, as
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  Varden, what was the greatest match in which you ever played? Or what
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  was the most extraordinary occurrence you have ever seen on the links and so forth.
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  They are questions which it is difficult to answer for, as not nearly
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  every match that we play brim full of incident and interest, and at the
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  time do we not regard many of the incidents as most extraordinary. It would
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  then be too serious a task to attempt a selection from such a huge mass.
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  But looking back over the last few years, it seems that my hundred
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  pound match with Willie Park is that which remains uppermost in my mind and the
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  one that I am least likely to forget. There was more talking and writing
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  about it than any other match in which I have played. The gallery that
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  followed this match was the greatest I have ever seen or heard of, And
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  as I am questioned also about the curious and the singular in golf, I
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  may say that there was a coincidence in this game that struck me at the
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  time as being quite unusual. In a closely fought match, it is often
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  interesting to notice how nearly each player's ball often follows the other. Frequently they
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  are side by side within one or two clubs length after the drives from the
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  tee. But in the first stage of this match against Park, after he
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  had driven a long ball from the tee at the eleventh hole, I drove
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  and my ball pitched exactly on top of his. The Messr's hunter were kindly
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  serving in the capacity of four caddies, and they were both positive upon this
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  incident. My ball, after striking his, rebounded slightly and then stopped dead
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  about two feet behind its position. Rather affected my follow through so that I
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  duffed my stroke and lost the hole. This record, if it was a
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  record, was also the means of eclipsing what I believe was another record in
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  first class golf. The first ten holes in this match were halved, and
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  it was the incident of which I have just been speaking, and the duffed
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  stroke that followed it, that led to the breaking of the sequence. Now,
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  Varden, how often have you hold out in one? They ask me.
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  Also, regardless of the fact that this event demands not only a perfect
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  shot, but a perfect fluke, and that the professional player is no more
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  likely to accomplish it than any one else, Well, I have only been
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  guilty of this fluke on one occasion, and that was not so very long
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  ago, and when it happened, it was at a hole a little over
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  two hundred yards in length. On one occasion, also, I have enjoyed
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  the coincidence of holding out with my mashy approach at the same hole twice in
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  one day. That was in the course of a tournament at Ely, in
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  which I had the good fortune to finish first. As it happened, Andrew
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  Kirkaldy, who hoped to end high up in the list, was my partner
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  for the first round, and it came about also that he was watching me
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  play when the holding out process was accomplished for the second time. Then he
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  lifted up his hands in horror and delivered himself of his famous remark you're enough
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  to break the heart of an iron ox. During the last round of this
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  same turn, Andrew, who was playing some holes behind me and was then
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  himself in the running for the first place, was kept posted up by a
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  friend as to my score for each hole. He did not seem to derive
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  much encouragement from the reports, for when the last one was carried to him,
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  he asked the friend who brought it if he thought that there was nobody
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  who could play golf besides Varden, and intimated at the same time that if
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  anyone else brought him any more of those tales, he would strike him with
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  his niblick. Of course, we all know what a really fine fellow is
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  Andrew Kirkledy, and how much poorer the golf world would be without his presence
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  and his constant humor. And now I think I have holed out on the
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  last green, and this long match is finished. After all, it is
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  better to play golf than to write or read about it. What anticipation is
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  more gloriously joyful than that of the man who handles his driver on the first
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  tee on a bright morning of the springtime. He has all the round,
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  and all the day, and all the spring and summer and autumn before him,
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  And at this moment another spring is breaking brightly, and the golf that
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  is before each of us promises to be as momentous and soul satisfying as any
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  that has gone before. End of chapter twenty three, read by J.
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  D. Molloy, June twenty twenty three.