Did you ever see the film The Greatest Game Ever Played? The hero of that story was Francis Ouimet, who wrote a series of articles about golfing for St. Nicholas. This is the first of them. Considerable charm is lent by the fact that Ouimet uses the old-fashioned names for the clubs (mashy, brassy, etc) that are now just numbered woods or irons.MY INTRODUCTION TO GOLF
"Big brothers" have a lot of responsibility in life, more than most of them realize. "Little brother" is reasonably certain to follow their example, to a greater or less degree, hence the better the example set, the better for all concerned. My own case is just one illustration. Whether I was destined to become a golfer anyway, I cannot say: but my first desire to hit a golf ball, as I recall, arose from the fact that my older brother, Wilfred, became the proud possessor of a couple of golf-clubs when I was five years old, and at the same time I acquired the idea that the thing I wanted most in the world was to have the privilege of using those clubs.
Thus it was that, at the age of five years—fifteen years ago—my acquaintanceship with the game of golf began. To say that the game has been a wonderful source of pleasure to me might lead the reader to think that the greatest pleasure of all has been derived from winning tournaments and prizes. I can truthfully say that nothing is further from the fact. Of course, I am pleased to have won my fair share of tournaments: I appreciate the honor of having won the national open championship; but the winning is absolutely secondary. It is the game itself that I love. Of all the games that I have played and like to see played, including base-ball, foot-ball, hockey, and tennis, no other, to my mind, has quite so many charms as golf,—a clean and wholesome pastime, requiring the highest order of skill to be played successfully, and a game suitable alike for the young, the middle-aged, and the old.
MY FIRST "GOLF COURSE"
The first "golf course" that I played over was laid out by my brother and Richard Kimball in the street in front of our home on Clyde Street, Brookline, Massachusetts, a street which forms the boundary of one side of The Country Club property. This golf course, as I call it, was provided by the town of Brookline, without the knowledge of the town's officials. In other words, my brother and Kimball simply played between two given points in the street. With the heels of their shoes they made holes in the dirt at the base of two lamp-posts about 120 yards apart, and that was their "course."
Nearly every afternoon they played, while I looked on enviously. Once in a while they let me take a club and try my hand, and then was I not delighted! It made no difference that the clubs were nearly as long as I was and too heavy for me to swing, or that the ball would only go a few yards, if it went at all. After all, as I look back, the older boys were only dealing me scanty justice when they occasionally allowed me to take a club, for when they lost a ball, I used to go searching for it, and, if successful, they always demanded its return. In the case of such a demand from two older boys, it is not always wise to refuse.
MY FIRST CLUB
"Big brother" was responsible for getting me interested in golf; "big brother" likewise was in great measure responsible for keeping me interested. On my seventh birthday, he made me a birthday present of a club—a short brassy. Here was joy indeed! Not only had I now a club all my own with which to practise, but I already had amassed a private stock of seven or eight golf balls. The way this came about was that the journey from my house to school (this school, by the way, had only eight pupils in it, and the school-house was built in Revolutionary days) took me past the present sixth hole of The Country Club course, and I generally managed to get a little spare time to look for lost golf balls.
Some boys do not like to get up early in the morning. Any boy or girl who becomes as interested in golf as I was at the age of seven, will have no difficulty on that score. It was my custom to go to bed at eight o'clock, and then get up by six o'clock the next morning, and go out for some golf play before time to get ready for school. The one hole in the street where my brother and Richard Kimball first played had now been superseded by a more exacting golfing layout in a bit of pasture-land in back of our house.
DON 'T PICK OUT THE EASY PLACES TO PLAY
Here the older boys had established a hole of about 130 yards that was a real test for them, and, at first, a little too much for me. On the left, going one way, the ground was soft and marshy, an easy place to lose a ball. If the ball went on a straight line from the tee, it generally went into a gravel pit, which had an arm extending out to the right. There also was a brook about a hundred yards from the tee, when the play was in this same direction. Here, then, was a hole requiring accuracy; and I cannot but think that a measure of what accuracy my game now possesses had its foundation back in those days when I was so young and just taking up the game. I believe, moreover, that any boy or girl who becomes interested in golf should not pick out the easy places to play at the start, simply because they like the fun of seeing the ball go farther.
What bothered me most, in those days, was the fact that I could not drive over that brook going one way. The best I could do was to play short of the brook, and then try to get the second on the improvised green. Every now and then, I became bold enough to have another try to carry the brook, though each time it was with the knowledge that failure possibly meant the loss of the ball in the brook, in a time when one ball represented a small fortune. At last came the memorable morning when I did manage to hit one over the brook.
"OVER THE BROOK"—AT LAST!
If ever in my life a golf shot gave me satisfaction, it was that one. It did more—it created ambition. I can remember thinking that if I could get over the brook once, I could do it again. And I did do it again—got so I could do it quite a fair proportion of my tries. Then the shot over the brook, coming back, began to seem too easy, for the carry one way was considerably longer than the other. Consequently I decided that for the return I would tee up on a small mound twenty-five to thirty yards in back of the spot from which we usually played, making a much harder shot. Success brought increased confidence, and confidence brought desired results, so that, in course of time, it did not seem so difficult to carry the brook playing either way. This was done with the old, hard ball, then generally known as the "gutty," made from gutta-percha. About this time I picked up, one morning, a ball which bounced in a much more lively fashion than the kind I had found previously. Now, of course, I know that it was one of the early makes of rubber-cored balls, but, at that time, I simply knew that it would go much farther than the others, and that, above all things. I must not lose it. That ball was my greatest treasure. Day after day I played with it, until all the paint was worn off, and it was only after long searching that I managed always to find it after a drive.
HOW I LOST MY FIRST TREASURE —A RUBBER-CORED GOLF BALL
Realizing that something must be done to retain the ball, I decided to repaint it, and did so with white lead. Next, I did something that was almost a calamity in my young life. To dry the white lead, I put the ball in a hot oven and left it there for about an hour. I went back thinking to find a nice new ball, and found—what do you suppose? Nothing but a soft mass of guttapercha and elastic. The whole thing simply had melted. The loss of a brand-new sled or a new pair of skates could not have made ine grieve more, and I vowed that in future, no matter how dirty a ball became, I never would put another in a hot oven to dry after repainting.
ON THE COUNTRY CLUB COURSE —AND OFF AGAIN!
All this time I had been playing with the brassy that Brother gave me, and all my energies were devoted to trying to see how far I could hit the ball. My next educational step in play came when Wilfred made me a present of a mashy, whereupon I realized that there are other points to the game than merely getting distance. Previous practice with the brassy had taught me how to hit the ball with fair accuracy, so that learning something about mashy play came naturally. Being now possessed of two clubs, my ambitions likewise grew proportionately. The cow-pasture in back of our house was all right enough, as far as it went, but why be so limited in my surroundings? There was the beautiful course of The Country Club across the street, with lots of room and smoother ground; nothing would do but that I should play at The Country Club. I began going over there mornings to play, but soon discovered that the grounds-keeper and I did not hold exactly the same views concerning my right to play there. Whatever argument there was in the matter was all in favor of the grounds-keeper. Of course I know now that he only did his duty when he chased me off the course.
COW-PASTURE PLAY
While my brother's interest in golf began to wane, because foot-ball and base-ball became greater hobbies with him, other boys in our neighborhood began to evince an interest in it, until it became a regular thing for three or four of us to play in the cow-pasture after school hours and most of the day Saturday. We even had our matches, six holes in length, by playing back and forth over the one 130-yard hole three times, each using the same clubs. We even got to the point where we thought it would add excitement by playing for balls, and one day I found myself the richer by ten balls. But let me add that it is a bad practice for boys. There is too much hard feeling engendered.
As we became more proficient in play, we began to look over the ground with an eye to greater distance and more variety, until finally we lengthened out the original hole to what was a good drive and pitch for us, about 230 yards; likewise we created a new hole of about ninety yards, to play with the mashy. From the new green, back to the starting-point, under an old chestnut-tree, was about 200 yards, which gave us a triangle course of three holes. In this way we not only began gradually to increase the length of our game, but also to get in a greater variety of shots.
BEGINNING RIGHT
As I look back now, I become more and more convinced that the manner in which I first took up the game was to my subsequent advantage. With the old brassy I learned the elementary lesson of swinging a club and hitting the ball squarely, so as to get all the distance possible for one of my age and physical make-up. Then, with the mashy, I learned how to hit the ball into the air, and how to drop it at a given point. I really think I could not have taken up the clubs in more satisfactory order. Even to this day, I have a feeling of confidence that I shall be sure to hit the ball cleanly when using a brassy, which feeling probably is a legacy from those old days.
And a word of caution right here to the boy or girl, man or woman, taking up the game: do not attempt at the start to try to hit the ball as far as you have seen some experienced player send it. Distance docs not come all at once, and accuracy is the first thing to be acquired.
I DO PLAY ON THE COUNTRY CLUB COURSE
The first time that I had the pleasure of walking over a golf course without the feeling that, at any moment, I would have to take to my heels to escape an irate greens-keeper was when I was about eleven years old. I was on The Country Club links, looking for lost golf balls, when a member who had no caddy came along and asked me if I would carry his clubs. Nothing could have suited me better. As this member was coming to the first tee, I happened to be swinging a club, and he was kind enough to hand me a ball, at the same time asking me to tee up and hit it.
That was one occasion in my golfing career when I really felt nervous, though by this time I had come to the point where I felt reasonably confident of hitting the ball. But to stand up there and do it with an elderly person looking on was a different matter. It is a feeling which almost any golfer will have the first time he tries to hit a ball before some person or persons with whom he has not been in contact previously. I can remember doubting that I should hit the ball at all, hence my agreeable surprise in getting away what, for me, was a good ball.
Evidently the gentleman, who was not an especially good player himself, was satisfied with the shot, for he was kind enough to invite me to play with him, instead of merely carrying his clubs. He let me play with his clubs, too. That was the beginning of my caddying career. Some of the other members for whom I carried clubs occasionally made me a present of some club, so that it was not long before my equipment contained not only the original brassy and mashy, but also a cleik, mid-iron, and putter.
Needless to say, they were not all exactly suited to my size and style of play; yet to me each one of them was precious. I took great pride in polishing them up after every usage. The second time I played with the gentleman who first employed me as caddy, I had my own clubs. I had the pleasure of playing with him two years later, after he came home from abroad, in which round I made an 84, despite a 9 at one hole.
All this time, my enthusiasm for the game increased, rather than diminished, so that, during the summer of 1906, I was on the links even- moment that I could be there until school opened in September; after which 1 caddied or played afternoons and Saturdays until the close of the playing season.
A TRYING EXPERIENCE
Somewhere along about that time I had a most trying experience. My brother Wilfred, who, being older, had become better posted on the technical side of the game, advised me to change my swing. I had been using what was more or less of a base-ball stroke, a half-swing that seemed to be all right so far as accuracy went, but was not especially productive in the matter of distance. Wilfred's advice struck" me as sensible—almost any golfer, young or old, thinks well of advice that bids fair to lengthen his game.
At any rate, I altered my swing, taking the club back much farther. For the succeeding two months I discovered that my game, instead of improving, gradually was getting worse. The old-time accuracy was missing. More than that. a good many golf balls also soon became missing, for in playing on my old stamping-grounds—the pasture in back of the house —I seemed to have the unhappy faculty of getting them off the line into the swamp, where to find the ball was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Being quite disgusted, I tried to go back to my old style, only to find that that, too, was impossible. Here was, indeed, a dilemma! On thinking it over, there were only two conclusions to reach: one was that to become at all accurate in either the old style or the new. meant to make up my mind to use one of them permanently, and then simply to keep on practising in the hope that accuracy would come; the other was that even though the new style had impaired my old game, at the same time it was plain to be seen that, in the long run, it probably would be the better style of the two. Under the circumstances there was only one thing to do, and that was to continue with the longer swing.
Perhaps then I did not realize the full significance of the choice. I do now. Had I kept on with the old swing, the result would have been that I probably would have advanced to a certain proficiency so far as accuracy goes, but my game would have been stilted, and lacking in the variety of shots which not only betters the standard of play, but which gives all the more personal satisfaction to the player. It was possibly two months after I took Brother's advice that I began to notice a gradual improvement. I began to hit the ball with the same certainty as of old, and, to my delight, found that the ball traveled farther than I ever had been able to hit it before, and also with less expenditure of effort.
At first the added distance was at the expense of direction, but it was not long before my control over the new swing became nearly as good as of old.
A CADDY TOURNAMENT—AND A LESSON
Back in those early days of my golfing career, I can remember an incident which taught me the lesson of always being honest with myself or with an opponent in the matter of scoring. The Country Club arranged for a caddy tournament,—I think it was the custom then to have these tournaments late in the fall, when they would not interfere with the members. At any rate, this particular tournament happened to come on a day when there was snow on the ground. The boys, however, were so keen for play that this little handicap did not bother them.
Some of them had less reason to be bothered than others. They were the ones who felt that it was much easier to leave out five or six holes in the course of the round and "guess" what they would have done at these holes. I can just remember that scores as low as 77 to 80 were handed in to the officials in charge, and that soon there was a wrangle over the correctness of some of the figures returned. The upshot of it all was that, after considerable argumentation, it was decided that no prizes should be given at all.
It was a good lesson for all of the boys concerned, though a little hard on those who had tried to do what was right. The sooner a boy, or a man for that matter, learns to live up to the motto "Honesty is the best policy" in golf, as in other things, the better for him. There is no game which gives a competitor a better opportunity to cheat; but for that very reason there is no game in which the cheat, when discovered, as it usually is sooner or later, is looked upon with greater contempt.
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