Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/208

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
GOLF DEVELOPMENT
173

play is not to be encouraged. It is easy to say it, but I implore everybody who plays golf to remember that it is a game and not a business. A singularly charming form of golf is a foursome suitable for all ages and links, and can there exist any golfer who would prefer playing a foursome by strokes and not by holes? The thing I fear is that the system of playing for scores may so permeate the whole golfing spirit, that match play may become relegated to the subordinate position. If ever this comes to be brought about golf will suffer and become more selfish and individual a game, and, to be critical, this is the one drawback to golf already.

The Amateur Championship is played by tournament or hole play, and long may it continue so. I am in hope that what I suppose is essentially the blue ribbon of the golfing world—namely, the open championship—may become a hole game too. It cannot, perhaps, be entirely by holes, but something may be done by devoting the first day to score play. Let two rounds be given to this, and then take the ten highest scorers and fight it to a finish by match play. It is not easy in these days to abolish score play altogether