In the summer of 1903 the first team of golfers to leave these shores set sail for the United States...I was youngest member of the team, and Christopher Columbus cannot have been in more of a 'twit'. He at any rate did not have to pat himself all over every ten minutes to see that his pasport, note case and ticket were in position, and he can have been in little greater doubt as to what he would see and how he would fare in his encounters with unkown opponents.
The prelude to any voyage grips the imagination. The clamour of Victoria Station with its barriers passed, its perfumes of foriegn women and strange tobacco, its babel of tongues and its anaesthetic luxury of Pullmans, whets the appetite for an unknown future. Liverpool Station in the night, remote from human haunts, its musty train sparsely populated with dumb Dutchmen, the glide through the darkness, the dim ship fidgeting at her berth, can 'pose the question of to-morrow's fortune.' But these are small beer compared with the ocean liner, her intoxicating smell of ropes and tar, her size and her air of strength, the witchcarft which will guide her across the seven seas to fetch up at a dot on the map, and perhaps a little pride, which she inspires, in generations who have ruled the waves. These simple pleasures are commended as the proper ors d'oeuvre of a feast of golf overseas.