And from my personal favorite.."the Heart of a Goof"...
IT was a morning when all nature shouted
"Fore!" The breeze, as it blew gently
up from the valley, seemed to bring a
message of hope and cheer, whispering ol
chip-shots holed and brassies landing squarely
on the meat. The fairway, as yet unscarred
by the irons of a hundred dubs, smiled greenly
up at the azure sky ; and the sun, peeping
above the trees, looked like a giant golf-ball
perfectly lofted by the mashie of some unseen
god and about to drop dead by the pin of the '
eighteenth. It was the day of the opening
of the course after the long winter, and a
crowd of considerable dimensions had col-
lected at the first tee. Plus fours gleamed in
the sunshine, and the air was charged with
happy anticipation.
In all that gay throng there was but one
sad face. It belonged to the man who was
waggline" his driver over the new ball perched
It
12 THE HEART OF A GOOF
on its little hill of sand. This man seemed
careworn, hopeless. He gazed down the fair-
way, shifted his feet, waggled, gazed down
the fairway again, shifted the dogs once
more, and waggled afresh. He waggled as
Hamlet might have waggled, moodily, irreso-
lutely. Then, at last, he swung, and, taking
from his caddie the niblick which the intel-
ligent lad had been holding in readiness from
the moment when he had walked on to the
tee, trudged wearily off to play his second.
The Oldest Member, who had been observ-
ing the scene with a benevolent e3^e from his
favourite chair on the terrace, sighed.
"Poor Jenkinson," he said, "does not
improve."
"No," agreed his companion, a young man
with open features and a handicap of six.
"And yet I happen to know that he has been
taking lessons all the winter at one of those
indoor places."
"Futile, quite futile," said the Sage with a
shake of his snowy head. "There is no
wizard living who could make that man go
round in an average of sevens. I keep advis-
ing him to give up the game."
"You!" cried the young man, raising a
shocked and startled face from the driver
with which he was toying. " You told him to
give up golf! Why I thought "
" I understand and approve of your horror,"
said the Oldest Member, gently. "But you
must bear in mind that Jenkinson's is not an
THE HEART OF A GOOF 13
ordinary case. You know and I know scores
of men who have never broken a hundred and
twenty in their Uves, and yet contrive to be
happy, useful members of society. How-
ever badly they may play, they are able to
forget. But with Jenkinson it is different.
He is not one of those who can take it or leave
it alone. His only chance of happiness lies
in complete abstinence. Jenkinson is a
goof."
"A what?"
"A goof," repeated the Sage. "One of
those unfortunate beings who have allowed
this noblest of sports to get too great a grip
upon them, who have permitted it to eat into
their souls, like some malignant growth. The
goof, you must understand, is not like you
and me. He broods. He becomes morbid.
His goofery unfits him for the battles of life.
Jenkinson, for example, was once a man with
a glowing future in the hay, com, and feed
business, but a constant stream of hooks,
tops, and slices gradually made him so diffi-
dent and mistrustful of himself, that he let
opportunit}^ after opportunity slip, with the
result that other, sterner, hay, corn, and feed
merchants passed him in the race. Every
time he had the chance to carry through some
big deal in hay, or to execute some flashing
coup in corn and feed, the fatal diffidence
generated by a hundred rotten rounds would
undo him. " I understand his bankruptcy
may be expected at any moment."
14 THE HEART OF A GOOF
"My golly!" said the young man, deeply
impressed. "I hope I never become a goof.
Do you mean to say there is really no cure
except giving up the game? "
The Oldest Member was silent for a while.
"It is curious that you should have asked
that question," he said at last, "for only this
morning I was thinking of the one case in my
experience where a goof was enabled to over-
come his deplorable malady. It was owing to
a girl, of course. The longer I live, the more
I come to see that most things are. But you
will, no doubt, wish to hear the story from
the beginning."
The young man rose with the startled haste
of some wild creature, which, wandering
through the undergrowth, perceives the trap
in his path.
"I should love to," he mumbled, "only I
shall be losing my place at the tee."
"The goof in question," said the Sage,
attaching himself with quiet firmness to the
youth's coat-button, " was a man of about
your age, by name Ferdinand Dibble. I
knew him well. In fact, it was to me "
"Some other time, eh?"
"It was to me," proceeded the Sage, pla-
cidly, " that he came for sympathy in the great
crisis of his life, and I am not ashamed to
say that when he had finished laying bare his
soul to me there were tears in my eyes. My
heart bled for the boy."
"I bet it did. But "
THE HEART OF A GOOF 15
The Oldest Member pushed him gently
back into his seat.
"Golf," he said, "is the Great Mystery.
Like some capricious goddess "
The young man, who had been exhibiting
symptoms of feverishness, appeared to become
resigned. He sighed softly.
"Did you ever read 'The Ancient Mar-
iner'? " he said.
"Many years ago," said the Oldest Member.
"Why do you ask?"
"Oh, I don't know," said the young man.
"It just occurred to me."
Golf (resumed the Oldest Member) is the
Great Mystery. Like some capricious god-
dess, it bestows its favours with what would
appear an almost fat-headed lack of method
and discrimination. On every side we see big
two-fisted he-men floundering round in three
figures, stopping every few minutes to let
through little shrimps with knock knees and
hollow cheeks, who are tearing off snappy
seventy-fours. Giants of finance have to
accept a stroke per from their junior clerks.
Men capable of governing empires fail to
control a small, white ball, w^hich presents no
difficulties whatever to others with one ounce iv(
more brain than a cuckoo-clock. Mysterious,
but there it is. There was no apparent reason
why Ferdinand Dibble should not have been
a competent golfer. He had strong wrists
and a good eye. Nevertheless, the fact remains
i6 THE HEART OF A GOOF
that he was a dub. And on a certain evening
in June I reahsed that he was also a goof.
I found it out quite suddenly as the result of
a conversation which we had on this very
terrace.