Fore! Part 1

Fore!

by Charles Emmett Van Loan.

GENTLEMEN, YOU CAN'T GO THROUGH!

I

There has been considerable argument about it--even a mention of ethics--though where ethics figures in this case is more than I know. I'd like to take a flat-footed stance as claiming that the end justified the means. Saint George killed the Dragon, and Hercules mopped up the Augean stables, but little Wally Wallace--one hundred and forty-two pounds in his summer underwear--did a bigger job and a better job when the betting was odds-on-and-write-your-own-ticket that it couldn't be done.

I wouldn't mind heading a subscription to present him with a gold medal about the size of a soup plate, inscribed as follows, to wit and viz.:

_W. W. Wallace--He Put the Fore in Foursome._

Every golfer who ever conceded himself a two-foot putt because he was afraid he might miss it has sweated and suffered and blasphemed in the wake of a slow foursome. All the clubs that I have ever seen--and I've travelled a bit--are cursed with at least one of these Creeping Pestilences which you observe mostly from the rear.

You're a golfer, of course, and you know the make-up of a slow foursome as well as I do: Four nice old gentlemen, prominent in business circles, church members, who remember it even when they top a tee shot, pillars of society, rich enough to be carried over the course in palanquins, but too proud to ride, too dignified to hurry, too meek to argue except among themselves, and too infernally selfish to stand aside and let the younger men go through. They take nine practice swings before hitting a shot, and then flub it disgracefully; they hold a prayer meeting on every putting green and a _post-mortem_ on every tee, and a rheumatic snail could give them a flying start and beat them out in a fifty-yard dash. Know 'em? What golfer doesn't?

But n.o.body knows why it is that the four slowest players in every club always manage to hook up in a sort of permanent alliance. n.o.body knows why they never stage their creeping contests on the off days when the course is clear. n.o.body knows why they always pick the sunniest afternoons, when the locker room is full of young men dressing in a hurry. n.o.body knows why they bolt their luncheons and scuttle out to the first tee, nor where that speed goes as soon as they drive and start down the course. n.o.body knows why they refuse to walk any faster than a bogged mooley cow. n.o.body knows why they never look behind them. n.o.body knows why they never hear any one yell "Fore!" n.o.body knows why they are so dead set against letting any one through.

Everybody knows the fatal effect of standing too long over the ball, all dressed up with nowhere to go. Everybody knows of the tee shots that are slopped and sliced and hooked; of the indecision caused by the long wait before playing the second; of the change of clubs when the first choice was the correct one; of the inevitable penalty exacted by loss of temper and mental poise. Everybody knows that a slow foursome gives the Recording Angel a busy afternoon, and leaves a sulphurous haze over an entire course. But the aged reprobates who are responsible for all this trouble--do they care how much grief and rage and bitterness simmers in their wake? You think they do? Think again. Golf and Business are the only games they have ever had time to learn, and one set of rules does for both. The rest of the world may go hang! Golf is a serious matter with these h.o.a.ry offenders, and they manage to make it serious for everybody behind them--the fast-walking, quick-swinging fellows who are out for a sweat and a good time and lose both because the slow foursome blocks the way.

Yes, you recognise the thumb-nail sketch--it is the slow foursome which infests your course; the one which you find in front of you when you go visiting. You think that four men who are inconsiderate enough to ruin your day's sport and ruffle your temper ought to be disciplined, called up on the carpet, taken in hand by the Greens Committee. You think they are the worst ever--but wait! You are about to hear of the golfing renegades known as the Big Four, who used to sew us up twice a week as regularly as the days came round; you are about to hear of Elsberry J.

Watlington, and Colonel Jim Peck, and Samuel Alexander Peebles, and W.

Cotton Hamilton--world's champions in the Snail Stakes, undisputed holders of the Challenge Belt for Practice Swinging, and undefeated catch-as-catch-can loiterers on the Putting Green.

Six months ago we would have backed Watlington, Peck, Peebles and Hamilton against the wide world, bet dollars against your dimes and allowed you to select your own stakeholders, timekeepers and judges.

That's how much confidence we had in the Big Four. They were without doubt and beyond argument the slowest and most exasperating quartette of obstructionists that ever laid their middle-aged stomachs behind the line of a putt.

Do I hear a faint murmur of dissent? Going a little strong, am I? All right, glad you mentioned it, because we may as well settle this question of supremacy here and now.

To save time, I will admit that your foursome is slower than Congress and more irritating than the Senate. Permit me to ask you one question: Going back over the years, can you recall a single instance when your slow foursome allowed you to play through?... A lost ball, was it?...

Well, anyway, you got through them.... Thank you, and your answer puts you against the ropes. I will now knock you clear out of the ring with one well-directed statement of fact. Tie on your bonnet good and tight and listen to this: The Big Four held up our course for seven long and painful years, and during that period of time they never allowed any one to pa.s.s them, lost ball or no lost ball.

That stops you, eh? I rather thought it would. It stopped us twice a week.

II

Visitors used to play our course on Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days--our big days--and then sit in the lounging room and try hard to remember that they were our guests. There were two questions which they never failed to ask:

"Don't they ever let anybody through?"

And then:

"How long has this been going on?"

When we answered them truthfully they shook their heads, looked out of the windows, and told us how much better their clubs were handled. Our course was all right--they had to say that much in fairness. It was well trapped and bunkered, and laid out with an eye to the average player; the fair greens were the best in the state; the putting greens were like velvet; the holes were sporty enough to suit anybody; but----And then they looked out of the window again.

You see, the trouble was that the Big Four practically ran the club as they liked. They had financed it in its early days, and as a reward had been elected to almost everything in sight. We used to say that they shook dice to see who should be president and so forth, and probably they did. They might as well have settled it that way as any other, for the annual election and open meeting was a joke.

It usually took place in the lounging room on a wet Sat.u.r.day afternoon.

Somebody would get up and begin to drone through a report of the year's activities. Then somebody else would make a motion and everybody would say "Ay!" After that the result of the annual election of officers would be announced. The voting members always handed in the printed slips which they found on the tables, and the ticket was never scratched--it would be Watlington, Peck, Peebles and Hamilton all the way. The only real question would be whether or not the incoming president of the club would buy a drink for all hands. If it was Peck's turn the motion was lost.

As a natural result of this sort of thing the Big Four never left the saddle for an instant. Talk about perpetuation in office--they had it down to a fine point. They were always on the Board of Directors; they saw to it that control of the Greens Committee never slipped out of their hands; they had two of the three votes on the House Committee, and no outsider was even considered for treasurer. They were dictators with a large D, and n.o.body could do a thing about it.

If a mild kick was ever made or new blood suggested, the kicker was made to feel like an ingrate. Who started the club anyway? Who dug up the money? Who swung the deal that put the property in our hands? Why, Watlington, Peck, Peebles and Hamilton, to be sure! Could any one blame them for wanting to keep an eye on the organisation? Cer-tain-ly not.

The Big Four had us bluffed, bulldozed, buffaloed, licked to a whisper.

Peck, Peebles and Hamilton were the active heads of the Midland Manufacturing Company, and it was pretty well known that the bulk of Watlington's fortune was invested in the same enterprise. Those who knew said they were just as ruthless in business as they were in golf--quite a strong statement.

They seemed to regard the Sundown Golf and Country Club as their private property, and we were welcome to pay dues and amuse ourselves five days a week, but on Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days we were not to infringe on the sovereign rights of the Big Four.

They never entered any of the club tournaments, for that would have necessitated breaking up their foursome. They always turned up in a body, on the tick of noon, and there was an immediate scramble to beat them to Number One tee. Those who lost out stampeded over to Number Ten and played the second nine first. n.o.body wanted to follow them; but a blind man, playing without a caddie, couldn't have helped but catch up with them somewhere on the course.

If you wonder why the club held together, you have only to recall the story of the cow-puncher whose friend beckoned him away from the faro layout to inform him that the game was crooked.

"h.e.l.l!" said the cow-puncher. "I know that; but--it's the only game in town, ain't it?"

The S.G. & C.C. was the only golf club within fifty miles.

III

When Wally Wallace came home from college he blossomed out as a regular member of the club. He had been a junior member before, one of the tennis squad.

Wally is the son of old Hardpan Wallace, of the Trans-Pacific outfit--you may have heard of him--and the sole heir to more millions than he will ever be able to spend; but we didn't hold this against the boy. He isn't the sort that money can spoil, with nothing about him to remind you of old Hardpan, unless it might be a little more chin than he really needs.

Wally's first act as a full-fledged member of the club was to qualify for the James Peck Annual Trophy--a pretty fair sort of cup, considering the donor.

He turned in a nice snappy eighty-one, which showed us that a college education had not been wasted on him, and also caused several of the Cla.s.s-A men to sit up a bit and take notice.

He came booming through to the semi-finals with his head up and his tail over the dash-board. It was there that he ran into me. Now I am no Jerry Travers, but there are times when I play to my handicap, which is ten, and I had been going fairly well. I had won four matches--one of them by default. Wally had also won four matches, but the best showing made against him was five down and four to go. His handicap was six, so he would have to start me two up; but I had seen enough of his game to know that I was up against the real thing, and would need a lot of luck to give the boy anything like a close battle. He was a strong, heady match player, and if he had a weakness the men whom he had defeated hadn't been able to spot it. Altogether it wasn't a very brilliant outlook for me; but, as a matter of fact, I suppose no ten-handicap man ever ought to have a brilliant outlook. It isn't coming to him. If he has one it is because the handicapper has been careless.

Under our rules a compet.i.tor in a club tournament has a week in which to play his man, and it so happened that we agreed on Wednesday for our meeting. Wally called for me in his new runabout, and we had lunch together--I shook him and stuck him for it, and he grinned and remarked that a man couldn't be lucky at everything. While we were dressing he chattered like a magpie, talking about everything in the world but golf, which was a sign that he wasn't worrying much. He expected easy picking, and under normal conditions he would have had it.

We left the first tee promptly at one-forty-five P.M., our caddies carrying the little red flags which demand the right of way over everything. I might have suggested starting at Number Ten if I had thought of it, but to tell the truth I was a wee mite nervous and was wondering whether I had my drive with me or not. You know how the confounded thing comes and goes. So we started at Number One, and my troubles began. Wally opened up on me with a four-four-three, making the third hole in a stroke under par, and when we reached the fourth tee we were all square and my handicap was gone.

It was on the fourth tee that we first began to notice signs of congestion ahead of us. One foursome had just driven off and beckoned us to come through, another was waiting to go, and the fair green on the way to the fifth looked like the advance of the Mexican standing army.

"Somebody has lost the transmission out of his wheel chair," said Wally.

"Well, we should worry--we've got the red flags and the right of way.

Fore!" And he proceeded to smack a perfect screamer down the middle of the course--two hundred and fifty yards if it was an inch. I staggered into one and laid my ball some distance behind his, but on the direct line to the pin. Then we had to wait a bit while another foursome putted out.

"There oughtn't to be any congestion on a day like this," said Wally.

"Must be a bunch of old men ahead."

"It's the Big Four," said I. "Watlington, Peck, Peebles and Hamilton.