. Lord! ony man can lairn Greek,
but Gowf needs a heid."

Here are fifteen ways of going wrong, and there is only one way of
going right! Fifteen things to think of, every time you take a driver
in hand. And, remember, that is not nearly all. These fifteen fatal
errors apply to long driving. You may (or at least _I_ may, and do)
make plenty of other blunders with the other weapons. Say the ball
lies in sand--"a bunker," technically. If you hit it whack on the top,
it disappears in a foot-mark. If you "tak' plenty o' sand," why, you
_get_ plenty of sand in your mouth, your eyes, down the back of your
neck, and the ball is no forwarder. If you strike her quite clean,
she goes like a bullet against the face of the bunker, soars in the
air, falls on your head, and you lose the hole! Oh, Golf is full of
bitterness!

Suppose we play a round. The ball is neatly "tee'd" on a patch of
sand. I approach, I shuffle with my feet for a secure footing, I
waggle my club in an airy manner. Then I take it up and whack it down.
A variety of things _may_ occur. I may smite the top of the hall, when
it runs on for twenty yards and lies in a rut on the road. I may hit
her on the heel of the club, when she spins, with much "cut" on, into
the sea. I may hit her with the toe of the club, when she soars to
square leg, and perhaps breaks a window. I used to try running in at
the ball, as if it were a half-volley at Cricket, but that way lies
madness. However, suppose that, in a lucid interval (as will happen),
I hit her clean. She soars away, and falls within forty yards of a
meandering burn. The hole, the haven where one would be, is beyond the
burn.

I seize a cleek or an iron, it turns in my hand, cuts up the turf, and
the ball rolls half a dozen feet. My opponent has crossed the burn.
I try again; a fearful misdirected shot; the ball soars over the
burn and lands in a road behind the hole. There is no hitting out of
this road, or, if one does hit a desperate blow, the ball lands in
an eccentric sand-hole, called the Scholar's Bunker. We start for
the next hole. _Meme jeu!_ Now we are in the gorse, now among the
Station Master's potatoes, now in the railway, where all hope may be
abandoned, now in bunkers many, now missing the ball altogether, when
you feel as if your arms had flown off. As for "putting" the short
strokes on the green, near the hole, if I hit sharp, the ball runs
over the hole yards and yards beyond, or if I hit mild, it s