orld, and you have only the slightest
conception of what you must master before you can play more than an
indifferent sort of a game."

He smiled indulgently.

"What is there hard about it?" he demanded. "In billiards, for instance,
you--"

"You play billiards on a table which is not more than five feet by ten,"
I broke in, "and you play golf on a table which may cover two hundred
acres of hills, woods, marshes, ponds, brooks, and meadows. You play
billiards in a room which is always at about the same temperature, and
where there is not a breath of air stirring. You play golf out-of-doors,
where it may be one hundred in the shade or far below freezing; under
conditions of perfect calm, or with winds ranging all the way from a
zephyr to gales from every point of the compass."

"There is something in that," he admitted, "but you need not get mad
about it, Smith."

"Your billiard table is always the same," I continued. "It consists of
the cloth and four cushions, and they are smooth as art can make them.
Your golf course is never the same on any two days, and would not be if
you played through all eternity. Sometimes the grass in a certain place
is long, and sometimes it is short; sometimes it is thick, and again it
is thin; sometimes the ground is hard from lack of rain, and again it is
soft and spongy from an excess of rain. There are millions of variations
in these conditions, and every one of them must be considered in making
a perfect shot."

"Yes, I suppose that is so," he admitted, and I could see I had started
him thinking.

"There are days when the air is light," I went on, "and when a certain
stroke will send the ball where you wish it to go. There are other days
when the air is heavy, and when a hit ball seems to have no life in it.
You must allow for the force and direction of every slant of wind. There
are conditions of atmosphere when objects seem near, and others when
they seem far away, and you must take this into account."

He was silent, and I went on.

"On a billiard table your ball is always within easy reach. You stand on
a level floor and play on a level table. In golf your ball never lands
in the same place twice. It may be above you, or below you. It may lie
in any one of ten million separate conformations of ground, and for each
you must exercise judgment. Your clubs change in weight as you clean
them; no two golf balls have the same degree of elasticity when new, and
as you use them it