Golf is so popular simply because it is the best game in the
world at which to be bad.

Consider what it is to be bad at cricket. You have bought a new
bat, perfect in balance; a new pair of pads, white as driven
snow; gloves of the very latest design. Do they let you use them?
No. After one ball, in the negotiation of which neither your bat,
nor your pads, nor your gloves came into play, they send you back
into the pavilion to spend the rest of the afternoon listening to
fatuous stories of some old gentleman who knew Fuller Pilch. And
when your side takes the field, where are you? Probably at long
leg both ends, exposed to the public gaze as the worst fieldsman
in London. How devastating are your emotions. Remorse, anger,
mortification, fill your heart; above all, envy--envy of the
lucky immortals who disport themselves on the green level of
Lord's.

Consider what it is to be bad at lawn tennis. True, you are
allowed to hold on to your new racket all through the game, but
how often are you allowed to employ it usefully? How often does
your partner cry "Mine!" and bundle you out of the way? Is there
pleasure in playing football badly? You may spend the full eighty
minutes in your new boots, but your relations with the ball will
be distant. They do not give you a ball to yourself at football.

But how different a game is golf. At golf it is the bad player
who gets the most strokes. However good his opponent, the bad
player has the right to play out each hole to the end; he will
get more than his share of the game. He need have no fears that
his new driver will not be employed. He will have as many swings