with it as the scratch man; more, if he misses the ball
altogether upon one or two tees. If he buys a new niblick he is
certain to get fun out of it on the very first day.

And, above all, there is this to be said for golfing mediocrity--
the bad player can make the strokes of the good player. The poor
cricketer has perhaps never made fifty in his life; as soon as he
stands at the wickets he knows that he is not going to make fifty
to-day. But the eighteen-handicap man has some time or other
played every hole on the course to perfection. He has driven a
ball 250 yards; he has made superb approaches; he has run down
the long putt. Any of these things may suddenly happen to him
again. And therefore it is not his fate to have to sit in the
club smoking- room after his second round and listen to the
wonderful deeds of others. He can join in too. He can say with
perfect truth, "I once carried the ditch at the fourth with my
second," or "I remember when I drove into the bunker guarding the
eighth green," or even "I did a three at the eleventh this
afternoon"--bogey being five. But if the bad cricketer says, "I
remember when I took a century in forty minutes off Lockwood and
Richardson," he is nothing but a liar.

For these and other reasons golf is the best game in the world
for the bad player. And sometimes I am tempted to go further and
say that it is a better game for the bad player than for the good
player. The joy of driving a ball straight after a week of
slicing, the joy of putting a mashie shot dead, the joy of even a
moderate stroke with a brassie; best of all, the joy of the
perfect cleek shot--these things the good player will never know.
Every stroke we bad players make we make in hope. It is never so