I think, but am not sure, that it must have been in the interim between that match of ours and the championship, that there was a great home and home match, with something of a Scotch and English flavour about it, got up between Douglas Rolland and Johnny Ball. Captain Willy Burn wrote me an account of the first part of the match at Elie, which he went over from St. Andrews to see, and one of the phrases in it I remember now: "Both men drove like clockwork." It seems that Rolland, for all his great hitting, had nothing the better of Johnny--who was a very fine driver in his youth--in that respect, but hole after hole went from Johnny on the putting green. He came to Hoylake, for the second half of the match, no less than nine holes to the bad. The local people said that he would pick it all up on his own green. But he did not: on the contrary he lost more holes. Then, on the following day a second match was arranged--of thirty-six holes, all to be played on his own Hoylake. Of course he must have started with the moral effect of his previous hammering still deeply impressed upon him, but his friends still had all confidence in him. And he seemed to justify it grandly, playing such a fine game that he was five up and six to play and the match was virtually, as probably Rolland himself deemed, over, when suddenly he struck a very bad streak, lost hole after hole until all the lead was gone, and Rolland, winning the last hole too, actually won this extraordinary match. It was a very sad day for Hoylake, and that is the aspect of the match which seems to have impressed everybody. But, after all, there is another aspect--perhaps well realized at Elie--what a first-class fighting man that Rolland was! Johnny Ball had in fact to go through a very long baptism of fire before he was able to bring his wonderful powers and skill to their full use at the moment they were most needed. CHAPTER XII THE BEGINNINGS OF THE AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP