Then he said to me, as we walked after our second shots to the seventeenth hole and an emissary came back to say that Johnny had beaten Jack Tait, "It would be a funny thing if father and son had to play it off together." It was an innocent remark enough, and yet it nettled me a little, and I said in answer, "Wait a bit, Mr. Ball: you haven't done with me yet." Perhaps I ought not to have said it: it was rather a boastful answer. I can only plead the excuse of comparative youth. I sincerely hope it was not that reply which put him off his next stroke, but something bothered him as he played it. I saw him look up once, as he addressed the ball, at the legs of the people standing (or not standing as still as they should have been) opposite him. Anyone who knows Hoylake will know the stroke he had to play--to pop the ball over the cross bunker before the green, of the then seventeenth and now sixteenth hole. What happened was that he took his eye off and popped the ball into the bunker instead. I lofted mine over all right and won that hole. Then, by a lucky approach and a good putt, I got the last in three; and that was a stroke better than the hole ought to be done in and one too good for Mr. Ball. So then the next, and the final, problem was the worst--Johnny! I dare say I was a little lucky in that match: I know I had one rather lucky shot. I got into the bunker just before the green, going to the short hole, called the Cop. I dug the ball out, pretty near the hole, and holed the putt. It was fortunate, but I have always contended that with practice, the judgment of the strength with this dig shot is not nearly so difficult as it seems to the uninitiated, and at Westward Ho! there was every opportunity for initiation, in the shape of bunkers close to the hole. Moreover, in those days, there was no rule forbidding you to test the consistency of the sand by a trial dig into it before the real shot. I have always thought the rule which forbids the testing dig a very bad one, because a clever bunker player ought to have the advantage of his cleverness, and this prohibition takes away much of the advantage and puts him more nearly on a level with the man who has no idea of judging strength with this shot. Then, two holes from home, Johnny broke his brassey. I see that Mr. Everard, speaking of this incident in the Badminton Book, described it as "the very bad luck to break his favourite brassey." That is interesting to note now, as a sign of the times. It indicates an importance belonging to a brassey which it certainly would not have now, when a full second shot with a wooden club is hardly ever wanted. But of course it was hard luck then, and perhaps it was due to that that I got dormy one up. Then Johnny obligingly topped his tee shot going to the last hole. I did not play the hole very bravely, and had to hole rather a good putt to get a four. I do not think Johnny troubled to putt out. He was a little nearer than I was, but not stoney.