There are two outstanding events in golfing history--the bringing of golf to Westward Ho! by General Moncrieffe in 1863, and the bringing of golf to Blackheath by James VI. of Scotland and I. of England some three centuries earlier. When golf was started at Westward Ho! it was the worthies of the Blackheath Club that gave it a reputation which went growing like a snowball. The North Devon Club began to wax fat and so exceeding proud that at meeting times--for challenge medals were presented and meetings in spring and autumn were held to compete for them, after the model of St. Andrews--a bathing machine was dragged out by coastguards to the tee to the first hole, and therein sandwiches and liquid refreshment were kept during the morning round and actually consumed if the weather were wet. In fine weather the entertainment was _al fresco_. Then the Club acquired a tent; and an ancient mariner, Brian Andrews, of Northam village, father of the Philip Andrews who is now steward of the Golf Club, used to hoist this and care for it, and at length, as of natural process of evolution, came the crowning glory of a permanent structure of corrugated iron, built beside and even among the grey boulders of the Pebble Ridge. This permanent object of care entailed the permanency of Brian Andrews as caretaker. Enormous was the career of extravagance on which the Club now embarked, engaging a resident professional all the way from St. Andrews--John Allan. He was the first Scot ever to come to England as a resident golf professional, and there never came a kinder-hearted or better fellow. He established himself in a lodging, with his shop and bench on the ground floor, in Northam village, which stands high on a hill above the level of the links, and was best part of a mile and a half from the present third, and then first, tee. A few years before, in the earliest days of the Club's history, old Tom Morris had been down to advise about the green, and when I came to my teens and therewith to some interest in golf, and to a friendship, very quickly formed, with poor Johnnie Allan, he told me that when he had asked old Tom for information about this new course in the new country that he was going to, he found that the old man (though he was not of any great age then) could tell him little enough about the course, but that all he seemed to remember was that there was a terrible steep hill to climb, after the day's work was done, on the way home.