In 1889, having, as aforesaid, exhibited to the Meadowbrook Club, on Long Island, a specimen of what they were good enough to say "might be a very good game for Sundays," I returned to Great Britain a brief while before the amateur championship and went up to St. Andrews, very short of practice, to take part in it. The second or third round brought me up against Johnny Ball, and I put up a very poor fight against him. He was playing respectably enough--not more, for he never has been a real lover of St. Andrews--but I know that he had some satisfaction in thus getting back on me a bit of what was his due. I know that he had a little of this feeling because Johnny Laidlay told me that Hilton said to him, as we started off, "If there is one man that Johnny Ball would like to beat in the amateur championship, it's Horace Hutchinson." So he had his wish, by some four or five holes, and it was at this same championship, I think, that we first began to have an idea how sore a trouble Hilton was going to be to us in the years to come. For he was playing Johnny Laidlay, who was then at just about the best of his game--which is saying much--and he stuck to Johnny like a man, though he was hardly more than a boy, and Johnny confessed to me afterwards that he acquired a great respect for Hilton's play from that time forward. Now the outstanding feature of that meeting was, beyond all possible question, the match between the two Johnnies, Laidlay and Ball. It was not the final match, but probably it decided the final result. They halved the round. Then, setting forth for extra holes, they halved the first of these--and not too creditably, if the truth be told, for I think the figure was five apiece. But the second hole they both played like tigers. They had two good tee shots, Johnny Laidlay's being a yard or two the longer. So Johnny Ball had to play. He took his cleek. Now to reach that second hole in those days, when the ground was not so keen and it was a gutty ball that had to be dealt with, with an iron club, at all was no easy matter; but Johnny's shot looked a beauty. I judged it, as it ran over the gradients, after pitching, to be as near perfection as a shot could be, and to be resting very near the hole. Johnny Laidlay then had to play; he, too, took a cleek; he, too, played a shot as near perfect, as it seemed to me, as might be. My only doubt was whether it was quite strong enough, whether it would quite hold its way over the undulations, whether it might not possibly die away, even towards the bunkers on the left, a little short of the green. I was, as events proved, wrong in my estimate of both shots. Johnny Laidlay's had just the strength to take the undulations at the right curve: it lay on the green quite near the hole. Johnny Ball's had been a shade too strong: it had even over-run the green and was in the bunker, just beyond. Of course that was the end. No doubt it was a most unlucky shot; no doubt