In that year, 1894, when I was captain of the club, the amateur championship was played on the Hoylake course, and I have a lively remembrance of it because it was the first time that I came up against poor Freddy Tait, as a grown golfer, and suffered at his hands and from the peculiar characteristics of his game. Again and again I had the better of him, in a tight and well-fought match, and again and again he came up, from somewhere right off the green, with a wonderful approach, which he followed by a good putt and so halved the hole. Going to the last hole we were all even. His second was away to the left, far off the green. He laid up one of his usual approaches and put himself within holable distance. My own second was a very good one, and I had a chance of a three. I know even now that I went for it all too boldly, rather tired by the recoveries of the gallant Freddy. He holed his putt. I, with a much shorter one to hole, missed: and so he won hole and match. He was really but a lad then, though a strong and sturdy one, but in the next round he met his master in Mure Ferguson. That brought Mure into the final with Johnny Ball against him, and very gallantly Mure played. Johnny had some holes the better of him to begin with, but he was not, even then, playing quite like his old self, and he let Mure wear him down, and only by a very daring and splendid shot at the seventeenth hole did he take the lead and practically settle the match, and the championship. Freddy Tait was the very keenest golfer, as a boy, that I ever saw. I had watched him at St. Andrews, growing up from small boy's to young man's estate, and acquiring the mastery of his clubs as he grew. He was a favourite with everybody. At this time, when he beat me at Hoylake, he was still in the hard-hitting phase of his game, rejoicing, as a young man will, in his strength, and delighting to let the ball have it. And he had great strength. Later, as his game developed, he grew to play more within himself with more reserve force to call up when occasion required it, than any other first-class player, and at times he played very finely and very accurately indeed. But at all times, even when he was not playing accurately, he was very dangerous, just by reason of this, his marvellous faculty for recovery, which he exhibited even in this match against me at Hoylake. You never had him beaten at any hole. That not only made him in himself very formidable, but it also made him very difficult to play against, because you never felt any confidence that you had him. I do not know whether it was this quality of his game, or some other influence more psychic and personal, but for some reason Harold Hilton appeared to find it almost impossible to produce his true game when he was brought up against Freddy Tait. He gives some account of it in his own reminiscences, showing too that by steadfast work and stern endeavour to get the better of that influence--really it was as if