"Suppose they do mix it?" said Cupid, mopping his brow. "Sweet little
golfing scandal, eh? Can't you see the headlines in the newspapers?
'Country Club finalists in fist fight on links!' And some of these
roughneck humourists will congratulate us on golf becoming one of the
vital, red-blooded sports! Oh, lovely!"
"Bah!" said I. "There will be no fight. No man will fight who smiles
like a coyote when he is getting a call down."
"But a coyote will fight if you put it up to him, don't make any mistake
about that. And Kitts will spring the book on Windy again, I feel it in
my bones, and if he does--choose your partners for the one-step! Oh, why
did we ever let these rotters into the club?"
IV
I see no reason for inflicting upon you a detailed description of the
next fifteen holes of golfing frightfulness. Golf is a game which
requires mental calm, and the contestants were entirely out of calmness
after the second hole and could not concentrate on their shots.
Windy began driving all over the shop, hooking and slicing tremendously,
and Kitts manhandled his irons in a manner fit to make a hardened
professional weep. Neither of them could have holed a five-foot putt in
a washtub, and they staggered along side by side, silent and nervous and
savage, and if Windy managed to win a hole Kitts would be sure to take
the next one and square the match. But he didn't take any holes with the
book. When Windy broke a rule--which he did every little while--Kitts
would sneer and pretend to look the other way. He tried to convey the
impression that it was pity and contempt that made him blind to Windy's
lapses, but he didn't fool me for a minute. It was fear of consequences.
And so they came to the last hole, all square, and also all in.
Our eighteenth has a vicious reputation among those golfing unfortunates
who slice their tee shots. The drive must carry a steep hill, the right
slope of which pitches away to a deep, narrow ravine--a ravine scarred
and marred by thousands of niblick shots, but otherwise as disgusted
Nature left it. We call it Hell's Half Acre, though the first part of
the name would be quite sufficient.
The only improvements that have ever been made in this sinister locality
have been made by golf clubs, despairingly wielded. Hell's Half Acre is
full of stunted trees with roots half out of the ground, and thick brush
and matted weeds, and squarely in the middle of this desolation is a
deep sink, or pit, known as the Devil's Kitchen. Hell's Half Acre is bad
enough, believe one who knows, but the Devil's Kitchen is the last hard
word in hazards, and it is a crime to allow such a plague spot within a
mile of a golf course.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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