He turned in a nice snappy eighty-one, which showed us that a college education had not been wasted on him, and also caused several of the Class-A men to sit up a bit and take notice. He came booming through to the semi-finals with his head up and his tail over the dash-board. It was there that he ran into me. Now I am no Jerry Travers, but there are times when I play to my handicap, which is ten, and I had been going fairly well. I had won four matches--one of them by default. Wally had also won four matches, but the best showing made against him was five down and four to go. His handicap was six, so he would have to start me two up; but I had seen enough of his game to know that I was up against the real thing, and would need a lot of luck to give the boy anything like a close battle. He was a strong, heady match player, and if he had a weakness the men whom he had defeated hadn't been able to spot it. Altogether it wasn't a very brilliant outlook for me; but, as a matter of fact, I suppose no ten-handicap man ever ought to have a brilliant outlook. It isn't coming to him. If he has one it is because the handicapper has been careless. Under our rules a competitor in a club tournament has a week in which to play his man, and it so happened that we agreed on Wednesday for our meeting. Wally called for me in his new runabout, and we had lunch together--I shook him and stuck him for it, and he grinned and remarked that a man couldn't be lucky at everything. While we were dressing he chattered like a magpie, talking about everything in the world but golf, which was a sign that he wasn't worrying much. He expected easy picking, and under normal conditions he would have had it. We left the first tee promptly at one-forty-five P.M., our caddies carrying the little red flags which demand the right of way over everything. I might have suggested starting at Number Ten if I had thought of it, but to tell the truth I was a wee mite nervous and was wondering whether I had my drive with me or not. You know how the confounded thing comes and goes. So we started at Number One, and my troubles began. Wally opened up on me with a four-four-three, making the third hole in a stroke under par, and when we reached the fourth tee we were all square and my handicap was gone. It was on the fourth tee that we first began to notice signs of congestion ahead of us. One foursome had just driven off and beckoned us to come through, another was waiting to go, and the fair green on the way to the fifth looked like the advance of the Mexican standing army.