* * * * * [Illustration] THE HUMOUR OF GOLF There are few pastimes that supply their followers with more innocent merriment than is afforded by "the royal and ancient." Certainly no outdoor game can make the neophyte feel more utterly worm-like in his ability, for it is the peculiar quality of golf to appear to be absurdly easy to the onlooker and preposterously difficult to the unpractised player. It may be taken that there is no better way of reducing a man's self-conceit than to place him on the teeing ground for the first time, present him with a driver and invite him to strike a little rubber-cored ball to a distance of 200 yards in a given direction. Consequently we have here most excellent material for fun; and you may depend upon it MR. PUNCH has not had his eyes long shut to the humours of the links. Despite the royalty and antiquity of golf, it has been thoroughly democratised in modern times, and its popularity, in the wide proportions to which it has attained, is chiefly a matter of recent years. Despite the shortness of the period that is represented by what we may call the vogue of golf--a vogue that is by no means in danger of passing--MR. PUNCH has evidently found the game so rich in fun that his merry knights of the pen and the pencil have contributed to his pages as many pictures as to illustrate very lavishly this volume and a good deal more literary matter than could be used. In the days when croquet was as popular as golf is to-day--the days of Leech and Keene--doubtless a volume could have been drawn from PUNCH devoted entirely to that sport. But it is worthy of note that an examination of these old croquet pictures and jokes for a comparison of them with the contents of the present volume leaves one with the conviction that the humour of the present day is infinitely superior to the humour of the days of Leech and Keene. Admirable draughtsmen though these artists were, both of them, but Leech particularly, were often content to let their masterly drawings appear with the feeblest jokes attached. The standard of humour has been immensely raised of late years, and MR. PUNCH'S GOLF STORIES is no bad evidence of that. [Illustration] * * * * * MR. PUNCH'S GOLF STORIES "GOLFERS AS I 'AVE KNOWN" (_By a Caddie_) [Illustration: MR. PUNCH] Golfers I divides in me own mind into three clarses; them as 'its the ball, them as skratches it, and them as neither 'its nor skratches the blooming ball but turns rarnd and wants to 'it or skratch anyone as is small and 'andy. The first clars is very rare, the second is dreadfull plentifull, and the third, thank 'evins, can jeneraly be kep clear of by them as knows the ropes. Sich as meself.