It must be seen to that the canker of commercialism is never permitted to eat its way into the game, for if it were the game would be ruined, as other games and sports have been ruined in that way. It is not that there is any serious danger of golf coming by such a fate, for its people are too well imbued with what might be called the moral sporting sense, and have too much discrimination to permit themselves to be deceived by the insidiousness of the temptations of the commercial adventurer. But it is well that the situation and its weaknesses should be fully realised, so that all players and lovers of the game, of high and low degree, and of long experience and short, may be fully alive to them, and so on their guard. And it must be considered, at the outset of any reflection upon such matters as this, as the most simple and elementary principle, and that which is most indisputable, that there is money in everything in which masses of people take an interest, and the greater the interest the more money is there in it--money for the adventurers who come forward to feed that interest in whatsoever guise they may come. Golf has become a passion with a large section of mankind, and therefore there is much money in it for those who will humour this passion, and there are many evidences that the outside world is not unappreciative of this circumstance. It is said by some of the best judges of golf, that the rubber-cored ball has spoiled the game. That is a matter upon which opinions to some extent differ; but at all events it can hardly be held that the new ball has improved the game, that is to say, that it has made it any better game than it used to be, though it may be admitted that, by making it easier to play, it has resulted in greater enjoyment being given to a vast number of people than would have been if it had never been introduced. But, in any case, why have we the rubber-cored ball in practically exclusive use at the present time, when the feeling of the golf world on its first introduction was overwhelmingly against it? It is due entirely to commercialism, to that and to nothing else. If enterprising business men who cared for their bank accounts first and their golf afterwards, had not seen that there were fortunes in the rubber-cored ball if it were forced on the players, there would have been no rubber-cored ball to-day. The golfing public was quite compelled to use it, though it may not have been realised at the time, and one result was that the game had to pass through a period of unrest and inconvenience lasting for three or four seasons, while courses were being altered and lengthened, the new ball was being improved, and its various manufacturers were engaged in the attempt to exterminate each other, and there was a foolish interest generated in the breaking day by day of the record scores of courses. All this upheaval was due entirely to the introduction of an alien element into the spirit of the links,