In some places, as already hinted, they have been trying a strange kind of game called “a four-ball foursome against bogey,” being a blend of many things most objectionable to the old spirit. This is the kind of golf that would be exceedingly popular if people generally went mad with the revolutionary idea and held executions in Trafalgar Square. In the meantime it does not “take on.” And a new kind of multi-match lately came over from America. They play, say, six a side, but only one ball to each side, the whole dozen players starting off together. They do not play alternately, but each man is chosen for the team according to his special abilities. One man is a specialist in long driving, another in his brassey play, a third with his irons, a fourth with the short approaches, a fifth with his niblick, and a sixth with his putter. When within fifty yards of the green the captain sings out for No. 4, and No. 5 is wanted when the ball is in a gutter. A man might not have a shot to play the whole way round. Great skill would be needed in the selection of the team. For a match on a short course the wise captain might leave out his brassey man and put in, say, a fisherman, if there were many water hazards on that course. But it is not golf, and never will be. From the same source there emanates another idea in competitions. This is for stroke play, and all the men who enter play the first hole, one after the other. Those men who take most strokes to it retire from the competition. The others proceed, and there is the same weeding out process at the second hole, and so on until there are only two players left, and then the first man who wins a hole from the other wins the competition. A possibility, which is none the less dreadful because there is some good common sense in the idea from which it springs, is that there will be examinations in the rules, which all must pass either before being elected to full membership of a golf club or before being allowed to take part in competitions. It is a certain fact that two golfers out of every three--at least--are hazy on many important points in the rules. Three British clubs have already held such examinations, with startling results. Scratch men were plucked! How curious it would be if the favourite for a championship were disqualified in this way. Of course the examiners would trip up the candidates by tricky riders to the rules, and as my artist friend, Mr. E. W. Mitchell, suggested, good questions will be: “A is your ball, B is your banker’s ball, and C is the hole (all being within a circle ten inches in diameter). Play one off two and lose!” Also, “What happens when a bull sits on your ball--(1) in match; (2) in medal play?” As it is said, there is no telling what we may have next, particularly as a patent was recently applied for on behalf of a new club which had a sliding lid bottom, covering a receptacle in the head of the club, in which the golfer might keep his matches and his money! VI