Now what shall be done? Shall the golfers’ House of Lords be mended or ended? In course of time some change is inevitable, democracy will have its way, and all those who have the interests of the game most at heart must, on reflection, come to the conclusion that for the time being, at any rate, it will be for good if the House of Lords is reconstituted on slightly more popular lines. Therefore it would seem to be desirable that the Royal and Ancient and its associates, the golfing House of Lords, should recognise the feeling that is undoubtedly abroad in the country, and should take the initiative now, when it would lose nothing in dignity and gain everything in influence, in establishing the government of golf on a firmer and more satisfactory basis than that on which it at present exists. The rules need remodelling, the system of the championships needs rearranging, the question of county tournaments, standardisation of handicaps, and so forth, call for some consideration, and the interference of the commercial side of the game needs to be looked into. St. Andrews alone and without a mandate has neither the will nor the power to grapple with all these difficulties. On the other hand, a democratically elected governing body would almost certainly be given far too much to something in the nature of vandalism, and for a certainty golf under its authority would lose much of the dignity that is at present one of its very greatest charms. What one has seen of the ways of even some big provincial clubs, such as might have loud voices in a new democratic government, and the tone that animates their game, gives one no confidence that they would preserve its best traditions intact. There would be a tendency towards unnecessary innovations and vulgarism. Nobody who has any adequate knowledge of the manner and system of golf as practised by the good old-fashioned clubs would care to risk placing the future of the game entirely in the hands of the revolutionaries.