“This 240,000,000 of miles means that if the British golfers had a links round the middle of the earth they would collectively play 60,000 times round it in the course of the year. They would be almost jostling and continually driving into each other. There would be a shriek of ‘Fore!’ from the Gulf of Guinea to Borneo, and it would be wailed across the wide Pacific. It would prevent overcrowding and blocking at the short holes if a course were laid out to the sun and back, and the British golfers were started off at five minutes intervals. It would be nearly 93,000,000 miles to the turn, and the same back, and if the British golfers then did a short round to Venus and home again, putting on another 50,000,000, they would nearly have done their usual year’s golf. “But this little glimpse into the fairyland of golf,” said the Hon. Member in a tone of conclusion, “has all come about through the contemplation of that simple-looking pimply little ball, and it is time we wound up our consideration of it. It has been said that there are 15,000,000 used in Britain in the year. Suppose the average cost is 1_s._ 6_d._, which it probably is. That means that the nice little sum of £1,125,000 is spent by the British golfer in the course of the year in golf balls.” “Prodigious!” exclaimed the Parson. “Well, I don’t know what you think, William,” put in the Colonel, “but my recommendation is that all facts which indicate the extensiveness of this game, and the enthusiasm of its followers, such as some of those you have quoted, had better be kept to ourselves. On one day in April we shall be having a Chancellor of the Exchequer coming along with a fine scheme for paying the National Debt off by means of golf. And now, boys, we’d better be off. Next Thursday, we said, didn’t we? And it’s to be red balls then, if necessary!” VII When the short days, wet and cold, come on, some golfers speak of the virtues of close seasons for games. There never can be any regularly ordained close season in golf; such is neither needed nor desired. But now and then some men will try the imposition of such a season on themselves.