been such keen golfers when babies as were the professionals. Mr. Hilton, one of the most skilful amateurs of any time, thinks he was about six when he first went forth to try to play with a full set of his father’s clubs. Then, practising all through their childhood and youth, at what age did these men first begin to play first-class golf, and to give signs of their future greatness? From an analysis I have made of their own statements, and the events of their careers, I find that in nearly every case it was at about seventeen--just when their stature and physical powers had fairly fully developed. In practically all cases men who were subsequent champions were good scratch players at this age. But you will always find that it takes them many more years after this to make their game perfect--many years of the hardest and most persistent practice conceivable. Mr. Hilton came on very quickly, being in championship form when he was twenty-two, and Taylor had fully matured by the time he was twenty-three. But Harry Vardon was twenty-six, and Braid was thirty-one. Generally a man who is destined to play the great golf, and who has been at it all his life, does not begin to settle down to the steady brilliant game until he has passed twenty-five, and from that point he usually improves a little until he is thirty, at which he is at his very best. Thirty is the golden age for golf. Look back through history, and see how formidable have been the great men at that age. The fact may be useful evidence against those who sneer about the “old man’s game,” as showing how long it takes to attain perfect golf when everything is in your favour. Mr. Barry’s victory in the amateur event when he was nineteen, and those of Mr. Travis and Mr. Hutchings when these gentlemen were quite middle-aged (anyhow, Mr. Travis, the younger, was forty-three), have to be regarded simply as phenomena, and as the exceptions which prove the rule. The tale of the ages, as gathered from all experience, seems to be that the ideal golfer begins as a baby, is scratch at seventeen, a champion at twenty-five or twenty-six, and perhaps again at thirty-two, and that thenceforth he plays serenely on until at eighty-five or thereabouts he engages in a great foursome with other old warriors. And, taking it all round, a very good time he has had. IX