“However keen one may be, and however much one may enjoy the excellent
golf that is obtained on a good seaside course, it is a great mistake to
play too much during a short holiday, and failure to appreciate this
fact has completely spoiled more golfing holidays than any other cause.
The early keenness is followed by carelessness, and after a while the
game becomes somewhat of a taskmaster. Then one’s game suffers severely,
and even a strong physical constitution is hardly equal to three rounds
a day kept up constantly. Yet that is what many holiday golfers try to
do, and when they have finished their vacation they are sick of the
mention of golf, and wish they had gone fishing or shooting instead. My
advice is never to play more than two rounds a day, and to play no golf
at all on two days of the week; whilst, if the holiday lasts a month,
the man will be all the better for a four or five days’ rest in the
middle of it. He will then enjoy all his golf, and the entire holiday
will be much more of a success.
“On a holiday course, where there are many visitors, one sees a greater
variety of clubs and golfing implements than anywhere else, and
numerous novelties of a more or less attractive character. However
favourably many of these ideas may strike you, do your best to resist
the inclination to invest in them, because, if you once begin doing
this, you will have a dreadful quantity of rubbish to take home. A
golfer who thinks several times before he buys a new club when he is at
home, somehow seems to be a very irresponsible creature when he is
holidaying, and will purchase wonderful brasseys, niblicks, and putters
at the slightest provocation.
“As soon as you get on to your holiday seaside course, don’t make the
mistake of beginning to play for larger money stakes than you are
accustomed to do on your home links, even when you are invited to do so
and you may feel it difficult to refuse. Comparatively small beginnings
in this direction have a way of developing before the holiday is far
advanced into gambling on the game to an extent that the player cannot
afford. Apart from this important view of the matter, the pleasure of
playing the game is completely ruined. A ball on the match is enough for
anybody, no matter what balance he may have at his bank, and in starting
a golfing holiday a man will be wise to make up his mind in advance that
he will not play for more.
“When you are a complete stranger and alone, and you beg the club
steward that he will find you matches, do not hesitate when he offers
you an opponent, even though the latter’s handicap is either too large
or too small to give you the most enjoyable match. Take him on at once,
and be thankful. The steward, who is always an obliging fellow, has a
rather difficult task in suiting everybody, and you should be greatly
obliged for the favour he does you in supplying you with any kind of
match.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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