No man who golfs is so stubborn, so conceited, so arrogant or so accomplised that he is not constantly striving to improve his golf score.
Golf is a number we write on the score card. The golfer truly believes in long engagements he courts a mistress as fickle as she is bewitching. She leads him on with little favors that fill him with hopes of conquest. Then she scorns him and humiliates him and leaves him dispairing, sometimes he hides his dispair in rages;he hurls the golf clubs into water hazards and gives a dozen new balls to his caddy,he is finished,Kaput. He comes back,of course.
And then suddenly the miracle happens. The despairing man who could do nothingright now can do nothing wrong.He fishes his clubs out of the water and buys the balls back from the caddy,he feels like the song says "Now,at last I know the secret of it all".
The bewitcher lead him on. Now he becomes arrogant and conceited again. He sees things clearly.He wants to share his newly discovered secrets. He gives them freely to his companions. He is also a pain in the neck. But the game,the bewitcher,will take care of him.He will slice his drive,he will blunder his way back onto the fairway and into a bunker, he will four-putt the green. He will know humility again. HUMILITY that is the magic word. Golf is man's most humbling diversion.It may be,for that reason alone, THE GREATEST GAME HE HAS EVER DEVISED.
No man, champion, top professional or president of a country ever reaches that point at which he can say; I have learned the secret, I have conquered the bewitcher. Once somebody said to me:
"Demi life is difficult" I replyed "Golf is more difficult!"
