The Golficide and Other Tales of the Fair Green, with illustrations

The Golficide and Other Tales of the Fair Green, with illustrations. Written by W. G. Van T. Sutphen and published inNew York and London in 1898. Some humorous stories centering around the Marion County Golf Club at the end of the 19th century. (259 pages) . The Publisher has copy-edited this book to improve the formatting, style and accuracy of the text to make it readable. This did not involve changing the substance of the text. Some books, due to age and other factors may contain imperfections. Since there are many books such as this one that are important and beneficial to literary interests, we have made it digitally available and have brought it back into print for the preservation of printed works of the past.. The illustrations are also available for viewing and download at: www.digitaltextpublishing.com. Contents:. Chapter 1. The Golficide - Chapter 2. The Hong-Kong Medal - Chapter 3. The Obsession of Robinson Brown - Chapter 4. The Peripatetic Hazard - Chapter 5. The Lost Ball - Chapter 6. The Prime Great Secret. Excerpts:. ...It was as a member of the Marion County Club that Morgan Gordon had begun his brief career of misdirected golf. And yet the man had been sincere in his humble way. He had not made golf a stalking-horse for his social ambitions, nor yet a clothes-horse upon which to hang red coats and incongruous tartans. Golf had really been to him an ideal, pure, fresh, and all-absorbing. He had embraced it with ardor, he had pursued it with unwearying zeal, and, until this fatal day, he had never absolutely despaired of its final attainment. But now - ...And yet, after all, his story was but the common one - his disappointments and trials had differed only in degree from those usually attendant upon a golfer's education. He had lost balls and broken clubs and fallen among bunkers just as everybody else did; but then, in the beginning, we were all duffers together, and reflection upon that undeniable fact was calculated to take the sting out of much foozling....But as time went on a certain process of differentiation worked out its inevitable results. Certain players began to hit the ball clean and to make the round in double figures, and presently one of them became the acknowledged champion of the club. Morgan Gordon only smiled at this; he felt that he was perfecting his style and could afford to wait....The weeks slipped away, the gap continued to grow wider and wider, and one day the Green Committee announced that henceforth the playing members would be divided into classes A, B, and C. At the foot of class C stood the name of Morgan Gordon, and, beholding it, he smiled no longer. It was time to buckle down to real work....Now, it is a pretty firmly established fact that to succeed at golf one must give his undivided attention to the task. There can be no half-hearted allegiance to "Our Lady of the Links." The goddess of golf is a terribly exacting mistress, and she accepts no devotion unless it be absolute and unqualified. Least of all can she brook the presence of a rival. It was none of Morgan Gordon's business that Alice Townley took no interest in golf. Of course she was a member of the club, and occasionally she condescended to a mixed foursome, but she did not really enjoy or play the game. To her peculiarly constituted nature golf did not appeal - a sorrowful fact, and yet, withal, an incontrovertible one. De golfibus non est disputandum.