With regard to the conducting of golf tournaments, I may make a few remarks. It is usual to intimate that such a tournament is to bo held, and to request intending competitors to send in their names within a limited time. Very often a small entry-money is imposed with the view of ensuring that only those who intend to play will enter, and in that case the entry-money is available for increasing the prize fund of the tournament. After their names have been handed in, the entrants are drawn against each other in couples. It will seldom happen that the number of couples will be exactly the number - such as 64, 32, 16, or 8 - which will ultimately reduce to 4, 2 and 1, and if not, it is necessary to draw a number of byes in the. first stage, as byes in the later stages of the game arc considered unfair. The number of byes being fixed, it is best not to have a separate draw for them, but to give byes to the couples first drawn to the requisite number. If this be done, all the couples obtaining byes must enter the play in the second round: whereas, if there is first a draw for couples and then a draw for byes afterwards, and if there be an odd man, he may draw a bye, and. having no opponent for the second round, will not require to play till the third round of the tournament. To determine the number of byes required, subtract from the nearest higher number (such as (64, 32, 16, or 8) which will ultimately reduce to 4, 2, and 1, the number of couples competing, and the remainder will be the number of byes. Subtracting this remainder (or number of byes) from the number of couples competing will give the number of couples who must play in the first round. I give two examples of how this works out: -

First, suppose there are 49 entrants, that is, equal to

25 couples - because an odd man must in this case be regarded as a couple -

which, subtracted from the number of couples entered, leaves 18 couples who compete in the first round.

Second, suppose there are 34 players, or 17 couples -

which, subtracted from the number of couples entered, leaves 2 couples who compete in the first round.

In example number one the first seven couples drawn would receive byes, and the remaining eighteen couples would play in the first round, reducing their number to nine. These nine couples and the seven couples who drew byes, making sixteen couples, would compete in the second round, and thereafter, as before explained in the first chapter, the winner of couple number one would play against the winner of couple number two, and so on until the ultimate survivor was eliminated, who would be the winner of the tournament. The following table shows the method of arranging the draw: the first supposed example of there being forty-nine entrants has been adopted; each number represents the name of a player, and it is supposed that the first player of each couple always wins his match.

It will be seen that the winner of each couple is always carried forward another stage. In this case, if there were four prizes, No. 1 would be winner of the first prize, No. 19 winner of the second prize, and Nos. 9 and 35 would play for the third and fourth prize.

Having explained the competitions usually held by clubs, and the method of managing them, I will now deal with the question of handicapping. Handicapping in a newly formed club is a matter of vast difficulty, and it is impossible that all handicaps can be properly adjusted until the members have several times competed, and shown their exact form; and even then there are bound to crop up occasional cases of members with too generous handicaps, who carry off the honours of the meeting. This is unavoidable; because, however carefully the handicaps are adjusted, some players, especially young players, will improve so rapidly as to defy all attempts to handicap them accurately. Others, again, after playing a consistently bad game in former competitions, justifying their obtaining large handicaps, will come away with an occasional strong game very much above their usual average form. These are events over which the committee, to whom the handicapping is intrusted, have no control, and must be submitted to.

Handicapping may be treated from two points of view: first, as regards club meetings and competitions; and. second, as regards private matches. I will take them in this order.

As regards club competitions, there are two standpoints from which all handicaps may be adjusted. They may be adjusted with reference to the best or scratch player of the club, or with reference to a par or scratch score for the course. In the former case the handicap committee proceed in this way: they say A, the scratch player of the club, can give B six strokes on the round of eighteen holes, therefore we will give to B a handicap of six strokes, A playing from scratch. Under the other method they say eighty, or whatever other number they think fit, is par play for the links. A can go round in that score, therefore we will make him scratch; B takes eighty-six, therefore we will give to him a handicap of six strokes - and they deal in like manner with every member of the club. It seems to me that of the two methods the latter is preferable, because the par play of a links is always the same, while any player's form is liable to vary. It used formerly to be, and is still, in the old established clubs, a rule (bat no player, however indifferent his game, should receive a larger handicap than eighteen strokes, or a stroke a hole, the reason being that it was considered if he could not win with such a handicap, he did not deserve to win till his play improved; and it was thought that this had the effect of making the weaker players of the club desirous of improving their play so as to get within reach of the prize list. But in more modern clubs larger handicaps up to thirty or even forty strokes are allowed, every man being, in fact, handicapped on his form, whatever it may be. There is no doubt that this has the effect of inducing a larger turn-out of competitors, as frequently the more indifferent players are very enthusiastic devotees of the game. It should be kept in view that it is always better to give a player too small a handicap than too large, and no player should be handicapped until he has played at least once in a club competition. A record of all returns at competitions should be kept, and each member should be handicapped upon the average of his three best returns. Any player winning a prize should at once have his handicap reduced, the reduction depending upon the place he has attained in the prize list. Such a system of reducing the handicaps of prize-winners has been condemned, but in my opinion it is a good one, and helps to make the honours pass round. When a scratch player attains, as many do, such pre-eminence in his club that he is able to carry off not only the scratch awards, but also the handicap prizes, it is usual, rather than increase the handicaps all round, to make such a player plus so many strokes - that is, in fixing his handicap score so many strokes are added to his actual score instead of being deducted, as is usually done, and this works out easily and simply.