SPEAKING in a general sense, very little is heard of the rise and progress of the game in Wales, yet some really good links are to be found within the Principality, and golf is in great vogue both north and south. The interested public cannot complain of the lack of opportunity for playing this game at its best, with such good courses as are to be found at Aberdovey, in North Wales, and at Harlech ; the former, indeed, is very nearly equal to anything I have seen or played over in any other part of the country.

There is, happily, no doubt that an exceptional field for the advancement of the game is to be found in Ireland. Its golfing capabilities have only just been tapped, and I have little hesitation in stating that before many years have passed it will have steadily risen into the position of a great golfing country. Its advantages are many. There you can find without difficulty a large number of natural courses, magnificent in quality; and the extent of virgin ground yet to be opened up by the golf pioneer is an almost unthinkable quantity.

It is my candid opinion that golf may eventually prove to be the salvation of the country at large. The game will bring money from all quarters. Trade will naturally follow in its wake, for at a no very distant date tourists will cross the Irish Sea-not for the mountains, the lakes, or the fishing, but for the golf. This is not a fancy picture ; indeed, there are already signs of the attractions of the game in Ireland, and I have no doubt that time will prove the correctness of my estimate.

As for the courses already in existence, I will only mention three of the best with which I am acquainted. These are Portrush, Newcastle (co. Down), and Portmarnock, near Dublin. All are excellent; the most striking fact being that they are natural, though marked by the ever-necessary touch of artificiality at certain points.

Irish turf is like velvet in its texture, and the very finest putting greens in the world are to be found in the "disthressful counthry." This is only what might be expected, however, from the climatic influences that are at work the whole year round. Much more rain falls in Ireland than in England, the whole atmosphere is genial and moist in character, and so the turf is springy, soft, and as true as could be desired by the most fastidious of golfers.

The links near Dublin and Belfast are very fine indeed, and the same may be said of those on the west coast, at Port Solon and Lahinch, co. Limerick. But the game has only come into real prominence of late years, since 1890 or somewhere near that date, if my memory is accurate. Since then its rapid advance is a happy augury for a highly successful future.

How golf was first introduced into Ireland is a moot point, but it appears to have sprung naturally to the front at about the time I have mentioned. Still, Ireland has yet to produce a really high-class amateur-a man who is a little more than equal to the task of holding his own in the best company. Perhaps the best Irish player is Mr. Harold Reade, a typical home-bred representative, and one of the best all-round, as distinguished from the super-excellent, players a man might desire to meet.

Nor has Ireland yet produced a professional player quite of the first class; and at the present time an Englishman or a Scotsman holds the two leading positions in the island. This fact cannot be wondered at now, but it should be remedied in course of time. It would be more than strange if some of the caddies did not blossom later on into good players, capable of taking up the positions attached to their native clubs.

It is to our caddies we must necessarily look for our coming men. The small boy, as soon as he has satisfied the requirements of a paternal government, goes out upon the links, and learns the rudiments of the game right through from the very beginning, while his mind and his muscles are supple. It is very rare to find anyone who takes up the game late in life reaching the first class, although a notable exception is the amateur champion, Mr. Charles Hutchings.

While upon this subject, however, I would like to call attention to the fact that upon some Scotch courses caddies are not looked upon in the same light as in the south of England. In Scotland, curious to relate, it is very frequently found that a lad goes upon a course to carry the clubs at a comparatively early age, and becomes so imbued with the love of his profession that he never gives it up; at fifty or sixty he is still proud to carry clubs for a living.

In the south a boy acts as a caddie until he reaches the age of fifteen or sixteen. Then comes the time when he has finally to decide upon a vocation in life, and he either follows up the game as a profession or he leaves it once and for all.

In Scotland, again, there is a better scale of payment in vogue. You may speak of a fixed scale as unalterable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, but when you are being attended upon by a man, and not a mere boy, you feel you must necessarily offer a man's, and not a boy's, wage.

As a matter of fact, this caddie business in Scotland is more or less a tradition, and at St. Andrews and other courses I might mention you will discover caddies old, bent, and frosted by many winters - decrepit, in fact - who have done nothing but carry clubs and tee the ball during the whole of their lives. This, I may add, is a thing you will find in no other spot in the whole field of golf.