The locality begins to feel, as one might say, like a great golfing centre. You know how St. Andrews and Carnoustie and North Berwick "feel" like that. The intelligent interest of the non-golfing people in the towns and villages round about is being awakened in the game, and they are all discovering in some way or other how they may make themselves to benefit by it. Particularly is this the case with regard to a certain good class of private hotels and boarding-houses catering specially, if not exclusively, for golfers. In all the great centres of the game one finds these places in abundance, and every player of experience knows how, in many respects, they are often to be preferred to the big hotels. Then we find a leading thoroughfare called Golf Road, houses called Golf Villas, establishments named Golf Bakeries and Golf Laundries, all of which little details are a sign that the game is coming to be regarded in the district as an "industry," and the district is wise in arriving at such an understanding in good time. Moreover, one would be inclined to say that the standard of play down here is at least as high, taking it all round, as it is at any other big golfing centre. There are foozlers on every links, but more men with very short handicaps, men who have really come to grips with the game, are playing round Pegwell Bay than in most parts, chiefly because, whether member or visitor, the expense of playing is considerable, and the play itself is difficult, and the long-handicap men have discovered that there is not much fun in paying high rates for the privilege of spending week-ends in bunker practice. And yet another attribute of the large and important golfing centre does this neighbourhood possess, in the good quality of the caddies which in the course of many seasons it has at last developed. A man once said that if he saw the caddies beforehand he could tell what kind of golf was played in a place, and though this may have been going too far, there was a germ of truth in the idea. Mediocre links and mediocre players never produce good caddies, and the reverse argument generally holds good; and everybody knows that a good race of caddies is not to be produced in a couple of seasons. Oftentimes it needs at least a generation. But the caddies at Deal and Sandwich nowadays are excellent, and this is not such an unimportant matter as some people might imagine it to be.

X

When you think of it, there is no inconsiderable portion of our golfing lives that is spent in travelling to and from the links that are far from home, by railway and by motor-car, and if one falls into a reflective mood there are many experiences, some curious and some trying, that are to be called to mind in connection with these journeys. On the whole, perhaps, the reflection does not make for much joy, except in the knowledge that these are things of the past and are not likely to be repeated. When the assemblies for the championships are being made, there is less talk of current form than there is of adventures in travelling. Oh, the horrors of a wait at Dumfries in the small hours of a cold morning, when the mistake has been made of trying to get to Prestwick that way! Turned out from the comfortable, warm, snug sleeping-car at Carlisle, even the blanket and pillow that were vouchsafed to you on parting from the express are begrudged you now at this most icy, inhospitable Dumfries. With that curious, dirty, dazed feeling as of being a boiled owl, you watch the men throw the mails into the van that is to take them and you on to Ayr, and listen to them joking about the events of the previous night as if it were now really morning. You tell everybody what you think about Scottish common sense in not having a fire in any waiting-room and no place available for any refreshment, and the Scots themselves are too courteous to say what they must think of your common sense for a golfer in making this journey in this weird way. Then you get into a smelly, dirty carriage, and with jerks and jolts the train drags itself out of the station and slowly away along the line. Stop, stop, stop every two or three miles, but at last it is Ayr, and the worn-out golfer, cursing himself for his folly and others for their heathenism, gets out and steps forth into the land of Burns. But it is yet only a little past five o'clock, and all Ayr is fast asleep, and there are no fires, no refreshments, and no ways of getting to Prestwick just yet. This is to be a golfer! But all things end sometime except eternity, and at last you are at Prestwick, and the finest thing you ever did in your life was then to keep your first ball straight and uninfluenced by the gravestones in the churchyard, and to squeeze a heartening if a little fluky 3 at this first hole. My reader, be assured that the night train through Carlisle, and changing there and at Dumfries, is not the way to go to the west coast of Scotland where are Prestwick and Troon. Run through to Glasgow and down again, as indeed everybody but those crazy people who are always finding new ways of doing things, always do.

But generally night-travelling is an excellent thing when you get used to it, and it spares a day to golf. It is a fine thing to pack your bag of clubs away lovingly in your berth after a dinner at the London terminus, and before you turn off the light you look at them and think a "Good-night!" to them in a cheery way as of old and trusted companionship. "Off again, my friends!" you seem to say. "We have done this sort of thing before, eh ? We know what we are going to do, you and I, eh? Yes, you are the fellows. Bonny boys, you are! Where ? Didn't you know ? Why, North Berwick, of course! Now, bye-bye! Let's sleep. Play in the morning." And then you switch off the light, and slip away into dreamland where there are glorious holes on seaside courses, and presently there is a big thump on the door and that dream is spoiled and dispelled by a man's gruff voice. But the next moment is one of those most worth living. The dream is realised or is in the realisation, for the caller brings you to your joyful senses by declaring that in fifteen more minutes you will be wheeling into Edinburgh. In those dreams which were helped by a soothing lullaby from the wheels below, the London was slipping away four hundred miles from the tail of the train, and here is Golf, its own rare land.