When the number of Scotchmen who have crossed the Atlantic is fully considered, it is rather surprising that the royal and ancient game should have been imported so recently as 1890 or thereabouts. It was really two years later that a genuine interest in golf was aroused by the organizing of clubs for the purpose of its propagation; and the United States Golf Association has only been in existence for three seasons.

Once started, however, the devotion to the game became almost a craze. At the time of writing nearly a hundred clubs have joined the association, and the number will in all probability be doubled in the course of the next twelve months. To an Englishman, who, in the last decade, has seen innumerable golf courses spring up like mushrooms over every county in Great Britain, the membership of the association may appear disappointingly small. But when it is remembered that it is as easy, from a financial point of view, to form a hundred clubs in England as it is to place one on a firm basis in America, the strides made by the association in the short period of three years must be taken to indicate a love of the pastime which far exceeds the ordinary short lived boom so often accorded to any new fad in this country.

The Difficulties To Be Overcome

The difficulties of securing a suitable course, and of maintaining it when secured, can hardly be realized by any one who has been accustomed to find golf links ready made along the coast of Great Britain. Since most courses in America are of necessity inland, and since the very best soil can only yield the requisite quality of turf, the land which is bought by an incipient golf club, instead of being practically worthless for any other purpose, as is so often the case in Scotland, has a very high value as farming property. In the second place, the business instincts of the average American make it incumbent upon him to seek his amusement within a thirty-mile radius of his down-town office; and, as every one knows, vacant lots within such a radius of any large city are ruinously expensive. And so it is no uncommon thing for a golf club to pay down $50,000 in hard cash before a ball is struck.

And that is only the beginning. You may get two hundred acres of fine old pasture, perfectly drained and full of natural hazards. You are far more likely to find the drainage conspicuous by its absence, the difficulties and obstacles of a kind that have to be removed at a considerable cost, the grass deficient both in quantity and quality. On inland courses you generally have to sod your putting greens, you certainly have to cut your bunkers, and you are fortunate if you do not find it necessary to root out a hundred acres of virgin forest. Even so, the battle is but half over. A steam roller must be purchased to remedy the effects of a severe winter's frost, and in the west, at least, a water system which will cost you upwards of $5,000 under the most favorable circumstances, is absolutely essential to the proper enjoyment of the game. Add to this the minor fact that in the summer months you will probably run over the entire course with close cutting mowing machines, and you will have some conception of what it costs to purchase and keep links in America in first-rate condition.

Necessary Expenditure

By this enumeration of expenses I do not mean to strike terror into the hearts of any struggling green committee who would disband at once if such a sum as $100,000, or even a tenth part of it, were declared to be the minimum basis of calculations. If your aims are modest, you may start your golfing career on a much smaller capital; you may lay out a nine-hole course to begin with, and be content to make your improvements very slowly. My intention is simply to point out that unless you are very favorably situated, as you might be, for instance, on Long Island, where the soil is sandy and bunkers are natural, you cannot get an eighteen-hole course into first-class condition in the short space of two or three years, and at the same time build and maintain a suitable club house without an outlay which will involve the expenditure of a sum very little short of $100,000.

The Advantages Of A Good House

The club house, it may be remarked in passing, is a very necessary part of the scheme; for in order to get the required list of members it is necessary before anything else to supply those ordinary comforts and luxuries which will make up to the influential member for the tribulation that he goes through in trying to learn a game which he has not yet begun to love for its own sake. The history of golf clubs in this country is a constant repetition of the same story in that respect. The club is generally started by the enthusiastic few who want to play the game. In order to attain their ends they inveigle a number of their companions into subscribing for the purchase of the house and ground. There is no question about the loyalty of these laymen if they can only be induced to give the game a fair trial. But there is always a period of trepidation when they have learned to complain to the house committee, but have not yet become interested in their scores to the exclusion of every other interest in life.

Somewhere in his philosophical writings Mr. Punch tells a young wife that the best way to deal with a husband is simply to feed the brute. I would not go so far as that in plainness of speech, but I do consider it most important for the welfare of a new golf club, that those members whose subscriptions are desirable and whose golfing enthusiasm is not yet fully developed, should be brought into the fold by a nice regard for their personal comforts.

Taking everything into consideration, then, I hardly think that I have Overestimated the sum which a new club must spend before it possesses a first-class course. Whether that sum should be spent at once, or spread over a number of years, is entirely a matter for the committee upon ways and means to decide. The main thing to be desired is that the members of the club should not shut their eyes to the facts of the case. For if they are misled into thinking that they can obtain the required results in a less expensive way, they are not only deceiving themselves, but they will probably waste a large amount of money in half measures. Work slowly if you will, but always keep the main end in view, so that whatever improvements you do decide upon may have a permanent value.