Mr. Hilton won two Open Championships and, only through one dreadful disaster at a single hole, just failed to win a third before he ever won the Amateur Championship. That is a curious record, and it may possibly be responsible for his going down to posterity as a bad match player. If it does it will do him some injustice. That he could not, or at any rate he did not, play well in matches against Mr. Tait is indisputable. Most golfers have some player who establishes an ascendancy over them but the general public is none the wiser. This particular instance was conspicuous because the two ran into one another so often. Leaving it on one side, I do not think that there were ever many people over anxious to meet Mr. Hilton in a match, save only in this sense that one has a better chance against a better player than oneself in an eighteen-hole match than in thirty-six or seventy-two holes with a card and pencil. Mr. Hilton does not look exuberantly happy at the finish of a hard match, but neither do most other people, and he has played some very great shots, especially with those wooden clubs of his, at extraordinarily unpleasant moments. Take, just as one instance, his last two holes in the Championship of 1901 against Mr. Low at St. Andrews, after being pulled down from five up to all square. Whether if Mr. Hilton had a mind less quick and imaginative he would have been a more successful golfer than he has been, is an open question. Personally I doubt it very much. I think that what he has lost on the swings he has gained on the roundabouts: nor would I exchange the highly-strung player, who can take a grip of himself, for Sir Walter Simpson's 'sallow dull-eyed fellow with a quid in his cheek.' At any rate the fact that Mr. Hilton has some degree of 'temperament'has given him a very clear knowledge of what is going on in his opponent's head and made him a very human golfer.

With Mr. Robert Maxwell and the late Mr. Jack Graham we come to two golfers of whom their friends will always declare that the best of them has never been seen in public. This is of course especially true of Mr. Graham, who never won a Championship, but it is also true of Mr. Maxwell who has won two. The best rounds that he has ever played have been, as we are told, when he was playing the best of some three or four balls round North Berwick or Muirfield in a friendly game. No golfer has ever established a more complete reign of terror among his friends, nor has been regarded by them with a more whole-hearted admiration. A great many people say they hate crowds and championships, but if a crowd will look at them they are not so very ill-pleased after all ; but Mr. Maxwell has a thoroughly genuine dislike to all the fuss and the ropes and the stewards and the reporters and the cheers and the speeches and everything else to do with a big match. Yet he has done great things despite them all, hardening his heart to go through with it, and fighting his way along with a resolute and glowering air. When he gets away with a lead he can be impeccable and irresistible for long, long spells at a time. When he played Mr. Ball at Muir-field in the International Match of 1903, the day after he had won the Championship, he was a relentless Juggernaut trampling down all before him. And as to his Championship match of 1909 against Major Hutchison, there have been few better finishes at a pinch than his three and four for the last two holes at Muirfield in a wind.

Mr. Maxwell's game presents some striking contrasts. His long game is forceful and almost brutal : no one plays a more formidable 'dunch ' with the driving iron nor excises a larger divot from the hapless turf. Yet when he gets near the hole he reveals himself the possessor of a fine touch, and a certain shot, with which he strokes-it is the only word-the ball out of a bunker, used to be called his 'Pussy-cat' shot. In this respect he is a little like another strong man and strong player, Edward Ray, but the resemblance is quite superficial. There is really no player that I know of in the least like Mr. Maxwell, and I doubt if there ever will be.

Mr. Graham's death still seems so recent that it is difficult to write about him, nor shall I try to allocate him an exact place in the roll of golfers. With his hands held very far back, the right foot far forward and the curious little jump on to his toes before taking back the club, his is a wonderfully clear picture that can be summoned at will. If Mr. Graham had ever won the Championship, not only Hoylake but the whole golfing world would have overflowed with rejoicings, and, delightfully modest though he was, I have no doubt he knew this perfectly well and it made things harder for him. The way in which year after year he would annihilate some wretched Englishman in the International Match and then fade away towards the end of the Championship was really heart-breaking, but there never could be a better loser. One sometimes fancied that he felt a kind of relief when, his own match being over, he plunged unselfishly and energetically into the duties of a fore caddie to some other match. He seemed never really to watch a match ; he just marked down the two balls from tee shots and then raced forward again.

That Mr. Graham was a very wonderful player is sure, and when we think of what he did and might have done we must always remember how comparatively little golf he played. He worked hard all the week : there is no Sunday golf at Hoylake, and moreover he played other games besides golf and played them very well. I should doubt if, except at the time of a Championship, he ever played anything like a week's continuous golf. If he had not been so typically an amateur, he would no doubt have left a bigger mark in the records of big events ; but whatever he might have done, he never could have left a more unforgettable or pleasanter memory. To these sketches of nine British amateurs-there are some more to come-I am inclined to add here one of a very interesting American player, Mr. Jerome Travers. Of Mr. Ouimet, whom I saw beat Vardon and Ray in 1913, I shall say something in another chapter. In that same year I watched Mr. Travers win the American Amateur Championship at Garden City, and it was one of the most remarkable possible achievements. It was not remarkable that he should win, for he was a strong favourite and had been playing very well. But it is remarkable for a man to win a championship who for the time being not only dare not use his wooden clubs from the tee, but is suffering from a bad attack of 'socketing ' with his mashie. This was Mr. Travers's case. He began by only qualifying in the score play rounds by the skin of his teeth. In every match he played he hit one or two mashie shots towards cover point off the extreme heel of his mashie, and whenever he had a try with a wooden club he hooked the ball 'round his neck.' Yet he won in a field of good players-and we know now how good American amateurs are-and won pretty comfortably. It was a supreme display of putting and resolution. I have never seen such putting, unless it was that of Mr. Travis at Sandwich in 1904, nor any better match-playing. No man keeps a tighter hold on himself than Mr. Travers: he is determination not to be beaten personified. Yet with all his concentration he plays tricks that are audacious. Though he could not get on with his wooden clubs he was always anxious to have one more try, and in some of his matches, as soon as he got a short lead, out would come the errant driver. This generally resulted in the lead being diminished or even vanishing altogether, and then Mr. Travers would very calmly and philosophically put away the driver and batter the ball once more down the fairway with his heavy iron. It is always dangerous to play cat and mouse with an opponent. It is very unsettling to most people's game to try experiments with clubs in the middle of a match; the well-behaved club, that is put away for a few holes, is apt to prove sulky and resentful and behave well no longer. A golfer who can run both these risks must have a serene confidence and a power of putting at will disturbing considerations out of mind. Mr. Travers has both these gifts in a high degree. No one's nerve is always proof, and Mr. Travers had a surprising collapse in our Amateur Championship of 1914; but though as a player of strokes he has obvious limitations, as a player of matches he is an astonishing person.