One more finish in the University match may be recorded, that in 1896, the last of the series ever played on classic Wimbledon Common. The match was halved, and though there were eight players a side and the reckoning was by holes, the total score on either side was but four. Both sides were good that year, a great deal better, unless I am getting into my dotage, than they have been in many years since, although there are now so many more players.

Mr. Darwin was the first Cambridge man. He was so surprised and delighted at beating Mr. Bob Mitchell, a very good golfer in those days, by two and one, that he lost the last hole from lightness of heart. It was a dreadful example and followed with dreadful unanimity by the next six Cambridge men. Some of them were not to blame. Mr. Beckford, for instance, could not help himself when the late Mr. W. A. Henderson holed his pitch for a two. Still, this miserable little hole-no more than a 'kick and spit'-cost us too many fives. We were three holes down with one match to play, but in that match Mr. Hillyard of Cambridge was three up on the late Mr. Ronny Mitchell. He put his second to the last hole within a yard of the pin, Mr. Mitchell played three and still was about three yards away. He holed out in the two more like a stout-hearted golfer. Mr. Hillyard played rather too cautiously and the ball dribbled towards the hole, then fell away to the left and refused to go in. And so the hole and the match were halved, and smash went the late Sir George Newnes's umbrella on the flinty turf of Wimbledon.

Finally, though I hesitate to describe any game of my own in such good company, I did once take part -a very inglorious part-in an historic finish, and here it is to make a cheerful ending to the chapter. In 1910, at Hoylake, Mr. Horace Hutchinson and I met in the second round of the Championship. At the end of eighteen holes we were all square and went to the nineteenth. I had a moderate drive, he a good one well down to the left and clear of the corner. I played the odd and topped the ball hard into the turf wall which guards the out-of-bounds field, so that it fell back into the sandy ditch. Mr. Hutchinson, having about ten ways at his disposal of winning the hole, elected to try to lose it. He took a brassy and sliced out of bounds-the wind was blowing straight on his back. He dropped another ball and put that out too. At the third attempt he got well down the course, but not as far as the green. That was four. So far he had been the hero of the story. Now comes my turn. I ploughed my ball out of the ditch in three, and might with a really good cleek or spoon shot just reach the green. If I played safe I might hope for a half in seven, which would have been a direct gift from Providence. Being impiously greedy, being also no doubt in a state of some mental anxiety, I did not play safe, but went for the green with a driving mashie, and the wind blew the ball out of bounds. I had another shot with the driving mashie and the wind blew that ball out of bounds. I had a third shot with a precisely similar result. Then having no more ammunition I gave up the battle. 'And you two,' said Mr. Angus Hambro as we walked in, 'set up to teach people how to play golf!'