This chapter would be both unchivalrous and incomplete without some allusion to mixed foursomes. I do not mean a foursome in which an ordinary man, trembling at the honour done him, is led out like a lamb to the slaughter to play with some such mighty golferess as Miss Cecil Leitch. I am thinking rather of the everyday mixed foursome in which the man, bad as he may be, is yet not so bad as his partner and will have to shoulder most of the responsibility and hard slogging. I have not a very large experience, but once by the aid of an admirable partner and a liberal handicap I defeated a rather effeminate Bogey and won a silver match-box. On that happy occasion, and also on others, I came to this rather ungallant conclusion-that the lady does her full duty if she hits her tee shots straight and into the air and putts steadily. Through the green she should adopt a negative policy; it is of paramount importance that she should do as little mischief as possible. This is not so ungenerous a remark as it appears, because the way of the average lady through the green on a long difficult course must be a very hard one. She is very much at the mercy of the lies she gets. She may be intrinsically quite as good a golfer as her partner, but if she gets a cuppy lie, or a heavy or a hanging one, she often has not the strength to tear the ball away. In such circumstances she is apt to top. With his lady partner in a bad lie and a cross-bunker in front, the man should consider whether he dare suggest playing short or round. If he dare not, let him close his eyes and pray : it is the only resource left to him. His own task is not an easy one. He must cover all the distance he possibly can and yet he too must keep out of trouble, for once a lady (and again I am not talking of champions and their like) gets into a bunker, she is apt to stay there. Even as a large tail may seem to wag a small clog, so does a heavy niblick swing a weak-wristed lady.

A mixed foursome of not too severe a kind is best arranged on the basis that each sex shall drive from its own tees. If a lady drives from the men's tees there will almost certainly be some holes, particularly against the wind, where she will have to take a mashie shot from the tee or go for an impossible carry. The first plan deprives her of her legitimate share of fun and makes the purpose of winning disproportionately important: the second means hard labour with the niblick for her partner. I think many of us scarcely realise what a difference forward tees make and what crushed worms we should feel if we were put back to tees suited only to a giant. It is an illuminating fact that four set matches have been played between teams of very good male amateurs and proportionately good ladies. Three have been played at Stoke Poges. The men gave the odds of half a stroke, and both parties drove from the men's tees. I feel bound to add that these tees were not selected with any mistaken chivalry, but with the notion of making the course as difficult as might be. In each of those three matches the men won against almost the full strength of female golf. How they did it I do not know, though I took part in the triumph. We always expected to be beaten, but somehow we were not. In the fourth match, on the other hand, which took place at Worplesdon, the ladies received no strokes but played from forward tees specially made for the occasion.

How far forward depended on the length of the hole, and at the eleventh hole, over five hundred yards long, they had a start of more than a hundred yards. This time the ladies won and, as far as I could judge, came far nearer to playing their own proper game, the wonderfully good game that they play against one another in their own Championships. As a body they have never played nearly up to their form in the Stoke matches, because they were doubly overpowered from the tee by the length of their enemies'hitting and the length of the carries they had to attempt.

This is not written in an arrogant spirit. I intend rather to implant humility in my own breast and those of other men. When we are long enough and strong enough to get over a bunker easily, we have nothing to grow conceited over because we hit a good tee shot. But when we know that our best tee shot will only get over by inches rather than feet, then it is the devil and all. We do not even do our puny best. Let us take the moral to heart against our next mixed foursome.