You always find that a golfer is very much the better for a short season on a very windy course. When he goes back to his home course, very likely inland and protected, driving seems such a simple, easy thing, and he lets out at his tee shots with a freedom and a certainty which make for a greater boldness and strength in his game. North Berwick is one of the windiest courses. You do get wind there in the spring months, and there are hundreds of golfers who testify to the good that a short stay there has done to their game. They have simply got to learn to golf in all kinds of winds. It is like throwing a non-swimmer into seven feet of water with only a thin piece of rope round his middle. He very soon invents a way of making greater security and comfort for himself. Stay at North Berwick long enough, and it may affect your style for life. Mr. Robert Maxwell has a peculiar punching, but withal very powerful style, which is attributed to his upbringing at North Berwick. A man disposed to probe very deep down for causes and effects might arrive at the conclusion that the reason why, speaking very generally, there are better players and better courses, and more of each on the east coast of Scotland than on the west, is because it happens that the links there are more exposed, and there are more windy days upon them than on those on the other side of the country. Not that there are not big winds very frequently to be dealt with in the neighbourhood of Troon and Prestwick, which surely have their full share, and it was at a championship at Prestwick that old Willie Park delivered himself of his famous remark, "Guid God! When I get ma club up I carina get it doon again!" so strongly was the wind blowing on that occasion.

VII

In the spring the professionals come tumbling on to the stage of golf once more with their happy welcome cry, "Here we are again." Sometimes in the middle of the summer season people are apt to say that we get at least enough of these professional competitions, and that it would be agreeable if we had a little more time to think of our own golf in all its varied charm, instead of our attention being invited day by day to the many permutations and combinations of "the quartette" in exhibition matches, and the aspirations of such as Jones among those next to them. But what a dull season it would be if Vardon and Braid were not up against Taylor and Herd somewhere or other - it does not matter where -just as in the olden time, or Herd and Braid did not show once again at the little course of Slocum - on - Mudbury that there was something wrong with their running in that never-to-be-forgotten foursome when four hundred sovereigns were at stake. And then when Rowland Jones is included in one of these foursome combinations, we say, quite pleased, "Ha, Jones is coming on! Jones is going to assert himself! "One day Jack White is in again - that happy-hearted Jack, who came by a great championship in 1904 at Sandwich, where records were falling in every round - and then we say to ourselves very good-naturedly, "I hope Jack will get on to his drive again in one of these matches!" Or the fourth man may be Tom Vardon, and that is very interesting, because Tom is a great big sportsman who is stuffed tight with the effervescing joy of life. If it is Andrew Kirkaldy, as it is occasionally, we rub our hands and observe, "Grand matchplayer is Sam! Now we shall see how a foursome should be played! Good as the best is Sam!"

The fact of the matter is, that these professional matches and competitions are now a fast and integral part of our golfing system. We may think that we could do without them, and in the summer-time we rail constantly against them, and say that they never would be missed. But how we should miss them! Golfing life would not be the same if there were not occasions to make such almost daily observations as those just quoted. The season would be without salt, and our little amateur combats would seem to be lacking in an unknown stimulus that was always there before.

Then what a void in golfing life would there be if there were not constant occasion to express admiration for the supremacy and the prowess of the triumvirate - Harry Vardon, Braid, and Taylor. When we are too frequently told of the achievement and the skill of the heroes of the olden time, it is well to think of what the triumvirate has done and still can do. Perhaps not many golfers, even among those who pay faithful attention to such matters, have a proper sense of the amazing record of these three men. I had occasion to analyse it lately, and I believe not in any other sport have the periods of three such champions coincided as they have done in golf during the last few years. It is a strange thing that the fates should have pitchforked Braid, Vardon, and Taylor into the arena at the same time, each man being so much above all outside the three. It is as if Ormonde, Donovan, and Flying Fox had been in the same race for the Derby. In one sense it seems a waste of exceptional talent on one period, to the possible impoverishment of another, but golf spectators and players should appreciate the advantage of the times in which they live, for it is unlikely that three such golfers will ever be to the fore at the same time again after these three have gone their way, and it is as certain as anything that a hundred years from now the golf world will speak reverently of the great triumvirate of the early days of the twentieth century. It will certainly be remembered that after this triumvirate had been established eleven years in each other's company, they wound up a championship first, second, and third against the biggest field that had ever contested a championship, this being at Muirfield in 1906. Three times in those eleven years the triumvirate collectively achieved the highest possible distinction in this way, the first being in 1900, which was Taylor's year, the second in 1901, when Braid won, and the third in 1906, when Braid was again successful. Taylor was the first of the three to show activity, and he won the championship in 1894 and 1895. Not until 1896 was the triumvirate definitely constituted, as it were, by the whole three, Vardon, Taylor, and Braid appearing in the championship at the same time. In that year Vardon finished first, Taylor second, and Braid sixth. In the following year Braid, in the second place in the lists, was the foremost man of the three. Then there was a remarkable run, for the triumvirate found the winner in seven of the next nine years. Vardon scored twice running to begin with; then Taylor and Braid; in 1902 Vardon and Braid tied for second place; the next year Vardon was first again; Taylor and Braid tied for second position in 1904, and this was followed by two championships for Braid. Only three times in eleven years did the triumvirate let the championship go out of their small circle, and it may be mentioned that the three men who beat them on these respective occasions were Mr. Hilton in 1897, Herd in 1902, and Jack White in 1904.