And, again, when a player finds himself winning his match with so much ease that the match itself has really very little interest for him, if any at all, when he is playing well and his opponent's game has gone completely to the dogs, it is surely pardonable for him to concentrate his chief attention upon his score for the round, so long as he does not do it obtrusively, and does nothing to indicate to his opponent that he has other things in mind besides the question as to whether he shall achieve victory at the twelfth or thirteenth hole. It is simply a matter of common sense and good manners, and all scores should be kept mentally, and should not be spoken of until the round is over. The keeping of a score will often urge a man to greater effort and the display of greater skill in a particular emergency, and will thus tend to the improvement of his game. Nearly all players of great skill and long experience agree that there is nothing in the world like much score play for the betterment of the golfer. It strengthens the sense of responsibility, and of the need for the utmost concentration of thought and effort upon every shot that is made, and when a golfer has taught himself to do this he has gone a long way towards the achievement of that severe self-discipline which is an essential characteristic of the good and sound player whose game has always to be feared. It is because they have not that self-discipline and have not cultivated that sense of responsibility, that the majority of amateurs are absolutely terrorised by a card and rendered incapable even of playing anything like their real game. They do not so much fear to make a bad shot when it will only mean a lost hole, which may be won back five minutes later; but it is a different thing when the bad shot may cost three strokes, which have to enter into the final reckoning. Yet the bad shot is equally bad in either case and ought to be equally regretted, but is not. And if an amateur does not keep some mental account of his score when engaged in matches, he has scarcely any other opportunity of practising medal play, since it is not customary and is not desirable that pairs should go out together matched with each other on the strokes for the round and not on holes.

Apart from the objections which have been urged against it, and which it has been suggested may not be quite so well founded as some people appear to think, one is inclined to fancy that in many cases one of the drawbacks to the continual counting of one's score is the inclination that is bred in the player to self-deception, and in the course of our golf we come across many curious instances of it. The simplest and most frequent is the waiving of the lost stroke for a stymie. If the player's ball is within two feet of the hole when the stymie is laid him, it may be legitimate enough for him to reckon that if he had been engaged in pure score play he would have holed the putt that he was in the actual circumstances unable to hole, and therefore to deduct a stroke from the actual number taken on the round. But in the weakness of their human nature many who are thus engaged in score counting go much farther than this in giving themselves the benefits of doubts. It is difficult or impossible for them to draw any line between that which it was very likely they would do and that which they might possibly do. If for the purposes of their score they give themselves the two-feet putt which they would have holed but for the stymie, then surely there can be no objection to giving themselves a thirty-inch putt, and if that, then one also at a yard, and a yard and a half- two yards, three yards, four. And, pursuing this process of self-cheating, you will find the golfer submitting it to himself that he may count it as one stroke to get down, when he is fifteen or twenty feet from the hole, on the reasoning that many a time in his life before he had holed such putts, and was certain to do so again, so why not this time?

This is but one of the many frauds that players are brought to practise upon themselves in their yearning for a good round. Have we not known them to give themselves a four or five feet putt when their opponents had already given up the hole, because, though they had the time and opportunity for making the stroke, they were afraid thai they might miss it, and so spoil that nice score which they were building up? They say to themselves that if they did putt it they would be certain to succeed, so what matter. And worse still is the case of the man who goes up to his ball in such a circumstance and putts at it, perhaps with one hand, pretending to himself that he is not trying! Yet if the ball goes in he feels a wholesome satisfaction of having done his duty by his card; and if it does not go in he still counts it as having done so, because it would have done if he had tried properly. There is also the case of the other man who, having missed such a putt by half an inch, perhaps unluckily, makes a bargain with himself that if he can do that putt immediately and successfully four times one after the other, he will count it to him after all, having thus proved that it was well within the scope of his ability, and that his first failure was an accident and not likely to occur again. And I have heard of men who, counting their scores, and having obtained a lie of most exceptional badness after a good shot, have declined to include in their mental reckoning the fruitless stroke that followed, on the ground that the chances of their getting such a lie in a medal round were a thousand to one against!

Strangest case of all, I once played with a man who told me at the end of his round what a good score he had done, and proceeded to detail the figures 455 3,etc. "But," I said, "you were in the bunker at the first hole and took 6." "Yes," he said, "but in counting my score I always give myself a 4 at the first hole, no matter what I take; because, don't you see, if I were out to make the best return possible, as if trying to break a record, I culd play the first hole two or three times, if necessary, until I got my par 4, and then go on with that round. I would be giving up the round each time when I failed, and starting a fresh round; so, you see, the 4 at the first is always certain, and so I always count it, whatever I do." I saw.