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OT long ago a young woman entered a shop where golfing goods are sold and asked the salesman to make her up a set of clubs, as she intended to go in for golf in earnest. The shopkeeper handed her a beautifully balanced driver, with the remark that it was a new model and especially designed for ladies' use.

"But I don't want a lady's club," explained the young woman, indignantly. "I am going to play real golf over the men's course, and I want a man's club to do it with."

Well, of course she got what she wanted, but in getting it she probably threw away at the outset whatever chance she might have had of playing "real golf." And now for the moral of this profitable little tale.

Golf is one of the few games in which men and women can meet, if not on equal, at least on interesting, terms. In tennis, on the other hand, there can be no real sport unless the players are tolerably well matched in strength and skill. Otherwise the winner makes all his points through his adversary's weakness; and the essence of sport is to score by one's own skill. There is no sort of handicap that

can even up this difference, for each service of the ball is a game in itself, and all the interest depends upon its being well and closely fought out. Tennis is not and never can be a sport in which the average man and the average woman can meet in real competition. Can they do so in golf? Yes; for there is a vital difference in principle between golf and tennis. In the former game each player uses his own ball, and his play is not affected by his opponent's errors. Consequently a golfer is really playing two games-to beat himself or his best record, and to win the match in hand. The interest may lie in either direction, and, if necessary, we may impart it to the actual match by allowing the weaker player some handicap points. This device makes the task of the strong player a more difficult one; he must play up if he is to win, and consequently the interest is assured, even though the conditions were at the start unequal. It is upon the application of this principle that real sport at golf is possible between players of widely differing skill. And this brings us back to our text-What sort of "real golf " can a woman expect to play?

It is only within a comparatively few years that women were supposed to play

golf at all; and their position abroad is still largely a matter of sufferance. It was customary at one time in England and Scotland to set aside a small portion of the regular links to be used as a woman's course, a sort of "Jews' quarter," as it were. The holes were necessarily of the shortest, varying from seventy-five yards down to ten; but the aspirations of the feminine golfer were supposed to be confined to the noble exercise of putting. Nowadays the British maids and matrons have clubs and courses of their own, and also enjoy more extended privileges on the "close preserves" of their husbands and brothers. But many of the old "putting courses are still in existence, that at St. Andrews being run as a regular club and having its own officers and dues.

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In this country the feminine golfer has received due consideration from the very start; but then it must be remembered that golf in the United States owes a great deal to women. One of the largest and bestknown clubs in the country, the Morris County, of Morristown, New Jersey, was originally start

(Yonkers), the women players are restricted to certain days in the week, and at many of the popular and overcrowded courses the men have exclusive rights on Saturdays and holidays. The one prominent exception to this general rule is the Shinnecock Hills Club on Long Island.

The Shinnecock Hills Club was one of the first to be organized in this country, and its promoters naturally modeled it, so far as possible, upon Old World lines. And so, after they had laid out their regular course, they added an entirely separate one of nine holes, to be known as the

MISS BEATRIX HOYT Woman Golf Champion of the United States 1896, '97, '98. Courtesy of "Golf."

ed and managed by women alone; and women have had a very considerable part in the organizing and maintenance of the thousand and one other clubs at which golf is now played. So far as I know, there is but one club in the country which does not admit women to some kind of membership privilege, and that has just been organized out at Chicago, and has yet to demonstrate its fitness to survive.

In the vast majority of American clubs men and women hold membership on virtually equal terms, and the latter have, consequently, been entitled from the beginning to the use of the full or regular course. In some cases, as at St. Andrews

"red" course, and intended for the use of the feminine and junior members. No woman could play regularly over the "white" or full course until she had qualified by making the "red" course three separate times in certain minimum figures. It should be said that the "red" course is not a mere succession of putting-holes, the links varying from two hundred yards down to seventyfive.

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The results of this system are interesting. One of the "graduates" of the "red" course is Miss Beatrix Hoyt, for three years holder of the woman's championship; and among the other members of the club we may note the names of Mrs. Charles Brown (winner of the first women's contest at Meadowbrook, 1895) and Mrs. Arthur Turnure (silver medalist at Morris County in 1896). But of even more significance is the fact that the "red" course is soon to be enlarged and rearranged under the direct supervision of the women players themselves. It will be the only distinctive golf course for women in the country, and it may be worth while to inquire into the reason for its existence.

The young woman at the golf-shop

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THE FIRST AMERICAN WOMAN'S CHAMPIONSHIP
Morris County Club, 1897.

seemed to think that "real golf" could
be played only with men's clubs-tools
which, however good in themselves, are
not adapted in length and weight to the
average feminine physique. This fallacy
of over-clubbing is an old one. Every
beginner, man or woman, invariably starts
off with clubs that are far too heavy to be
swung with comfort. The well-built man
insists that his strength entitles him to
the use of an extra heavy club; and, con-
versely, the undersized individual argues
that he must have more lead in his club-
head to make up for his lack of muscle.
It is upon this line of reasoning that we
constantly see young boys and women
playing with clubs that must feel like
weaver's beams to their delicately sinewed
wrists.

Now, it is a truism that the flight of the golf-ball depends only in small measure upon the weight of the blow; the really important factors are the accuracy and speed with which the stroke is delivered. Within limits, the lightest club will drive the longest ball. What folly, then, for the woman of average physique to expect to play" real golf" with instruments unsuited to her height and strength! She is only handicapping herself by the attempt.

Everybody is agreed that skill counts for more at golf than mere strength. For

the purpose of argument, let us admit that a woman can hold her own with a man, when once within the approaching limit where strength counts for virtually nothing. An infant can hole a six-inch putt quite as easily as does the Hercules, and perhaps more successfully. Let us say that, at seventy-five yards from the hole, Miss Lofter is just as likely to hole out in the regulation "three off the iron " as is her partner, the long-driving Mr. McMashie. It is in the long game, then, that we must look for the odds, if the latter exist at all.

Miss Beatrix Hoyt can outdrive, on the average, seven out of ten of her ordinary masculine rivals. She has acquired the knack of getting the ball away clean, and can count upon an average distance of one hundred and twenty to one hundred and sixty yards. Against this sort of knack brute strength has no show whatever. But let Miss Hoyt be matched against Mr. Findlay Douglas, and what happens? Miss Hoyt hits the ball clean, and gets, let us say, a carry and roll of one hundred and sixty yards-her best ball. does the same thing, and drives over two hundred yards. Up to a certain point, skill may equalize matters, but after that it is simply a question of muscle. The amateur champion of Great Britain is credited with a drive that (carefully meas

Douglas

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FINALS AT PORTRUSH IN THE WOMAN'S CHAMPIONSHIP OF ENGLAND, 1895

Lady Margaret Scott (Champion in 93, 94, and '95) and Miss Lottie Dodd (ex-Tennis Champion).

ured) was a few inches over three hundred and forty-one yards. No feminine No feminine golf-player has ever come within one hundred and fifty yards of that record, or ever will, so long as men are men and

women women.

But we must look for the average and not for the exception. First-class driving, from the masculine standpoint, may be anything over one hundred and sixty yards, and it will be fair to place the average good "carry" at one hundred and forty yards. Now, excluding the duffers of both sexes, how many feminine players may be fairly counted as coming up to

very few American courses that are anyways near perfection, and they have all been developed from small beginnings. When the Morris County course was first opened for play, there were five holes laid out across the well-known "Punch-bowl." The longest of them was only a drive and a wrist shot, but as all were duffers together it did not make much difference. Now there are but three holes over the same territory, and there has been some talk of giving even these up, as not affording the highest test of golfing ability. All this goes to show that our American courses are being gradually conformed to first

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this average standard of one hundred and forty yards of loft? At the championship meeting in 1897 Miss Madeline Boardman won the long-driving competition by a carry and roll of 137 yards 6 inches, and Miss Hoyt drove 131 yards 7 inches. At Ardsley, last October, the victor in the same competition was Mrs. Edward Manice with 134 yards 14 inches. Well, granting that my point is made, what does it prove?

Simply, then, that it is the average standard of play that must be taken into account in the laying out and subsequent development of the first-class golf-course, and this average cannot be the same for both men and women players. Now, there are but

class standards, and this implies rearrangement of the holes, not in length alone, but in the position of the hazards. And for these changes it is inevitable that the masculine average will alone be taken into

account.

The St. George course at Sandwich, England, is famous for its long carries from the tee. Many of them require of the player his very best ball, and, of course, one must carry them or lose in strokes. What can the woman player do under such circumstances? She must either run the almost certain chance of being bunkered, or she must take a weaker club and play short of the hazard. And this last (when habitually practiced) is not "real golf."

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