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Show GOLF ABOUT LONDON. Golfers, even of the present generation, can look back to the time when the royal and ancient game was unknown in London Lon-don except to the devoted few who wandered wan-dered in red coat over the commons of Blackheath and Wimbledon a wonder to the average man. and a terror to nurses and babies. Today Indon la surrounded by a network of golf links. - You cannot leave the metropolis by any line of railway rail-way without seeing as soon as you reach the green fringe of the suburbs the little red flags in the center of new-mown plot of grass which indicate the presence of the golfer. There are upward of 16.000 names on the lists of golf clubs In and about London, where In 1890 the man who played golf was generally regarded as either a harmless lunatic or as one who was long past his prime. The reason for the sudden development undoubtedly lies in the fact that, whether or not golf la to be regarded as a serious form of athletics (there are still those who labor under the mistaken idea that neither muscle nor staying power Is -necessary for the game). It Is most emphatically emphat-ically the only game yet Invented which can be played by all sorts and conditions of men, from the first childhood to the second, and It 1 above all, adapted to life In a great city, where a man needs good exercise yet cannot take it In too violent a form. Tennis does not meet the case at all. It can be played in the city Itself, and does not of necessity take one Into the onen country. It la too violent for men who can only get one day' practice prac-tice in the week. It Is a game where players of different classes cannot be brought together with any satisfaction. Lastly. It Is far more monotonous than golf. One court is very much like another, an-other, whereas at golf not' only doe one hole differ from another, but every separate sepa-rate course has Its special efature and problems. A golfer living In London could have his day's golf every week If he cared so to arrange It and never play twice In the year upon the same course. It Is this Infinite variety which is the soul of golf, and accounts for the fact that whereas men take up cricket, and polo, and tennis, and afterward drop them for one reason or another, not one man in a hundred who really take up golf will ever, give It up so long ss he can walk round the links. London Standard. |