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Show GOLF A DISEASE SAYS ATHERTON (By Mark Allorton.) I do not think that very many people peo-ple become golfers because of a fixed determination or mollce aforethought. A few, indeed, do because their doctors doc-tors tell them to. or because golf Is tho fashion or hecauso (and those arc the rarest) thej realize that, of all games, golf presents the greatest number of opportunities for enjoyment enjoy-ment Tho rost lako to golf as some people take to drink. They arc Induced to play a stioke or two, and theso strokes lead to a round, and that round to many rounds; and before the victim knows where he Is. all that matters to him in heaven aj'ove, or earth beneath, be-neath, Ib the hitting of a ball well and truly and tho lowering of his handicap. It is rather a pity from one point of view, that the golf habit, like the drink habit, seizes upon its subject In this ineidlous manner. Let me explain ex-plain why. It Is in the summer time that tho golf microbo gets busy. All sorts and conditions of peoplo who have hitherto hith-erto known golf only a3 it is Interpreted Inter-preted b the comic res3 go to a vacation lesort whore thero is a golf course Thero thoy meet sonte Indulgent In-dulgent friend who imites tliem to a game Protesting, half contemptuously, contemptu-ously, they accept the Invitation, and In nine caes out of ton they are Inoculated. Inoc-ulated. Tho solf microbe hns them In its power Never Recover. Thov continue to pia strenuous and Inefficient golf with whomsoever thej cn,n beguile. If they be conscientious necule they will play solitary loundo bv themselves or oven practice tho shots that are most difficult to thorn. And ono day after thoy have gone back to town nnd Joined a club thoy will get a handicap and take part in matches, and (I regret to say It) the rest of their life will be one long regret re-gret and a scries of futile hopes. Tho leason of this horrlhlo fate fa becauso those Deoplo have been con-tont con-tont to teach themelveB. They have hugged to themselves the delusion thai golf is a quiet and easy game, tlint anybody ought to be. able to hit a ball with a , stick vith a hit of wood or Iron at the end of it Wheu they fall to hit the ball to their own satisfaction satis-faction they blame this, that and the other circumstance They refuse to believe that there is a right and a wrong way of hitting tho ball, and that the right way can rarely be attained at-tained bv intuition Golf Is an extraordinarily fickle game, and ono day It will delude these peonlc Into thinking that thoy have really mastered It, while the next it will convince them that the difficulty which a camel must experience In endeavoring en-deavoring to enter the eye of a needle Is nothing compared to the difficulty of hitting a golf ball toward a green. Evils of Book Teaching. Most of this difficulty (s due to ignorance, ig-norance, The majority of beginners have been told, or thay hao read in books, that In playing a stroke pne must not move one's body, or drop one's eyes, one's right shoulder or move one's head or snatch in one's arms, or do any of the other half-dozen half-dozen things one Is curiously apt to do. And these dear ones could do their best to put into practice the knowledge that Is theirs, and thoy fail simply because they lack the ''power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ituers tee us." By watching a foozlcr play ono stroke h competent teacher will be able to diagnose his ailmonl He i prescribe his treatment, and the worst of the remedy is that the sufferer will more lilcely than not find it almpst worse tnan tne disease. Hts had hau-its hau-its uill have become second nature to him. To pull in his arms, for example, ex-ample, will seem to him the most comfortable way In which t.o play u stroke and to thrust them out will bo irksome and awkward exercise. Ife will, accordingly, have to unlearn nil that he knows of golf before he begins be-gins to learn the correct method of playing the game. That is why the casual and desultory desul-tory way In which people "take to golf Is to be deplored. They would save themselves a great deal of un-happlness un-happlness if, right at the beginning, they received proper tuition from a competent teacher. 1 distrust amateur ama-teur toaqhers. As the tag goes, the advico that one gets for nothing Is seldom worth moro, The professional teacher Is more conscientious, more - .... t6lerant aud less Irritable than the. friendly amateur. We are also moro inclined to pay strict attention to his precepts. Because we want to get the value for our money, we aie careful care-ful to do as ho tells us. I Deserves Serious Start. I In short, 1 advise all those hosts of ! people who within the next season' will be Introduced to golf for the first j time, to take the thing seriously, anui to learn It from the direct instruction ' of one who knows how to teach It. ' I Those who do not Msh to take uli this trouble may cast my own words In my teeth, respecting that golf Is a game, and that we should piny golf for tho sheer fun of It. urge In te-turn te-turn that a game is all the better game and all the Jollier fun if ono can play It so that one's recreation Is not a series of trials and blasted hopes To the confirmed foozlor there is really real-ly very little fun to be got out of n round of the links. On the contrary, It is an ordeal that brings into prominence prom-inence the frailties of his character. On the other hand, a player who is not continually in doubt whether ho will even hit the ball, not to mention hitting it In the right direction, has so much worry on his mind that he has no thoughts to spare on the beating beat-ing of his opponent. ' Golf is a serious business onlv to those who take it lightly. It is no't the game for a Bummer flirtation. Tho player is wedded to golf after tho briefest courtship. Ho takes it up foi better or for worse. It Is notorious that ho will endow it with nearly all his worldly goods. The golfer does not mind how much he spends on hir. game He will do well by beginning with the oxpandituro of a -row dollars on lessons in the art. |