Part 17

"Perfectly!" grinned Cupid. "It'll just cost you fifty fish to find out that a mechanical golfer can lick you with strange weapons."

Windy went out and Cupid promised us all a dinner on the proceeds of the match.

"I don't want the fellow's money," said he, "but Windy's entirely too fresh for a new member. A beating will do him good and make him humble. Eight clubs. If he brings me only two or three that I can use--a driver, a mid-iron, and a putter--I'll hang his hide on the fence too easy. He's made a bad bet."

But it wasn't such a bad bet after all. Windy came back with eight clubs in the crook of his arm, and when Cupid caught a glimpse of the collection he howled himself purple in the face, and no wonder. Eight nice, new, shiny, mashie niblicks!

You see, nothing was said about the _sort_ of clubs Windy was to pick out, and he had selected eight of the same pattern, no good on earth except for digging out of bunkers or popping the ball straight up in the air! Harry Vardon himself can't _drive_ with a mashie niblick!

"What are you beefin' about?" asked Windy. "Eight clubs, you said, and here they are. Play or pay."

"Pay! Why, man alive, it's a catch bet--a cinch bet! It's not being done this year at all! It's like stealing the money!"

"And you thought you could steal mine," was the cool reply. "You thought you had a cinch bet, didn't you? Be honest now. Eight clubs, by the terms of the agreement, and you'll play with 'em or forfeit the fifty."

Cupid looked at the mashie niblicks and then he looked at Windy. I looked at him too and began to understand how he got his money. His face was as hard as granite. "You'd collect that sort of a bet--from a friend?" It was Cupid's last shot.

"Just as quick as you would," said Windy.

"I'll write you a check," and Cupid turned on his heel and started for the office.

Windy tried to turn it into a joke--after he got the check--but nobody seemed to know where to laugh, and following that little incident he found it a bit hard to get games. Whenever Windy was hunting a match the foursomes were full and there was nothing doing. A sensitive man would have suffered tortures, but Windy, with about as much delicacy as a rhinoceros, continued to infest the course morning, noon, and night. When he couldn't find any one weak-minded enough to play with him he played with himself, and somehow managed to make just as much noise as ever with only a caddie to talk to.

This was the state of affairs when Adolphus Kitts returned from the East, barely in time to shoot a 91 in the qualifying round of the Annual Handicap. We had hoped that he would miss this tournament, but no; there he was, large as life--which is pretty large--and ugly as ever. Grim and silent and nasty, he stepped out on No. 1 tee, and Cupid Cutts groaned as he watched him drive off.

"That fellow," said Cupid, "would hang his harp on the walls of the New Jerusalem and come back from the golden shore just to get into a handicap event, where nobody wants him, nobody will speak to him, and every one wishes him an ulcerated tooth! Why didn't he stay in the East?"

There were about four hundred and seventy-six reasons why Adolphus was unpopular with us; a few will suffice. In the first place, he was a cup hunter. He had an unholy passion for silver goblets and trophies with the club emblem on them, and he preferred a small silver vase--worth not to exceed three dollars, wholesale--to the respect and admiration of his fellow golfers. Heaven knows why he wanted trophies! They are never any good unless a man has friends to show them to!

In the second place, Adolphus didn't care how he won a cup, and, as Cupid used to say, the best club in his bag was the book of rules.

If you don't know it already, I must tell you that golf is the most strictly governed game in the world, and also the most ceremonious. It is as full of "thou shalt nots" as the commandments. There are rules for everything and everybody on the course, and the breaking of a rule carries a penalty with it--the loss of a stroke or the loss of a hole, as the case may be. Very few golfers play absolutely to the letter of the law; even those who know the rules incur penalties through carelessness, and in such a case it is not considered sporting to demand the pound of flesh; but there was nothing sporting about Adolphus Kitts.

He knew every obscure rule and insisted on every penalty. Question him, and he fished out the book. That book of rules stiffened his match play tremendously, besides making his opponents want to murder him. It was rather a rotten system, but Kitts hadn't a drop of sporting blood in his whole big body, and the element of sportsmanship didn't enter into his calculations at all. He claimed strokes and holes even when not in competition, and because of this he found it difficult to obtain partners or opponents.

"He's a golf lawyer, that's what he is--a technical lawyer!" said Cupid one day. "And I wouldn't even play the nineteenth hole with him--I wouldn't, on a bet!"

Come to think of it, that is about the bitterest thing you can say of a golfer.

II

Our Annual Handicap is the blue-ribbon event of the year so far as most of us are concerned. The star players turn up their noses at it a bit, but that is only because they realise that they have a mighty slim chance to carry off the cup. The high-handicap men usually eliminate the crack performers, which is the way it should be. What's the good of a handicap event if a scratch man is to win it every year?

Sixty-four members qualify and are paired off into individual matches, which are played on handicaps, the losers dropping out. The man who "comes through" in the top half of the drawing meets the survivor of the lower half in the final match for the cup, which is always a very handsome and valuable trophy, calculated to rouse all the cupidity in a cup hunter's nature.

When the pairings were posted on the bulletin board Kitts was in the upper half and Windy in the lower one. Kitts had a handicap of 8 strokes, and was really entitled to 12, but Cupid wouldn't listen to his wails of anguish. Windy was a 12 man, and nobody figured the two renegades as dangerous until the sixty-four entrants had narrowed down to eight survivors. Kitts had won his matches by close margins, but Windy had simply smothered his opponents by lopsided scores, and there they were, in the running and too close to the finals for comfort.

We began to sit up and take notice. Cupid read the riot act to Dawson, who was Windy's next opponent, and also had a talk with Aubrey, who was to meet Kitts. "Wilkins and Kitts must be stopped!" raved Cupid. "We don't want 'em to get as far as the semi-finals, and it's up to you chaps to play your heads off and beat these rotters!"

Dawson and Aubrey saw their duty to the club, but that was as far as they got with it. Windy talked from one end of his match to the other and made Dawson so nervous that any one could have beaten him, and Kitts pulled the book of rules on Aubrey and literally read him out of the contest.

After this the interest in the tournament grew almost painful. Overholzer and Watts were the other semifinalists, and we told them plainly that they might as well resign from the club if they did not win their matches. Overholzer spent a solid week practicing on his approach shots, and Watts carried his putter home with him nights, but it wasn't the slightest use. Windy tossed an 83 at Overholzer, along with a lot of noisy conversation, and an 83 will beat Overholzer every time he starts. Poor Watts went off his drive entirely and gave such a pitiful exhibition that Kitts didn't need the rule book at all.

And there we were, down to the finals for the beautiful handicap cup, sixty-two good men and true eliminated, and a pair of bounders lined up against each other for the trophy!

"This," said Cupid Cutts, "is a most unfortunate situation. I can't root for a sure-thing gambler and daylight highwayman like Wilkins, and as for the other fellow I hope he falls into a bunker and breaks both his hind legs off short! Think of one of those fellows carrying home that lovely cup! Ain't it enough to make you sick?"

It made us all sick, nevertheless quite a respectable gallery assembled to watch Wilkins and Kitts play their match.

"Looks like we're goin' to have a crowd for the main event!" said Windy, who had put in the entire morning practicing tee shots. "In that case I'll buy everybody a little drink, or sign a lunch card--whatever's customary. Don't be bashful, boys. Might as well drink with the winner before as well as after, you know!"

At this point Adolphus came in from the locker room and there was an embarrassed silence, broken at last by Windy. "Somebody introduce me to my victim," said he. "We've never met."

"You don't tell me!" exclaimed Cupid. "Of all the men in this club, I'd think you fellows ought to know each other! Kitts, this is Wilkins--shake hands and get together!"

Among the other reasons for not liking him, Adolphus had a face. I'm aware that a man cannot help his face, but he can make it easier to look at by wearing a pleasant expression now and then. Kitts seldom used his face to smile with. As he turned to shake hands with Windy I noticed that his left hip pocket bulged a trifle, and I knew that Adolphus was taking no chances. That's where he carries the book of rules.

"How do," said Kitts, looking hard at Windy. "I'm ready if you are, sir."

"Oh, don't be in such a hurry!" said Wilkins. "We've got a lot of drinks comin' here. Sit down and have one."

"Thank you, I never drink," replied Adolphus.

"Well, then, have a sandwich. Might as well load up; you've got a hard afternoon ahead of you."

"Thanks, I've had my lunch."

"Then let's talk a little," urged Windy. "Let's get acquainted. This is the first time I ever had a whack at a cup, and I don't know how to act. I play golf by main strength and awkwardness, but I get there just the same. They tell me you're a great man for rules."

Windy paused, but Kitts didn't say anything, and Cupid stepped on my foot under the table.

"Now, I don't go very strong on the rules," continued Windy wheedlingly. "I like to play a sporty game--count all my shots, of course--but damn this technical stuff is what _I_ say. For instance, if you should accidentally tap your ball when you was addressin' it, and it should turn over, I wouldn't call a stroke on you. I'd be ashamed to do it. If I win, I want to win on my _playin'_ and not on any technicalities. Ain't that the way you feel about it, hey?"

Kitts looked uncomfortable, but he wouldn't return a straight answer to the question. He said something about hoping the best man would win, and went out to get his clubs.

"Cheerful kind of a party, ain't he?" said Windy. "I've told him where I stand. _I_ ain't goin' to claim anything on him if his foot slips, and he oughtn't to claim anything on _me_. If he's a real sport, he won't. What do you boys think?"

We thought a great deal, but nobody offered any advice.

"Well," said Windy, getting up and stretching, "he's got to start me 2 up, on handicap, and I'm drivin' like a fool. I should worry about his technicalities!"

III

Our No. 1 hole is somewhere around 450 yards, and the average player is very well satisfied if he fetches the putting green on his third shot. It is uphill all the way, with a bunker to catch a topped drive, rough to the right and left to punish pulls and slices, and sand pits guarding the green. Windy drove first, talking all the time he was on the tee.

"Hope the gallery doesn't make you nervous, Kitts. _I_ always drive best when people are watchin' me, but then I've got plenty of nerve, they say. You may not like my stance, but watch this one sail! And when I address the ball I address it in a few brief, burnin' words, like this: 'Take a ride, you little white devil, take a ride!'" Whis-sh! Click! And the little white devil certainly took a ride--long, low, and straight up the middle of the course--the ideal ball, with just enough hook on it to make it run well after it struck the ground. "Two hundred and sixty yards if it's an inch!" said Windy, grinning at Kitts. "Lay your pill beside that one--if you think you can!"

"You're a 12-handicap man--and you drive like that!" said Kitts, which was, of course, a neat slap at Cupid, who was within earshot.

"Cutts is a friend of mine," bragged Windy. "That's why I'm a 12 man. I really play to a 6."

Kitts saw that he wasn't going to get any goats with conversational leads, so he shut up and teed his ball. He was one of those deliberate players who must make just so many motions before they pull off their shots. First he took his stance and his practice swings; then he moved up on the ball and addressed it; then he waggled his club back and forth over it, looking up the course after every waggle, as if picking out a nice spot; then, when he had annoyed everybody, and Windy most of all, he sent a perfectly atrocious slice into the rough beyond the bunker.

"Humph!" grunted Wilkins. "A lot of preparation for such a rotten shot! Looks like I'm 3 up and 17 to go. Probably won't be much of a contest----"

"Do you expect to win it with your mouth?" snapped Kitts, and Windy winked at the rest of us.

"His goat is loose already!" said he in a stage whisper. "He can't stand the gaff!"

Adolphus got out of the tall grass on his third shot, but dropped his fourth into a deep sand pit short of the green.

"With a lot of luck," said Windy, reaching for his brassy, "you may get an 8--but I doubt it. Pretty soft for me, pretty soft!" And with the sole of his club he patted the turf behind his ball, smoothing it down--three gentle little pats. "Pret-ty soft!" murmured Windy, and sent the ball whistling straight on to the green for a sure 4. Then he turned to Kitts. "D'you give up?" said he. "Might just as well; you haven't got a burglar's chance!"

"I claim the hole," said Adolphus calmly, fishing out the book of rules.

"You--what?"

"Rule No. 10," said Kitts, beginning to read. "'In playing through the green, irregularities of surface which could in any way affect the player's stroke shall not be removed nor pressed down by the player----' You patted the grass behind your ball and improved the lie by smoothing it down. I claim the hole."

Windy went about the colour of a nice ripe Satsuma plum. His neck swelled so much that his ears moved outward. "You don't mean to say that you're goin' to call a thing like that on me when you're already licked for the hole?" He spoke slowly, as if he found it hard to believe that the situation was real.

"I claim it," repeated Adolphus monotonously. "You can appeal to Mr. Cutts, as chairman of the greens committee."

"Hey, Fatty! All I did was pat the grass a few times with my club, and this--this _gentleman_ here says he claims the hole."

"You violated the rule," shortly answered Cupid, who may be fat but does not like to be reminded of it so publicly.

"And you're goin' to let him get away with that?" demanded Windy. "I'm on the green in two, and he's neck-deep in the sand on his fourth----"

"Makes no difference," said Cupid, turning away. "You ought to know the rules by now. Kitts wins the hole."

Well, Windy finally accepted the situation, but he was in a savage frame of mind--so savage that he walked all the way to the second tee without opening his mouth. There he stepped aside, with a low bow to Kitts.

"Your _honour_, I believe," said he with nasty emphasis.

No. 2 is a short hole--a drive and a pitch. Windy got a good ball, and it rolled almost to the edge of the green. Kitts's drive was short but straight, and he pitched his second to the green, some thirty feet from the pin, and the advantage seemed to be with Windy until it was discovered that his ball was lying in a cuppy depression of the turf.

"That's lovely, ain't it?" growled Windy. "A fine drive--and look at this for a lie! I was goin' to use a putter, but a putter won't get the ball out of there. Hey, Fatty, had I better use a niblick here?"

"I claim the hole," said Kitts, reaching for the book.

"But I haven't done anything!" howled Windy. "How can you claim the hole when I haven't played the shot?"

"You asked advice," said Kitts, reading. "'A player may not ask for nor willingly receive advice from any one except his own caddie, his partner, or his partner's caddie.' This is not a foursome, so you have no partner. Advice is defined as any suggestion which could influence a player in determining the line of play, in the choice of a club, or in the method of making a stroke. You asked whether you should use a niblick--and you lose the hole."

Windy, knocked speechless for once in his life, looked over at Cupid, and Cupid nodded his head.

"The match is now all square," said Kitts as he started for the third tee.

"And squared by a couple of petty larceny protests!" said Windy. "Hey, Mister Bookworm, wait a minute! I want to tell you something for your own good!"

"Oh, play golf!" said Kitts, over his shoulder.

Windy strode after him and took him by the arm. It wasn't a gentle grasp either.

"That's exactly what I want to say. _You_ play golf, Mr. Kitts! Play it with your clubs, and forget that book in your hip pocket. If you pull it on me again, I'll--I'll----"

Adolphus tried to smile, but it was a sickly effort.

"You can't intimidate me," said he.

"Maybe not," said Windy, quite earnestly, "but I can lick you within an inch of your life--and I will. Is there anything in the book about that? If you read me out of this cup, you better make arrangements to have it sent direct to the hospital. It'll make a nice flower holder--if you've got any friends that think enough of you to send flowers!"

"You gentlemen are witnesses to these threats," said Kitts, appealing to the gallery.

"We didn't hear a word," said Cupid. "Not a word. Go on and play your match and stop squabbling. You act like a couple of fishwives!"

The contestants walked off in the direction of the tee, with Windy still rubbing it in.

"A word to the wise. Keep that damn' book in your pocket, if you don't want to eat it--cover and all!"

"Suppose they do mix it?" said Cupid, mopping his brow. "Sweet little golfing scandal, eh? Can't you see the headlines in the newspapers? 'Country Club finalists in fist fight on links!' And some of these roughneck humourists will congratulate us on golf becoming one of the vital, red-blooded sports! Oh, lovely!"

"Bah!" said I. "There will be no fight. No man will fight who smiles like a coyote when he is getting a call down."

"But a coyote will fight if you put it up to him, don't make any mistake about that. And Kitts will spring the book on Windy again, I feel it in my bones, and if he does--choose your partners for the one-step! Oh, why did we ever let these rotters into the club?"

IV

I see no reason for inflicting upon you a detailed description of the next fifteen holes of golfing frightfulness. Golf is a game which requires mental calm, and the contestants were entirely out of calmness after the second hole and could not concentrate on their shots.

Windy began driving all over the shop, hooking and slicing tremendously, and Kitts manhandled his irons in a manner fit to make a hardened professional weep. Neither of them could have holed a five-foot putt in a washtub, and they staggered along side by side, silent and nervous and savage, and if Windy managed to win a hole Kitts would be sure to take the next one and square the match. But he didn't take any holes with the book. When Windy broke a rule--which he did every little while--Kitts would sneer and pretend to look the other way. He tried to convey the impression that it was pity and contempt that made him blind to Windy's lapses, but he didn't fool me for a minute. It was fear of consequences.

And so they came to the last hole, all square, and also all in.

Our eighteenth has a vicious reputation among those golfing unfortunates who slice their tee shots. The drive must carry a steep hill, the right slope of which pitches away to a deep, narrow ravine--a ravine scarred and marred by thousands of niblick shots, but otherwise as disgusted Nature left it. We call it Hell's Half Acre, though the first part of the name would be quite sufficient.

The only improvements that have ever been made in this sinister locality have been made by golf clubs, despairingly wielded. Hell's Half Acre is full of stunted trees with roots half out of the ground, and thick brush and matted weeds, and squarely in the middle of this desolation is a deep sink, or pit, known as the Devil's Kitchen. Hell's Half Acre is bad enough, believe one who knows, but the Devil's Kitchen is the last hard word in hazards, and it is a crime to allow such a plague spot within a mile of a golf course.

At a respectful distance we watched the renegades drive from the eighteenth tee. Kitts had the honour--if there is any honour in winning a four hole in eight strokes--and messed about over his ball even longer than usual. His drive developed a lovely curve to the right, and went skipping and bounding down the hill toward the ravine.

"And that'll be in the Kitchen unless something stops it!" said Cupid with a sigh of relief. "I was afraid the blighters might halve this one and need extra holes!"

Now with Adolphus in the Devil's Kitchen all Windy needed was a straight ball over the brow of the hill--in fact, a ball anywhere on the course would be almost certain to win the hole and the match--but when he walked out on the tee it was plain to be seen that he had lost confidence in his wooden club. Any golfer knows what it means to lose confidence in his wood, and Windy had reason to doubt his driver. His tee shots had been fearfully off direction, and here was one that _had_ to go straight.

He teed his ball, swung his club a couple of times, and shook his head. Then he yelled at his caddie.

"Oh, boy! Bring me my cleek!"

Now, a cleek is a wonderful club if a man knows how to use one, but it produces a low tee shot, as a general thing. It produced one for Windy--a screamer, flying with the speed of a rifle bullet. I thought at first that it was barely going to clear the top of the hill, but I misjudged it. Three feet higher and the ball would have been over, but it struck the ground and kicked abruptly to the right, disappearing in the direction of the Devil's Kitchen. We heard a crashing noise. It was Windy splintering his cleek shaft over the tee box.

"Both down!" ejaculated Cupid. "Suffering St. Andrew, what a finish!"

We arrived on the rim of the Kitchen and peered into that wild amphitheatre. Kitts had already found his ball, and was staring at it with an expression of dumb anguish on his face. It was lying underneath a tangle of sturdy oak roots, as safely protected as if an octopus was trying to hatch something out of it.

Windy was combing the weeds which grew on the abrupt sides of the pit, too full of his own trouble to pay any attention to his opponent.

"If it's a lost ball----" said Cupid.

But it wasn't. Windy found it, half-way up the left slope, hidden in the weeds, and not a particularly bad lie except for the fact that nothing human could have taken a stance on that declivity. Having found his ball, Windy took a look at Kitts's lie and then, for the first and only time in his golfing career, Wilkins recognised the rules of the game. "You're away, sir," said he to Kitts. "Play!"

Adolphus took his niblick and attacked the octopus. His first three strokes did not even jar the ball, but they damaged the oak roots beyond repair. On his eighth attempt the ball popped out of its nest, and the next shot was a very pretty one, sailing up and out to the fair green, but there was no applause from the gallery.

"Countin' the drive," said Windy, "that makes ten, eh?"